> pacified and domesticated the working class through threat of poverty and state sanctioned violence.
More likely through outright bribery. What's the average hourly wage in the US? About $40? While 90% of workers worldwide earn less than $2. The difference is more than 20 times.
The American working class voted for this, the American working class is the main beneficiary of this, and, as far as I know, NO ONE in the American working class, even in solidarity with other workers, has handed over to them the money they unfairly receive at the expense of the rest of the world.
> American working class is the main beneficiary of this
This is very out of touch with the current economic situation in the United States. It was certainly true for the Boomer generation, but the economic situation and wealth gap disparity has only gotten worse for Gen X, Millenials, and Gen Z.
The primary beneficiaries are the rich. As many regime supporters in the working class are finding out the hard way, they are also just resources to be extracted from. ICE agents aren't going to be paid the blood money they were promised. Farmers and manufacturers are getting shafted by tariff policy.
Americans may make ~20x more on average than the rest of the world, but the newer generations still can't afford homes, healthcare, food, etc.
> wealth gap disparity has only gotten worse for Gen X, Millenials, and Gen Z
And how much do they make? $35 an hour? Okay, let's even go very safe and go with a large margin, say they make $30 an hour. And compare that to LESS THAN $2 an hour, which is what 90% of the rest of the world makes. That's still a difference of MORE THAN 15 times. You can't argue with math.
> The primary beneficiaries are the rich.
No, that's bs. The main beneficiaries are the American working class. They YEARLY have more income than American billionaires accumulated over generations. They elected Trump. Twice.
Meanwhile, 90% of workers worldwide earn less than $2 an hour.
And how many Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z have given up most of their tens of dollars hourly salaries for the benefit of the world's workers, earning less than two dollars an hour? Zero!
> What happened to the protests? The indignation? Get rid of this guy already you complacent fucks
I'm just reminding that this is exactly what Americans voted him to do. And in their opinion, the main problem is that he does what he does not effectively enough.
~70 million Americans voted for this out of ~350 million. Trump has a current approval rating of ~38% and approximately 60% of Americans think he's gone too far.
All the research clearly shows that higher turnout would have led to an even better result for Trump.
And the American polls are little more than a reflection of the less and less popular mainstream media's position and weakly correlate with what Americans actually do. We've already seen this twice in elections won by Trump: Americans follow the media, say how they disapprove of Trump, but then go out and vote for him.
I’m only aware of one data point: unlike comparable elections, the Republican won voters who did not participate in 2020. Sounds like you’ve seen other research?
There's nothing to manipulate. The majority of the US electorate is politically and literally illiterate. That's why their voting patterns are based almost entirely on the current economic sentiment, not the media.
Biden denied a worsening economic situation for the average American, and the response was Trump winning the election.
Trump has made the economic situation even worse, and his support is tanking. Which is why republican candidates are currently losing in landslides and we're breaking protest records.
> The majority of the US electorate is politically and literally illiterate.
Are you sure about that? Because it's hard to blame illiteracy on something that brings you 20 times more money (speaking of economic sentiment) than everyone else. It sounds more like malicious intent.
> 54% of adults have a literacy below a 6th-grade level (20% are below 5th-grade level).
> Low levels of literacy costs the US up to 2.2 trillion per year.
It seems like you're responding just to argue and not in good faith. You keep bringing up the average income disparity as if there are no economic woes in the United States. I'm not debating the massive privilege the US holds as an economic super power due to imperialist foreign policy. Feel free to respond but I won't engage with you further.
> It seems like you're responding just to argue and not in good faith.
It's a convenient position when the FACTS and MATH completely discredit your narrative that American workers are not actively contributing to what's happening because it's VERY beneficial (more than x20 benefits) for them.
> The rest of the world is also pretty much on board with this clean air and climate change stuff as it turns out people generally like clean air
Are you sure about that? Or you mistaking the world's opinion for that of the out-of-touch elites living in their lofty ivory towers? Because in the world, outside the media controlled by these elites, I see the exact opposite: it turns out THE WORLD generally like electricity at 2 cents per kwh (not 50 cents how elites like it), no matter how much carbon dioxide it emits.
