The issue isn't representation, it's division. The party that won is being well represented with respect to the values of their constituents, whereas the opposition views it as a daily nightmare. These two visions of the world cannot be reconciled.
Representation needs to be less about black/white political ideology and more about the specific needs of various people. Farmers need representation, white color workers need representation, small business owners need representation, but their needs are all different, and don’t really boil down to left/right politics. The government isn’t treated as a forum to collaborate on solving problems, but as a playground for the powerful to create boogeymen that get people riled up.
That makes sense, but for most voters the left/right politics matters more than the economic identities you mentioned.
Most people don't care that much about the economy, they make up their minds based on other issues, then find a way to rationalize the state of the economy with that choice after the fact.
But the thing is your local gov & economic policies (tax codes, bonds, projects, trade) matter to your actual daily life and retirement far more than left v right. They just play that game to keep you enraged and baited. And people do actually care about gas, groceries, and inflation; they just don't vote in their own objective interest
I agree while also disagreeing. It feels to me like the Democrats seemingly always get their way while in power while Republican presidents with a congressional majority get little to nothing done.
To me they have the classic problem as with non-profits: “If we solve the problem we cease to have a cause to exist.”
Taking a look at what’s been accomplished this past year, it’s a lot of token Executive Orders on renaming things, a token deportation effort, no material change on mass legal immigration, nothing happening on the voter ID front.
It’s just theater until they lose out in the midterms and they to rally their base again in 2028 to “Save America” or “Keep It Great” or whatever hokum.
Democrats will undo it all when the pendulum shifts.
First, republicans blocked everything including formarly own proposals when Obama adopted it ... ever since Obama. It is other way round, the republican party is getting what it worked for, because democrats are weak opposition.
> Democrats will undo it all when the pendulum shifts.
It is impossible. Will they give reparations to blue cities? From what money?
Likewise institutions - it is easier to corrupt and destroy them then to build them anew.
Amd crutially, the right wing supreme court needs ro be enlarged or new constitution written for the bad precedents to be changed.
> token deportation effort,
The whole thing is bigger size then most militaries.
> no material change on mass legal immigration,
The whole classes of legal immigrants were suddenly ruled illegal and are violently mistreated.
> nothing happening on the voter ID front.
Republicans are trying to make voting for blie places harder.
On the immigration front, please note that Obama deported more or about-as-much migrants per year than Trump in 2025. I don't really get why democrats oppose this, while they cheered the same policy a decade ago.
The problem isn't deporting illegal immigrants, the problem is revoking legal status, abusing detainees, hurting people on the street, and the occasional murder.
Obama years had also the same kind of abuse and killings by the border patrol. At least 56 recorded deaths of immigrants caused by ICE and custody[0]. Some murders were settled to avoid a trial.
Protests against ICE were much smaller then (billionaires didn't fund NGOs to organise them either), so it was easier for the agency to operate as well, and it was quickly memory-holed.
Any preventable death in custody is a tragedy, but there’s a major difference between a death due to inadequate precautions against suicide or due to inadequate medical care, and tacking someone to the ground in the street and shooting them ten times in the back. I really hope you understand that and are just pretending not to in order to score points.
Edit: also, why is it that whenever someone makes an "Obama did bad stuff too" argument, it's always with the intent of "so you shouldn't be upset about it now," rather than "you should have been upset then like I was, and I'm still upset about what's happening now"?
Regarding deportations, it's not "also bad stuff" - it's just an application of the law.
I don't see the problem with pointing out the hypocrisy where very wealthy democrat donors fund activist organizations to disrupt the ICE/Border patrol activity, while looking away when their guy is in power. Protests evolved as well, organized by professionals with the aim to escalate and disrupt ICE's activity, which leads to such tragic events.
In France, we are accustomed to the same kind of escalation, where antifa black blocks commonly throw molotov cocktails, leading to more violence and so on. Thankfully the riot police is well trained to avoid fatal incidents, which is clearly not the case of the current-day ICE (and generally in the police forces in the US).
