Quite possibly. Look, we’re in a state of cold civil war. On the path we’re on, we’re likely to end up in a hot war that will destroy all our infrastructure, level our cities, and leave millions of us dead. We could do all of that, or we could simply admit this isn’t working, go our own separate paths, and find a new way forward.

The US is honestly too big for its own good. There’s a reason the oldest nations on Earth tend to be much smaller than the US. Nations as large as the US either break apart or collapse into dictatorship and authoritarianism. The only way to hold such a large nation together is with an iron fist. Frankly, I would rather have smaller countries and retain democracy than lose democracy in the name of retaining a large single nation.

I’m at the point where I think we need to dissolve the United States entirely. The Constitution you learned about in school no longer exists. Congress is as ineffectual and cowed as the Senate during the Roman Empire. SCOTUS has completely abandoned the Constitution, but we all still pretend that its rulings are worth even reading, let alone following. The president is completely ineligible for office due to taking foreign bribes and leading a rebellion. SCOTUS believes sex discrimination isn’t sex discrimination. And the presidency’s powers have been expanded through emergency power after emergency power. And entire departments, which Congress only created because they were intended to operate independent of the president, now have been completely supplicated due to rulings by a corrupt Supreme Court.

We are caught in a cycle of ever-elevating abuse and violation of norms. Republicans are always the first one to break norms, but once the precedent is set, Democrats adopt it to. At this point, we’re basically electing a national dictator every four years; the core principle of the Constitution - separation of powers, no longer exist. And it’s a coin toss whether we’ll even have elections in 2028.

I’m sorry, but what are we even doing here? We have two parties that are fighting every four years for control of the national dictatorship. This has made the stakes of every election overwhelming. And both sides are thoroughly convinced of the irredeemable wickedness of the other. Why are we still doing this? We have options.

Government is meant to serve the people. The people are not meant to serve the government. If a government no longer serves the needs of the people, then that government, Constitution, or entire nation can simply be dissolved.

It’s time for a peaceful dissolution of the United States. Grant all 50 states independence, let them come back together into whatever new nation or nations they wish to form. Let them write a new Constitution or Constitutions based on the compromises of our own time, not those of 250 years ago. Yes, there would be negotiations that need to happen, but that’s happened through countless other national breakups.

And if you think the Constitution precludes this, you haven’t been paying attention. There is a very simple way to end the union forever. Someone just needs to run for president on that platform. SCOTUS has given the presidency near dictatorial control over everything in the executive branch. Someone could run for president on the following platform:

“I will be the last president of the United States. Elect me, and I will grant all 50 states full independence. I will fire every single federal employee. I will not collect any taxes. I’ll surrender control of military forces to the states. I will not resist any attempts by states to withdraw from the Union. In fact, through these actions I will force them to do so. If Congress or the Supreme Court object, I will ignore them. I will have a clear political mandate to dissolve this failed union. And those voices that want to deny the American people their future will simply be ignored.”

That’s literally all it would take. Congress and SCOTUS can piss and moan all they want. They’ll find themselves meeting in abandoned buildings with no electricity and no one guarding the doors. They can pass whatever silly resolutions or rulings they want; they’ll be pissing into the wind. In the meanwhile power will be completely dissolved to the states, and they’ll be working with each other to form new regional nations and write new Constitutions for them. Once the back of the existing federal government is broken in this way, there will be no putting it back together.

Our nation was built by human beings for the service of human beings. If we find that this nation is no longer serving the needs of the people, it can simply be peacefully dissolved. If a president were elected on platform of openly promising to do this? They would have such a political mandate that there would be no stopping them.

They left a lot of options on the table and then let the clock run out on them.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2024/12/20/biden-student-loan-forgiveness-relief-plan-scrapped/77105533007/

Exactly. And ultimately, voters don’t want to hear excuses. They don’t expect perfection, but they do expect some results. Republicans, even with limited majorities, always manage to achieve at least some of what they would call progress. Democrats OTOH just fine endless excuses. At some point, you’re either incompetent or admitting to your voters that you were lying to them - promising them something you would never be able to deliver.

Biden did student loan forgiveness, which should have given him all the college votes, yet people shurg and go “Well yea! About time!”

He dithered and only reluctantly did this. And then when he did, he did it in a way that a corrupt SCOTUS could overrule. There were other paths he could have taken, but he chose the least-confrontational approach and ultimately the court negated most of his efforts. His fault or not, very few people actually ended up getting their loans forgiven. If he failed to consider a hostile SCOTUS in his plans, then that is a strategic failure on his part.

He puts money into infrastructures and unions and again, people go “I guess, it’s a bit better than Republicans!”

His infrastructure bills are currently being torn to pieces as they were slow to actually spend their money. They were mired in everything bagel liberalism. A thousand requirements for dollar spent meant to solve every social ill under the Sun. But regardless, these bills didn’t directly help individuals. They may be necessary to curb the rise of China, but that’s not something that affects people’s lives directly. Unionization? Biden was unable to stem the decline in union numbers, and he himself chose to be a strikebreaker.

And they unfortunately clearly didn’t kill enough of Ann Coulter’s ancestors.

