| ▲ | Mistletoe 4 days ago |
| Maybe in 2028 a presidential candidate can run with removing the Patriot Act as one of their campaign points. I suspect the world will be very different then. The America I knew, remembered, and loved started dying with the passage of the Patriot Act. |
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| ▲ | Xelbair 4 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| Given how patriot act survived many terms of both republicans and democrats i highly doubt it. It is a extremely convenient act for whoever is in power. |
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| ▲ | mothballed 4 days ago | parent [-] | | There needs to be something like the federal equivalent of a referendum. I think with that, it would be possible to get rid of the patriot act and legalize weed, both of which seem to have popular support but zero chance of majority of representatives backing because they don't want to be liable for the worst-case corner-cases in the aftermath. | | |
| ▲ | runako 4 days ago | parent [-] | | We are constantly voting in primaries and general elections. We vote in federal elections every two years, state elections generally at least as frequently, though often not in federal election year. We vote for mayor and city council and insurance commissioner and Secretary of State and county commission. We don't need a referendum, we just need to choose representation that wants the same things we want. (Alternate formation: Americans do not want these things as much as some of us think they do.) | | |
| ▲ | mothballed 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | By referendum I meant to be able to vote directly on a specific law. If you look at how weed was legalized, it required a referendum in many (most?) states because no representative wants to be the guy that has his face plastered everywhere when some kid dies after he smokes some legal weed and smashes into a pole, even if most his constituents wanted the policy. Representatives generally have to be risk averse to get to the point they can even represent people on issues. This means they are extremely reluctant to vote for anything that might come back to bite them somehow, even if it is popular. >Alternate formation: Americans do not want these things as much as some of us think they do There is extremely overwhelming evidence that a supermajority of americans have wanted medical marijuana to be federally legal for many years. And overwhelming evidence the representatives have not been successfully bringing that forward. | | |
| ▲ | runako 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Absolutely. The catch is that when voters vote at all levels, they express by their choices that e.g. marijuana legalization is not a high priority. So voters might well vote to legalize if given that standalone choice, but it's not obvious to me that it's a good idea to insulate representatives from their inaction. > no representative wants to be the guy So on this, a number of states arrived at some level of legalization exactly this way. Legalization laws were signed by governors as diverse politically as Kay Ivey in Alabama and Tim Walz in Minnesota. There's no statutory reason that voters in e.g. South Carolina cannot choose representation as amenable to legalization as Beshear in Kentucky or Reeves in Mississippi. Referenda also are subject to faithful implementation by representatives, so attempting to side-step the choice of representatives is not necessarily going to be fruitful. | |
| ▲ | mrguyorama 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | >If you look at how weed was legalized, it required a referendum It only required a referendum in some states because most US states are controlled by Republican governors and legislatures who openly defy what their own constituents want without fear of being voted out, because republicans vote republican no matter what. Republican voters will say "I want to legalize weed", their elected representative spouts literal DARE propaganda about weed that republican voters KNOW is false since they literally smoke weed (illegally, how about that), but they STILL re-elect those politicians, because it's more important to not have a democrat in office than to actually get what you democratically voted for. Here in Maine, we passed a referendum to legalize weed. It passed. Lepage spent the next 4 years of his Governor term refusing to implement it, entirely. Like he just criminally defied the will of the public. As soon as Mills took office, the state built up a framework for recreational weed and IMO it's pretty good compared to other states, which is probably why we have literal Chinese gangs growing illegal weed all over the state :/ You see the same thing in every Republican state that allows citizen referendums. The public passes a referendum, and the republican politicians of the state just utterly defy it, and they do not get voted out Democrat politicians respect citizen referendums, even when they are stupid and against democrat policies, like in California where Uber is not an employer because that's how the people voted. | | |
| ▲ | xienze 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > Democrat politicians respect citizen referendums, even when they are stupid and against democrat policies, like in California where Uber is not an employer because that's how the people voted. LOL what, apparently you forgot about Proposition 187, which California voters voted "yes" on, got tied up in the courts, and then when a Democrat governor came into power he let the appeals die. Proposition 8: voters voted to ban gay marriage, courts said "nah we're not going to do that." Judges aren't technically politicians but that line is a little blurry at times. | |
| ▲ | mothballed 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The federal government is currently controlled by Republicans, so it seems relevant regardless of whether you think they should be in power or not, no? |
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| ▲ | ksenzee 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The first-past-the-post system, combined with our current primary system, is set up such that most Americans do not get the representation they actually want, and Congress is made up of extremists. We don’t have the Congress we have because most Americans actually want it that way. |
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| ▲ | conception 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Can you imagine the world today if Bernie had won? |
