I would say that people are doing stuff, but we’re constrained by several things:
Fixed election cycles: Once in office, only the fellow officers of the federal government, whether Congress or the top tiers of the Executive, are able to recall, expel, or remove officials in the government. Since all the branches of our government are held by one political faction, the chance of this is vanishingly small
Lifetime appointment of judges: As a consequence of the actions of some key figures (cough cough, RBG) we’re stuck with an extremely conservative and Trump allied Supreme Court that won’t block or overturn any of the administration’s actions
The leaders of Congress have decided not to exercise their power which for the 249 years prior to 2025 has been the main check against something like this happening. Per point number 1 there’s no recourse for citizens until this November essentially. I don’t know the statistics in countries like the US vs Canada, but at least here in the South, Senators or Representatives in leadership positions get essentially a free walk at least to the general election, most of them through to reelection
Due to how it was set up, the US Senate, whose main roll is essentially being the red or green light on much of the President’s agenda, changes extremely slowly because we don’t elect them all at once. Luckily this year, a majority of the Senate incumbents facing reelection (20 out of the 35) are Republicans, so the Democrats could (in theory) make significant gains or at least have more of a chance to
This administration has shown that it really doesn’t care about popular opinion at all about anything
As others have mentioned in this thread, the administration has made it a habit of locating and locking up under terrorism charges people that publicly speak out against it and has made it practice to murder people in the street trying to help those in need, so the stakes are significantly higher than political change has been in the past
The main thing Trump has done is exposed just how much of our government has been de facto. I think one of the main issues is that the founders of the country basically assumed good faith in much of the mechanics the built into the system because that was more of a component of high class culture back then.
I think it’s important to remember for us Americans too though that almost to a man, most of these guys hated each other and did everything in their power to undermine each other. People talk about polarisation in politics today like it’s a new thing and totally unprecedented. The Era of Good Feelings lasted like 5 years people, democracy needs disagreement to survive
A system built to stall/slow progress to retain the levers of power rarely changes from within.
We, Americans, should know this better than most. We’ve grown up with it after all. Propaganda and platitudes are just the smokescreen for the corporate owner classes that own the levers of control.
Reformation always follows a revolutionary time (violent or not). They’re two sides of the same coin.
We’re literally fighting pedophiles and rapists in office (or those who share their ideologies of gaslighting and DARVO.) Do you think they take no for an answer?
We want bike lanes, public transit, better social services, parks, etc. Well, you have 623 pieces of paper to file, 221 meetings, 73 votes to collect…
Meanwhile, look how fast those Flock cameras went up with barely any approval. Look how fast those data centers got approved and built. Closed, backroom deals with no input, or even just mayors outright vetoing the town’s votes. They have the ideology of rapists.
And sitting here with all the reasons against us changes nothing.
I’m proud when they call us radical. Because we’re radically fighting to make people’s lives better. And the political mechanisms in place are designed to stop that. We live under neoliberal capitalism that is supposed to deliver us freedom and democracy. It has many underlying tensions. One is the freedom to grow capital vs the freedom of peoples. Our systems have been built on the freedom to grow capital OVER the freedom of peoples.
So the only way left for us to make change is to be disruptive. To get up and do something. And be willing to sacrifice for the greater good because the system is designed to take from us if we step out of line. It’s designed to protect those with capital over those who deserve justice.
Just do whatever you can. I realize it’s tough, I’m facing the same choices, putting food on the table, making sure my family is safe. But if we do nothing put complain and post online, what will we accomplish? Show your representatives that they should fear you. They are your employee, you pay them. Maybe stop paying them? Look at the war tax resistors for more info on that. Maybe protest in public spaces outside their residences and offices. Be a nuisance. Don’t let them rest. They won’t let you rest while they threaten our neighbors and our lives. And please, people, force some democracy into the workplace. We live most of our lives under these little kings. Force legislators to give us worker protections, amend the god damned constitution to give workers the protected right to strike.
I could go on and on…but vent over. I understand Canadians being frustrated, the world being frustrated, because I’m frustrated with how little Americans have accomplished so far. We’re angry but we’re still going to work and following the rules mostly because we’re still scared. We rely too much on the capitalist machine. Start getting involved locally and building alternatives to the reliance on big corpos as much as possible.
