Okay, so, I’m going to ramble a lot because this is something that causes me a lot of anxiety and stress, but I’ll try and explain this, there are a lot of Americans who support better practices and would happily vote for politicians who claim to support them, and then often do, but the politicians often go back on their word, or at the very least, are stopped by the rest of their party or the opposing team (yes, team). Why do politicians go back on their word, or only attempt to follow through when the vote is stacked against them? Because often the things that will improve the lives of Americans are things that will go against corporate interests. Don’t be fooled, Democrats are bought and paid for by corporations too, the things the implement are usually things that will have little to no corporate cost. However, the moment you start talking about things like higher corporate taxes, taxes on the rich, public healthcare, etc, they act like they have no idea what you’re talking about. They basically serve the purpose of not being Republicans, while the Republicans serve the purpose of not being Democrats.
Okay, but at least Democrats aren’t running headlong towards fascism, right? Yes, however now you have the issue where many states have the votes rigged in favor of one party, typically republican. I live in a state that should have a significantly higher number of democrat representatives, both in the state and federal legislature. However, because the voting districts are gerrymandered to hell, it means Republicans get a significant advantage. Then, you have the issue where republicans are intentionally making kids idiots because they know it increases the chances of them being future republicans. You have the problem where your only choices are the politicians the Democrats or Republicans put in front of you.
You could try and start a new party, but remember that for every vote you capture, that’s possibly one less vote going to the only major party who doesn’t want a 4th Reich; because you probably won’t be capturing any republican votes. You have to be certain that you’re going to capture enough votes to beat the Republicans and the Democrats, otherwise the Republicans will probably win and try their damnedest to implement Project 2025. To steal a phrase, “if you’re going to kill the king, you’d better not miss”. Everything has to go right, which means it won’t.
So protest, right? Well, that only kinda works. The moment a protest runs into corporate interests, it hits a brick wall. You can be sure that every corporation will immediately start funnelling money into shady political groups who’ll use it to spread FUD and manufacture bad actors so the protest loses public appeal. You can try and upgrade the protest to a riot and commit property damage, but that’ll only make you look bad and you’ll struggle to find support from people. That means the likelyhood of a protest going well and having any real effect is pretty slim.
So… What else can you do at that point? These people have more money than God. Something like the top 40 richest people in the world have enough money that they could likely completely and permanently fix many of humanity’s global issues, and still have billions to play with. Yet they don’t.