politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
What do you suggest Americans do? Say someone is a working class American who didn’t vote for Trump. They can barely make ends meet and have no power or political sway. What does that person do? I’m not trying to be funny, I’m simply interested in your take and perspective as a non-American.
I saw something recently that was talking about how individualism has led us to this situation. Everyone is thinking what they can do. We lost our collectivist spirit. We don't think about what we can do.
An individual has essentially no power. A group does. We need to get better at organizing. This is made hard because we are so separated from each other, driving individually to work, then back home, largely to houses where you don't interact with anyone else. We have basically no third places anymore where you'd typically organize. This situation was designed, and it's going to be hard to get out of, but we need to get better at forming groups and organizing.
Great point. I’d argue that an extension of individualism is consumption.
What was the majority positive response to Luigi? Consumption.
People asked where to buy stickers and T-shirts. T-shirts.
Nothing can be fixed until it's understood to be a problem, and AOC from her stump speeches and emails seems to at least recognize the problem you're pointing that American systems are essentially "massively scaled up isolation from others".
Rugged individualism has failed us. It's going to take a reclamation of collectivism to fix our problems.
They are powerless if everyone stops giving them power
The country is nothing without its workers
Of 10-20% of the population actively protested and actively tried to halt any functioning of society, you'd be surprised at how much you could get done. A that large mass of people is absolutely hell to control and subdue, and they certainly cannot arrest even a significant fraction of them. If the threat of protests of that scale were real every time they tried some fuckery, they would give in very quickly
The problem is that almost everyone thinks like you say, "what am I to do? I'm powerless", and give up before even trying
I'd love leaderless movements to have a better track record than they do, but the reality is that I think they fail much more often than they succeed in this country.
People can't just quit their jobs and occupy wall street forever.
I am aware it's difficult, but my point was that you aren't powerless
As an unconnected individual with a middling net worth, you are powerless in this system. Whole movements of people are powerless. The only way this could possibly work is with the numbers and probably a leader organizing it.
And while we’re at it, why don’t people in China have the freedom to speak out against their government and not have censorship? Maybe if they all just got together in a big public square and really protested, I bet that would end really well.
I mean, if they all did it, it absolutely would make shit happen
The whole issue stems from most people wanting to just keep their heads down
(The parent commenter was making a Tiananmen Square Massacre reference.)
I am aware
People in numbers have ALL the power. I know Americans have been trained for defeatism, but look at what protest, resistance, and strikes can do overseas.
If you have any spare time, even half an hour here or there, go to protests. Connect with like-minded folks.