After all the complaining, the solution is likely either to desescalate both sides, and ask for accountability and more training - bodycams are a good tool, for instance. But I guess that "better training for ICE" isn't a very entertaining slogan ;-)
Why are you talking about deportations again? The problem is the associated abuses.
What is the purpose of telling me that the same stuff happened under Obama? Let's say just for a moment that this is true, and that the difference in reactions is driven by some hypocritical activists. What sort of change are you hoping to induce in my mind by saying this? If that really was true, then the correct reaction would be to continue to be appalled by and oppose the current administration's actions, while also being careful to watch out for such things in the future by other administrations. But I'm going to do that anyway, so there isn't even any point to that.
It really looks like you're bringing this up with the intent that I should stop change my mind about what's happening now and think it's all just fine and dandy, which is ridiculous.
As I explained before, two movements are at play: a drastic ramping up of the ICE, with some unexperienced agents behaving unprofessionally, and at the same time, billionaires funding NGOs to organize protests, coordinate media and harass the agencies in charge of the deportation.
Things such as blowing a whistle when ICE agents are intervening, doxxing agents or following their cars aren't going to help desescalate the situation or help create a sane culture in those agencies.
Which is it, did the protests start before the abuses, or are the abuses just a continuation of the Obama years?
It's not supposed to be up to the public to deescalate. Law enforcement needs to behave professionally even when facing people who don't like them. That is literally their job. If they can't handle it without committing some murders, then the agency should be torn down.
Trump has to deal with the aftermath of the Biden years, where unauthorized immigrant population reached 14 million in 2023. It is also harder to expel them if they are inside the US rather than at the border.
The Republicans this term have gotten plenty done, it's just nothing that helps average people. Their wins can't be widely celebrated and so they aren't, as much.
I would say one side is being told that they should believe it a daily nightmare, e.g. people on the right really disliking obamacare but loving the aca.
The problem in America is that more than half the country does not live in a shared factual reality. Like:
* Jan 6 was a fedsurrection, and also simultaneously all innocent people that needed pardoning (Pardoning the feds?)
* World Liberty Financial receiving billions selling out American interests worldwide? Never heard of this but Burisma was worse!
* The Raffensperger call was no big deal there were attorneys on that call. Trump's personal (now disbarred) attorneys, of course, not there to represent America's interests but how's that the big deal?
* Also who's Raffensperger? But did you see those boxes under the table! What do you mean the clip is longer than 6 seconds that's all I saw on the infinity scrolling apps.
There is one reality that's undeniable: that political donations by individuals are strictly monitored and can land you in jail if violated, but PAC money is untraceable and unlimited. That fact alone has led to stacking the deck in favor of lobbyists and monied interests at the expense of the electorate and national institutions.
I assume you mean Citizens United v FEC. Should they not have been allowed to release their documentary? Its not an easy question and there's a reason none of the dissents directly address Roberts' opinion.
I’m not a lawyer and won’t address the merits or lack thereof of the ruling on the particulars of the case. The effect of the ruling was a sweeping change in money in politics. It effectively legalized an oligarchic take over of governance. It’s a fact that money and advertising largely determine outcomes in battleground races. Tipping those races, along with the structural power imbalance in federal politics, means that control of the government is relatively easy and cheap.
I don't know if you read your own source but it's incredibly unconvincing "research" slop. In their "case study" they just point to a particular race and the money the candidates received and infer it's bad.
No analysis if the politician was acting against their constituents interests... Pretty embarrassing paper to put their name on. I can see why there's no coauthors.
Also they conflate political ad spending with issue awareness ad spending, which is a borderline malicious.
This is the infamous call where Trump, according to the recorded tapes, tried to overturn the 2020 presidential election results by demanding that Raffensperger "find 11,780 votes".
