I'd suggest that when people say they want to reform the "system" at the Federal level, it does NOT mean that they want to completely dismantle the federal *bureaucracy*. The day-to-day operations of the Federal Government - national parks, FDA, Medicare, etc. - are fine. It's that Congress has become so entrenched in its operation on behalf of the "moneyed elite" that has people shouting to dismantle *that* aspect of the federal government.
Exactly. There is an almost complete disconnect between most of both houses of Congress and the vast majority of their constituents. Much of this derives from the general belief that politics has become a game and the buy-in begins way over what most of us can pay. There are a few exceptions, but they are becoming increasingly rare.
I agree, but then why did so many of the middle class and lower vote for this group? Why do they think letting billionaires run the show will help them? And why are the DEMs not doing a better job at explaining that firing all these FED workers isn't going to put a dent in the National debt. It's only 3% of the budget.
I'm not clear on what sort of rigged we are talking about. But, yes, the system is rigged in ways we can easily identify:
1. Elections are rigged in many states where gerrymandering has taken hold because of partisan redistricting. Also, election rules such as ballot box rules and the availability/unavailability of polling sites (can vary from by district), or requiring voters to go to only one poll location, are all forms of rigging.
2. The tax system is heavily rigged in favor of the rich by favoring investment income over wage income. Capital gains, dividend and investment interest special treatment is an abomination. Everyone should be paying into Social Security and Medicare whether or not their income is called "wages."
3. The wealthy have always had better access to politicians, but Citizens United has made it 1000 times worse.
4. Basic rights, such as healthcare, can vary widely from state to state.
That's not an exhaustive list, but it covers the big picture. All of these items are fixable, but 1, 3 and 4 would likely require Constitutional amendments which makes the fixes hard. Note that these are state issues as much as Federal issues, and sometimes the Feds are getting blamed for bad behavior at the state level. #1 could be fixed at the state level, but only the Federal level can give uniformity. #2 is easy if you can get a Democratic majority in both houses at the same time, and not too many have been bought by the wealthy (I'm a realist, unfortunately).#3 & #4 are Constitutional.
I just don't understand why so many think our government is "rigged", when the obvious problem is that we keep voting for those who are not really interested in working for the constituents who put them in office. There are far too many congressmen and women who are only there to attain power, wealth, and some level of recognition. They want to keep the poor and middle class in an endless struggle to survive, all the while enhancing the lives and pockets of the wealthy, themselves included. They are the ones who continually spout off about the "rigged system" so it is no wonder that those who voted for them, believe what they say. Very few seem to get any kind of variety as to daily news, and far too many do not read anything that is not a tweet. I am so tired of dealing with the aftermath of consequences that follow the will of voters who basically voted for things that will make their life worse. Having blind faith in your political party, despite evidence that it is actually harming our planet and those who live here, has got to stop. Maybe the horrendous attack on Americans by Trump and his party, will finally open the eyes of those who have supported them. If not, then the Democrats need to expand their message and reach out to all voters, with a message that will get through to everyone on a very basic level. We are in a faltering democracy at the moment and everyone needs to realize this.
This. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. They vote for the same people, nothing changes, “the system is rigged”.
"We found that how these conversations are framed makes a big difference in terms of the stories people tell about what’s going wrong, and what can be done to fix it. "
I for one, am so WEARY and FRUSTRATED with simplistic survey/polling questions like "Is the system rigged?"
The query has ZERO value unless you also ask "HOW?" and "WHY?"
Start demanding specific evidence, concrete examples, and personal context, or how will we ever know how to "unrig" the system?
Agree! Same goes for the survey question “Is the country headed in the right direction”. And worse, then conclusions are drawn and actions proposed based on the (useless) statistic of how many people say “no”.
The people are not wrong; the system IS rigged. Of course, we actually want a bit of rigging because otherwise Elon would have ALL the wealth and the rest of us would be groveling outside his gates hoping he'd throw us a crumb.
But since the days of St. Ronnie, the system has been rigged to favor capital over labor. Government (Republicans, anyway) has abandoned the principle of promoting the general welfare to an ethos that says greed is good and corporate responsibility is to shareholders only. The result is a tragedy of the commons that denies things like environmental racism and climate change, and an economy that treats workers like commodities to be used up and thrown away.
Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer has given some inspiring TED talks in which he demonstrates the vacuity of this philosophy. You can find them here:
The question I would like to ask is what does an unrigged system look like to each of these constituents?
