In the spring of 2020, when President Donald J. Trump wrote messages on Twitter warning that increased reliance on mail-in ballots would lead to a “rigged election,” the platform ran a corrective, debunking his claims.

“Get the facts about mail-in voting,” a content label read. “Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud,” the hyperlinked article declared.

This month, Elon Musk, who has since bought Twitter and rebranded it X, echoed several of Mr. Trump’s claims about the American voting system, putting forth distorted and false notions that American elections were wide open for fraud and illegal voting by noncitizens.

This time, there were no fact checks. And the X algorithm — under Mr. Musk’s direct control — helped the posts reach large audiences, in some cases drawing many millions of views.

Since taking control of the site, Mr. Musk has dismantled the platform’s system for flagging false election content, arguing it amounted to election interference.

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  • @Zevlen@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    I still believe in capitalism. But I feel like US has ultra capitalism because of years of deregulation, fraud and corruption. The rule of law shouldn’t just apply to the middle class and the poor. The law should be for all entities including religious organizations, corporations, military, FBI, CIA and Government itself/in general… Can’t have an investigator investigating their own crime(s).

    US isn’t a Democracy by the way; it’s a flawed democracy(and ALWAYS has been). Hopefully someday/ one day we can graduate to a (Full) Democracy. But in order for that to happen, we have to stop looking at American exceptionalism. Take systems that work for other countries and implement them here. Then we need to fight the fight each and every time monopolies start to creep up.

    They’ve made all the systems complex and over engineered so as to be able to get away with corruption; imo

    • @Sodis@feddit.de
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      1311 months ago

      There is no full democracy, that can’t be attacked by fascists, if they get elected. There are enough examples for this in the world. Democracy needs the support of the citizens or it will not work. It is not a self-sufficient system.

        • @psud@lemmy.world
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          411 months ago

          The word is spelt “sophisticated”

          And yes, a democracy with a sufficiently educated populous is immune to authoritarianism

          That’s probably why the American right attacks education

          • @Harbinger01173430@lemmy.world
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            111 months ago

            I propose that we either get governed by our AI children or let the alien invaders plant a puppet government that will take us to the stars, once they invade of course.

          • @Zevlen@lemmy.world
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            011 months ago

            Sofiticated*… 'Merica!

            American English has a different spelling than the French English, or so I’ve heard.

        • @Sodis@feddit.de
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          211 months ago

          Then no true democracy according to your definition exists.
          I do not have a better suggestion.

            • @Sodis@feddit.de
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              411 months ago

              Did you follow the last elections in the Netherlands? A right populist party with only 1 member just won it and one of his policies is to change, that the law is equal for everyone.
              All of these countries have right-wing populist movements. In Sweden it’s the Sweden Democrats, who are second in polls. Finland also just elected a right-wing government including the right populist party Finns. Every time right-wing governments come into power, that include far right parties, they slowly chip away at the base of democracy: electing judges, that share their views, weakening the balance of power and so on.
              I mean, Germany tried to learn from the time of national socialism to strengthen it against the takeover of anti-democratic parties. Yet, German democracy is still vulnerable if the AfD comes into power.

                • @Sodis@feddit.de
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                  211 months ago

                  I would say, that one of the biggest flaws of democracy is, that you have an election period of a few years. Every project, that will pay of later than these few years will not get you reelected. That incentivizes short term over long term projects. Why build a bridge, that takes 10 years to build, if you can use the money to pay out higher pensions during your term? Why try to fix the demographic problem, if that will only hit the country after your term? Why improve education, if the students, that profit from that are not eligible to vote in the next election?

    • @psud@lemmy.world
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      211 months ago

      The US also has a problem because the federal elections are first past the post, which excludes minor parties

      I’m pretty sure that’s the root cause for the polarisation in American politics

      • @Jonna@lemmy.world
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        211 months ago

        If you look around the world at the Orbans, the Bolsanaros, the Le Penns, the AfD, etc., you will find that polarization and the rising far right is global. First past the post is not a good thing, but the causes are far deeper.

        A past global trend was how the center left parties (Democrats in the US, 2nd International Socialist parties in most of the rest of the world) discredited themselves, abandoning their core constituencies and pushing neoliberal economic policies (in the US, free trade, dismantling welfare, the banking deregulation behind 2008). I think that’s the proximate cause in the rise of the global far right.

        The cause of that trend is the inability of regulated capitalism to both provide for everyone AND provide the necessary ever increasing rate of profit.

        While there have been stirrings of possible left reformist parties (Sanders, Corbyn, Lula, etc) even those that make it into state power are ineffective at creating a new, stable, political economy.

        Meanwhile climate change is haunting the globe and the clock is ticking.