The public having an illusion of input into how the country is run is central to keeping it going without popular revolt. A very brief timeline:
Country starts. You can refer libs to Natopedia on this one, and most of them won’t even dispute anything because that’s settled history from when our country was Not Nice. There were at least two layers of protection for the owning class from the will of the people – states were allowed to determine who could vote, generally agreeing on white male landowners, and the Senate was appointed. There was a choice quote from one of those guys pretty much predicting the popular appeal of dividing up the holdings of large landowners and the necessity of the Senate to ensure against it, but I haven’t been able to dig it up – little help? Thank you, @peeonyou, for finding Madison’s quote!
Political parties emerge. This was practically inevitable and happened almost right off the bat, meaning that anyone who wanted a country that’s not so shitty had to get the buy-in of powerful people who wanted it to continue to be shitty. By the time the landholding requirement for voting was gone, our current duopoly was solidly entrenched. Still at least two layers.
The Seventeenth Amendment passes. Direct election of senators seems like a big win for the people, but who was behind it? William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper magnate. It was a statement of confidence in the propaganda instruments; the people were so propagandized that there was no longer concern about them voting in their own self-interest. Still at least two layers.
Three-letter agencies come into being. If you try to challenge white supremacy, you get killed. The Civil Rights movement allows black people to vote for either wholly-owned party. At least three layers.
The Information Superhighway revolutionizes everything. The initial internet hype was that anyone’s reach could extend worldwide. Ron Paul. Bernie Sanders. Even if we say that the internet completely supplanted corporate media, there are still two layers.
The internet turns into bullshit. The internet consolidates down to four sites sharing memes from the other three. All of them work with the three-letter agencies to ensure that nothing ever changes. TikTok allows people to see the carnage in Gaza and is slated to be banned. The DNC argues successfully in court that it doesn’t have to be democratic and doesn’t lose any supporters. Genocide Joe’s handpicked successor could win without ever getting a single vote in an open primary. Corporate media, bourgeois political parties, three-letter agencies and an approaching great firewall give the owning class more insulation from popular sentiment than ever before and virtually nobody cares.
From the above trajectory, it seems the the owning class has the least to worry about as in any time in the history of the country, so why would they allow a new chapter to be written in which their control is revealed to be brute force supported by nearly nobody?
In England, at this day, if elections were open to all classes of people, the property of landed proprietors would be insecure. An agrarian law would soon take place. If these observations be just, our government ought to secure the permanent interests of the country against innovation. Landholders ought to have a share in the government, to support these invaluable interests, and to balance and check the other. They ought to be so constituted as to protect the minority of the opulent against the majority. The senate, therefore, ought to be this body; and to answer these purposes, they ought to have permanency and stability.
The public having an illusion of input into how the country is run is central to keeping it going without popular revolt. A very brief timeline:
Country starts. You can refer libs to Natopedia on this one, and most of them won’t even dispute anything because that’s settled history from when our country was Not Nice. There were at least two layers of protection for the owning class from the will of the people – states were allowed to determine who could vote, generally agreeing on white male landowners, and the Senate was appointed. There was a choice quote from one of those guys pretty much predicting the popular appeal of dividing up the holdings of large landowners and the necessity of the Senate to ensure against it, but I haven’t been able to dig it up – little help? Thank you, @peeonyou, for finding Madison’s quote!
Political parties emerge. This was practically inevitable and happened almost right off the bat, meaning that anyone who wanted a country that’s not so shitty had to get the buy-in of powerful people who wanted it to continue to be shitty. By the time the landholding requirement for voting was gone, our current duopoly was solidly entrenched. Still at least two layers.
The Seventeenth Amendment passes. Direct election of senators seems like a big win for the people, but who was behind it? William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper magnate. It was a statement of confidence in the propaganda instruments; the people were so propagandized that there was no longer concern about them voting in their own self-interest. Still at least two layers.
Three-letter agencies come into being. If you try to challenge white supremacy, you get killed. The Civil Rights movement allows black people to vote for either wholly-owned party. At least three layers.
The Information Superhighway revolutionizes everything. The initial internet hype was that anyone’s reach could extend worldwide. Ron Paul. Bernie Sanders. Even if we say that the internet completely supplanted corporate media, there are still two layers.
The internet turns into bullshit. The internet consolidates down to four sites sharing memes from the other three. All of them work with the three-letter agencies to ensure that nothing ever changes. TikTok allows people to see the carnage in Gaza and is slated to be banned. The DNC argues successfully in court that it doesn’t have to be democratic and doesn’t lose any supporters. Genocide Joe’s handpicked successor could win without ever getting a single vote in an open primary. Corporate media, bourgeois political parties, three-letter agencies and an approaching great firewall give the owning class more insulation from popular sentiment than ever before and virtually nobody cares.
From the above trajectory, it seems the the owning class has the least to worry about as in any time in the history of the country, so why would they allow a new chapter to be written in which their control is revealed to be brute force supported by nearly nobody?
From James Madison: