Slightly OT, but this is also why we absolutely need ranked voting ASAP. How much better would a candidate like Sanders do if people knew that voting for him as first choice and Biden as second was possible?
Well he lost the primaries, which is when you vote for the candidate you really want. But he lost the primaries because the DNC aired a never ending stream of bullshit telling the people it was impossible for Sanders to win, and then pointing to the current super delegate polls as evidence. Idk why people are terrified of voting for a losing candidate in the primaries though. Who gives a fuck if your vote loses in the primaries? You should vote for the candidate you want, not the one you think is going to win. It’s not a casino bet.
The closed primary system is just so fucked in general, these are private organizations that can do whatever they want, the DNC and the RNC.
I still don’t like Debbie Wasserman Schultz. She was literally marched out of the DNC office because of the bias she showed towards Hillary Clinton in leaked emails. Then she gets hired by the Clinton campaign!
Shit was so crazy.
Decades ago I changed my voter registration just because I was tired of not being able to vote in the primaries. I think they’ve changed that since then, but I don’t know, since it doesn’t impact me anymore.
I think some states require that you be registered to the party for primaries and some have open primaries.
The thing is, because the final vote for president isn’t ranked choice, the spoiler effect is also spoiling the primary. People will vote for the candidate they think can will at the national level, else Trump might win.
If you had ranked choice voting at the actual election, only then would the spoiler effect be fixed.
Now no offence to the US political system but the primaries are a symptom of a two party system.
Without them and with ranked choice voting, y’all would have had Sanders (edit: in 2016) and we wouldn’t be having this discussion.
Much love. I mean it.
No offense taken. Even our first president and founding father, George Washington advised against a bicameral system.
They should just pick a dictator for life, would save them a lot of money and the result would be the same.
Yes, but I remember numerous people being like “Well he could never win against Trump, so I’m voting for Biden.”
Ranked choice isn’t that much better. It is better, but very slightly. We need to implement STAR, which is vastly better even at its worst. Essentially, it’s just a 0-5 vote for candidates, and any empty is a 0. It allows you to rank some at the same and then some as “better than nothing” leading to a well rounded choice that most people approve of.
People love ranked choice voting but not whats involved with getting it instituted.
Can you elaborate?
Voting for candidates that support it.
Here’s an interesting anecdote. The people of Shelby County, TN elected to enact ranked choice voting in the county (it was a ballot option 2 elections ago). It hasn’t been signed into law yet.
So at least in this case, I’d say the problem isn’t people not voting, it’s nefarious agents succeeding in subverting the feeble democratic processes in this country to act against the people’s interest.
The MIC would literally never have Sanders win. Ranked voting won’t happen until we vote 3rd party
Or, you could support candidates that support racked choice voting (who are mostly liberals). That sort of thing happens locally and at the state level.
Situation sucks. But, with Cheeto chimp it’ll suck 1000X more.
Don’t be complacent. Don’t be apathetic.
How exactly os trump worse than the guy aiding in a genocide?
Tell the DNC to pick a candidate worth voting for. Esp one not beholden to the MIC like Trump and Biden.
“If you don’t give me something better, I’ll default to the objectively worse choice and fuck myself over out of spite.”
Conservative logic. Except it’s a lie, the only way you’d vote for anyone but a corporate fascist is if the other guy was an even bigger corporate fascist. You are 100% fine with the status quo, because you happen to profit from it. Or fear, could be straight up fear.
The logic you’re using is really dumb coming from someone not in the ruling class.
Your one bit of power is to say, “I’ll vote for you if you put forth a candidate I can get behind.” The second you accept the terms of “you have to vote for X, because Y is worse” you lose all political power. They can do anything they want. They can lie about anything. They don’t have to do anything to fight for your vote.
I’m just sick of this smug bullshit from people practicing “real politik”. You don’t live in a democracy, you’re openly admitting it, and you can’t even see it.
Okay but you’re living in a fantasy world. In reality, it’s a 2 party system and you vote for the guy who will fuck you over least. Project 2025 is the plan. Let’s not have Project 2025 come to fruition.
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This is what your attitude will bring into fruition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_2025
I wonder if you’re a member of one of the minorities who will end up second-class citizens, if citizens at all, if they achieve their goals.
