The reason Marxist nations have struggled is due to elite corruption, not the ideology itself.

I think this is kind of my point exactly. I misunderstood the dictatorship of Marxism, but I’m not sure I believe there can be a “good” Marxist dictatorship that is broadly cooperative on a national scale because it will require intermediaries who are themselves susceptible of corruption. Occupy Wallstreet seems to be a great example of that working locally, but I’m skeptical it can be easy to coordinate nationally as a market can. On paper, the Marxist ideology is sound, in practice, human self-interest seems to not want it to work, though there is always an opportunity to try again somewhere. That being said, markets come with their own distinct style of corruption, as we’re currently seeing playing out right now.

I, personally, don’t accept any kind of dictatorship can ever be good. That there is a series of humans with self interest in between the resources of a nation and the populace of a nation leads me to doubt that possibility. If it were possible, we would have seen more than a few prosperous Marxist nations.

I’m referencing Marxism specifically because, to my mind, it requires individuals, like union leaders, to represent the interests of their union constituents (all of whom are shareholders of the means of production) and would require those representatives to act in the interest of the laborer-as-shareholder which, as I see it, puts them in a moral overlap between politics and economics. i.e., Marxism would be the most likely form of government to satisfy the conditions if a morally good dictator, and yet historically it doesn’t seem to have worked out that way.

I actually fully believe in a genuine democratic capitalist government being a great means of achieving full democracy, but we have never truly been a democratically capitalist country.

Your take on genuine democracy is fair, especially if we’re referring to the US (as per my assumption). According to this Wikipedia article on The Economist Democracy Index:

In 2016, the United States was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy; its score, which had been declining for some years, crossed the threshold from 8.05 in 2015 to 7.98 in 2016. The report stated that this was caused by myriad factors dating back to at least the late 1960s which have eroded Americans’ trust in governmental institutions.

The question we’re facing is, if we make it through Trump’s term(s?) with a functional federal gov’t, how can we begin to return to a full democracy, and is that even possible given the trajectory of our economic system.

Think about it this way, why would funding campaigns matter if the vote wasn’t real? There is no correct answer, because each culture has it’s own power structure, but look at the history of each political system, starting with your own to see how the rules started and each incremental change and shift between the spirit of the law and the letter of the law.

It might help to watch Adam Curtis’ The Century of the Self as a starting point (better yet, Hypernormalization-> Bitter Lake -> Century of the self if you want to go from today to 1920s. Reverse that if you prefer to start earlier).

It would also hell to understand economics as globalization, which is a huge part of the current political climate, is an economic tide (See Thomas Friedman). Milton Friedman (different than Thomas) is really important to current political events, too. I personally like Niall Ferguson and Joel Mokyr as scholars of economic history, but to each their own.

I think a detante (the word the article uses) is a more appropriate word. Though given that they were on the defense, a detante looks better for them than it does for the aggressor.

If you’re referencing Reedy Creek, it looks like Disney ultimately won after Desantis capitulated on who became charged with running the CTFOD

DeSantis extended what Disney likely perceived as a peace offering when he tapped CFTOD’s former administrator to head elections at Orange County. That opened up the job for Stephanie Kopelousos, the governor’s former legislative affairs director who was confirmed Wednesday and has a track record with helping Disney. In 2021, she wrote a carve-out to a social media law that exempted Disney. The olive branch was solidified with the appointment of Craig Mateer, founder of hospitality service CCM Capital Group and a longtime Disney contractor, to the board.

I’m betting they’re more likely to see this through. If you aren’t already familiar, check out the dispute between Disney and Desantis.

I don’t think my comment history merits a mass edit. Anything particularly self identifying I had already scrubbed a while ago and much of my comment history has advocated for non-violent resistance.

I was shadowbanned because I said Trump was in poor health and more likely to die in office than be a dictator for the next decade. Offensive, sure, but not to the level I’d be afraid of becoming a political target.

It looks like this is the ex-redditor handshake thread. Did anyone start here without coming from Reddit? I heard about Lemme during the IPO fallout but didn’t pursue it until the mass shadow ban rollout.

I’m also still jumping back and forth, but that’s only because the big content creators for hobby stuff are still on Reddit. Once they migrate, I’ll likely delete my account.