Comment by aebtebeten
12 days ago
> We’re just as upset by these idiots
The former soviets were upset with their empire, and got rid of it themselves.
Is there any reason you all would not be capable of doing what they did?
12 days ago
> We’re just as upset by these idiots
The former soviets were upset with their empire, and got rid of it themselves.
Is there any reason you all would not be capable of doing what they did?
There's no mechanism for the people to remove the president.
You can't have a loss of confidence vote that every eligible voter can partake in. There's no coalition system where one part can pull out and essentially dissolve the sitting coalition. No snap election.
By now it should be clear to anyone that the only way to remove the president, by lawful means, is to impeach and remove him. But with politicians choosing party over people, that will likely not happen anytime soon.
The median senator and congressman in the US has a net worth close to a million dollars. Other than in the very unlikely event that the US invaded, they will really never feel the effects of bad presidents.
At worst they will live under the threat of being primaried.
US politics is very much a case of "you've made your bed, now lie in it" for minimum the next 4 years.
If I understand correctly, this is to say the Soviet Union was more responsive* to its people than the United States is?
If the people wished to, could they not make it clear what the results of a primary would be, eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_the_Soviet_Unio...
If legislators are afraid of the President, should they not be more afraid of their constituents?
* in the event, it looks like it took them 4 years as well, 1988-1991, but somehow I doubt they were just telling themselves they'd sit around and wait for 2028...
soviet mil was a representative slice of soviet demographics. US civilian enforcers: not so much. (Elsewhen- the antiVW movement "worked" because the same was true of the US mil)
That's mostly it I think.
Edit- "anti-Kissinger" movement
8 replies →
It is fascinating how Americans see their system like something unchangeable given by god. My country is in about its sixth iteration and I'm already thinking it is time for new constitution.
Oh no, they did not. USSR collapse was precipitated by decades of economic war, where trying to keep up with US advancements depleted more and more of russian budget, finally plunging the country into collapse deep enough for elites to accept formal change of regime (of course while ensuring they stay on top).
The actual soviet people were bystanders.
Unfortunately, that makes a great deal of sense to me.
This explanation kind of implies the whole planet winds up sunk into the banana republic attractor?
(might Fahd have had more to do with the final collapse than Reagan? By opening his spigots to keep the nomenklatura from earning much hard currency with their principal export, could he have pulled a classic "the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent" trillionaires' poker move?)
> sunk into the banana republic attractor?
κῦδος to all currently trying nonviolently* to de-banana-ice the republic for which it stands! It gives me hope, Jo'anna.
May the Force be with you!
* a parody paper reports that Greenland is already being strongly defended — with strewn Lego blocks: https://www.der-postillon.com/2026/01/legosteine-groenland.h... (It's good they're hand, not remote, laid; I trust all feasible precautions were taken to protect civilians from their effects?)