The astroturfing on this thread is insane.
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If the system shows nothing but contempt for the people, it shouldn’t be surprised when the people reciprocate that.
The people don’t need America, America needs the people. They have zero responsibility to save the failing system from itself.
Fuck off with your astroturfing unproductive non-takes. Biden is perfectly viable. Beholden to the mic? You think that’s the biggest issue this election cycle?
You’re the one picking the old ass man. AstroTurf my ass.
This is posted in political humor, but unfortunately, it’s not a joke.
Nor do I find it humorous.
But one day I hope I can laugh about it.
Probability you will cry instead is 100%.
I am not familiar with the US system. Is it really realistic that a US president can abolish or fundamentally change the rules around the democratic process?
Not him specifically, but there are multiple plans and machinations in motion, by other Republicans, to stack every level of government with 10s of thousands of loyalists who will do whatever they want, so that if he tried 2020 again, they’ll just roll over and enact it.
A lot of our best institutions are based on gentleman’s agreements. If our representatives must ignore the processes we’ve come to expect, because those processes were never actually written down or coded into law… Yeah, the president has an unbelievable amount of uncheckable power to make the government just not run as intended.
The basic hypothesis is that if the president did something treasonous, he could be arrested by the military, who are sworn to protect the Constitution.
He couldnt change the rules, because our legislators do that, and its all written in the Constitution. But he could fail to appoint people, appoint people to multiple cabinet positions, or some other weird ways to get around this.
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No, what you’re reading here is over the top fear mongering to try and get people to vote for their side. That why everyone who doesn’t toe the line are now “facist.” Because if you can get people to become afraid they’ll vote against their own interests (and as much as they like to claim they do, the DNC in no way is working in our own interests)
Politicalhumor both on Reddit and here is for agendaposting. There is no funny to be had.
And before you down vote me, I’m not republican or conservative in any fashion.
Idk… what you just said made me laugh, so…
As a Canadian looking from the outside in, it really does seem to be trending in that direction… any further Republican wins will mean the end of democracy, with America sliding into a ChristoFascist Autocracy.
I fear for my American neighbours, but we have similar problems up here; we just happen to be a decade or so behind you folk.
Land of the free capital
Unless you are broke ass. Then no capital for you
can you really call this two party system a democracy
No. Did you know they wanted to send international observers for the last election because of worries that the US no longer adheres to democratic process? They were turned away, of course.
You know, like in third world nations and dictatorships.
The democracy in the US is not considered a “real” democracy where I come from
In political science terms it’s what we call a “flawed democracy,” meaning that it has some but not all the features of an actual democracy.
PP is absolutely taking notes.
Also Canadian. We are certainly on the same path. It feels like everyone around our part of the country is a “fuck Trudeau” type that just clearly wants the 1950’s to return and women where they should be. As a very liberal but not so political person it’s kinda scary.
If you remember when Trudeau was first elected, they called him the Selfie King or some idiotic shit like that. Like, the fact that he took photos with young people is somehow a reason to hate him. The propaganda and astroturfing has been ongoing for 8 years. It’s called “foreign interference”.
A republican win does not mean the end of democracy, just like it didn’t last time.
It actually potentially does. I’d suggest looking into Project 2025. If you’re not familiar with it, it’s a political battle plan being put forward by a bunch of hard-right think tanks with substantial connections which would effectively establish a theocracy in the US. My understanding is that part of the plan hinges on the president basically removing anyone who can stop him and replace them with sycophants (which they’re currently populating a list of). The idea is that if they’re able to remove enough people, they can do whatever they want. They don’t need a majority in the supreme court or house of representatives because they can just ignore them; the sycophants will follow whatever orders they’re given regardless of what the house or court says.
To put it another way, they’ve realized the house and scotus only have power if that power is respected; if they remove anyone in-between the president and the other branches who’d say “no” and replace them with yes-men, then there’s no one to stop the president from doing whatever he wants. That said, I’d be willing to bet the moment the president says “no” to the scotus is the moment they’ll make a show of how much power they truly have, but it’ll get really bloody if that happens.
