1y ago

Americans' faith in institutions has been sliding for years. The chaos in Congress isn't helping

apnews.com Americans' faith in institutions has been sliding for years. The chaos in Congress isn't helping

For many Americans, the Republican dysfunction that has ground business in the U.S. House to a halt as two wars rage abroad and a budget crisis looms at home is feeding into a longer-term pessimism about the country’s core institutions.

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Madison_rogue @kbin.social

1y ago

Analysis

Americans' faith in institutions has been sliding for years. The chaos in Congress isn't helping

apnews.com /article/congress-institutions-faith-trust-dysfunction-polls-e9fdce2be173b3f984d60a794d008969

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- Most of it isn't particularly coordinated, albeit still by design.
  It's the nature of capitalists to want to keep their workers relatively ignorant and distrustful. This translates to many disparate plans that all tend to have the same outcome. Occasionally the capitalists hold hands as they run rough-shod over the "little people", but for the most part they're in it for themselves. Any alliances or coordinated efforts are opportunistic, not endemic.
  
  Marriage of convenience, not design. There is a middleground between vast international conspiracy and complete and random chaos. The world exists in that middle ground. They would eat each other alive if they didn't have us to devour first.
  
  I think it can be both. Musk got caught manipulating his stock holdings in Twitter, running his mouth, and forced to buy it (marriage of convenience), and then making moves to intentionally restrict speech on the platform and tank it to suppress people organizating against his interests (intentional).
  
  I think it can be both.
  So... kind of like a middle ground?
  
  Hanlon's Razor: never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by incompetence.
  
  Generally a good rule of thumb for a first reaction; however, never forget that malice does exist.
  
  Of course. The point is not to disregard malice at all times. It's to make sure you're not dealing with simple incompetence before you land on malice as the root cause.
  
  It could be both. Elron seems malicious and incompetent.
  
  Easily the best way to underestimate an ideological opponent.
  The world is more complicated than just malice and stupidity.
- I don't disagree with you, but our institutions were designed at a time when messages traveled at the speed of a horse and 90% of the population were growing food for everyone. While there has been a concerted effort to undermine our institutions, they're also old and there might be better
  Of course, this means a Constitutional Convention, and because those rules were written hundreds of years ago it will also give land more representation than people, and we'll probably end up with something worse than what we have.

25 comments