I don't think the system is rigged but that is because I'm an immigrant from another country and so another system. So my way of question has been how does the system work? Where does it work for me and where does it work against me. How can I best navigate it. In a way - How do I traverse these uncharted waters. There are definitely better ways of doing things than the American system but there are also advantages to it. Part of the rigging has to do with the culture. Basically the people who are saying that the system is rigged are partly the ones rigging the system, not just in the way they vote but in their expectations from the system. I would think that the main reason that the system is rigged in the US is the belief in private property and privacy as the highest values. There are probably other aspects that culturally rig the system but this is one that saddens me the most. The commons and public space and so the importance of supporting those are undervalued.
Oh yes, the system is rigged: instead of improving the common good, it is destroying it (Musk: who is he to do that???) and transforming this country in a big banana republic. Let people experience how it is to live in a place with a dysfunctional government. I did ! One of the amazing things about the USA is the amount of effort they have been putting through generations in studying , organizing, collecting valuable data…when I think about these idiots trying to destroy all that knowledge and the people behind it, my heart brakes.
I would ask these people how they define "rigged," and how it affects their lives directly. Unfortunately, the culture of the USA includes the certainty that wealthy people are good people who somehow figured out how to get past all the poor people and their government advocates weighing them down. Wealth as the ultimate goal, culturally, is a ticking time bomb that, I think, went off on Nov. 5, 2024. Donald Trump acted the all-American hero rich guy whose fortunes were imperiled at every turn because of the devils rigging the system against him, when he only ever had America's best interests at heart, the America of the good old post-war expansion that created wealth for ordinary Americans and gave their kids a leg up. The admixture of that wealth-hero-worship and the lack of an effective social safety net that doesn't imply 'loser' status upon the unfortunately under-employed, and here we are. The real rigging these days is the wealthy -- Trump's handlers -- increasingly get away with the bank, theocrats tell us that to be poor is a sin, and wannabe fascists say they need guns and more guns to keep real economic reform at bay. That is some deadly rigging, I'll say.
Personally, I'm tired of waiting for things to get better. I want a secure retirement. I want good health care. I want a paycheck that keeps up with the cost of living. I want enough money in the bank that I can travel if I want to. I want to make the necessary repairs on my house without wondering how I'm going to come up with the scratch. I would like to be able to take the whole summer off work and go on vacation. The concept of "spending summers at the lake or the beach house " has always been a pipe dream for me and my family. I'm don't want to gold plate my twelve yachts--even if I had them--I just want enough and a bit. I want my basic needs taken care of and a little extra. My politics are simple: does this bill, this agency, this program, this initative make life easier for rank and file Americans, myself included? If yes, I'm for it. If no, I'm against it.
Excellent article and I concur. I’ve encountered much complacency even among known liberals~particularly the young. Our system became side tracked and mired in extremism on both sides. Getting people to buy all the current rhetoric now feels impossible. It’s hard to light a fire without a match.
What followed was the extreme wealth inequality Senator Sanders has been shouting about for years.
The rigging started with the initial innocuous Facebook. Family pictures shared by far-flung cousins and grandmothers.
What followed was the anonymously spewed hate, violence and threats of murder, foreign manipulation of elections, and descent into a morass of cultural meltdown on unregulated social media platforms.
The rigging started with the decline of local journalism and newspapers.
What followed is the successful rise of angertainment, hate monger blogging, and now - the shutting down of the White House press corps.
- Citizens will be forced to rely on personal responsibility, private enterprise, and decentralized solutions for healthcare, education, and security.
- Governments will operate like businesses and those who can afford their protection will be mere customers rather than citizens.
5. Economic inequality will skyrocket
- The transition will create a divide between early adopters of the new digital economy and those who do not adapt.
- “Cognitive elites” will thrive, but the majority of people – those dependent on traditional employment or government aid – will struggle.
- However, the authors claim this transition will increase personal freedom (for the elites, anyhow) and reduce government power (which they see as a good thing).
Quote from book: [snip] "Particularly, we are focusing on the reaction to the advent of the cybereconomy and its many consequences, including the emergence of economic inequality more pronounced than anything seen in the past.”
6. The transition will be disruptive and violent
- Governments will resist losing control, leading to authoritarian measures and political upheaval.
- Cybercrime, digital warfare, and new forms of economic conflict will arise as old power structures weaken.
- Violence and organized crime will rise. Elites will rely on private security forces for protection.
Quote from book: “Violence will become more random and localized. Organized crime will grow in scope.”
[snip]
Good jobs’ will be a thing of the past.”
8. Democracy will die
- Democracy as we know it will not survive in its current form.
- Small and “efficient” and specialized corporate governance models may replace large, bureaucratic nation-states.
