Can one still claim that the USA is a liberal democracy? Where do you draw the line?
I say this in nearly complete seriousness:
Always has been
🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
Has the USA turned into an oligarchy?
Submitted 3 days ago by sith@lemmy.zip to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
Comments
SARGE@startrek.website 3 days ago
NaNin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Literally founded by slave owners
novibe@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Only landowning or capitalist white men could vote and participate in politics…
AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It has been an oligarchy for a long time. This has been studied and proven.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
proven
Please explain. I don’t disagree with the conclusion, but this supporting statement doesn’t ring true to me.
AndrewZabar@lemmy.world 1 day ago
By demonstrating the facts which make the system meet the definition. Look it up there’s plenty of articles citing studies. Someone else linked a major one here.
CMahaff@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Well in 2015 Jimmy Carter said that the United States is "just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. "
That same year The Economist’s Democracy Index downgraded the United States to a “flawed democracy” and it has continued to trend downwards since then.
If you’re looking for something more recent, Bernie Sanders is saying the same thing: “We are moving rapidly into an oligarchic form of society. Never before in American history have so few billionaires, so few people, have so much wealth and so much power”.
So between the massive (and growing) income inequality in the country, and rulings like Citizen’s United it’s hard not to believe it’s not at least on the trajectory towards an oligarchy. Now throw in the blatantly corrupt picks of the Trump administration, where cabinet positions are favors to rich friends, or being given to billionaires with a direct interest in killing the government agency they are running - not to mention all the things he’s routinely done / will do to enrich himself / friends with tax payer dollars and it certainly seems like an oligarchy to me.
And just on a personal vibes level, living here, it feels like legislation to help normal people or solve normal people’s problems is almost non-existent. And when it does happen, it also conveniently throws a ton of money at the rich at the same time (see recent tax cuts, pandemic relief funds, etc.). Even something like the Affordable Care Act, which did a ton of net good things for this country, enriched a whole lot of private healthcare companies along the way rather than creating an actual public option with negotiated prices to keep government costs down.
RobotToaster@mander.xyz 3 days ago
Turned? Have you ever heard of the Rockefeller and Morgan families?
tiefling@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 days ago
Koch brothers…
djsoren19@yiffit.net 2 days ago
It’s been an open oligarchy since Citizen’s United. Seems like a lot of people are just now seeing the effects of what that decision allowed. Our Supreme Court was already corrupt, but because they at least maintained an air of dignity, people just looked past the death of our democracy.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 2 days ago
You’re thinking of Kleptocracy, where politicians are mainly worried about extracting wealth from the country. Oligarchy has to do with class mobility and who is allowed to run for office. (Namely a financial and political class of “elites”) Citizen’s United kick started another era of politicians working to grab as much money as possible for their donors.
djsoren19@yiffit.net 2 days ago
I would argue that Citizen’s United effectively made it impossible for non-elites to meaningfully effect the US political process, forcing us down a road where only those who can raise the most money are considered eligible for political office.
gi1242@lemmy.world 3 days ago
the US is run by billionaires and corporations.
you can live in peace as long as you don’t inconvenience them too much, and keep paying them
dx1@lemmy.world 2 days ago
There are political cartoons from over a century ago where they’re talking about how much of an oligarchy it is.
Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Always has been. They’re simply not hiding it any more.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
When Eisenhower warned of Military Industrial complex, US was already an oligarchy, and the warning was the declaration of defeat.
JFK assassination was deep state stuff, followed by more pandering to oligarchy with Regan. Media was always in charge of who won elections. That the veil of pretense for liberalism is removed doesn’t change the nature of US empire, and its autocracy over meaningful rulership. Trump simultaneously threatens the US empire’s covert colonization of world, while threatening to subjugate world even harder. Naked Oligarchy, and explicit anti-liberalism as treason, is a hallmark of incoming rulership through.
