• 1984@lemmy.today
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    3
    arrow-down
    42
    ·
    edit-2
    6 months ago

    You must be young, believing politics can change anything. :) It’s charming.

    The decisions of where the world is going is made almost exclusively by random strangers you will never vote for or even know their name. Trump or Biden or whatever are just figureheads for the public.

    • TooManyFoods@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      6 months ago

      You must be young. I’m not old enough to experience it but if you think that politics can’t change things (for the worse) you must have never heard of the third Reich.

      “If voting made a difference they’d make it illegal” they are trying to.

      • 1984@lemmy.today
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        23
        ·
        edit-2
        6 months ago

        That’s like saying “look at Oprah”, everyone can become a billionarie in the American dream. :)

        These rare exceptions are brought up to try and make a case for a completely broken system that doesn’t represent what the people want at all.

          • Instigate@aussie.zone
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            edit-2
            6 months ago

            That’s definitely the intent of vested American interests (read:billionaires). The social programming has worked on this person. They’ve been successfully disincentivised from engaging in the political process by being convinced that they have zero capacity to affect change, when the truth is that they do possess a minuscule amount of power. This person doesn’t realise the value of collectivism; of grassroots activism; of gathering with those who are like-minded and trying to shift the Overton Window through direct action. They’ve been convinced that all they have the capacity to do is sigh and wring their hands. It’s a real shame.

            Edit: just read that their handle is ‘1984’. Like most who reference Orwell, I think you can make some fairly accurate assumptions about this person.

        • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          6 months ago

          While I totally disagree with your statement I would argue that Trump would absolutely fall into the category of one of those rare exemptions you talk about.

        • TooManyFoods@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          6 months ago

          I understand going straight to nazis is a maximalist position. But this analogy hurts me. I tend to be picky with analogies because they tend to shred nuance, but this one is the worst one I’ve heard in memory. Implying that politics effecting things is like saying “you too can be a billionaire” in rarity is just wrong. It’s not the one example, mussolini was literally next door. For a more recent example, remember how the uk voted to wreck their economy? For one close to home, remember how a guy barely won the electoral vote (10,000 in one state would have flipped it) and now women can’t get an abortion in Texas without being on death’s door (doctors, be careful how you define that if you don’t want a prison sentence)? Politics affects things. Whether it’s nationally or who gets into your schoolboard and starts banning Darwin.

    • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      Trump and the Republicans chose who’s sitting on the SCOTUS and let me tell you, they changed the lives of a ton of women. That’s all politics, had Democrats been in power from 2016 forward that wouldn’t have happened, the only way to change that would have been to elect them.

      Either you’re very young and trying to sound edgy or you’re old and ignorant if you don’t realize that everything is political and it’s the politicians we elect that have a real say in the matter.

      • aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        had Democrats been in power from 2016 forward

        They had a 60-seat senate majority in the senate in 2008 and chose not to codify Roe. They twirled their thumbs while Republicans openly plotted to do exactly what they did, for decades. If Democrats had been in power in 2016, Republicans would have done the same thing in 2020, or 2024, or whenever they got power back.

        I’m not saying don’t vote Democrat, but electoral politics is not enough.

        • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          6 months ago

          Thing is, there’s no reason the US should ever have the Republicans in power in the first place so maybe if people actually took the time to realise their vote matters and that politicians have power, they would go out and make sure it’s people that will actually improve their lives who get in power instead of going on the internet and say “Politicians don’t do anything, it’s done unknown person hiding in the shadows who make decisions.”

        • Tinidril@midwest.social
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          6 months ago

          They effectively had a 60-seat senate majority for only 3 months at the end of 2009. They had three months prior to that but had two seriously Ill Senators, Kennedy and Byrd, who were unavailable for votes. Even when they had 60, Byrd was barely available.

          The real failure is that Obama ran an inspirational campaign in 2008, then turned to milquetoast centrism the second he took office. That led to suppressed voter enthusiasm and the Democrats got clobbered in the 2010 midterms.

    • Ledivin@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      10
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      6 months ago

      You must be middle-aged. Elderly people regularly lament that they thought they had less impact on the world than they really did, and wish they hadn’t been so complacent. Stop being complacent.

      Trump’s first election killed millions of people from his lack of leadership/malicious misinformation during covid. That was political, and caused directly by the president at the time.

    • HappycamperNZ@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      6 months ago

      Oh yes, because Trumps decisions around covid had no real world applications. Fuck, Trumps attempt to keep this “fake” power had more effect on the world than you ever would.

      Im sorry you live in a County that is so fucked you think political actions mean nothing as they affect the core structure of society.