Honestly, I’ve been pawing through the list of medical conditions that let you still be eligible for the new covid booster. I have something that I think will qualify. But my funnier goto is that depression is one of the eligible conditions. And nothing makes me more depressed than an anti-science quack running our vaccine system!

I’ve been on tirzepatide for maybe three months at this point. I highly recommend it. I think the risks are massively overblown. It’s predictable fear-mongering that is simply an understandable reaction to how greedy the pharma companies are with their pricing on it. If you can’t afford it, it’s tempting to convince yourself it would be a bad thing to take it anyway.

I can’t afford it, but instead of spreading FUD about it, I found a third way. I just pirate the shit out of it! I’m not just taking tirz, I’m taking bootleg tirz! So far I’ve dropped from about 180 to 150.

¿Por qué no los dos?

I’ll take every vaccine I can get. Hell, I would sign up for the smallpox vaccine if I could get it, even though that disease hasn’t existed in the wild in decades. I want every covid booster. I want it all! Jab me up, give me that sweet MRNA!

And I’ll take the other stuff too. I love me a good edible. I’m on tirzepatide myself, even though insurance doesn’t cover it. How do I afford it? Simple! I pirate the hell out of it!

Why wouldn’t the president of the United States visit Washington DC?

Tale as old as time. The abused grow up to become the abusers.

Honestly, one of the most scientifically plausible “love potions” we might actually be able to make someday would something that long term couples might actually be really interested in. You know that initial early head-over-heels “chemical love” that happens right at the start of a relationship? In principle that could be duplicated artificially. That would be something.

Can I introduce a dilute form of it into the water supply and then have an easy path to elected office?

I’m not seeing any downsides here.

Well that works until the person you’re pining for is, unbeknownst to you, gay or lesbian. Now you’re in for more changes than you bargained for!

Yeah, whenever i see someone here saying that we need to resort to violence, my immediate thought is always, “Ok tough guy, where’s your truck bomb?”

I do more IRL resistance work than at least 95% of the people on this site. And I’m not even talking protests. I’m directly, on the ground, working to help some of the people most hurt by the regime’s policies. I’m not into violence, but I’m not above disobeying unjust laws either. So it’s not like I’m some online slactavist that refuses to lift a finger to actually help people. The kind of work I do is the kind of thing I can’t even post about on social media.

But it is an incredible shame how the right has taken over so many online spaces. 10-15 years ago, the left more dominated online spaces. The early internet was a mix of very libertarian and progressive. Hell the internet was built from the ground up on socialist principles. But it’s the right that really learned how to use the net most effectively as a means of mass communication and propaganda. And they did so quite deliberately. There was a deliberate and organized campaign among white supremacists on places like stormfront to subtly move their message to the mainstream.

I think those on the left tend to view things from way too scholarly a perspective. Why repeat the same message if you’ve already written extensively about it before? Or make sure to not post simple understandable messages; instead start with a dozen qualifiers and provisos that end up watering down your whole message. It’s more important to be intellectually rigorous than it is to effectively communicate your values. Or there’s the tendency for purity tests that end up shoving away otherwise eager allies.

The right meanwhile has learned that even bold faced lies can become widely accepted if you simply repeat them loudly and often enough.

Yes, obviously, but these type of comments are self-defeating and unhelpful. It’s more about trying to encourage the circulation of the idea that ICE needs to face criminal accountability. There should be a paragraph on ICE’s potential criminal liability in every article about them. People should mention their susceptibility to prosecution on every discussion about them. We should be including the topic of prosecutions in every casual conversation about ICE.

The right wing learned a long time ago that the public narrative matters. If there’s an idea worth spreading, then spread it. We need to get the idea of accountability in the public consciousness whenever possible. Otherwise, it’s the default instinct of every Democratic politician to try to be magnanimous when they’re elected. Liberals are by their nature non-confrontational; they’re happy to have people walk all over them. Obama and Biden both refused to prosecute the previous administration and tried to be grand peace makers, and look how that turned out. It will take a lot of public pressure if there’s ever going to be any accountability. That’s why we need to be circulating these ideas in the Zeitgeist. Yes, obviously this is just lemmy, but there’s no need to be such an unhelpful cynic.

Daily reminder to all ICE agents. By signing up for ICE, you have signed yourself up for a lifetime of fear and criminal liability. There are Nazi concentration camp guards that were tried for their crimes in their 90s. There is no statute of limitations on crimes against humanity. Your names are recorded; your deeds are known. And you will face justice for your crimes. And do not count on a blanket pardon saving you. Crimes against humanity are violations of international law that cannot be pardoned.

To drive her point home, as penance, she should immolate herself on the steps of the US House. Until she does that, ignore her like the liar she is.

As a reminder, the only people who conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism are raging anti-Semites. They hold the Hitlerian belief that to be Jewish is to owe allegiance from birth to Israel. They don’t believe Jews can truly be real Americans, or citizens of any country except Israel. Schumer believes in the old Nazi belief that Jews are, by nature of their birth, foreigners in every country except Israel. This is why they believe any criticism of Israel is an attack on Jews everywhere, because they believe that Jewish people cannot be truly American. They are always suspect. They’ll always have dual loyalty. Schumer is a raging anti-Semite.