Apathy@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Agreeing with this individual. The US has been an oligarchy for a while and late President Carter said it himself “It violates the essence of what made America a great country in its political system. Now it’s just an oligarchy, with unlimited political bribery being the essence of getting the nominations for president or to elect the president. And the same thing applies to governors and U.S. senators and congress members. So now we’ve just seen a complete subversion of our political system as a payoff to major contributors, who want and expect and sometimes get favors for themselves after the election’s over. … The incumbents, Democrats and Republicans, look upon this unlimited money as a great benefit to themselves. Somebody’s who’s already in Congress has a lot more to sell to an avid contributor than somebody who’s just a challenger.”
TwoFacedJanus1968@lemmy.world 1 day ago
True. We’ve had J. Paul Getty, JP Morgan, Wm. Randolph Hearst, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Howard Hughes, Aristotle Onassis up to George Soros and Elon Musk. Since long before Citizen Kane and actually since the founding of the nation, it has been wealthy families, companies and individuals wielding the actual power in the nation and, honestly, across the world. It’s not like millionaires from billionaire families have never been elected senator or president before.
The people that are called “oligarchs” in the news and across the internet, though, are amateurs. Especially, the new Russian, Chinese oligarchs. The real powers don’t hold office and they try to keep their names out of the news.
swordgeek@lemmy.ca 1 day ago
Yes.
Really and truly, yes.
IchNichtenLichten@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Astronaut Pistol Astronaut.
barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Can someone explain this comment? I can ask dumb questions here right?
Gestrid@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
exploitedamerican@lemm.ee 2 days ago
The usa Is a fascist regime. Plutocracy and oligarchy are normal Components of fascism.
5007@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
We’ve been an oligarchy since the Reagan years.
Mediocre_Bard@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yes.
___@lemm.ee 3 days ago
I think it’s worse. I think we have noble houses fighting for the throne again. The Bush family, the Clinton family, they wanted Michelle Obama… In what sane democracy does the family member or wife of the last elected leader make sense as being the best option? Forget oligarchy, we have a straight up monarchy brewing with a nice democratic paint job.
Draces@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The Bush family, the Clinton family, they wanted Michelle Obama
That’s how an oligarchy works though. A few powerful people, usually dynastic families, decide how the country should be run. You’re giving an example of oligarchs picking an oligarch. How is that evidence of monarchy rather than oligarchy?
Apepollo11@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Speaking of the nice paint job, it’s a good job you guys made that Eagle thing official. That makes it nice and clear that you’re not at risk of transitioning from democracy to dictatorship.
Cowbee@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
The USA has always and forever represented the will of the Bourgeoisie. The issue we are seeing now is further and further separation between the Proletariat and a smaller and smaller concentration of the Bourgeoisie due to Capitalism’s centralizing nature. The silver lining is that this same centralizing process makes Socialism even easier to implement once the Proletariat siezes control, as these large intricate networks have already developed their own infrastructure for planning that can be folded into the Public Sector, the hard part is getting over that threshold of power.
Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world 3 days ago
The US has been an oligarchy for some time. Act accordingly.
DerKommissar@lemmy.ml 3 days ago
It always was
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I sorta disagree in the context of having a middle class. We did and still do have our oligarchs, we had our Gilded Age which I would definitely call an oligarchy that lasted into the early 1900s with the Rail, Steel, and Oil barons to name a few. But the middle class exploded in the post-war years, unions became powerful, corporations and the rich were brought somewhat to heel with consumer and worker protections, along with high taxes that kept the rich from taking an even bigger chunk of the pie. Yeah, the rich still did rich people stuff, but they tended to do it more on the DL.
Now? We’re literally at the point where people are so absurdly rich they can have private space programs, dump hundreds of thousands into political campaigns, crush unions, invite themselves into the government, and have fuck you money. Literally, Musk telling people to fuck themselves.