You know Lincoln told the supreme court to fuck off right? Was he “dictator” was it the end of democracy? Were people like you reading bathroom scrawling and screeching about project 1862?
That was a completely different situation ENTIRELY. Lincoln’s Republican party resembles nothing of what the GOP is.
There was also a civil war under Lincoln. Additionally, last time I checked Lincoln also wasn’t trying to overthrow the entire government and replace it with a theocracy. He was trying to abolish slavery. Reducing the country’s authoritarianism is kinda the opposite of what Trump & Co. are trying to achieve.
That is such a poor comparison that I’m seriously wondering if you’re trolling. If so, 4/10, you got me respond but your comparison is so poor that it left me questioning whether or not it was genuine.
Just like it didn’t last time because we managed to avert the attempt? You’re right, let’s give the same people another go, I’m sure they’ve given up on that idea by now.
Avert it how, by voting him out? Which he followed by stepping down?
People say his fighting the results in courts are proof of him trying to overthrow, but it’s not, it’s proof that he used the system correctly, in the legal ways he could. He may still claim to have won, but his actions are not that of a dictator attempting to overthrow democracy.
That being said, it’s still not clear who the republican nominee will end up being.
Well we know where you were january 6th
I was in my bedroom studying for my exams. :)
You mustn’t be a political science major, that’s for sure.
You’re right, I design substations. :) do you think political science majors are less likely to fall for or spew propaganda? Or be biased?
Fuck off bot.
Project 2025.
This was the same promise in 2020. And yet here we are. Democrats should have done better than beg to save democracy one more time.
Preserving democracy was never going to be a single-step solution process. It takes consistent, persistent work to not only expand, but to just maintain our liberty for all. It’s a tower defense strategy game.
At the close of the Constitutional Convention of 1787, a lady asked Benjamin Franklin “Well Doctor what have we got, a republic or a monarchy.” Franklin replied, “A republic . . . if you can keep it.” This existential threat has always been there and it’s something to always be wary of. It’s exhausting, but it’s worth it. Freedom ain’t free.
It wasn’t really a concern until recently. We didn’t have constant threats against democracy from within our own government when I was a kid.
Until recently? We had a little thing called the Civil War that was a bit of a speed bump, too.
That’s why I added the part about “when I was a kid”. I suppose I should have clarified that I’m talking about within my lifetime. There have definitely been other dark moments in our history.
So, Nixon & Watergate wasn’t a threat?
Citizens United wasn’t a threat?
And don’t forget the constant attempts of voter ID laws in Republican states.
Gerrymandering by incumbent parties.
Poling booth closures and inaccessibility.
As five examples of an endless, constant stream from Republicans.
You just have no fucking idea what you’re talking about.
That is all bad, but it’s not “we’re going to cancel voting and stay in power indefinitely” bad, which is what people fear from the Republican party now. It’s not “we led a group of fanatics to Capitol Hill in an attempt to overthrow democracy” bad.
If it wasn’t clear, I wasn’t saying it was an unreasonable fear. They attempted a literal coup. It’s a legitimate fear.
I think I misread your post. Sorry.
It’s cyclical. There was an uncannily similar fascist movement in the US immediately prior to WW2. We had members of Congress on the Nazi payroll, for example. It’s happening again; fascism and authoritarianism are on the rise across the globe.
You can just tell everyone you are an idiot instead of suggesting you know something they don’t.
“You ever notice whenever the republicans do something terrible or prevent something good from happening, it’s always the democrats fault?” -Fucking idiots everywhere.
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Yeah but we don’t have to eat shit to survive do we? So why the fuck are we acting like Biden was our only choice. What kind of stupid analogy is this?
Nina Turner said it years ago… our “choices” were a full bowl of sh!t or a half bowl of sh!t… https://youtu.be/X1ObX0iDRjo
can you really call this two party system a democracy
In 2028 a mummified version of Biden will be put forward as candidate until 2032, when a new act in place allow for digital avatars to be president and digital Obama comes back with Yes We Can, Again!
Not only that but what is Biden going to do for climate in the next 4 years? Like really… He sucks
He’s still the best option as sad as that is
Revolution is the best option.
You don’t vote for a revolution
Wow really
Good luck with that.
Cool, I’m sure the government’s predator drones are just itching for some action.
