How are they just now realizing this?
this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
129 points (97.1% liked)
politics
31360 readers
2138 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles. Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to US politics and contain quality and original content. Social Media adjacent hosts like Substack are allowed, but ONLY if they tie back to a company/subsidiary. No personal or friend group blogs and no self-promotion. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and re-hosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing other users of being bots or paid actors.
- No memes, trolling, misinformation, or low-effort posts/comments (including reposts). If you see posts like this that anger you, do not engage. Report, block, and live a happier life than they do. Any slap-fight is subject to comment removals. Fights full of rule violations will result in temporary bans to cool off.
- No manipulating votes via bots or alt accounts; this will result in permanent bans. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in an account ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be permanently banned.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules and use critical thinking when reading, posting, and commenting. Users that repeatedly have comments or posts removed, weaponize reports, or violate the code of conduct, will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users. The reason(s) behind moderator action(s) are publicly available through the Modlog.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
I think some German dude figured this stuff out about 180 years ago.
And corruption. Corruption and poor understanding of scale and economics doomed all implementations of his ideas.
Who?
Think it was some dude by the name of Karl
No, it was his brother Mark
Marky Marx
Needs a big gray beard.
MY NAME IS
Who?
Some guy named Karl
Just a li'l guy, you know
They needed to get their share of that corporate money first. Now that they’re not getting basically any campaign money compared to conservatives from corporate pacs, they’re like “cool, we can pretend to care now”. Stop electing centrists.
Democrats need a solid 40 years to recognize anything is happening, and then another 80 to do something about it.
Strangely enough, it’s still the same ones in office after all that time…
It'd get done faster if all the people bitching decided to channel that into voting.
Been voting in every election since 2000.
I don’t think it works anymore.
A bit short-sighted, perhaps, when oligarchs control the media and encourage the "both sides" bullshit so people won't vote, and right-wing media has gone for decades convincing a third of the populace to vote for fascism.
If we were able to break through that propaganda, voting would give us a supermajority of at least Democrats, and some number of actual progressives such that we might be able to get shit done.
That said, giving up is certainly not the answer.
Short sighted?
Twenty six fucking years and I’m “short sighted.”
Fuck all this shit, I’ve heard it all before.
Okay. So stop voting and help the fascists then. I can't stop you.
I hate where we are as well. I'm 50 and remember when it was just starting to go bad. It sucks.
But I will always vote.
I only vote to show it doesn’t help and I’m not going to give up on my 26 year streak.
Plus my mom would kill me if I didn’t vote.
Alright alright, medium sighted it is ;-)
I still have zero faith in democracy and hate everyone.
And I vote.
How does voting for capitalism get rid of capitalism?
The problem is one part corporate consolidation, and two+ parts that corporations are allowed to harm the public for their own gain without repercussions (or repercussions that don't sufficiently punish the corporations). A corporation is often just an entity that looks for commons to tragedy - whether it is big or small.
Elite impunity is the root problem, and corporate consolidation is one symptom.
All unelected power centers should be broken into small pieces. And there should be rule of law: the same law for all of us, impartially enforced, and anyone who opposes that should be held accountable by the system, if it's not too fucked up, or by the people, if it still is.
But if they had truly implemented an earth-shattering transformation, then surely at least some faint tremors would have registered with the public. Instead, Biden’s popularity plunged early in his presidency and never recovered. There was no uptick in Biden’s approval rate produced by trustbusting, no green shoots that promised to blossom with more time.
Perhaps oligarchal control of the media means that when progress is actually made, it is not communicated to the populace.
Neo-Brandeisian ideas have drawn at least some support from Trump world.
This is probably necessary if we have any hope of re-taking our country back from fascism and oligarchy.
Well, I don't know. The author of the piece definitely doesn't agree, and I'm not sure if I do or not. I do know I personally think the root of our problems in the US are primarily the oligarchs. Fascists are a close second, with Evangelicals a close third.
I do know I personally think the root of our problems in the US are primarily the oligarchs
Aren't oligarchs caused by corporate consolidation?
They're certainly enhanced and it's related probably but I'm not sure it's a 1:1 thing exactly. But far closer to the truth than things like "Democrats just don't do anything".
A lot of those are the same people
First off this article is basically arguing that Lynn's idea have become a religion in the Democratic party, and a religion that doesn't answer anything.
Second, the ways to fix this from a rooted evidence based method are State based and start with RCV and proportional voting. But it also means intentionalizing a institutional investment in people and ideas in democratic ideals which is taught, trained, placed, and promoted over decades, specifically focused on taking regulatory authority seriously.
There's more, but I'm tired of reading about ideas that critique without actionable answers. This is fixable but it's going to take generation and intention... As well as attention... Which the American people don't fucking have, even if we are all bloody angry.
It took a Great Depression to unlodge the average person’s head from their asshole last time
Trump: hold my beer
Nah, there are at least two problems, with the other big one being zoning. Everything from climate change to the housing crisis to poor health due to sedentary lifestyles is caused by it.
Zoning issues that you're thinking of stem from our Happy-Motoring society.
Deliberately car-centric utopian modernism (the Garden Cities movement, Frank Lloyd Wright's Broadacre City, etc.) is certainly a factor, but I'd say it's as much, if not more, about racism. Once de-jure segregation was outlawed, making property expensive by using minimum lot sizes to force people to buy a lot of it at a time became the next-best way to keep (poorer, on average) black people out.