Democracy doesn't work through public declarations, it works through elections. One year ago, the states chose Donald Trump as president, knowing they he would end Net Neutrality [1]. If a population wants to send a different message, they must do it in the next election [2].

[1] https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/53260835850816716... [2] https://swingleft.org/

More charitably, they chose Donald Trump on the suspicion that he would do "better" than Hillary Clinton on: abortion, immigration, the economy, leading in "the culture wars", and maybe a few other issues. Net neutrality was a litmus test for basically nobody.

To some degree, this whole mess is due to pushing ostensibly state-level laws (abortion regulations, for example) to the national level, which leaves much less room for genuinely national issues, like internet regulations, defense spending, immigration law, etc.

It might seem unnecessarily inflammatory to bring up abortion in a net neutrality discussion, but it's hard to get around the fact that appointments to the Supreme Court (which basically sets abortion policy) might have been the thing that convinced enough people to vote for Trump.

So I guess I agree that a lack of choices results in outcomes like this, but U.S. democracy provides other mechanisms for political diversity. They're just not being utilized on certain key issues at this point in history.

At that time, sure. Time will tell whether electing an extremist candidate was a good idea or not.

Losing in deep red Alabama isn't a good sign.

Actually, I meant extremist. The "Trump" party is full of people who want to roll back amendments to the 1940s or earlier.

These are extremist views, in my opinion, and don't represent the average American. Bannon and those who would raise white supremacist marches chanting against Jews can go suck a lemon.

Are you serious? Every politician is an ideologue. It's why we elect one over another. We agree with one's idea about policies over another's.

The only people who we expect to divorce themselves from ideologies are judges, who are there to interpret the law, not make it.

I think most of them are true Republicans in the sense that they want to elect people they think are trustworthy and then let them make decisions as their proxy. In that case, a candidate can have policies and platforms to convince people to let her be their proxy, but she doesn't need them. She could just have a "trust me, I'll make the right decision" pitch.

Besides, if Trump is an ideologue, what is that ideology? At best it's a new (or at least renewed) nativist spin on identity politics. That's not an ideology; that's a team.

Republicanism is an ideology. Trump's is clearly farther right than previously elected R presidents.

He does have a laundry list of issues he tweets about, a subset of which he picks at with executive orders (which, itself, is unconservative) but that seems more like raw appeasement of his political base than anything coherent (or even consistent!).

There are a few exceptions, I guess. He's, at least in rhetoric, for a strong military. Though we're nowhere near a "Trump doctrine" that proposes a coherent framework for that desire. It's, again, more of an id-driven move than anything rational.

And in the meantime, who cares if the country is lit on fire? That's the future elected officials' problem.

Sarcasm aside, I actually agree that we need to speak with our vote. I just wish we didn't have such large swings of the deregulation penis in the meantime, and instead we had cool-headed, logical people at the helms of these agencies and our Executive branch. I suppose it's too naive of me.

Also, if you really think that people who voted for Donald Trump understood the intricacies of net neutrality you must be an incredibly optimistic individual.

The people just proved with the Alabama special election that they can change the establishment if they feel strongly enough about it.

Sadly I think the effects of repealing Net Neutrality will be felt more like a frog in a slowly heating pot of water, and no single change is going to entice the majority of the population to vote. It's not the tech industry that needs to be convinced that repealing neutrality is bad, it's the general non-tech population that needs to be convinced to care.

Eventually both parties are going to realize that they would be better off putting forward a candidate that the people like instead of putting forth an establishment yes-man (in the Dems case from the presidential race, a yes-woman).

Most Trump supporters did not elect trump "knowing ... he would end Net Neutrality", and a statement from 2014 does not disprove that (a cursory glance at r/TrumpCriticizesTrump/ kinda makes the point).

The US public is atrociously misinformed as a whole, either due to lack of education or bad media incentives or both. In order to function, a democracy requires an informed public.

E.g. has Trump been able to build the wall that arguably half the population approved of? No, because his budget approval process has been checked by other elected representatives.

The states, yet not the people

Sure, he won with our current system, but even school children think our current system is silly

>his competition was not any better

Really? Hillary was going to carry on a lot of Obam-ian policies. Net neutrality would still exist, pedophiles would not be publicly endorsed by her, and a 'tax cut' that is actually just a confusing mess that only clearly benefits the super-rich would not have happened.

So what exactly would she have done to be as bad as Trump? The guy is incessantly mired in scandals; says things that a centrist family would barely tolerate their old, crazy, racist uncle saying around holiday dinners; and is basically a narcissist.

I don't like Hillary at all and don't see how you can say "she's not any better than Trump" with a straight face.

Trump has been wishy washy on his immigration and military spending statements since being in office.

I spent several days working on my comment; it was a dozen pages long, it included relevant citations, and it addressed specific questions asked in the NPRM. I took the time to correct a few falsehoods in the NPRM's technical analysis.

Now imagine what it is like to see that comment being specifically cited and totally dismissed in the draft rules that were just approved. In a way it is worse than just being ignored -- someone took the time to read my comment and comments by like-minded experts, saw the part where we corrected falsehoods, and then replied with, "Well, ISPs say $X so $X is true and your comment wrong."

I am not going to give up on civic engagement but I am sure some of those like-minded engineers and researchers might.

Please don't. I mean that very sincerely. The fact that you took the time to do this is very inspiring to me. It reminds me of this guy: https://professional-troublemaker.com

It kind of blows my mind to think of how much individuals who are focused and determined can really accomplish.

Same, so as a petty man I've made a personal vow to send Ajit Pai a card every Christmas reminding him he sold his soul to Comcast and that I will never forget or forgive him for it.

Totally pointless right now when the whole country is calling for his head and he gets to play the haughty "I don't give a fuck, I'm set for life now, suck it plebes" card.

But in 2040, when he has long since moved on, and the rest of the country has forgotten, and he's an old man that just wants to spend time with his grandkids and ensure a good future for his family or whatever, every Christmas, still, a card from me - "Hey shithead, remember when you sold out the American people for cash? Fuck you."

I will do this until he or I dies.

Making it easier: https://www.mailmygov.com/

Telling people: Turn to your right and tell your coworker, I guess. Make a twitter post?

But what exactly did Google do to oppose this?

In my view: doing nothing == being evil.

I suspect it's more that all the people of significance who have stated their opposition also share the same core political ideology as you, which doesn't match that of the party currently in power. So you view the system as not working because you didn't get what you wanted by having everyone on your side yell louder.

The only criteria for being a republic is that you don't have a monarch. The USSR was a republic. China is a republic. Canada is not a republic. Yet, Canada is also a representative democracy, while neither China, nor the USSR are.