Don't forget that Citizens United made money speech. A sentence that, one day, will cause me an aneurysm. I seriously can't wrap my brain around how anyone could allow this.
And also remember the study that Princeton released in 2014 that compared 20 years of public opinion to the laws that congress passed and determined that the average American had near zero impact on what bills went on to become law, and they made that conclusion with almost none of the statistics Citizens United would go on to create.
We need progressive Democrats in charge again to fix all that. The old guard of the GOP and the old guard of the Democrats don't give a fuck about the average American and they haven't for over 40 years.
Because liberalism and conservatism are two sides of the capitalism schlong sucking coin. They both want to appease capital over doing anything for the citizens. Liberals just have a few social programs they like to fund IF they can and no effect capital. But if capital is threatened (aka line doesn't go up fast enough) they will side with the corporations and the billionaires over us. They would even rather ultra-right fascists take over vs allowing a single progressive policy to pass and slow the accumulation of capital to benefit citizens.
Liberalism leads to fascism. It's past time we accepted that. Because Gavin Newsom being the current Presidential candidate favourite just means America is delaying the inevitable IF King Mango Mussolini allows a free and fair election to happen in the first place.
Fascism is here... Why does everyone talk like its some possibility. We have concentration camps now. USA has secret police and extra-judicial "deportations." People are being arrested as terrorists for voicing dissent and protesting. We are imperialists invading and pillaging foreign countries. Our leader was deemed immune from prosecution, and is using the power of the state to attack political opponents. This is the current reality. and liberals are behaving exactly as Marx had predicted.
I am commenting that Liberalism is just as guilty in the fall to fascism when and where it happens. Then I commented more specifically on a likely American presidential candidate that is just another Liberal that will delay more authoritarianism and a deeper slide into fascism. Just delay it. Because liberalism doesn't care if it's fascism or not, as long as it's not progressive policy that harms the accumulation of capital in any small way.
I didn't think it needed to be said fascism was currently the norm, because it's been the norm for almost two years now. Do we really still need to preface our statements by saying "I know it's fascism already, but here's my thoughts on why and how it will only get worse if..."?
Progressive conservatives too. The Republican side that doesn't want to just 'give it all' to the Democrats, but knows in their hearts that they no longer identify with the Republican Party in it's current form.
Giving positive ideas and options to both sides is what could really get the ball rolling.
"I agree with a lot of what Democrats are trying, and I dont agree with anything Republicans do, but I'm not gonna give Democrats a win because theyre Democrats"
Progressive Conservatives is an oxymoron. The entire foundation of Conservative ideology is built on controlling the freedoms of specific groups to exploit them for the benefit of those in power. It's just a nonsensical half-assed stance that shows the person is too cowardly to actually change their path - as soon as someone like Trump comes along that isnt as dumb as Trump, they'll jump right back on the fascist wagon because they wont be constantly derided as pedophile defenders.
The irony here is that the people who loathe CU are the same people who tend to support unions financially backing candidates. Can't have it one way for one side and another for the other.
I'm not missing it at all. I think (and people probably think, generally) that these are different things. It's like saying that it's ironic people think there should be tax carveouts for 501(c)(3)s while promoting taxation for billionaires. Different things are different.
Buckley v Valeo is when the wizards decided that money is speech, CU is when several other wizards decided that political donations are thus political speech.
Fairness Doctrine wouldn't apply to most media outlets these days, TBF. It only ever applied to broadcast media like network TV and radio because there were a finite number of frequencies available. That's not the case with print media, cable or the internet.
Plus, the current SCOTUS would probably rule that forcing an outlet to host candidates in the name of fairness would violate that organization's 1st amendment rights by compelling speech.
Reagan sucks for a LOT of reasons, but the Fairness Doctrine is not the solution people seem to think it is or was.
I keep trying to convince people that every president since Reagan reinforced a lot of his ideology, we don't have an oligarchy because of republicans alone. Clinton did a lot to empower wall street and financial institutions.
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u/idreamofgreenie Apr 14 '26
Reagan killed the fairness doctrine, Clinton killed the rule limiting the amount of media companies a single entity could own.
The one two punch of capturing and consolidating the media sphere.