And I’d like to add that ‘hopefully’ people have learned a lesson here. I too was incredibly frustrated by the fact that Congress just doesn’t get anything done… but I’m not electing a dictator to solve it, wtf
I would say that people are doing stuff, but we’re constrained by several things:
Fixed election cycles: Once in office, only the fellow officers of the federal government, whether Congress or the top tiers of the Executive, are able to recall, expel, or remove officials in the government. Since all the branches of our government are held by one political faction, the chance of this is vanishingly small
Lifetime appointment of judges: As a consequence of the actions of some key figures (cough cough, RBG) we’re stuck with an extremely conservative and Trump allied Supreme Court that won’t block or overturn any of the administration’s actions
The leaders of Congress have decided not to exercise their power which for the 249 years prior to 2025 has been the main check against something like this happening. Per point number 1 there’s no recourse for citizens until this November essentially. I don’t know the statistics in countries like the US vs Canada, but at least here in the South, Senators or Representatives in leadership positions get essentially a free walk at least to the general election, most of them through to reelection
Due to how it was set up, the US Senate, whose main roll is essentially being the red or green light on much of the President’s agenda, changes extremely slowly because we don’t elect them all at once. Luckily this year, a majority of the Senate incumbents facing reelection (20 out of the 35) are Republicans, so the Democrats could (in theory) make significant gains or at least have more of a chance to
This administration has shown that it really doesn’t care about popular opinion at all about anything
As others have mentioned in this thread, the administration has made it a habit of locating and locking up under terrorism charges people that publicly speak out against it and has made it practice to murder people in the street trying to help those in need, so the stakes are significantly higher than political change has been in the past
The main thing Trump has done is exposed just how much of our government has been de facto. I think one of the main issues is that the founders of the country basically assumed good faith in much of the mechanics the built into the system because that was more of a component of high class culture back then.
I think it’s important to remember for us Americans too though that almost to a man, most of these guys hated each other and did everything in their power to undermine each other. People talk about polarisation in politics today like it’s a new thing and totally unprecedented. The Era of Good Feelings lasted like 5 years people, democracy needs disagreement to survive
Radical change requires radical action.
A system built to stall/slow progress to retain the levers of power rarely changes from within.
We, Americans, should know this better than most. We’ve grown up with it after all. Propaganda and platitudes are just the smokescreen for the corporate owner classes that own the levers of control.
Reformation always follows a revolutionary time (violent or not). They’re two sides of the same coin.
We’re literally fighting pedophiles and rapists in office (or those who share their ideologies of gaslighting and DARVO.) Do you think they take no for an answer?
We want bike lanes, public transit, better social services, parks, etc. Well, you have 623 pieces of paper to file, 221 meetings, 73 votes to collect…
Meanwhile, look how fast those Flock cameras went up with barely any approval. Look how fast those data centers got approved and built. Closed, backroom deals with no input, or even just mayors outright vetoing the town’s votes. They have the ideology of rapists.
And sitting here with all the reasons against us changes nothing.
I’m proud when they call us radical. Because we’re radically fighting to make people’s lives better. And the political mechanisms in place are designed to stop that. We live under neoliberal capitalism that is supposed to deliver us freedom and democracy. It has many underlying tensions. One is the freedom to grow capital vs the freedom of peoples. Our systems have been built on the freedom to grow capital OVER the freedom of peoples.
So the only way left for us to make change is to be disruptive. To get up and do something. And be willing to sacrifice for the greater good because the system is designed to take from us if we step out of line. It’s designed to protect those with capital over those who deserve justice.
Just do whatever you can. I realize it’s tough, I’m facing the same choices, putting food on the table, making sure my family is safe. But if we do nothing put complain and post online, what will we accomplish? Show your representatives that they should fear you. They are your employee, you pay them. Maybe stop paying them? Look at the war tax resistors for more info on that. Maybe protest in public spaces outside their residences and offices. Be a nuisance. Don’t let them rest. They won’t let you rest while they threaten our neighbors and our lives. And please, people, force some democracy into the workplace. We live most of our lives under these little kings. Force legislators to give us worker protections, amend the god damned constitution to give workers the protected right to strike.
I could go on and on…but vent over. I understand Canadians being frustrated, the world being frustrated, because I’m frustrated with how little Americans have accomplished so far. We’re angry but we’re still going to work and following the rules mostly because we’re still scared. We rely too much on the capitalist machine. Start getting involved locally and building alternatives to the reliance on big corpos as much as possible.
And I’d like to add that ‘hopefully’ people have learned a lesson here. I too was incredibly frustrated by the fact that Congress just doesn’t get anything done… but I’m not electing a dictator to solve it, wtf