In fact, wind and solar often bid negative amounts to sell power.
For those confused by this, the way a utility buys power is they take bids from powerplants, and then "fill their bucket" with the cheapest options, the most expensive, cheapest option is what everyone gets paid. So if you can compete in a market with coal and coal is 8 cents/kwh, and you have zero operational costs, you can bid negative values to always be in the bucket and be compensated 8 cents/kwh.
It's ironic how you're (unknowingly) doing the fossil fuel industry's bidding while ranting about an ominous elite that doesn't care about regular people.
This is so out of touch. Coal is the most expensive electricity source in the US and it's not even close. We have an administration pushing coal.
That means you get worse air, worse water, AND you pay more for it. Some of y'all are so delusional that you're not only fine with getting fucked up the ass, you're actually willing to pay more for it!
People don't become "lazy". They're lazy from the beginning. Laziness is something they overcome for personal gain. And if the system promises fewer personal gains for overcoming laziness, then why bother?
Private money in politics is one of the counterbalances to the emergence of a totalitarian state. The government gains a huge advantage over the opposition due to the fact that it is the government and receives free media coverage.
Yes, and most of this measures result in decisions being made by the most irresponsible people.
Prisoners voting is madness. They are in too dependent a position to believe that their vote will reflect their votes.
On the contrary, voting should be banned not only for prisoners but also for people working for the government in any capacity. People who live off taxpayers should not be able to decide how to spend their taxes.
Registration procedures should be more complex and strict, not simpler. If someone is irresponsible, disorganized, or illiterate enough to fail to fill the form on time, then why should we consider their vote meaningful? If someone believes they have more important things to do than vote, why force them to vote?
> Registration procedures should be more complex and strict, not simpler. If someone is irresponsible, disorganized, or illiterate enough to fail to fill the form on time, then why should we consider their vote meaningful?
The US tried to do this kind of "literacy test" before, remember? It's where the expression "grandfathered in" comes from: you had to do an impossible-to-pass test to gain the right to vote - except if your grandfather had the right to vote.
This was of course used to ban black people from voting without explicitly banning them for being black.
> Prisoners voting is madness
If prisoners can't vote, what's stopping the party in power from preventing them from ever losing an election by just jailing everyone expected to vote against them?
> People who live off taxpayers should not be able to decide how to spend their taxes
This should obviously includes everyone working for government contractors. Which is obviously going to include everyone working for any kind of tech company with any government contract. Which, considering HN demographics, means you likely shouldn't e allowed to vote.
Heck, why not extend this even further? Anyone living in a state which receives more money than it contributes in taxes should be banned from voting. Anyone using government resources should be banned from voting. Everyone driving their car on government-maintained roads should be banned from voting!
Where did I mention a "literacy test"? I'm against such tests for exactly the same reasons I'm against prisoner voting.
> If prisoners can't vote, what's stopping the party in power from preventing them from ever losing an election by just jailing everyone expected to vote against them?
Prisons, by definition, are built on the principle that prisoners are under the full control of prison administrations. If everyone who will vote against could be imprisoned, there would be no problem allowing prisoners to vote: prisoners would still vote in the manner desired by the prison administration. That's how prisons work. And I don't think there's a need to increase incentives for authorities to imprison more people to achieve the desired election results through prisoners' voting.
> any kind of tech company with any government contract.
Obviously, this shouldn't apply to "any" government contracts. But if the majority of a contractor's income comes from government contracts, then yes, employees shouldn't vote.
> Anyone living in a state which receives more money than it contributes in taxes should be banned from voting. Anyone using government resources should be banned from voting.
I don't understand why you're trying to reduce this argument to absurdity. The goal is to preserve democracy by reducing the government's ability to build a totalitarian dictatorship through its ability to control taxes. And yet you're proposing measures that would proclaim such a dictatorship.