Difficult does not mean not necessary.
Besides, the US military lost in Afghanistan and Vietnam, they have no hope of winning a domestic counterinsurgency of sufficient scale.
Banning gas cars and giving more funds for green energy. Meanwhile orange man wants to increase the usage of fossil fuels. Could be more but could also be less.
You realize Biden’s signature legislation added massive funding to the development of solar and wind power as well as funding a huge expansion of electric chargers across the country?
More than what Trump will do.
I look at this fom a far and i wonder: Why do the democrats not just get a younger more capable person to vote for?
Because they’re part of the system run by the wealthy and powerful, and younger peeps not only have to claw their way into that microcosm, but are often then bought out / corrupted by that very system.
Democrats are a party of capital, which resist the young for two reasons:
-
They do not hold capital in any capacity that can be compared to older generations
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As a result, they are overwhelmingly more anti-capital than previous generations.
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Because Biden’s flaw isn’t his age. That’s the propaganda. Biden’s flaw is that most of America are mouth-breathing retards that don’t understand what political ideology is and vote for the guy who says “it’s not your fault, it’s that guy’s fault!”
the guy who says “it’s not your fault, it’s that guy’s fault!”
Aren’t that both of them?
How would that help old fucks like Feinstein (rest in piss), Pelosi, Biden et al make more money or their corporate masters though?
Because they are as corrupt as the Republicans are. The democratic party will never fix America only a third party can.
The ‘viable’ third party candidates in my lifetime so far have been Ross Perot, Ralph Nader and RFK, Jr. None of them had a real chance and all of them were one flavor or another of crazy.
So maybe a third party can fix things, but none of the ones that have ever had a chance within the past 46 years.
Ron Paul was viable but ran as a republican and got the establishment treatment despite insane support from the younger generations. His party prevented him from being a 2nd name on the ballot for Republicans. Then many years later, the exact same thing happened to Bernie who was fucked over from a 2nd spot on the ballot by a last second rule change vote at the democratic convention when the nays clearly outweighed the yays. Both times those respective parties lost those elections. Both times they would have won should they have gone with the people that would have brought about change to our political systems. The establishment doesn’t care about losing. Only preserving itself.
The libertarian racist Ron Paul was not in any way viable. That’s nonsense. You show me a single poll where it showed like he would have made it into the Oval Office if he had done things differently.
I know you Ron Paul fans think he’s awesome, but he’s a paeloconservative shitbag that would rather people die in the streets than tax the rich.
Once you’re so far gone that you will only choose between “genocide guy” and “a little more genocide guy” it’s Joever.
Okay. Name the candidate aside from Trump or Biden that has a good chance of winning in 2024. Go ahead. Because otherwise, as I keep suggesting, it looks to me like a vote for someone else is no better than no vote at all.
I keep asking what it achieves and I’m not getting an answer.
If all you care about achieving is “I feel good about myself,” fine. But that doesn’t seem like a reason to make the effort to vote.
What is your obsession with only voting for who you personally think can win?
My “obsession” is stopping Trump and Project 2025 so that I’ll be able to vote again ever.
Well you better stop voting for the parties of Capital then. Your vote is already almost meaningless, so use it to make a better world before its too late!
Whichever you want.
The Liberatian party seems like a decent alternative to the Dems so you could go for Jo Jorgensen. But anything that isn’t Republican or Democrats is a requirement for a moral vote.
The Liberatian party seems like a decent alternative to the Dems so you could go for Jo Jorgensen.
In what way are Libertarians an alternative to Democrats? Democrats want a strong social safety net and Libertarians want a government so small you could drown it in a bathtub.
You either know nothing about Libertarians or nothing about Democrats.
If you care about the cultural freedoms they’re the same. Also the non intervention policies are a lot better than throwning all your money into the military industrial complex which you seem to call “Healthcare”.
Else you got the Greens.
Unless of course you want everything the Democrats do including the genocide part. Then I can’t help ya.
ROFL!
Joe Biden has the authority to resign. Joe Biden can choose to not run in 2024. If he cared about preserving democracy, he would let someone more electible take his place.
If things go wrong, it’s the fault of the people in power.
