>>114758899No, democracy wasn't supposed to be like this. All the meaningful economic decision making was taken out of democracy in the 1980s. This holds true no matter which western country you're in. We came to a new consensus in the 1980s and 90s that the government had no business interfering with markets except in relatively limited circumstances. It's a long and winding story, but the end result of that (whether it was good or bad overall) was that some people fell through the gaps. If you want the root of why Trump came to power, it's not because those people are idiots, it's because they're smart enough to see the choice they were offered. It's a very simple calculation: a 100% chance things get worse for you under Clinton (as they did under Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush...) plays a sub-100% chance they get worse for you under Trump. Even if it's a 99.9% chance nothing changes under Trump, you'd be mad not to take the chance.
>>114760342Never underestimate the capability for people to be incompetent despite their status, Anon. Look at Britain: for decades there's been a reliable trend where if the value of the pound drops, British companies will increase their prices abroad rather than expanding into new markets now that their pound-priced goods are cheaper abroad. Incompetence like that can easily become institutionalized. Even though the incentives for the company to do it are there, the incentives for the managers inside the company are not. Everyone else is taking the short term profit boost rather than the long-term expansion of markets: do you want to be the guy who risks his job on the alternative strategy?
>>114760487Alternatively you could make elections meaningful again by expanding the policies on offer from the parties. If people have nothing to lose at an election, that's a complete indictment of the candidates on offer. At least one of them has failed to give them something that they'd lose out on if that candidate didn't win.
