Selfishness is the sister of greed
politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
They dont. The US isn't a democracy, its a plutocracys.
Stop parroting the oligarchs that punch down. Blame the oppressors.
Both are true.
It's not that complicated. The number of people who are in support of Luigi's actions aren't a majority:
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/17/united-healthcare-ceo-killing-poll
About 17% overall. There's stark differences between age groups, but none have a majority. Even if the poll is off by 10 points (which would be an egregiously large polling error), only a small but vocal minority are in support.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1bLmjKzZ43eLIxZb1Bt9iNAo8ZAZ01Huy/htmlview
The actual Emerson college survey has it at 58.7% of the people find the shooters actions as completely unacceptable. True 16.5% find it completely or somewhat acceptable. Lots of neutral and unsure at 15.9% and somewhat unacceptable at 9%.
BTW this poll isn't perfectly accurate in who they sampled as 37% south,17.7% northeast , 52% women, 18% post doc, 24% college grad,also so many old people versus young. The demographics aren't properly proportional.
That being said best insights we have polling though may be a way of the past
Fox News and other right-wing networks convince them they are voting for (or more frequently against) something else. Most of those people simply don't know, and won't believe you if you tell them.
I had this argument with my mom the other day. She agrees private healthcare is a broken system and needs to be fixed, but you bring up public healthcare and she'll fight tooth and nail to argue against it. It's insane. Literal "no take, only throw" tier mindset
Propaganda. People have been told their whole lives that socialism is pure evil, nevermind what socialism actually is. Public healthcare is socialism, therefore it's evil.
Folks saying racism are wrong. It is an -ism though, just not that one. IMO it's Classism. Same reason they flip shit when someone mentions raising the minimum wage. "Flipping burgers is for teens", meanwhile 1pm on a Tuesday they're getting a Whopper completely oblivious to the fact that there isn't a single person under 30 working there.
Racism, mostly.
Someone in another thread (maybe on Reddit, I don't remember) posited that this is a direct consequence of America's notion of individualism and I haven't been able to get that out of my head since.
It's a slippery slope from individualism to the fear of the Other.
The United States has fetishized individualism. Enough of the population feels that the individual is above/outside/not part of society. And honestly it's hard to blame them as non participation is becoming the norm due to financial stress, health stress, blatant lack of education, a clear path towards a state sponsored media while the rest of the media just rolls over.
As stress levels rise the commonality guys down. People withdraw from their communities for various reasons and then society starts to compartmentalize. Tribalism becomes the next big thing and before you know it two poor people are fighting because team blue and team red are now mortal enemies that are not allowed to share a single common view.
They support him for different reasons, and half of those people are unbelievably dumb.
They believe in a free market but also believe the free market is currently corrupt.
It's like people who believe in monarchy but hate their corrupt baron.
Similarly, I believe in democracy and often hate its result.
Believe it or not, some of the people cheering him on actually just like chaos and violence and don't have any deeper politics.
I do not believe you. I believe that it shows that the elections were not true to the opinions of the people.
My parents hate the insurance companies. But they've been convinced by the right wing that the government would handle things worse.
Which is stupid because the government already provides the majority of healthcare in this country and is doing it quite well. Medicare has a 90+% approval rate from the people who use it and it is far more efficient than private insurance.
That's why we are trying to make cuts on medicare. Can't have that shit working properly. Need the people clawing and fighting for every moment of life so they feel lucky to slave away for pennies. The best profits are funded by misery.
I agree.
They're ON Medicare
They're very stupid. Most adults have reading comprehension below a 6th grade level
Most adults think they have a higher than average IQ, too. Quite the coincidence, don't you think?
No.
They have higher than median HQ. Not average.
First Past The Post voting artificially limiting the number of viable political parties.
"How can people support human rights domestically when they support genocide abroad?"
A political party isn't an identity. It's a private company to get candidates elected.
You can be a part of any party and have the conundrum posed in the post.
Cognitive dissonance.