> And I don't think there's a need to increase incentives for authorities to imprison more people to achieve the desired election results through prisoners' voting.
Because what happens in the ballot box is private, it should be possible to let prisoners vote without interference as long as poll workers are allowed inside to do their job, but it's not just people currently in prison you have to worry about. There are places where convicted felons can lose their right to vote even after they've served their time and laws like that have already been used to suppress votes.
> The goal is to preserve democracy by reducing the government's ability to build a totalitarian dictatorship
Freedom means having enough rope to hang yourself with. By strictly limiting who is allowed to vote and taking that right away from millions of Americans you'd be destroying the country, not saving it.
How come the US has a higher rate of struggling with groceries (12.2% US vs 8.5% EU), healthcare (44% US vs. 18.6% for costs) EU, education costs, etc.?
> they would also buy more expensive cars.
Price != quality. European cars have better safety standards, as well as being cheaper to own and run. American cars… the vibe I got from them on trips was the expectation for them to serve as an additional air-conditioned entertainment room that just happened to be on wheels, whereas the European ones are mostly a mode of transport unless you're specifically into luxury brands.
> How come the US has a higher rate of struggling with groceries (12.2% US vs 8.5% EU), healthcare (44% US vs. 18.6% for costs) EU, education costs, etc.?
Reliability of statistical data. The more totalitarian a state is, the more out of touch with reality it can be in its statistics. If we look at the statistics provided by North Korea, they have zero on all the points mentioned. Europe isn't there yet, but it's moving at full speed. Their cars even safer and cheaper to own and run than European ones.
> The more totalitarian a state is, the more out of touch with reality it can be in its statistics.
That's more of an American problem than an EU one at the moment.
We're not the ones shooting unarmed protesters in the head ten times after removing their legally owned gun, nor faking arrest photos, etc.
Even before that, our leaders have not* called for the death penalty to be used against politicians reminding troops of their existing obligations to not follow illegal orders.
Even before that, the US government shutdown at end of last year means some economic data was never collected at all.
Even before that, DOGE having Musk at the helm had obvious conflicts of interest with regards to e.g. ongoing investigations against Tesla.
* to my knowledge, but TBH wouldn't be surprised if Orban has, but also Hungary is to the EU as, IDK Wyoming perhaps, is to the USA.
I believe kitchen knives, without good reason (being a chef is a good reason, have just bought it ditto), are already banned in public in UK.
Still, UK does have a firearms licensing process; I doubt anyone at any protest would be allowed one, but the response of UK police only escalates to "pin to ground then shoot in head" when they've mistaken you for a suicide bomber wearing an explosive vest and expect you to blow yourself up in a crowded subway train (which has happened! I don't excuse this! But this is still less stupid than claiming someone is armed after removing their weapon).
This is all terrible. But how does this change the fact that Europe has a more totalitarian government, committing more political assassinations and persecuting political opponents, while Europe is mired in poverty?
I mean, compare the median wages of factory workers in Europe and in the US and the amount of taxes they pay to support gangs of alien rapists.
Because while Russia is indeed within the continent of Europe, counting it in this context is about as sensible as calling Venezuela and El Salvador "American" just because of the continent they happen to be part of.
If you didn't mean Russia, I have no idea what fiction you're reading.
Not that any of this justifies American cars being overpriced, having no real low-end options. You're way more car-centric than we are, lots of you need cars, whereas many more of us are fine without any, so you having no cheap (new) options is more surprising.
Ah, you’re talking about the regime that fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labour Statistics because the president didn’t like the figures, right?
More likely through outright bribery. What's the average hourly wage in the US? About $40? While 90% of workers worldwide earn less than $2. The difference is more than 20 times.
The American working class voted for this, the American working class is the main beneficiary of this, and, as far as I know, NO ONE in the American working class, even in solidarity with other workers, has handed over to them the money they unfairly receive at the expense of the rest of the world.
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