• orcrist@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    27 days ago

    The graph itself was not targeting Republicans. It was targeting capitalism. But if we wanted to target Republicans, we could note that the Republican party has worked very hard over the past few decades to cut a wide variety of social support services, going back to welfare in the 1980s, for example. If you want to argue that the Democrats also bear partial responsibility, probably many of us here will agree with you.

    • Red_Scare [he/him]@lemmygrad.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      edit-2
      27 days ago

      In the US, there is basically one party - the business party. It has two factions, called Democrats and Republicans, which are somewhat different but carry out variations on the same policies. By and large, I am opposed to those policies. As is most of the population.

      Noam Chomsky

      The United States is also a one-party state, but with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.

      Julius Nyerere

      The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament.

      V. I. Lenin

      Nowhere do “politicians” form a more separate and powerful section of the nation than precisely in North America. There, each of the two major parties which alternatively succeed each other in power is itself in turn controlled by people who make a business of politics, who speculate on seats in the legislative assemblies of the Union as well as of the separate states, or who make a living by carrying on agitation for their party and on its victory are rewarded with positions. It is well known how the Americans have been trying for thirty years to shake off this yoke, which has become intolerable, and how in spite of it all they continue to sink ever deeper in this swamp of corruption. It is precisely in America that we see best how there takes place this process of the state power making itself independent in relation to society, whose mere instrument it was originally intended to be. Here there exists no dynasty, no nobility, no standing army, beyond the few men keeping watch on the Indians, no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions. And nevertheless we find here two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state power and exploit it by the most corrupt means and for the most corrupt ends – and the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality dominate and plunder it.

      Frederick Engels in literally 1891