Voting in America: A sobering reality

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I'm on my second Chris Hedges book, 'America: The Farewell Tour' which paints a very grim picture regarding the state of the U.S.. Once you begin to replicate the model of late-stage empires, the end is not very far down the road, perhaps just a couple of decades. Having spent 20 years as a war correspondent, Hedges has seen the collapse of many authoritarian regimes around the world. He adeptly puts the current state of the American empire into historical context.

Once the government was hijacked by the ruling elite, voting became a meaning activity as effecting any meaningful change. No good candidates can ever rise to the top because the entire system, including the media, is invested in maintaining the corporate state.

So is there hope? Yes, but it's going to require a massive awakening of the people to stop playing the game they've been programmed to play. We can't continue to hold our noses every few years and pick the candidate that seems the less objectionable. All we're doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic ( and perhaps adding a few pretty potted ferns.)

It will take a massive resistance on a scale we haven't seen since the the 1960s. As much as I'd like to disagree with Hedges' assertions, I can't. It's not a terribly positive message and not particularly palatable to most people.

I do applaud the author for his courage in the face of rampant censorship and narratives that are designed to keep the masses in a state of perpetual ignorance.
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Impose term limits.
End gerrymandering.
Fight for unions.
Stop acting like America is a special snowflake country that is more special and better than every other country. You're not that special. We're not that special.
End the two-party system through election reform.
Reform campaign finance; end the lie that "money is speech".
Actually make sure the wealthy are paying what little taxes they're legally obligated to pay.
Decrease bloated spending on the military.
Invest in public education.
Stop with the forever wars abroad.
Give immigrants an easy, fast path to citizenship.
Welcome immigrants into unions so they do not have to become scabs to feed their families.

Surely people on #BothSides can agree to at least some of these.

Don't like the corporate elite? Maybe stop blindly worshipping capitalism. The elite get off on your unwillingness to believe that there is any alternative to centrist, laissez faire capitalism.

Stop romanticizing America's past.
Stop worshipping the Founding Fathers (blessings and peace be upon them) like they are demigods.
Stop treating the Constitution the way Christian fundamentalists treat the Bible.
Stop buying into Outrage News for Profit.
Stop lamenting that #BothSides are to blame then sit on your apathetic civic-rhetorical a** and do nothing to challenge the elite.
Stop acting like there is a moral equivalency between rioters protesting government violence and rioters who want to intimidate congress into not certifying an election.

(Edit: disclaimer that this is not directed at OP, this is all directed at my fellow Americans)

^^^My biggest fear is that Americans have been do systematically propagandized for so long, and anesthetized by entertainment, that it may be next to impossible to build the movements needed to bring about the changes you're taking about.

I agree on pretty much all your points, though. Is there any hope or are we pretty much screwed.

Yeah I struggle to think of anyone I've met who does not think we should have congressional term limits. Do something like. I don't know. Limit 2 terms for senators (12 years) and limit 4 terms for Reps (8 years).
The main people I have met who oppose this are constitutional originalists who fear that with term limits Congress might lose objectivity and get swept up in a given time's Zeitgeist. (A stance which boils down to: "We need entrenched elites so they won't face consequences for ignoring the will of the electorate". It's paternalistic).
To which I would counter that I would rather be governed by people who live in the present--not fossils who have been in power since before I was born.

But instead of focusing on getting this very basic, simple s*** done that almost anyone can get behind, we bicker over culture wars and spending bills.

Oh, I'm sure they believed there was election fraud, no doubt about it in my mind. I'll get attacked for this, but I would say their hearts were in the right place, even if their brains were out to lunch.

I posed an interesting question to a friend of mine awhile. I asked her, "If you had uncovered empirical evidence of election fraud in 2020, would you expose even if it meant Trump would serve a second term." She said she wouldn't because it was more important to get rid of Trump.

Personally, I think election fraud on that scale is just wee bit more dangerous that Trump in the WH for another four years.

This post was in response to Dox47's post. I did not notice that Walrus had posted before me.

There is no way to reform the system from within, only without. Voting will not impede our steady decline.

if only there was a way for amuuurica to split along its cultural and geographic fault lines, like how some washingtonians favor something called "cascadia" which is a coalition of western washington, western oregon, BC and perhaps even california