Trump is the symptom, not the cause. The cause the US people.

panda-giddiness 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

No, the cause is structural. Even if one could identify the sources of rot (money in politics, an outdated electoral college, the collapse of our information environment, whatever), Congress would deadlock, the Courts would block any meaningful reform, and the President would be left trimming the blight while the rot festered underneath.

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kzrdude 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That is a very simplified take. Congress has been locking up for the past decades and is now unable to do useful regulation for the people. Much of it is due to how the funding of candidates works and the feedback loop effect it had on the political culture.

Trump is a symptom of this failure of political culture too.

	▲	smashah 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		...A political culture the public has voted for by allowing it to continue despite being bound by a constitutional duty to prevent the same disenfranchisement you've described. America will be judged by its own demonic standards. The standard by which they justified their participation in the Holocaust of Gaza ("they voted for it").

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atoav 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes and no. Because you can always go one level higher and ask:

Why are the US people the cause?

And then we will talk about structural issues, to do with social mobility, education, a dysfunctional journalistic landscape, a tribalization of the political landscape and so on. But of course it doesn't stop there. You can go one up:

Why did these underlying causes came to be?

The simple answer is that a certain loose conglomerate of polticians, billionaires and CEOs thought it would profit them (it did). You can pick one of the issues mentioned above and go deep on why it is in the bad shape it is today and the answer will always boil down to lobbying and money in politics.

This are the much more insightful reasons and you get there just by asking "but why?" two times like a yound child. Totally recommended.

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ViewTrick1002 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> will always boil down to lobbying and money in politics.

And here you take the easy way out. Just blame third parties. You should keep asking why to find the real cause.

My personal take, as someone who is European but has lived in the US, Texas metro areas specifically, is that first past the post elections sow division.

Choices are limited, political activity is neutered, and extremism builds until it finds an outlet through either of the two possible political choices. Taking over that side entirely.

Political systems needs vents for frustration, and the US system does not have that.

Which finally leads to the people.

The only ones that could cause change needed to reform their representation in the political system is the people.

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joe_mamba 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

>Political systems needs vents for frustration, and the US system does not have that.

Out of curiosity since you made this claim and said you're european, where are the EU vents of frustration that the US lacks?

Because I see it differently. Trump IS the frustration vent itself but people refuse to acknowledge this and look for something else to blame as if people shouldn't be allowed to use their vote for a crazy candidate as a vent of frustration, and the frustration vent should be a virtually inexistent token piece.

	▲	disgruntledphd2 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> Out of curiosity since you made this claim and said you're european, where are the EU vents of frustration that the US lacks? Proportional representation definitely helps here. You could look at the UK as a good counter-example, where the UKIP (a Brexit supporting party) got like 15% of the votes in the 2015 election, and no seats. Where people see that voting doesn't change anything, they'll look for some other way to effect change. That being said, PR doesn't really appear to be working that well. I (personally) think that a lot of the issues relate to free flows of capital across the world, which leads businesses to be set up in areas of cheap labour, which makes people in developed countries angry and more likely to vote for anyone who'll promise to fix it (regardless of how insane their ideas are). But it's complicated, monocausal explanations are typically deceptive.

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smashah 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Foreign and Billionaire demonic interest have disenfranchised the people long ago. Luckily the people have a second-amendment constitutional duty to re-secure the free state. It's clear America is no longer a free state. One cannot be free in a panopticon.

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ViewTrick1002 3 hours ago | parent [-]

It is time to stop blaming third parties. The truth is that congress is able to rein in Trump any second they want.

The reason they don't is that they know that they will get primaried and lose their seat for someone more aligned with the people and Trump.

	▲	disgruntledphd2 25 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> they will get primaried Primaries are kinda insane though. It basically means that a small minority of voters control who actually is allowed to stand for election under a party banner. Like, I understand how it ended up this way, but it's having really bad consequences. That being said, if you could fix gerrymandering, a lot of the issues with primaries go away, as there would be more competition in the actual election which would dis-incentivise proposing extremist candidates in the primary.