Supreme court, July 2024: “the president is the god king, and cannot be beholden to laws of mere mortals”
The Guardian, July 2025: “i don’t know guys, checks and balances seem to be failing, don’t you think?”
checks and balances were already fucked but whatever was there was finally shot dead and thrown in a ditch like a Noem family pet a year ago, dickheads, what the fuck are you talking about
Say it with me, kids. “We’re fucked!”
*failed
The AskHistorians podcast called it, in the aftermath of January 6 riots. They did not explicitly compare January 6 with the fall of Roman republic, but explained why the republic fell. The institutions got too corrupt in spite of checks and balances. The concept worked many times and was threatened before, until the breaking point had been reached. Brutus proclaimed he saved democracy after assassinating Caesar, but the crowd booed and heckled him because Caesar was popular and could actually get the job done, unlike corrupt politicians who typically make excuses not to do what the people want, because the elites would not want to ruffle their feathers of their patrons and their own interests.
People are not dumb. If politicians are doing what the people want, populism would never be a thing.
If politicians are doing what the people want, populism would never be a thing.
Populism works to get politicians elected because it is nothing more than politicians telling the people what the people want to hear.
Populism has nothing to do with actually doing what is in the best interests of the people, it’s about making the people believe that their interests are going to be served.
Oft mentioned is different from famed.
The Guardian. When news breaks, you can guarantee they’ll say something about it in five to fifteen years.
Better late than never?
Checks-and-balances rely on:
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Voter interest in civic participation
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Careerist politicians and bureaucrats
If voters have no civic interest and prefer masturbatory prejudices to serious consideration of civic duty, and if ‘careerist’ politicians are given immense power and wealth for stepping aside (either by retirement or by simple non-action when in office) thus rendering self-castration of their office personally meaningless to their career path/personal fortunes, checks and balances don’t mean shit.
All systems are reliant on a population’s willingness to obey and enforce their rules. We in the US, apparently, have very little appetite for that anymore.
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No shit Sherlock.
*has failed.
**completely and totally
***repeatedly
I spent the first 3/4 of my adult life listening to all politicians and deciding who I thought had better ideas for the issues that concerned me. The last 12 years have taught me that there are simply to many fucking republicans. That wouldn’t be a problem but every single last one of them are worthless pieces of shit, more interested in cruelty than accomplishing anything decent.
The last 12 years have taught me that there are simply to many fucking republicans.
So many that they’ve been bleeding into the Democratic Party.
Felt like I was taking crazy pills when Kamala Harris spent the back half of October leaving her very popular VP candidate on the side of the road while doing a whirlwind tour with… Liz fucking Cheney. Between that, importing all of Keir Starmer’s UK campaign staffers, and letting Michael Bloomberg manager her social media, it’s a wonder she didn’t do worse.
That wouldn’t be a problem but every single last one of them are worthless pieces of shit
Waking up every day and saying the Pledge of Allegiance on a pile of Ayn Rand novels will do that to you.
I honestly think that she should’ve won but the repubos cheated, as they do every time. There’s no way Trump swept every single swing state. All the polls showed it’s be a tight race but for Kamala to lose so utterly? Now, I’ve made fun of election deniers in the past, I see the irony. But its suspect.
I honestly think that she should’ve won but the repubos cheated, as they do every time.
When Republicans cheat and win, Democrats stomp their feet but insist there’s nothing they can do.
When Republicans cheat and lose, Democrats say “demographics is destiny!” and ignore the problem until the next election cycle.
There’s no way Trump swept every single swing state.
Eh. Harris was a dogshit campaigner who inherited a dogshit campaign from a senile neoconservative hack with underwater approval numbers. Had Walz been at the top of the ticket (or Pritzker or Baldwin or maybe even Klobacher or Warren) things might have gone differently. Their political instincts were miles better than Harris’s, which is why they stomp all over her in the 2020 primary.
BlueAnon
… Right. I just love conservative-lite, all the fascism with none of the stigma 🙄
Hahahaha
Breathes in hahahahaha
We ain’t had “checks and balances” since Allen Dulles and Curtis Lemay had JFK and RFK killed. We’ve been feeding off the husk of America like spider crabs.
We ain’t had “checks and balances” since Allen Dulles and Curtis Lemay had JFK and RFK killed.
I mean, the Truman-Era Red Scare / Eisenhower-Era “Operation Wetback” / “Operation Eagle Eye” weren’t exactly America’s finest hours, either.
And you only have to thumb through a few chapters from Hoover back to McKinley to notice a certain historical weight of Fascist tendency baked into the American bureaucracy post-Reconstruction Era.
Honestly, the more notable moments in US History are when “Checks and Balances” actually work. Like, Nixon actually leaving office before the Senate could impeach him was something of a high water mark for the country, precisely because it suggested these institutions functioned as advertised (eventually). Even Comey threatening to prosecute Hillary was something of a moment for the country, as it suggested a President’s Wife Turned Senator Turned Mega-Bundler Turned Presidential Nominee wasn’t impervious to the consequences of her shitty stupid decisions.
But then Ford pardons Nixon and Trump fires Comey and you have to come back down to Earth to reconsider whether this game is rigged from the start.
Someone just noticed this?
Where will the next concentration camp be?
Just around the riverbend.
