kim_harding ✅
Americans aren’t facing a democratic collapse. We’re living in its aftermath
https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2026/mar/08/trump-democracy-oligarchy-policy
The US was an oligarchy well before tRump’s first term. Recognizing this reality is essential to building a true democracy
Americans aren’t facing a democratic collapse. We’re living in its aftermath

The US was an oligarchy well before Trump’s first term. Recognizing this reality is essential to building a true democracy

The Guardian
Mar 8 at 4:41pmWeb
Show threadPeter ValkemaMar 8
@kim_harding "Well before Trump’s first term, evidence clearly indicated that the United States was already an oligarchy. Decades of bipartisan deregulation, privatization, union-busting, and welfare retrenchment dismantled the public infrastructures that enable people to experience themselves as participants in collective life and progressively transferred the democratic power of the people over to corporations, unelected judges, and billionaires." 🎯
Show threadgrouchoxMar 8

@kim_harding Indeed, the political system has been hacked. They had 250 years to do it.
The french upgraded theirs, and at times uprooted it, five times over since then.

Any GM will tell you your rules will get abused, and need finetuning.

Show threadcalciusMar 8
@grouchox @kim_harding
lets be honest the US ruleset can't take into account player stat creep that didn't exist in 1775, that a series of GMs let slide in. Nobody, for example, had the +100 Billion vorpal blade, or + 999999999 All-Repelling Orange Foundation shields.
Show threadPower_to_the_People (he/him)Mar 8

@kim_harding A well-known fact to those paying attention, which in the US means virtually unknown.

The Gillens-Page Report was published in 2014, for heaven's sake!

https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc

#Gillens-PageReport #ElitesRuleUS #GenPopHasNoInfluence #PotemkinDemocracy #ZappasCurtain

Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens : Martin Gilens, Professor of Politics at Princeton University, and Benjamin I. Page, Professor of Decision Making at Northwestern University. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

Sometimes known as the oligarchy study.    The central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing...

Internet Archive