- Political loyalty will be less about nationality and more about choosing jurisdictions that align with economic status and personal values.
Quote from book: “Now that information technology is displacing mass production, it is logical to expect the twilight of mass democracy. The crucial megapolitical imperative that made mass democracy triumph during the Industrial Age has disappeared. It is therefore only a matter of time until mass democracy goes the way of its fraternal twin, Communism.”
It would help if you gave us some clue as to what TF you mean by "rigged." Rigged how, in favor of whom and what outcomes? These huge percentages who "think the system is rigged" are going to have very different ideas about what this means. Everything from (this is something I heard a real person say) "You know the blacks get free college and free health care; Obama did that," to "the billionaires get all the breaks, the rest of us get to pay for it." Each of these is a "system is rigged" complaint, but I have a feeling they didn't vote for the same people in November.
The most germane question is: Just who has rigged the system? By and large, it has been the GOP over the last 45 years, in service to the interests of Big Money. As Warren Buffet has said, yes, there is a class war, and his side is winning. Democrats have not been blameless, though mostly through trying to be "Republican light," and not fighting hard enough against the rigging. Expecting Trump and Republicans to fix things is like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, in order to cure your headache.
It's rigged because both cons and libs took every chance to rig it in their favor. Republicans were just better at it, more incremental, more single minded. Dems were scattered.
Examples: SCOTUS makes bribing politicians LEGAL with unlimited donations.
SCOTUS refuses to outlaw gerrymandering when there are scientificly fair ways to set voting districts.
Electoral college, which gives great power to the rich, persists in spite of being unfair.
I'd suggest that when people say they want to reform the "system" at the Federal level, it does NOT mean that they want to completely dismantle the federal *bureaucracy*. The day-to-day operations of the Federal Government - national parks, FDA, Medicare, etc. - are fine. It's that Congress has become so entrenched in its operation on behalf of the "moneyed elite" that has people shouting to dismantle *that* aspect of the federal government.
Exactly. There is an almost complete disconnect between most of both houses of Congress and the vast majority of their constituents. Much of this derives from the general belief that politics has become a game and the buy-in begins way over what most of us can pay. There are a few exceptions, but they are becoming increasingly rare.
Funny that they're using the "it's rigged" excuse to rig it some more.
Getting rid of government waste should be an aspirational goal and ongoing work.
What irks me is that "DOGE" isn't doing this to reduce the deficit and pay down the debt.
They're doing it to give more tax breaks that heavily favour the rich while shafting the suicidal veterans.
All that does is shift the burden of debt to our children while musk gets to buy another country.
I agree, but then why did so many of the middle class and lower vote for this group? Why do they think letting billionaires run the show will help them? And why are the DEMs not doing a better job at explaining that firing all these FED workers isn't going to put a dent in the National debt. It's only 3% of the budget.
I'm not clear on what sort of rigged we are talking about. But, yes, the system is rigged in ways we can easily identify:
1. Elections are rigged in many states where gerrymandering has taken hold because of partisan redistricting. Also, election rules such as ballot box rules and the availability/unavailability of polling sites (can vary from by district), or requiring voters to go to only one poll location, are all forms of rigging.
2. The tax system is heavily rigged in favor of the rich by favoring investment income over wage income. Capital gains, dividend and investment interest special treatment is an abomination. Everyone should be paying into Social Security and Medicare whether or not their income is called "wages."
3. The wealthy have always had better access to politicians, but Citizens United has made it 1000 times worse.
4. Basic rights, such as healthcare, can vary widely from state to state.
That's not an exhaustive list, but it covers the big picture. All of these items are fixable, but 1, 3 and 4 would likely require Constitutional amendments which makes the fixes hard. Note that these are state issues as much as Federal issues, and sometimes the Feds are getting blamed for bad behavior at the state level. #1 could be fixed at the state level, but only the Federal level can give uniformity. #2 is easy if you can get a Democratic majority in both houses at the same time, and not too many have been bought by the wealthy (I'm a realist, unfortunately).#3 & #4 are Constitutional.
