It was always a lie. First it was “we the white male land owners” and then “we the white males.” Expansions to that pool of who “the people” are have been slow and excruciating.
“America never was America to me” as Langston Hughes said in 1935
We are experiencing late-stage “American dream”. The American dream is not a house in the suburbs and 2.5 kids. The dream is to become wealthy enough that you stand above the law. “Freedom” means exactly that. With enough money you can do whatever you want. Now we have the billionaire class of god-tier freedom. Their American dream is a nightmare for the rest of us, but their freedom is more powerful than our freedom.
“Money is speech” might have a whole lot to do with it.
We don’t have representation of the electorate, we have a system of open bribery for the rich to control everything with their bought politicians.
Money is speech, corporations are people, “we the people in order to form a more perfect union” has become “we the companies in order to form a more exploitable customer base”
“Weed the people” is the current cruel federal program to bleach USA of those considered to have too much melanin in their skintone
“Weed the people” should be the official slogan for federal cannabis legalization.
If you’re a WWE fan, you’d understand how funny that is.
Several years back, a wrestler named Jack Swagger was running an anti-immigrant gimmick (How fitting…) as a bad guy. He was basically wrestling’s MAGA before MAGA was a thing. His taunt would be that he would forcefully slap his hand to his heart like someone pledging allegiance to the flag while screaming “WE THE PEOPLE”.
Then he was busted with marijuana in the real world. Suddenly, fans started taunting him with chants of “WEED THE PEOPLE.” at arenas and online. It was hilarious. It basically killed the gimmick because nobody took him seriously after that.
(Granted, not many people were taking the gimmick seriously anyway because Swagger wasn’t very good and the gimmick was a bad idea from day one. But the taunts put the final nail in the coffin.)
Conservatives. That, combined with the constant undertow of hatred and anti-intellectualism.
I’m tapping the sign again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Freedom means destroying the right. We’ve instead decided to peacefully protest against an unchangeable cult of hatred.
Look what happened.
Here is the uncomfortable truth:
It has always been a lie.
The US revolution happened because those with money wanted more and because the UK was actually going to respect native rights, or at least try to.
From article
Do you remember when a police officer in Massachusetts arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates as he was trying to get into his own home? That got huge national attention. And then President Obama called a “beer summit” and brought them both to the White House to talk.
That was diplomacy in a sense, but it was also democracy policy.
Wasn’t that mostly superficial, performative, photo-op theater? Shouldn’t democracy policy be more substantive?
I think an effective democracy policy needs to revitalize community & public service programs to promote social engagement, understanding, & support.
The “we” decided some others aren’t “people”.
‘We the’ is just a misspelling of ‘White’.
Fun fact, ‘People’ was also supposed to read ‘Patriarchy’ but the country is just dumb so.
They went soft during reconstruction. Not fixing the southern problem then has allowed that racism and bullshit to fester for another century and the billionaires were able to harness that hatred for their own means.
What’s gone wrong?
!!! --> CAPITALISM <-- !!!
Capitalism was the system of economics from the get go. This allows people who want power (money) to be able to obtain it ad infinitum, which leads to corruption being possible since politicians can be bought.
It was always a pipe dream, my friend. If you stop smoking, you might see reality… In other words, your only mistake was sobriety.
Money in politics.