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| ▲ | garciasn 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | An interesting what-if scenario; but, let's assume Sanders won and all else remained largely the same as it has: Unless the Sanders Administration had a very favorable or majority Democrat Congress aligned with his progressive wing, many proposals would be outright blocked or heavily compromised. Knowing our limitation that everything else has stayed largely the same as history since, this wouldn't be the case. The hypothetical administration's attempts at sweeping reforms, such as healthcare and climate regulation, would very likely be significantly curtailed or overturned by courts or constrained by constitutional limits on separation. The GOP, even though they actively outspend Democrats when in power, obstruct via financial limits each and every Democratic-led effort while crowing about expansion of debt incursion; as such, spending on Bernie's proposed initiatives would raise concerns about deficits, inflation, and taxation. Even with tax increases, there would be pushback from wealthy individuals, corporations, and lobbyists. Basically, nothing would change in any significant way except, perhaps, the SCOTUS would not be outright overturning DECADES of 'settled law' in favor of an absurd view of the world as it was hundreds of years ago. | | |
| ▲ | smallmancontrov 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yes. There are a few moments when Biden floated something that sounded like a promise made to Bernie and it got laughed out of congress by both sides of the aisle. The "capital gains income is income" proposal is probably the cleanest example. There would have been more of that and not a lot done. To make real change, you need congress on board and possibly the courts too. | |
| ▲ | ta1243 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Unless the Sanders Administration had a very favorable or majority Democrat Congress aligned with his progressive wing, many proposals would be outright blocked or heavily compromised This is a feature, and why Trump's second term is so different to his first, or Bidens, or Obamas, or Bush, or Nixon. You'd probably have to go back to FDR for such sweeping changes to the US state. Trumps first term was overturning norms in behavior, but not overturning the way the entire governing system works, all four estates. |
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| ▲ | bluGill 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Many people will imagine things. However history constantly suggests that most of those are very different from the reality that results. The good news is when your candidate loses you don't find out the evil they really do and you can say it is not your fault. The bad news is you don't find out what is bad about the things you think are good. | | |
| ▲ | bluSCALE4 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Sanders is gutless and acts like the Democrats are the greater of the two evils even as they silenced him and prevented from being their front runner. |
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| ▲ | Aunche 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Just because a politician does the most virtue signaling towards the left doesn't mean that they'll produce the most progressive results. Bernie has a very poor track record of coalition building. He was getting into fights with Manchin even though he was needed as the 50th vote for the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act. | |
| ▲ | palmfacehn 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | He's never been a champion of financial freedom on an individual basis. He's consistently advocated for deeper and more intrusive regulations on cryptocurrencies. | |
| ▲ | bongodongobob 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yes, it would have been 4 years of zero progress because he would have been stonewalled by both parties. | | |
| ▲ | AngryData 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | That still sounds like a dream compared to everything else we have seen done. | |
| ▲ | disgruntledphd2 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think the big difference would have been around Covid. The Trump administration really, really dropped the ball there, and a potential Sanders administration might have done better (i.e. invested money in preventing it from getting out of Asia, as was done for SARS 1). Now, that might not have worked but anything might have had a pretty large impact on global/US deaths. | |
| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | dboreham 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I'm guessing similar to the Obama administration. E.g. he couldn't get proper healthcare reform passed. | |
| ▲ | PleasureBot 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Probably very similar unfortunately. The current state of US politics is that any policy further than center or maybe slightly left of center has a snowball's chance in hell of making it through Congress. The best case scenarios is probably what Biden accomplished: temporarily pausing the slide into far-right authoritarianism. Maybe he's able to pass some extremely watered down version of health care reform or tax reform but that seems unlikely. Certainly nothing like true progressive platform he ran on is possible in the US right now. | |
| ▲ | oldpersonintx2 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [dead] | |
| ▲ | blindriver 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | He was sabotaged by the DNC. Even Elizabeth Warren said that the nomination process was rigged by the DNC. Absolute corruption and the world would absolutely be a different place. But his support of ratcheting up the Ukraine war disappointed profoundly. That’s not the Bernie I would have voted for. | | |
| ▲ | DanHulton 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Alternatively, it could have been over long ago with a lot less loss of life, if Ukraine had been supported more full-throatedly, instead of allowing to drag on as it has. Sometimes you gotta rip that bandaid off. | |
| ▲ | ActorNightly 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That has been disproven. He ran again in primaries during 2020 and did horribly there. The progressives are just not popular, and they don't really do much to work with the rest of the Democrats. Unlike Republicans, where the party forerunner basically gets unilateral support from everyone Republican including those he personally insulted or harmed. | |
| ▲ | 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | CamperBob2 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Sanders is old enough to remember what appeasement leads to, that's all. | |
| ▲ | throawaywpg 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | supporting Ukraine has always been in America's interests. How embarassing it must be for Trump to be publicly humiliated by Putin over a cease fire. |
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| ▲ | mothballed 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Ron Paul already did that. Not very popular. |
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| ▲ | thesuitonym 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | There are many reasons Ron Paul was not very popular. | |
| ▲ | aleatorianator 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | popular means whatever Hollywood decided to like this is the end of celebrity culture at the hands of social media. monarchies are the central core of celebrity cultism, look at France today; surrounded by the Monarchies and up in flames. |