I just don't understand why so many think our government is "rigged", when the obvious problem is that we keep voting for those who are not really interested in working for the constituents who put them in office. There are far too many congressmen and women who are only there to attain power, wealth, and some level of recognition. They want to keep the poor and middle class in an endless struggle to survive, all the while enhancing the lives and pockets of the wealthy, themselves included. They are the ones who continually spout off about the "rigged system" so it is no wonder that those who voted for them, believe what they say. Very few seem to get any kind of variety as to daily news, and far too many do not read anything that is not a tweet. I am so tired of dealing with the aftermath of consequences that follow the will of voters who basically voted for things that will make their life worse. Having blind faith in your political party, despite evidence that it is actually harming our planet and those who live here, has got to stop. Maybe the horrendous attack on Americans by Trump and his party, will finally open the eyes of those who have supported them. If not, then the Democrats need to expand their message and reach out to all voters, with a message that will get through to everyone on a very basic level. We are in a faltering democracy at the moment and everyone needs to realize this.
This. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. They vote for the same people, nothing changes, “the system is rigged”.
"We found that how these conversations are framed makes a big difference in terms of the stories people tell about what’s going wrong, and what can be done to fix it. "
I for one, am so WEARY and FRUSTRATED with simplistic survey/polling questions like "Is the system rigged?"
The query has ZERO value unless you also ask "HOW?" and "WHY?"
Start demanding specific evidence, concrete examples, and personal context, or how will we ever know how to "unrig" the system?
Agree! Same goes for the survey question “Is the country headed in the right direction”. And worse, then conclusions are drawn and actions proposed based on the (useless) statistic of how many people say “no”.
The people are not wrong; the system IS rigged. Of course, we actually want a bit of rigging because otherwise Elon would have ALL the wealth and the rest of us would be groveling outside his gates hoping he'd throw us a crumb.
But since the days of St. Ronnie, the system has been rigged to favor capital over labor. Government (Republicans, anyway) has abandoned the principle of promoting the general welfare to an ethos that says greed is good and corporate responsibility is to shareholders only. The result is a tragedy of the commons that denies things like environmental racism and climate change, and an economy that treats workers like commodities to be used up and thrown away.
Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer has given some inspiring TED talks in which he demonstrates the vacuity of this philosophy. You can find them here:
https://www.ted.com/speakers/nick_hanauer
posted a longer thing above, but "the rest of us grovelling" is what the tech fascists are dreaming of
Gil Duran has been covering Silicon Valley ... fascist dreams for a long time. Here's his latest - 2025-02-25
https://www.thenerdreich.com/the-sovereign-individual-radical-bible-of-techs-cognitive-elite/
He's the real deal; fwiw, Heather Cox Richardson has quoted him :)
Thanks for the link (I think). I would be more depressed except I'm probably old enough to be dead before the unthinkable happens.
The question I would like to ask is what does an unrigged system look like to each of these constituents?
I don't think the system is rigged but that is because I'm an immigrant from another country and so another system. So my way of question has been how does the system work? Where does it work for me and where does it work against me. How can I best navigate it. In a way - How do I traverse these uncharted waters. There are definitely better ways of doing things than the American system but there are also advantages to it. Part of the rigging has to do with the culture. Basically the people who are saying that the system is rigged are partly the ones rigging the system, not just in the way they vote but in their expectations from the system. I would think that the main reason that the system is rigged in the US is the belief in private property and privacy as the highest values. There are probably other aspects that culturally rig the system but this is one that saddens me the most. The commons and public space and so the importance of supporting those are undervalued.
Oh yes, the system is rigged: instead of improving the common good, it is destroying it (Musk: who is he to do that???) and transforming this country in a big banana republic. Let people experience how it is to live in a place with a dysfunctional government. I did ! One of the amazing things about the USA is the amount of effort they have been putting through generations in studying , organizing, collecting valuable data…when I think about these idiots trying to destroy all that knowledge and the people behind it, my heart brakes.
I would ask these people how they define "rigged," and how it affects their lives directly. Unfortunately, the culture of the USA includes the certainty that wealthy people are good people who somehow figured out how to get past all the poor people and their government advocates weighing them down. Wealth as the ultimate goal, culturally, is a ticking time bomb that, I think, went off on Nov. 5, 2024. Donald Trump acted the all-American hero rich guy whose fortunes were imperiled at every turn because of the devils rigging the system against him, when he only ever had America's best interests at heart, the America of the good old post-war expansion that created wealth for ordinary Americans and gave their kids a leg up. The admixture of that wealth-hero-worship and the lack of an effective social safety net that doesn't imply 'loser' status upon the unfortunately under-employed, and here we are. The real rigging these days is the wealthy -- Trump's handlers -- increasingly get away with the bank, theocrats tell us that to be poor is a sin, and wannabe fascists say they need guns and more guns to keep real economic reform at bay. That is some deadly rigging, I'll say.
