2 party duopoly,
The constitution says President is determined by who gets the most votes. Tell me what the structural problem is with that. Yes, it has become a duopoly despite the warning from George Washington in his farewell address to not let it get that way. And it wasn’t that way for fairly large periods of time. It’s not structural, is what I’m saying.
corporate & lobbying influence
Agreed it’s a problem, tell me why the structure doesn’t allow us to fix it.
the electoral college,
Well, yeah. This was an amendment forced through by the pre-republicans (a.k.a. The Slave States) and meets the criteria of a structural problem. 150 years is a long time in the US but it’s still possible to unfuck ourselves based on the structure of the government. It requires thoughtful, selfless leadership. You see the problem. And it’s one of our own - much later - design.
corporate personhood,
Is bullshit. The corrupt SCOTUS (which took decades to create) interpreted the structure to allow this. It doesn’t. They’re “wrong”. (And evil, and idiots, but I digress). Not structural. Corruption.
lack of term limits for everyone except the president,
Yes and no. Term limits for representatives and senators exist. But they can be elected as many tines as they choose to run. That’s kind of structural, but only because the voting public are such pithed cult members.
gerrymandering,
Not structural. A corruption of the structure that persists. It should be specifically prevented, but they hadn’t gotten that far in 1789. 200 years later, yes conditions had changed.
the supreme court (and the political appointees),
What about them? That they’re appointed by the government? You’d prefer popular elections for Secretary of Labor? I dunno.
lack of true representation in either the house or Senate
is this separate from the Slaver’s College or something else?
All of them are fair points for things that need improvement, but the structure allows for that improvement, it doesn’t prevent it. The constant omnipresent methods for subverting that structure (i.e. propaganda) and naked corruption are present everywhere in the world and are not unique to the US.
Unless, as I suspect, we’re arguing over the semantics of the word structural.
That’s my point, yes. Our friend up there was quick to agree the governmental structures were put in place deliberately to prevent progress and to foster fascist autocracy. And that’s just bullshit. A very common bullshit notion in many corners of the Lemmy political threads.
It’s a form of defeatism that encourages non-action, it’s a significant hinderance to fixing these problems and it’s got the backing of many who consider themselves “leftist” and also foreign state actors.
The structure is sound. Fixing all this broken shit doesn;t mean destroying the structure of government. That’s just idiocy.
I guess I just see things like FPTP vs proportional representation as a structural issue, but again this is just an argument over the meaning of the word rather than us actually disagreeing over anything.
FPTP is a state issue. It is structural, but also one that is easier to change because it’s only at the state level. See the NYC mayoral race as an example of that being improved in one state.
Okay, let’s look inside:
2 party duopoly,
The constitution says President is determined by who gets the most votes. Tell me what the structural problem is with that. Yes, it has become a duopoly despite the warning from George Washington in his farewell address to not let it get that way. And it wasn’t that way for fairly large periods of time. It’s not structural, is what I’m saying.
corporate & lobbying influence
Agreed it’s a problem, tell me why the structure doesn’t allow us to fix it.
the electoral college,
Well, yeah. This was an amendment forced through by the pre-republicans (a.k.a. The Slave States) and meets the criteria of a structural problem. 150 years is a long time in the US but it’s still possible to unfuck ourselves based on the structure of the government. It requires thoughtful, selfless leadership. You see the problem. And it’s one of our own - much later - design.
corporate personhood,
Is bullshit. The corrupt SCOTUS (which took decades to create) interpreted the structure to allow this. It doesn’t. They’re “wrong”. (And evil, and idiots, but I digress). Not structural. Corruption.
lack of term limits for everyone except the president,
Yes and no. Term limits for representatives and senators exist. But they can be elected as many tines as they choose to run. That’s kind of structural, but only because the voting public are such pithed cult members.
gerrymandering,
Not structural. A corruption of the structure that persists. It should be specifically prevented, but they hadn’t gotten that far in 1789. 200 years later, yes conditions had changed.
the supreme court (and the political appointees),
What about them? That they’re appointed by the government? You’d prefer popular elections for Secretary of Labor? I dunno.
lack of true representation in either the house or Senate
is this separate from the Slaver’s College or something else?
All of them are fair points for things that need improvement, but the structure allows for that improvement, it doesn’t prevent it. The constant omnipresent methods for subverting that structure (i.e. propaganda) and naked corruption are present everywhere in the world and are not unique to the US.
Fine, I take it all back, the US is a perfect democracy with literally no problems whatsoever.
Unless, as I suspect, we’re arguing over the semantics of the word structural.
That’s my point, yes. Our friend up there was quick to agree the governmental structures were put in place deliberately to prevent progress and to foster fascist autocracy. And that’s just bullshit. A very common bullshit notion in many corners of the Lemmy political threads.
It’s a form of defeatism that encourages non-action, it’s a significant hinderance to fixing these problems and it’s got the backing of many who consider themselves “leftist” and also foreign state actors.
The structure is sound. Fixing all this broken shit doesn;t mean destroying the structure of government. That’s just idiocy.
I guess I just see things like FPTP vs proportional representation as a structural issue, but again this is just an argument over the meaning of the word rather than us actually disagreeing over anything.
FPTP is a state issue. It is structural, but also one that is easier to change because it’s only at the state level. See the NYC mayoral race as an example of that being improved in one state.