It is a extremely convenient act for whoever is in power.
We don't need a referendum, we just need to choose representation that wants the same things we want. (Alternate formation: Americans do not want these things as much as some of us think they do.)
If you look at how weed was legalized, it required a referendum in many (most?) states because no representative wants to be the guy that has his face plastered everywhere when some kid dies after he smokes some legal weed and smashes into a pole, even if most his constituents wanted the policy.
Representatives generally have to be risk averse to get to the point they can even represent people on issues. This means they are extremely reluctant to vote for anything that might come back to bite them somehow, even if it is popular.
>Alternate formation: Americans do not want these things as much as some of us think they do
There is extremely overwhelming evidence that a supermajority of americans have wanted medical marijuana to be federally legal for many years. And overwhelming evidence the representatives have not been successfully bringing that forward.
The catch is that when voters vote at all levels, they express by their choices that e.g. marijuana legalization is not a high priority. So voters might well vote to legalize if given that standalone choice, but it's not obvious to me that it's a good idea to insulate representatives from their inaction.
> no representative wants to be the guy
So on this, a number of states arrived at some level of legalization exactly this way. Legalization laws were signed by governors as diverse politically as Kay Ivey in Alabama and Tim Walz in Minnesota.
There's no statutory reason that voters in e.g. South Carolina cannot choose representation as amenable to legalization as Beshear in Kentucky or Reeves in Mississippi. Referenda also are subject to faithful implementation by representatives, so attempting to side-step the choice of representatives is not necessarily going to be fruitful.
It only required a referendum in some states because most US states are controlled by Republican governors and legislatures who openly defy what their own constituents want without fear of being voted out, because republicans vote republican no matter what. Republican voters will say "I want to legalize weed", their elected representative spouts literal DARE propaganda about weed that republican voters KNOW is false since they literally smoke weed (illegally, how about that), but they STILL re-elect those politicians, because it's more important to not have a democrat in office than to actually get what you democratically voted for.
Here in Maine, we passed a referendum to legalize weed. It passed. Lepage spent the next 4 years of his Governor term refusing to implement it, entirely. Like he just criminally defied the will of the public. As soon as Mills took office, the state built up a framework for recreational weed and IMO it's pretty good compared to other states, which is probably why we have literal Chinese gangs growing illegal weed all over the state :/
You see the same thing in every Republican state that allows citizen referendums. The public passes a referendum, and the republican politicians of the state just utterly defy it, and they do not get voted out
Democrat politicians respect citizen referendums, even when they are stupid and against democrat policies, like in California where Uber is not an employer because that's how the people voted.
LOL what, apparently you forgot about Proposition 187, which California voters voted "yes" on, got tied up in the courts, and then when a Democrat governor came into power he let the appeals die.
Proposition 8: voters voted to ban gay marriage, courts said "nah we're not going to do that." Judges aren't technically politicians but that line is a little blurry at times.
I've worked on privacy regulation. This would not get votes. The unfortunate fact is that the people most passionate about these issues are also tremendously lazy or extremely nihilistic. (Maybe it comes with the territory of not trusting institutions.)
Either way, privacy advocates can rarely muster even a dozen calls to electeds, let alone credibly threaten backing a primary opponent. The reason SOPA/PIPA worked is it animated a group of tech advocates beyond those with ideological opposition to surveillance.
Unless the Sanders Administration had a very favorable or majority Democrat Congress aligned with his progressive wing, many proposals would be outright blocked or heavily compromised. Knowing our limitation that everything else has stayed largely the same as history since, this wouldn't be the case. The hypothetical administration's attempts at sweeping reforms, such as healthcare and climate regulation, would very likely be significantly curtailed or overturned by courts or constrained by constitutional limits on separation. The GOP, even though they actively outspend Democrats when in power, obstruct via financial limits each and every Democratic-led effort while crowing about expansion of debt incursion; as such, spending on Bernie's proposed initiatives would raise concerns about deficits, inflation, and taxation. Even with tax increases, there would be pushback from wealthy individuals, corporations, and lobbyists.