The incumbent president has only lost 10 times in US history (and one of those was Trump). Biden already beat Trump once. Who has a better resume than that?
Seriously. Tell us a name.
Not to mention Biden actually had a great run and got a shitload done, but this is what you get when you have 24/7 banana republic propaganda blaring in people’s homes.
Also Lemmy itself. This place is a cesspool of mis and disinformation. I come here to waste a little time mindlessly doom-scrolling and shouting into the void, not because I actually think that I’ll find informed, intelligent and insightful comments.
Why isn’t he electable? He was already elected. Are you saying he’s old? Trump is 3 years younger. Before Biden, Trump was the oldest president of all time.
This
“This” 🙄
“”This””
If things go wrong, it’s the fault of the people in power.
If you agree with something, click ‘up vote’ and walk away.
Your comments, much like your entire existence, adds nothing of substance or use to the world.
If things go wrong, it’s the fault of the people in power.
Came here to say this. If the dems actually cared about winning and preserving any last inkling of democracy the states still has then they would replace Biden with literally any other candidate.
I’m all ears, who would be the better candidate? Because I want that person running for Senate in all the states that might be up for grabs.
The president won’t matter if we lose control of the Senate AND the house. Well either be fucked or stuck in a deadlock like we are now
Literally anybody
You think Kamela Harris has a better chance of beating Trump?
Believe it or not, the Dems can put forth a completely new person…
You said literally anybody. Was that not true?
Random tangent aside, sure, yes she would have a better chance. Biden is 1000 years old and the Zooms are not about his buddy-buddy-MIC stance. Biden will not beat a Trump rematch.
reductionist stupidity
As we all know, politics only happens when you vote for president every 4 years.
It’s kind of the main thing that decides who the leader is. What’s your point?
That most political action happens outside of voting for president. Ofc having a friendly presidency helps a lot for all the other political action, and rn its a choice between an Establishment Dem and a fascist, but having a friendly presidency alone does little for real change.
Weird, I was sold almost the exact same line in 2020.
It’s almost like the same totalitarian is running on the GOP ticket.
Annnd thennnnnn… what happened on Jan 6th?
Really? Can you cite this? The Internet was around then. Should be easy to find an equivalent quote like, say, Cheney’s.
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It’s not a democracy, and those are very much features.
Nah, it’s bugs. This shit is 234 years old. The failure of fptp nor primaries was part of the plan.
FPTP was used by England since the middle ages. I don’t believe anyone worked out the math until much later than 1776. It was just a fairly old tradition.
Exactly, fptp is fine in small groups and for single issues. How it fails at national scales was something unknown.
The fact that it was something unknown, directly implies that it wasn’t “part of the plan,” as you already directly stated. The founding fathers were working with the best tools they could, they still made mistakes, but that’s a totally different argument.
The plan was completely derailed between 1874 and 1929. The (completely unnamed in any documents) Secretary of The Congress illegally revised statute 1983 of the federal code in 1874, and no one noticed and alerted the general public until 5/15/23.
In 1929 The House of Representatives decided that they would stop actually legislating by fixing the number of Representatives to the 1930 census, and never bothering to expand The House ever again, despite The Constitution saying that no Representative shall represent more than 250,000-500,000 constituents.
These two actions by dubious actors in the latter case, and a traitor to the constitution in the former case, have caused almost 90% of the issues we currently have in The US, trying to hold anyone accountable, or trying to elect officials that will bother listening to us.
Democracy 0.0.1alpha1
DemoCrac-y 0.0.1alpha1*
This is the same tired line we have to hear every 4 years. It’s been a substitute for concrete policy and it’s gotten all of us nowhere.
It’s sad how the US spends trillions on defense, when all it takes to seize control over the nation is some bottom tier Dollar Store propaganda that any third world nation could afford.
Fuck em both I’m voting for Brandon.
Dark Brandon?
No, star of The Crow Brandon Lee. He’s been dead for 30 years, but I’m pretty sure he’d still do a better job than either of the current options 🤷
Is that not who the top part is about?
Oh, I’m sure they would still hold elections. But your options would be even more limited. “Sorry, but the other parties just didn’t run any candidates for this election. Imagine that.”
