The EC was implemented in part to prevent Trump. Too bad like everything else it was enshittified
It’s so much more than the EC. The EC was really the best solution that they could come up with to elect a single person to run the Executive in a time where it was hard to hold statewide elections, much less a nationwide one. Senators were appointed directly by a State’s legislature, and the President by electors appointed by the legislatures. This meant that the only Federal office that was directly voted on was Congress, making elections easier and much more local.
As long as elections were hyper-local, settling them based on a simple plurality of votes was practical, because it was also hard to coordinate nationally. The Founders did not want the same type of party-driven system they left in England. However, the big mistake was in keeping the FPTP voting after they switched to popular elections for Senate and the Presidency. That, coupled with better nationwide communication, directly contributed to out two-party system, and how backwards it is.
The two-party system directly contributed to America’s sliding into fascism, when the only alternative to fascism is itself too drunk on campaign cash to let new blood into the system. But the primary issue is how throughly Trumpism has infiltrated the Republican Party, where they willingly give up their checks on the Executive and let him break laws with impunity. The Founders explicitly distributed power because they thought ambitious people would not give up power willingly. Today’s Republicans are proving they were wrong.
As long as capitalism is involved, it’ll seep its way into any democratic system and uproot any “greater good,” “for the people” outcome in favor of whoever’s benefiting the most from the capitalist component.
The real problem is Citizens United, which held that money is speech. As long as that ruling holds, we will be ruled by the ones with the most money.
And right now, that group is the TechBros who ran the right software at the right time in 2011 and are now sitting on a stash of crypto worth billions…
Citizens United is the most ideologically capitalist thing ever tho.
Yeah if it were overturned it’d just rear its head again later by another name, and really it was just removing red tape that was likely being circumvented anyway.
Citizen United is the most American thing just like the founding fathers made the American democracy to be. There was no universal suffrage, power was concentrated in the hands of few.
It’s not the same country. They’re not the same people.
I would argue it’s the same country and the same people. Capitalism was the guiding principle then it is the same now.
Why else would you not have universal suffrage, don’t banish slavery, not conduct genocide, other than to concentrate power in hands of few while continuing exploitation of everyone.
Back then they were building the system for ‘the betterment of all’, hence what you mentioned. Now they’re exploiting the system for personal gain, or to secure what they’ve already grifted, hence what you have today.
How can giving voting rights to only land owning elites be for the ‘betterment of all’? How is disenfranchising the majority for the ‘betterment of all’? Even if we don’t count the slaves, how is not giving voting rights to women and poor for the ‘betterment of all’'? How is it any different from what is happening today, where people’s voting rights are being taken away other than the reasons? It was people wouldn’t know what’s better for them, now it is fake votes.
One could argue that as a fledgeling country early politicians did need the support of the rich slave owners. But it didn’t take 76 years to build the country. Secondly how it is different than politicians doing the dirty work for the corporate for their election today?
There is no way one could spin up a fantasy where genocide of indigenous people was for the ‘betterment of all’.
Maybe back then people could have a good faith discussion without having to decide if the other person was a supporter of genocide. Like I said, different world, different people.
Please don’t misunderstand I never meant you were supporting genocide. What I meant was the framers had in their mind genocide when the constitution was made.
George Washington was a prospector and his motivation, in part if not whole, was the British restriction against surveying and annexing Indian lands.