Basically, nothing would change in any significant way except, perhaps, the SCOTUS would not be outright overturning DECADES of 'settled law' in favor of an absurd view of the world as it was hundreds of years ago.
This is a feature, and why Trump's second term is so different to his first, or Bidens, or Obamas, or Bush, or Nixon. You'd probably have to go back to FDR for such sweeping changes to the US state.
Trumps first term was overturning norms in behavior, but not overturning the way the entire governing system works, all four estates.
The good news is when your candidate loses you don't find out the evil they really do and you can say it is not your fault. The bad news is you don't find out what is bad about the things you think are good.
Now, that might not have worked but anything might have had a pretty large impact on global/US deaths.
But his support of ratcheting up the Ukraine war disappointed profoundly. That’s not the Bernie I would have voted for.
Sometimes you gotta rip that bandaid off.
this is the end of celebrity culture at the hands of social media.
monarchies are the central core of celebrity cultism, look at France today; surrounded by the Monarchies and up in flames.
behaviour says more than words
Exactly. It's a social norm among that class of society
When a Koch, or a Scwab, or the CEO of some mega-corp buys a property on Martha's Vineyard, or the Hamptons, or Vail or overlooking Tahoe or whatever, with intent to actually spend even the scantest amount of time there themselves they engage in absurd unnecessary renovations. That's just how they do things. There is an occasional exception for those in that group who have "found meaning" in some other avenue for lighting money on fire.
Edit: You can thank me later for implicitly telling you where the best construction dumpsters are.
Trump is not going to live much longer than 2028 anyway.
And there was definitely some weirdness with his hand, the absence that convinced people he was dead, some odd rumors about his shirt sleeve and suit implying he was hiding medical devices or some kind of injury, an "AI" glitch in a recent video which may have been debunked, and his obvious mental and emotional degradation when confronted with the Epstein stuff.
I am absolutely convinced Trump is only being kept alive by ritual blood sacrifice or that he's being puppeted by Grok through a Neuralink or something.
Biden got taken down by the the "crippling senile dementia" meme because it's only a problem when it's Democrats, but Trump seems worse off than Biden ever was. The bastard will probably live another thirty years though, somehow.
https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/photos-trumps-drooping-face-9-11-p...
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/us-news/trump-sparks-health-fe...
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/glob...
> Biden got taken down by the the "crippling senile dementia" meme because it's only a problem when it's Democrats
Democrats felt both Biden and Trump were far too old and senile to be in charge. And they were right.
The problem is that Republicans only felt it was Biden.
Remember when having a "consensual" blowjob from an intern was almost enough to get a president fired? Remember when presidents resigned when the public found out they were involved in organising a break-in?
That world has long gone, social media saw to that.
And they are talking about it very strongly.
This is his second, ostensibly last, term, meaning he will have an uphill battle at best to convince the public that he should get another term for some bullshit reason. His last term ended with him obviously trying to prevent the next guy from taking over. He obviously wants to be in power. It's disingenuous to say there is no basis. Whether it's likely is another matter but this is intellectually dishonest.
Fact is you’re fear mongering for no reason. Last time he also just left. There are zero cases of a president staying in office after their terms.
I'm just really curious how you get to a stage in life firing off this kind, sorry, naive view.
The American rule book has well and truly been ripped up and burned ... you just can't seem to see the smouldering embers at your feet ...
He already left once before. I don’t understand how this is news to you.
You must have a short memory. I assume that's intentional. My condolences as to where you've ended up in life. Bye.
I'm not sure that democrats enact/write less laws. If they don't enact (or write) less laws, i cannot see how the aggregate number of laws reduces.
This, apparently, is a "hard" statistical (research) problem, even though i've seen reporting on this exact subject, along the lines of "number of lines in bills written by each party" or similar. but the top 2 are democrats. I think "enacted" is a different metric, but i'm still pretty certain that democrats lead on "enacted" legislation, at least in the last 25 years.
2) America started dying way before when we thought things like being anti woke was more important than policy.
Basically, a good portion of White America are gone cases. You won’t be able to explain to gone cases anything. That’s the reality of America.
The bad guys will say you only need privacy if you’re guilty and the plebs will lap it up