Can one still claim that the USA is a liberal democracy? Where do you draw the line?

  • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    5 days ago

    I mean, no country truely had 10/10 democracy.

    The US literally started out from people in chains, but eventually free the enslaved people (with the prison exemption), then black men could vote, then women.

    Segregation was legal, then it it was outlawed.

    Civil Right Act was passed

    The level of racism began to deminish, not completely gone, but deminishing

    I would say the US was at 1/10 democracy at the beginning, it was at 5/10 before trump, then it was at 4/10 right after Jan-6, now its at 4.25/10 (because some judicial appointments were made by biden as a counterbalance to republican judges).

    Is it an oligarchy? Not really. I would say it’s a democracy in which rich people have an advantage in money and influence. So I guess you could call it a semi-oligarchy. Because in a real oligarchy, the media would’ve been censored, and you wouldn’t be seeing my comment, you wouldn’t be able to ask such question, there’d be no free(ish) internet access. There’s be no somewhat protected union activity. There’s be no somewhat protected protests. There are often violations to those rights, but back then, it was way worse.

    We never really had a true 10/10 democracy, but as time goes on, it tends to trend toward becoming more democratic. (We’ll see what happens with Project 2025. Could be just another period of recession as it has happened many times throughout US history, or it could be Weimar 1933, only time will tell)

    • CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      5 days ago

      I’m here hoping to any god that is watching that Project 2025 becomes something like a dog catching the car situation. The Republicans are the dogs and now they are arguing amongst themselves what to do with the car.

      I’m planning as if Project 2025 goes forward. If civil war is in my lifetime, the shots will start with the alt-right.

      There is a quote that’s been ringing through my head ever since the CEO murder: “Those who make peaceful reform impossible make violent revolution inevitable.”

      The Republicans have made any meaningful reform impossible through half-assed negotiations, bad faith arguments, and “fEeLiNgS pOlItIcS” over the last 50 years.

      Democrats like AOC and politicians like Bernie are the acute minority. The DNC has moved more toward the right and given workers the middle finger.

      Almost every regulatory body has been captured. The overturn of the Chevron doctrine made the rest completely powerless. We now have a fucking lunatic whispering into Trump’s ear to remove accident reporting requirements for his shitty cars. We will have an anti-vaxer running the CDC, a supplement pushing hack running Medicare, and a man who overpaid for Twitter running the fucking “Department of Government Efficacy.”

      This is the tip of the iceberg. They aren’t even in office yet and they are already stirring shit.

    • hendrik@palaver.p3x.de
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      5 days ago

      Agree. Though the felt level of democracy and freedom seems pretty low. A lot of people feel disadvantaged. People are getting ripped off for example with healthcare payments by the (rich) establishment. I hear a lot of complaints here for example you absolutely need a VPN because all internet service providers spy on you. There seems always to be a choice, but a fake one. In the end, it’s all the same and you can’t really choosse anything but the label that gets slapped on. Same for the politicians. You have like 2 candidates to vote for. Probably neither of those does you any good. And they’re both part of the oligarchy and they put in quite some effort to not offer you any third option.