Our system is done and I think we need to stop pretending that there is something left to salvage.
No matter what we vote in November it's clear we no longer operate under rules and laws and are no longer a democracy in any sense of the word.
Time for us to accept America's 1st democracy failed.
colonial era != continental congress era != founding era != reconstruction era != preera != interwar era != cold war era != post-cold war era != current era; tho folks can draw the lines in different places
I can't shake the feeling that the only thing that held our crap system "together" if it can even be called that was the unifying element of white supremacy, and a general majority agreement to do racist policies.
I don't know if American democracy ever amounted to anything more than that.
I think it did, tho these are admittedly very dark times, and it's hard to see right now. But far more importantly: I think it can be a better nation, if we will it; one built on equality, dignity, and justice for everyone. And where elites and institutions failed us, we can and must build anew
I hope so. We have to put everything on the table though and admit that nothing the founders gave us held strong, and while we can use those same concepts the whole thing has to be redesigned and rewritten.
Too many poisonous compromises with evil are written into our system.
A lot of it has faded, to be sure. But this, by Jefferson--standing tall, inscribed in his memorial--speaks down through the ages, and inviting a nation that needs to hear it, to choose a better future for itself, unshackled by any laws or institutions that fail to move us forward to a better future
In the end, what more can anyone do but to tell future generations to be confident enough in themselves to pick their own future, and leave failed institutions and ideas in the past when necessary to secure their own liberty. Our future is, in the end, up to us. Not up to them.
That is failing though. The institutions don't have built in defense mechanisms easy to activate that are frightening enough to scare even cowards like Trump and his cohort from crossing every line.
Sheldon Whitehouse had a good thread on nitter today about dark $$$$ (and I would add oligarchy) being behind a lot of today's US problems, and making that a campaign focus. It will take many of us joining together to take US back from that secretive 1%.