News Flash: We are already there in a lot of districts and the entrenched Capitalist parties like it that way. Maybe stop voting for them? It’s the least you can do.
We literally do not live in a democracy according to a bunch of empirical studies, and also according to basic material analysis.
The opinion of the masses is never reflected in our government.
Does your politics begin and end at participating in sham elections? Why aren’t you encouraging people to take meaningful political action?
Imagine being Russian and the extent of your political activism is encouraging people to vote Putin out.
That’s how ridiculous you are.
What is your definition of “meaningful political action”? Picking up guns? Got news for you, the government has more of them.
Voting starts at the local level. You vote people into local city government who reflect your views and values. Those people often enough have greater aspirations and want to move up in the political machine. It’s extremely rare for someone to be vaulted from average Joe to major political player in one leap. Trump was able to do it by being a populist piece of shit who could pay his way into office.
You have to start small. Get your city council to look like you, then move on to the county, the state, etc.
What is your definition of “meaningful political action”? Picking up guns? Got news for you, the government has more of them.
Do you really think the two options for politics are voting in sham elections and WACO?
Voting starts at the local level. You vote people into local city government who reflect your views and values. Those people often enough have greater aspirations and want to move up in the political machine. It’s extremely rare for someone to be vaulted from average Joe to major political player in one leap. Trump was able to do it by being a populist piece of shit who could pay his way into office.
You have to start small. Get your city council to look like you, then move on to the county, the state, etc.
Local elections are also pretty much a “which landlord can pay the most money and be the least repulsive”
You have to build parallel power structures before you can meaningfully influence any electoral structure, including local ones.
This is just untrue though.
This is just untrue though
You just can’t reconcile the fact people don’t vote how you want, therefore the system must be broken. And spreading voting apathy by telling people it’s all bullshit is one of the most damaging things you could do to your democracy. You’re better for Trump than most Republicans.
You just can’t reconcile the fact people don’t vote how you want, therefore the system must be broken.
You just can’t reconcile that your high school civics textbook lied about how the US operates.
You have a laughably erroneous perspective on the matter. This isn’t Russia my guy.
You do realize your comment is just “You’re wrong!” with more flowery language right?
We literally do not live in a democracy according to a bunch of empirical studies, and also according to basic material analysis.
As far as I know, there is one study, and even that is under dispute on secondary analysis of the underlying data.
Okay, now analyze how public opinion is formed and who owns the mechanisms that form it
Still a democracy though.
If the bourgeoisie decide elections through lobbying and media it isnt a democracy in a meaningful sense.
They don’t exactly decide, they influence the decision. Why don’t you votee that for their goals?
They don’t exactly decide, they influence the decision.
“The didn’t do that, they just did something that will predictably result in that”
It doesn’t work perfectly and humanity pushes back over time. The issue is the pace of technology is too fast for our ability to push back. I’m hopeful our good side will win but I’m afraid it will take deaths by the millions again for people to wake up and fight back against the real enemies among us.
Once upon a time that would have been a simple answer, given the concentrated ownership of news that could reach any one person. But now with the Internet, there is less and less control by any one group. Certainly the age of the rich effectively controlling the media is over.
But now with the Internet, there is less and less control by any one group. Certainly the age of the rich effectively controlling the media is over.
Pr teams have successfully learned how to use social media, and social media giants promote views that are beneficial to them like fascism while suppressing left wing content.
I dont think the internet existing makes us a democracy, the parasocial nature of a lot of internet content actually makes it so people are more able to sell their propaganda.
There is plenty of media that exists outside of media giants. Case in point, there is a local blogger here in Portland, OR that runs bikeportland.org to cover bikes and related subjects. His blog posts and discussions on them are a major part of the local discourse around infrastructure in Portland. He’s not rich, but he exercises influence.
Okay, but you do see how thats pretty boutique compared to the local news channels, let alone the giants, right?
Small things are allowed to exist that oppose the dominant ideology until they meaningfully threaten it.
Any grassroots media is going to be “boutique”. That doesn’t make it not influential, especially when considered as a whole.
What meaningful political action do you propose?
We live in a republic democracy which, yes, differs from an outright democracy.
We do not live in a republic democracy, we live in a republic dictatorship of capital.
