Those countries exist? Last I checked there are few true democracies. Where there are free and fair elections the politicians seem bought out by unchecked corporate interests. If all your options are just corporate shills and power hungry spooks and goons is it even "free and fair" at that point?
>> If you are fortunate enough to live in a country which has free and fair elections, then vote.
> Those countries exist?
Yes. The US is one, others exist today as well.
> Where there are free and fair elections the politicians seem bought out by unchecked corporate interests.
Start by voting for the least objectionable politicians in the general election (local, state, and federal).
If you do not like those choices, remember this and vote in the primary (or primaries where allowed) for the least objectionable politicians.
If you do not like the choices in primaries, remember this and get involved in the selection process for the least objectionable political party.
Note the recurring theme of involvement in the representation process. Those who do not want you to have this type of agency spend a lot of money to disparage it.
>Those who do not want you to have this type of agency spend a lot of money to disparage it.
You just contradicted yourself. Do we have free and fair elections, or do we have a system whereby the wealthy have disproportionate influence? It's one or the other.
>> Those who do not want you to have this type of agency spend a lot of money to disparage it.
> You just contradicted yourself.
I did not. Please re-read what I wrote dispassionately.
> Do we have free and fair elections, or do we have a system whereby the wealthy have disproportionate influence? It's one or the other.
This is a false dichotomy[0]. The US has had free and fair elections for at least 40 years. I wish I could confidently state a longer period. Some might include the 70's but few would include much of the 60's.
What the wealthy do in attempt to convince people they do not have agency, or that their involvement in representative government does not matter, is orthogonal to having it. I humbly recommend contemplating the difference.
> You're begging the question with respect to what is "free" and "fair."
Free: there are no longer Jim Crow laws[0], such as voting poll taxes[1].
Fair: each eligible voter whom casts a vote in US elections has it included in the vote tally (see below).
> In large part, people do not have that kind of agency, and telling them they do is deceptive liberal bullshit.
Every eligible voter has the ability to cast their vote in one form or another. In extenuating circumstances, some votes will not be included. I am neither a constitutional nor civil rights lawyer, so will not attempt to clarify those situations beyond acknowledging they exist.
I will not further engage in this thread as my interpretation of your replies thus far is they are not based in intellectually honest discourse.
> Last I checked there are few true democracies. Where there are free and fair elections the politicians seem bought out by unchecked corporate interests
If you're anywhere in the West, this doesn't describe your democracy but a cartoon of it.
Like yes, if you only show up for--in the U.S.--the Presidential general election, your vote isn't that powerful because it's not supposed to be in a country of a quarter of a billion.
"Bought out by corporate interests" is a completely accurate assessment of the American electoral system. It's honestly quite alienating reading all of these completely delusional comments. Your vote is at the very least supposed to be proportionally significant to the general population. We don't even have that. We are bombarded with corporate propaganda every fucking day. A senator from Wyoming has just as much of a vote as California. This notion that we live in a democracy or anything close to that is asinine. The system is not tethered to the will of the people in any sense of the word. It's an oligarchy.
> notion that we live in a democracy or anything close to that is asinine. The system is not tethered to the will of the people in any sense of the word. It's an oligarchy
Pure democracy doesn't work. (More accurately: election fetishisation doesn't work. It tears itself apart in manufactured partisanship.) We live in a republic. The Congress is democratically elected. The President is meant to embody the strengths of monarchy. The Supreme Court represents the oligarchy. This is civics 101, succinctly summarised in the Federalist Papers.
> senator from Wyoming has just as much of a vote as California
I vote in Wyoming. We're not the oligarchy. We're not even a swing state. You're complaining about, broadly, the Electoral College (and our system of apportionment). That's orthogonal to that of corporate interests. If anything, the fact that each of my resresentatives has fewer people they're accountable to makes them harder to buy off.
You sound like a religious fundamentalist. Civics 101 is blindly deferring to the architects of a system whereby only rich, white property owners could vote?
Look, however you rationalize it in your head, power is highly concentrated in the US. Unless you are a member of the ruling class, being in favor of this basically amounts to Stockholm Syndrome.
> Civics 101 is blindly deferring to the architects of a system whereby only rich, white property owners could vote
No, it's understanding the tradeoffs systems of governments make in erecting the systems that they do.
Have you read the Federalist Papers? If not, I suggest starting there. It's more interesting than railing against the woke mind virus or corporations.
> however you rationalize it in your head, power is highly concentrated in the US
It's not consistently concentrated. And even then, it's not that concentrated. I've managed, as a rando, to get language put into multiple state and twice federal bills because I was the only person in my district who called in on a low-priority process. Nihilism in American politics is often just cover for civic laziness.
It's a good thing I don't advocate for nihilism. You haven't asked what I advocate, which illustrates to me you're a dull, incurious person. And if you're seriously bringing up the "woke mind virus," I think that says all I need to know about you. I haven't even brought up matters of social justice. Many of the things I think are rather "unwoke" in many respects; however, if that's your paradigm, your brain is hopelessly broken. I don't particularly care that you have gotten "language" into legislation. Do you also have some patents in your name?
Because unchecked corporate interests / you don't vote for the President but for electors are hot takes?
(Also, "your vote is at the very least supposed to be proportionally significant to the general population" doesn't technically make sense. I think I know what you're getting at. But even ignoring the political structure and just focussing on voting, you're assuming by statement values for parameters which lie on a spectrum.)
You will be lambasted for it, but you're fundamentally correct. Recall that the question was "What can be done about the unchecked power of governance?" If your response to that question is "just vote," you have missed the plot entirely. It is truly pathetic how naive that statement is. It's akin to still believing in Santa Claus.
I would say the statement was "Well, at least vote". And in local elections, that does make a difference.
In general, I think far too much attention is paid to single election cycles at the federal level. And I'm not sure why. The state you live in has significantly more effect on your experience with government, outlay of benefits, taxes, education and environmental policies than who holds the presidential office, for essentially all issues that matter.
In the rare case that a federal change affects you (likely a court decision, thanks to lame duck congress), states routinely step in, as we've seen recently.
The one exception to everything is that if you want _other_ states to live like _your_ state, then yeah - you better try to get the federal government aligned with your virtues. But why any sane person would want that is beyond me.
This is just the galaxy brain version of the position I am criticizing. You are not any less naive than the person who said "just vote." You're fundamentally missing the point. Corporations manipulate state and local elections as well, and the scope of what is possible is shaped by this. If your impulse during this political moment is to rally people to vote, all you are demonstrating is that you do not fully understand the system you live in.
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