Personally, I'm tired of waiting for things to get better. I want a secure retirement. I want good health care. I want a paycheck that keeps up with the cost of living. I want enough money in the bank that I can travel if I want to. I want to make the necessary repairs on my house without wondering how I'm going to come up with the scratch. I would like to be able to take the whole summer off work and go on vacation. The concept of "spending summers at the lake or the beach house " has always been a pipe dream for me and my family. I'm don't want to gold plate my twelve yachts--even if I had them--I just want enough and a bit. I want my basic needs taken care of and a little extra. My politics are simple: does this bill, this agency, this program, this initative make life easier for rank and file Americans, myself included? If yes, I'm for it. If no, I'm against it.
Excellent article and I concur. I’ve encountered much complacency even among known liberals~particularly the young. Our system became side tracked and mired in extremism on both sides. Getting people to buy all the current rhetoric now feels impossible. It’s hard to light a fire without a match.
The rigging started with Citizens United.
What followed was the extreme wealth inequality Senator Sanders has been shouting about for years.
The rigging started with the initial innocuous Facebook. Family pictures shared by far-flung cousins and grandmothers.
What followed was the anonymously spewed hate, violence and threats of murder, foreign manipulation of elections, and descent into a morass of cultural meltdown on unregulated social media platforms.
The rigging started with the decline of local journalism and newspapers.
What followed is the successful rise of angertainment, hate monger blogging, and now - the shutting down of the White House press corps.
Is the system rigged? It d*** well is.
the technofascists want to end democracy and an economy for everyone
Gil Duran has been covering Silicon Valley ... fascist dreams for a long time. Here's his latest - 2025-02-25
https://www.thenerdreich.com/the-sovereign-individual-radical-bible-of-techs-cognitive-elite
4. The Social Welfare state will collapse.
[snip]
- Citizens will be forced to rely on personal responsibility, private enterprise, and decentralized solutions for healthcare, education, and security.
- Governments will operate like businesses and those who can afford their protection will be mere customers rather than citizens.
5. Economic inequality will skyrocket
- The transition will create a divide between early adopters of the new digital economy and those who do not adapt.
- “Cognitive elites” will thrive, but the majority of people – those dependent on traditional employment or government aid – will struggle.
- However, the authors claim this transition will increase personal freedom (for the elites, anyhow) and reduce government power (which they see as a good thing).
Quote from book: [snip] "Particularly, we are focusing on the reaction to the advent of the cybereconomy and its many consequences, including the emergence of economic inequality more pronounced than anything seen in the past.”
6. The transition will be disruptive and violent
- Governments will resist losing control, leading to authoritarian measures and political upheaval.
- Cybercrime, digital warfare, and new forms of economic conflict will arise as old power structures weaken.
- Violence and organized crime will rise. Elites will rely on private security forces for protection.
Quote from book: “Violence will become more random and localized. Organized crime will grow in scope.”
[snip]
Good jobs’ will be a thing of the past.”
8. Democracy will die
- Democracy as we know it will not survive in its current form.
- Small and “efficient” and specialized corporate governance models may replace large, bureaucratic nation-states.
- Political loyalty will be less about nationality and more about choosing jurisdictions that align with economic status and personal values.
Quote from book: “Now that information technology is displacing mass production, it is logical to expect the twilight of mass democracy. The crucial megapolitical imperative that made mass democracy triumph during the Industrial Age has disappeared. It is therefore only a matter of time until mass democracy goes the way of its fraternal twin, Communism.”
It would help if you gave us some clue as to what TF you mean by "rigged." Rigged how, in favor of whom and what outcomes? These huge percentages who "think the system is rigged" are going to have very different ideas about what this means. Everything from (this is something I heard a real person say) "You know the blacks get free college and free health care; Obama did that," to "the billionaires get all the breaks, the rest of us get to pay for it." Each of these is a "system is rigged" complaint, but I have a feeling they didn't vote for the same people in November.
The most germane question is: Just who has rigged the system? By and large, it has been the GOP over the last 45 years, in service to the interests of Big Money. As Warren Buffet has said, yes, there is a class war, and his side is winning. Democrats have not been blameless, though mostly through trying to be "Republican light," and not fighting hard enough against the rigging. Expecting Trump and Republicans to fix things is like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, in order to cure your headache.
It's rigged because both cons and libs took every chance to rig it in their favor. Republicans were just better at it, more incremental, more single minded. Dems were scattered.
Examples: SCOTUS makes bribing politicians LEGAL with unlimited donations.
SCOTUS refuses to outlaw gerrymandering when there are scientificly fair ways to set voting districts.
Electoral college, which gives great power to the rich, persists in spite of being unfair.
And so on and on