Americans are widely pessimistic about democracy in the United States, an AP-NORC poll finds

DocMcStuffin@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 313 points –
Americans are widely pessimistic about democracy in the United States, an AP-NORC poll finds
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Hard to be pessimistic about something that doesn't exist. The US is not a democracy and never has been. Our votes are not equal and there are many institutions in place to ensure that our vote can just not matter whenever is convenient for those in power, both on state and federal levels.

Edit: remember when we voted for the Supreme Court members? Lol. It's all a joke fam.

Quick Civics Lesson: A Representative Republic IS a form of democracy. Saying the United States isn't a democracy is false.

Exactly. It's an imperfect democracy with some anti-democratic institutions, for sure-- but to say it's not a democracy is simply not accurate.

Oh no, think of the accuracy! Be blind to what your eyes see as long as you can cling to a definition you learned in grade school that was propaganda to begin with lmao.

It's like if a nail salon is a front for money laundering and I say "hey that nail salon is a front!" and the pedants come back with "ACK-shually, that is indeed a nail salon." No fucking shit. It's true purpose is a front, despite the fact that it functions as a nail salon AND a front.

The US is functioning as intended, with a thin veneer of "democracy" to keep it "legitimate" in the eyes of the world.

You realize the right wing spends billions on spreading that exact propaganda line among the left, because every left-leaning person they manage to blackpill means one less vote against their candidates in the next election, right?

Alternate take: you wouldn't be able to blackpill people on the left if the democrat party actually showed up and executed policy that makes the working people's lives easier. Republicans can push this propaganda because, like most propaganda, there is a nugget of truth at the core. The state doesn't give a shit about "we the people" except for the cases where "people" are corporations.

You realize that this line of thinking basically boils down to "blackpilled leftists are too stupid to form their own ideology and conclusions and are mere puppets of the right wing", right?

It's really condescending and I wish liberal democrats spent half the effort actually fighting the right wing as they did anyone even slightly to their left.

My brother in Christ, I spend orders of magnitude more time and effort working IRL to keep Republicans out of office than I do arguing with you guys online. In fact, the only reason I'm still interacting with you is because I think you're a decent person who just has a difference of opinion than me. I don't argue with right wingers online because there's no point, it's block and report on sight. Save your energy for the real battles in the real world, ya know?

I will say that some states have a lot more democratic abilities than others.

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