This guy gets it. Top to bottom the entire system is designed to exploit workers. Little or no social safety net, worker protections, time off even for new mothers. We have a two party system and electoral college explicitly designed to veto inconvenient votes. Our public school system is designed to condition you to work on a factory floor with a bell telling you when and where to be. We have the largest prison population in the world because slavery is an acceptable “punishment.” All of it is kept running by an Enormous propaganda machine the very real threat of homelessness which most Americans are only a few missed paychecks away from.
Comment on Is anyone else having a hard time sympathizing with Americans?
HamFistedVegan@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I have a hard time sympathising with anyone that voted for Trump. That’s for sure. Anyone who was happy with America’s foreign policies in the past 20 years would get the same treatment.
I think it’s important to recognise that there are many people in America who resent what their country is going through and often resent the actions of their government.
Many Americans are isolationist. Many are progressive. There’s a real mix of different beliefs.
I would honestly blame their system of government more than the average American. The system seems designed to exploit the average citizen as mich as possible whilst enriching those in power. In fact I would argue you could not create a better supposedly “democratic” system actually designed to exploit average workers if you tried.
youCanCallMeDragon@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
frisbird@lemmy.ml 4 hours ago
Only the last 20?
Prox@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
The American system of government is reliant on good-faith actors. When government officials put their own self-interest above the interest of those they have chosen to govern, part of the system is eroded and crumbles.
There are LOTS of American government officials putting their own self-interest first right now.
porcoesphino@mander.xyz 4 hours ago
It’s probably more than “reliant on good-faith actors”. The Perils of Presidentialism by Juan J. Linz in 1990 is a decent paper comparing the instability of parliamentary democracies vs presidential democracies. Parliamentary democracies aren’t perfect, we have Hungary, but in hindsight it shouldn’t be surprising that presidential two party democracies are unstable. If you get two ideologies that are different enough then the government swings between the ideologies with the executive pushing for its side and opposite side getting angrier until, after a few oscillations of increasing amplitude, something snaps.