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| ▲ | AlecSchueler 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It's called the patriot act, anyone fighting it is instantly framed as anti-American. |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > a presidential candidate can run with removing the Patriot Act as one of their campaign points I've worked on privacy regulation. This would not get votes. The unfortunate fact is that the people most passionate about these issues are also tremendously lazy or extremely nihilistic. (Maybe it comes with the territory of not trusting institutions.) Either way, privacy advocates can rarely muster even a dozen calls to electeds, let alone credibly threaten backing a primary opponent. The reason SOPA/PIPA worked is it animated a group of tech advocates beyond those with ideological opposition to surveillance. |
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| ▲ | ivape 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| No candidate can do that. The children were raised to be racist and ignorant. That basically means you are going to deal with poorly raised feral racist and entitled children. You aren’t going to rehabilitate that in your lifetime, the childhoods are fucked up. Maybe in 30-40 years these people will have a come to Jesus moment, but we don’t have a malleable national moral character to appeal to helpful sensibilities given how poorly the prior generation failed at raising proper children with good moral character. Basically, a good portion of White America are gone cases. You won’t be able to explain to gone cases anything. That’s the reality of America. |
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| ▲ | black6 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| I might turn out to vote if there was a candidate whose sole platform plank was to repeal as many existing laws as possible. |
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| ▲ | GLdRH 4 days ago | parent [-] | | any democratic candidate? | | |
| ▲ | genewitch 4 days ago | parent [-] | | https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/report-cards/2022 I'm not sure that democrats enact/write less laws. If they don't enact (or write) less laws, i cannot see how the aggregate number of laws reduces. This, apparently, is a "hard" statistical (research) problem, even though i've seen reporting on this exact subject, along the lines of "number of lines in bills written by each party" or similar. but the top 2 are democrats. I think "enacted" is a different metric, but i'm still pretty certain that democrats lead on "enacted" legislation, at least in the last 25 years. |
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| ▲ | Consultant32452 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| the average man does not want to be free. he simply wants to be safe.
~H.L. Mencken The bad guys will say you only need privacy if you’re guilty and the plebs will lap it up |
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| ▲ | ActorNightly 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
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| ▲ | n0n0n4t0r 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
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| ▲ | owlbite 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | There will almost certainly be an election in 2028. The degree to which it will be rigged through gerrymandering, voter intimidation, voter suppression and/or blatant cheating is a different question. | | |
| ▲ | krapp 4 days ago | parent [-] | | The answer is "as much as legal, and maybe a little more" as with all American elections. |
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| ▲ | ta1243 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/November_1933_German_parliamen... | |
| ▲ | Consultant32452 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | |
| ▲ | dzonga 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | hamdingers 4 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Every president remodels and redecorates the White House, often to a much greater degree. The consternation over it is an intentional distraction. | | |
| ▲ | dboreham 4 days ago | parent [-] | | It's done as an intentional distraction. The guy is a top class troll after all. |
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| ▲ | ta1243 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You don't adorn it with gold if you have taste. Trump is not going to live much longer than 2028 anyway. | | | |
| ▲ | moi2388 4 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | LightBug1 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Just ! | | |
| ▲ | moi2388 4 days ago | parent [-] | | Want to bet 10k? You’re literally making claims without any basis. He left last time, he will leave again, if he even makes it to the end of his term | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4 days ago | parent [-] | | > without any basis This is his second, ostensibly last, term, meaning he will have an uphill battle at best to convince the public that he should get another term for some bullshit reason. His last term ended with him obviously trying to prevent the next guy from taking over. He obviously wants to be in power. It's disingenuous to say there is no basis. Whether it's likely is another matter but this is intellectually dishonest. | | |
| ▲ | moi2388 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Every president wants to be in power, or they never would have ran. Fact is you’re fear mongering for no reason. Last time he also just left. There are zero cases of a president staying in office after their terms. | | |
| ▲ | LightBug1 2 days ago | parent [-] | | If you're willing - how old are you? Where are you from? What do you do? I'm just really curious how you get to a stage in life firing off this kind, sorry, naive view. The American rule book has well and truly been ripped up and burned ... you just can't seem to see the smouldering embers at your feet ... | | |
| ▲ | moi2388 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | I’m curious how you get to a stage in life where you just make up crisis, when all previous cases show this is simply not happening. He already left once before. I don’t understand how this is news to you. |
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| ▲ | ptaffs 4 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] | | |
| ▲ | potato3732842 4 days ago | parent [-] | | >he (and his kind) lives for short term gratification and will move on to another house and decorate that with gold. Exactly. It's a social norm among that class of society When a Koch, or a Scwab, or the CEO of some mega-corp buys a property on Martha's Vineyard, or the Hamptons, or Vail or overlooking Tahoe or whatever, with intent to actually spend even the scantest amount of time there themselves they engage in absurd unnecessary renovations. That's just how they do things. There is an occasional exception for those in that group who have "found meaning" in some other avenue for lighting money on fire. Edit: You can thank me later for implicitly telling you where the best construction dumpsters are. |
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