@Kethianna @Remittancegirl
America has been authoritarian for generations.

Don't get me wrong - Americans must the current full-on assault on the rule of law, human decency, and literally truth and logic!, by all means necessary.

But the office of the President has simply gotten stronger and stronger over the years, decades and centuries.

Nixon, Reagan and W Bush were outright authoritarian; Clinton, Obama and Biden did nothing to roll back these extra powers.

And now here we are.

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@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

Now Trump has those sparkling new nuclear weapons that Obama started to build for him to terrorize the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renovation_of_the_nuclear_weapon_arsenal_of_the_United_States

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The idea that something just recently went off the rails is entirely false. America has been sprinting toward this precipice for over fifty years.

When the Republicans ruled, the pace accelerated to a fast run; for the Democrats, it slowed to a walk; but never did America turn around and walk away from the precipice.

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@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

Please remember that free speech was sharply restricted in World War 2; in the Second Red Scare (1947-1957) in the United States thousands of people had their lives destroyed simply because they had leftist beliefs; then America had a brief, o so brief period of enlightenment where civil rights were codified in law, where much pollution was made illegal, where demonstrations by Americans stopped an unjust war.

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@Kethianna @Remittancegirl But after just two decades, Reagan came in, and anti-authoritarian America never recovered.

While the majority of the blame is of course with the Republicans, all hope was lost when the Democrats starting with Clinton moved sharply to the right on everything except identity politics (which isn't actually left or right, anyway).

When I moved to the US around 1984, both parties were promising what was essentially socialized medicine.

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@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

I left in 2016, when neither party was talking about it. In 2008, the Obama administration banned the mention of single payer from any of the discussions about the ACA, and also refused to allow any comparisons with any foreign healthcare systems, and I knew the game was up.

Why am I telling you this?

Because if we don't understanding our history, we're going to repeat our mistakes over and over again.

We've been fighting and losing for generations.

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@Kethianna @Remittancegirl

We have had two brief series of wins in this century - FDR's New Deal, and the 1960s.

The New Deal came from the Democrats, the changes in the 60s had their support, but then the Democrats also came to support the tremendous generational heist of the US economy from the pockets of poorest 50% into a tiny number of rich people.

The only way for change to happen is that either the Democrats completely revolutionize themselves and become a modern leftist party

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@TomSwirly @Kethianna @Remittancegirl

Wondering what you mean here: "then the Democrats also came to support the tremendous generational heist of the US economy from the pockets of poorest 50% into a tiny number of rich people."

@hadon @Kethianna @Remittancegirl In the last 40 years, tens of trillions of dollars of new wealth poured into America from technology, and none of that money made it into the pockets of that poorest 50% - indeed, they are more insecure than ever.

For example, Bill Clinton's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Tax_Freedom_Act was essentially the death of Main Street - of course, Walmart, who has been given huge tax breaks by both R and D was also involved.

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@hadon @Kethianna @Remittancegirl

> maybe Clinton's idea was that, if he taxed internet, the costs would end up hurting the people at the bottom

In 1998, less than half of Americans were on the Internet, and Amazon sold only books. The average internet speed was 44.3 kbps, or about 0.02% of today, so video and streaming did not exist.

The people at the bottom simply weren't on the Internet at all.

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@hadon @Kethianna @Remittancegirl

Look at what other stuff went on during Clinton's time - NAFTA, the "Defense of Marriage Act", Welfare "reform", "three strikes you're out", the repeal of Glass-Steagall (he didn't actually spearhead that last one, but he signed the bill without comment), "Don't Ask, Don't Tell".

Channeling a Haïtian friend: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/11/haiti-and-the-failed-promise-of-us-aid

This isn't all a mistake - the Clintons are really the people their words and actions make them out to be - capitalists.

@hadon @Kethianna @Remittancegirl These aren't ancient history, I was there for all of these as a politically involved adult.

For example, NAFTA was not seen as a good thing at all by US unions, who fought against it, because they didn't want to compete with Mexico for the same jobs.

> 3 strikes you're out: I believe that was a state law ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-33545971

The whole world moved far to the left in the 1960s and 70s.

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@hadon @Kethianna @Remittancegirl

In Europe, they managed to lock in these gains to the point that even the right doesn't challenge socialized medicine.

In the United States, both parties collaborated on undoing nearly all the progress.

In particular, the Democrats decided to focus mainly on identity politics and give up the idea of economic justice.

Or legal justice, for that matter. America locks up its poor at an astonishing rate, often for minuscule offenses.

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@hadon @Kethianna @Remittancegirl

Meanwhile the rich and powerful flout the law with absolutely no consequences.

After Obama was elected, he indemnified the bankers from the tens of thousands of felonies that they had committed.

For example, HSBC pled guilty to over a thousand counts of money laundering, each of which should net someone 7-14 years in jail, and yet not one person spent a day behind bars.

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@hadon @Kethianna @Remittancegirl

And there was no inquiry into the Iraq War, a war based entirely on deliberate lies, a war which killed roughly a million people, including a lot of US soldiers, a war which personally benefited VP Cheney to the tune of a billion dollars, mostly in no-bid contracts.

If you recall, the Bush government said the war would take weeks and cost $50 billion. Instead, it lasted almost nine years and cost $2 trillion.

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