Because they don't realize that it will affect them. They think "this won't hurt me because I actually need Medicare. I'm going to stick it to all the freeloaders, of which I am not one."
But just like being in a car, you aren't stuck in traffic, you are traffic.
Because people, on the whole, are very stupid.
My wife explains it like this:
Racism.
White voters will cut off their own nose before granting health care to black and brown people.
Once upon a time I'd believe that was all it is/was. I'm convinced now it's more of an uninformed voter thing. "My dad/family/church/friend votes republican and he's a good guy. Besides Fox says if the demoncrats win they'll destroy everything I care about. Sure there's talk about racism/sexism/etc but I don't personally see it or have a problem with minorities, LGBTQ, or women, it's probably just political mudslinging. There's no way the people I love would support them if they really said those things."
No one is immune to propaganda and the top 1% owns approximately 95% of the media.
The average Joe is too busy living their life to try to understand anything beyond the basics.
Some of us do seem to be immune to the propaganda, though. I've heard so much anti-union propaganda. I've heard so much anti-Socialist rhetoric, anti-woke bullshit, etc. I was educated and employed in a red state.
Yet, here I am telling you that Socialism is the truth. Unions are awesome. I support just about any marginalized groups rights. Many of my friends and family feel the same even though they were educated and indoctrinated in the same system.
There is a lot more to it than just propaganda. I would say that tribalism plays a larger role. When someone is born into a conservative family, surrounded by conservative citizens, it becomes a lot easier to just agree with the status quo in the area to fit in. I can tell you, from my experience, that I was not very popular in school, due to being a dirty leftist with empathy.
I will say that my immediate family is not religious, not conservative, and they are very open minded, loving and empathetic people. This is probably the main reason I was immune to the propaganda.
The first step to falling for the propaganda is believing that you're immune to the propaganda.
Fair point. I guess I'm not immune. I was protected from that kind of propaganda by the armor of wise and empathetic family members, and their ability to educate and lead by example.
Yes, I was a little curt in my reply, had a bad day, I'm sorry. I'm happy for you and your family. :)
The long story short is: communication is hard and media is very powerful.
Also, the media is very owned by the top 1%. They would lose some money if healthcare became single payer.
The politics of the ignorant.
People want a world where they are rulers over everyone and everything and often many people just can't understand that there are other living, independent, free thinking individuals in the world. Most people see other humans as a hindrance to their own enjoyment of life.
They love Luigi Mangione because he is against the private health system that is stealing their money .... but at the same time they like Trump because he is against any socialized sharing of government resources - they believe that government should help only them or the worthy and not just everyone, especially those they think are unworthy.
It's a belief system that is based on the individual and only the individual at the cost of everyone else.
It’s simple:
The free market works as long as we get rid of these evil people.
Oh why can’t we have a Bruce Wayne who is altruistic and would save us since we clearly can’t trust the public to hold a lot of power.
Even people who want private healthcare don't want valid claims denied or price greedflation. They aren't inherently conflicting stances.
Surveys seem to suggest Luigi approval isn't that high, something like 18% overall and 41% for youth.
Actually, that 41% would be the more questionable vote but then again both parties love insurance companies so there really isn't a clear way to vote for universal healthcare, lol
People have been taught to fear single payer healthcare. Money equals speech and the health industry has plenty of it. They control the narrative since the rich and powerful have bought up the media companies. They also control our lawmakers with unlimited money via citizens United; putting roadblocks in place for any sort of fundamental reform.
People vote against their interests as a function of a corrupt oligarchy running the show. People are getting played and just don't know any better / have a limited world-view.
Because they think: if I have to suffer, everyone has to suffer. If someone hurts someone, I support it because I want to hurt people.
Well a lot of reasons but most importantly most people don’t support Luigi, you all are just living in an echo chamber.
These people have known hardship, and what all of this will mean and feel like when it will soon come to them.
"Rules for theee, but not for meee"
It will impact them, but they'll blame everyone else first, and Trump second.
They're not single issue voters?
Or at least not that issue single issue.