US friends:
I don't want to hear any of you ever say that African countries have corrupt elections again.
Ever!
You hear me? That's over for y'all now.
And this dude is still the GOP front runner! By a long shot! Like, it's not even close! A lot of y'all are like "This is fine!"
And I don't want to hear "Oh no! We're like a 3rd world country now!" That's that mess I often hear after the US has acted exactly like the US. We're not "like a 3rd world country." We're like ourselves.
@oblomov @mybarkingdogs @julieofthespirits @mekkaokereke
It got really weird for some of us. For example, South Africa was western-aligned, but we mostly didn't get called a first-world nation.
In the late 1990s / early 2000s, there was a move to repurpose the term "second-world" to describe intermediate-status countries, what we would nowadays call BRICS.
This means that South Africa has been called first-, second- and third-world.
I hate the term "3rd world country" anyway.
Dude is already selling T-shirts with his mugshot on them. I predict he's a lock for the GOP nomination. Because that's the kind of country we are. Sadly.
Attached: 1 image Breathe, my friends. Yes, Trump will fundraise off his mugshot. And when he's sentenced following conviction by a jury of his fellow American citizens, the judge will consider that as a sign of his remorselessness, and his sentence will be harsher
@mekkaokereke
The usual term is "Banana Republic."
For conservatives explaining the built-in undemocratic aspects of America's basic structure, its constitution, and the absurd senate and electoral college - "It's a Republic."
History is so full of irony, it hurts...
'The term banana republic describes a politically and economically unstable country with an economy dependent upon the export of natural resources. In 1904, the American author O. Henry coined the term to describe Honduras and Costa Rica under economic exploitation by U.S. corporations, such as the United Fruit Company (now Chiquita).'
[Wikipedia]
@mekkaokereke It's always amazing when people (usually white and sheltered) *suddenly for the first time* learn what the world (US) is really like and has always been.
If anything the US is simply more honest about how it governs/does business now...
Stop saying "sliding towards." We're already here! 🤷🏿♂️
🤔And come to think of it... we've always been here?
Name another "Democratic" country that has a bigger racist discrepancy in election access than the US.
Name another "Democratic" country that has had as many violent election overthrows as happened during US reconstruction, but still can't even admit to itself that it has ever had a coup.
The US has never had a fair national election. Ever. Not one.
Agreed! I didn't say it does!
I'm just tired of the quite frankly racist way that US folks look down their noses at African democracy, when the US is a case study in how not to hold fair elections.
It's 2023, and we still haven't agreed that all races should have equal access to voting rights. Our former president is trying to steal elections.🤦🏿♂️
I don't know how many more pieces of evidence would be required to convince other US folk that we are not good at this.
African countries: Y''all let him get to 91? 🤣
The fact that you would even ask this, lets me know that you have strong opinions on African politics, but probably haven't done enough reading on it. 🤷🏿♂️
You don't have to look far to find evidence of former presidents, VPs, and prime ministers arrested for corruption. If you were familiar with the history of either West, South, East, Central, or North Africa, you'd know this.
True! 75% of the US is not OK with it, and only 25% are.
But...
1) 25% is still embarrassingly high!
2) That 75% was comfortable with us setting up a political system where that 25% has about as much political power as the 75%. 🤡
So now here we are, with Biden almost in a dead heat with Trump, despite the 75/25 split by population on "Should we vote for the person that has shown by both deeds and words that he wants to end US Democracy?"
Who said it did? 🤦♀️
That statement doesn't make sense to me.
Casting:
If a Black person that is legally allowed to cast a vote, is denied that right on election day, because racist people decided that they shouldn't get to vote, and this happens to 100s of thousands of people...
Counting:
If racist people storm the building where votes are being counted, specifically to "Stop the count" so that Black voters votes are not counted...
Is your argument that the election is not corrupt but the system is?
What part of "the votes weren't counted" are you not understanding?
In 2000, Gore would have been president if they had counted all the votes of all Black and brown voters in Florida. But GOP operatives, including the people that did dirty tricks in 2016 and 2020 and are planning to again in 2024, lead the "Brooks brothers riot" and stormed the building shouting "stop the count!" while threatening election workers. They didn't count all the Black votes, and so Gore "lost."
Did you not know about the Brooks Brothers riot? Or are you claiming that somehow the election integrity is still maintained, because they did count the ballots that they did count? 🙂🙃
That distinction makes zero sense to me.
How do you think they steal elections in other countries? What's the difference in your mind, that makes US high integrity election, but other countries low integrity?
As ever, @mekkaokereke nails it with flagging what ‘White washing’ is.
People who are saying “we are like a 3rd world country” are basically saying “Our high and mighty White country gets to discount this as an exception. Everyone please think about those Black countries.”
Well, I have to say it, this is not an exception, it’s US normal and the GOP couldn’t be more White.
Please also don’t forget why a lot of ‘3rd world countries’ are poor because that would actually be the legacy of White colonialism.
If you are White and GOP and think you have good ethics then great, just please wake the fuck up! Also, if you are awoken, then you are woke, and that is good.
There are currently 147 Russian assets working in Congress that we know of. The Secret Service has been compromised and the mishandling of all the classified documents makes me think that the US isn't a serious country🙁
1. What was the Brooks brothers riot? Were all ballots counted? Why not?
2. Has there ever been a national election where it was as easy for Black voters to vote, as it was for white voters? Why not?
3. Is the US somehow unique and exceptional in prosecuting corrupt former leaders? Or is this something that literally every democratic country with rule of law does, yes, even in Africa, but US people don't know this fact and just assume that our country must be better than everyone else?
For instance, just a few days ago, former Austrian head of government, Sebastian Kurz, was charged with giving false evidence to a comittee of the Austrian parliament.
Kurz was the first Austrian chancellor ever to get ousted by parliament in 2019. Things are unprecedented until there aren't...
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/18/europe/sebastian-kurz-austria-false-evidence-intl/index.html
@mekkaokereke Who is saying "this is fine?" I see "this is awful," and "this is fantastic!"
Lukewarm opinions about DJT, I do not see. He is nothing if not polarizing.
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