So IMO yeah, the US is an full-on oligarchy again after a brief semi-respite in the middle to later parts of the 20th century, and it’s a shameless and open one.
kava@lemmy.world 2 days ago
the US is an full-on oligarchy again after a brief semi-respite in the middle to later parts of the 20th century
It went from oligarchy that provided a certain minimum quality of life to workers into one that is intentionally as extractive as possible. Once women entered the work force and effectively doubled the labor pool, capitalists had a lot more leverage.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Spot on! Especially the “shameless” bit. Yeah, the rich were rich, but Jesus, it was distasteful and immoral to flaunt it.
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
I guess Teddy Roosevelt and FDR never existed.
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 days ago
We didn’t have a democracy then either. How many parties were at the debates?
BigMacHole@lemm.ee 2 days ago
LoL! Just because the Richest Man on Earth bought Our Presidency and anytime you kill a Rich Person it’s considered an Act of Terrorism DOESNT make us an OLIGARCHY!
cows_are_underrated@feddit.org 2 days ago
According to Jimmy Carter it has beensince 2015:
PanArab@lemm.ee 2 days ago
ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Also the subesquent SpeechNow decision that pulled out the stops AND created precedent by citing Citizens United.
snekerpimp@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I would say corporatocracy. Ever since Citizens United, corporations have been making more and more policy and political decisions, placing in power who they believe will advance their agendas of unlimited and never ending profit.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Tbh I think the most recent election makes the facts abundantly clear.
Bacano@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Lol this post made me appreciate Lemmy so much.
There was a question on dead-it asking something about why the American middle class seemed to suffer so much since the mid20th century and it was full of obvious bots pointing to the positive but temporary effects of WW2. It took quite some scrolling before I saw any mention of the stagnation of real wages since then.
jagged_circle@feddit.nl 2 days ago
Wut. When was the US not an oligarchy? Give me a year.
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 2 days ago
1200 BCE
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Technically correct
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
1908 and 1940.
During this time populist policies that disrupted the owners were implemented and being implemented. As such, it is clear they weren’t in control of the country. Thus, it was not an oligarchy.
SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
The rich were behind the mutiny in the first place, so, always has been
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 3 days ago
I’ll take merchants over nobles, but that doesn’t mean they both don’t deserve a guillotine.
SplashJackson@lemmy.ca 3 days ago
But the nobles were the good guys, don’t you see? It was all in the name, “noble”. How could bad guys possibly be so noble?
stringere@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Oligarchy, kakistocracy, kleptocracy take your pick.
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Oh HELL yes.K1nsey6@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Americans foundation was built as an oligarchy.
LordWiggle@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The land of the free enslaved it’s inhabitants.
slazer2au@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Pretty sure it crossed that line decades ago.
pdxfed@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Late 19th century. There was some pushback, some anti-trust laws with teeth, and then decades of bloody union battles to secure rights workers and their elected officials have thrown away for 50 years.
The concentration of wealth and influence of 10-16 people trumps that of hundreds of millions and is as bad or worse than it was during the robber baron era.
Political representatives are bought and paid for which means the poor have no voice against the wealthy.
We have a justice system that is incapable of prosecuting the wealthy and powerful, when it isn’t being stocked by ideologues.
Meritocracy is dead; Birth has much greater correlation to wealth and power.
Media is fully captured by the wealthy; they own the vast majority of media consumed: TV, film, news, social junk.
Nice country you got here.
Eldritch@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Remember when unions thought they were so Irreplaceable and important. That they would withhold Support for a second term from a Democrat, they didn’t think did enough for them. One of the biggest miscalculations and blunders of the post World War II era. Because first they came for the unions and labor power.
burgersc12@mander.xyz 3 days ago
I’d say around the beginning got the 1900s is when we truly lost the plot. While we, the workers, were given a few breadcrumbs over the years to appease us, the Owner class was strip mining the wealth at every level imaginable, there’s a reason people like Rockefeller and Carnegie were richer than heaven at this time in history.