Comment on [deleted]

• andros_rex@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  African Americans were supposed to be given the right to vote after abolition.

  There was a brief period of time during Reconstruction where that happened. However, many states came up with complicated contrivances to make it impossible to vote - poll taxes, “literacy tests,” etc. Effectively, it was a right solely on paper until LBJ in the 60s. Conservatives throwing a massive fit about this is why we have the insane fascistic Right we do right now - they were pro public education until Black kids got to go to the same kids as white kids.

  Women weren’t guaranteed the right to vote until 1920. Conservatives today are trying to revoke the 19th amendment and undo that.

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  • Randelung@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Yes, there’s tons of things that make the process unfair, but does that make the system not be a democracy? It’s a flawed one, one that basically only allows white dudes to vote, but the system is still a democracy.

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    • stelelor@lemmy.ca ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      What if only people who make over $500k annually can vote? Is that still a democracy?

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      • Randelung@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        I get you’re referring to a plutocracy. The question is if the US is so far gone that it’s out of flawed democracy territory - the lines are definitely blurred and I’d argue it depends on the state.

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    • eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      • Blocked the right to vote for one sex
      • Blocked the right to vote for non-whites
      • Polls taxes blocked the right to vote for non-whites and the poor
      • Excluded Natives from voting
      • The first vote for the president had less than 1% of Americans vote, Washington running unopposed for his terms
      • Voter ID laws are a tax on the poor
      • Gerrymandering where the politicians choose the voters.
      • Electoral college
      • No time off for voting, meaning the working poor aren’t likely to vote
      • Voting by mail blocked by most states, the ones that the EC weighs unequally

      Yeah, democracy.

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• Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  If I had to guess I’d say that nobody has bothered responding to you with more than a single sentence because you clearly have internet access and could easily read about the history of US voting rights and the current state of US voting suppression, and that you therefore have no excuse for weighing in in a topic about which you clearly don’t know much, but that is just an educated guess.

  Originally voting rights in the US were only extended to white male christian land-owners. Over the course of the next two centuries they gradually relaxed the property ownership requirements, then eventually got around to granting voting rights to non-white men and then women. In theory this would make the US currently a democracy, but in practice they suppress voting access in predominantly non-white districts through gerrymandering, and elected officials routinely act against the wishes of their constituents in favor of pleasing their billionaire donors. We transitioned from a fundamentally racist and classist republic to an oligarchy.

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  • Randelung@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    All that to say it is a democracy after all, just even more condescendingly. Wonderful.

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    • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      No, that’s not what I said at all you fucking moron. The US is not and has never been a democracy, go read a book.

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    • eugenevdebs@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      When you refuse to listen to reason, yes you deserve it.

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    • wanderingmagus@lemm.ee ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Okay, then, is Nazi Germany a democracy? It has votes, after all. How about fascist Italy? Is that a democracy?

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      • Randelung@lemmy.world ⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        A democracy requires free elections, so no to both.

        I don’t think the US is that far gone, though. Some states do care about the democratic process, as the graphic indicates. I don’t think the US has left flawed democracy territory yet, at least not everywhere.

        The US’ democracy index is falling, but it’s still comparably high, between France and Italy.

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