In Reply to: I heard on a radio program (yrs ago) that when the State Dept . . posted by BluBlood on February 24, 2025 at 13:12:16
we never insisted that these states we're putting together must have an equivalent of the 2nd amendment in their constitution.
We actually know deep down what works and what sucks. It's just that as a nation, we don't believe we deserve the good things that others enjoy, whether it's meaningful maternity leave, annual paid vacation time education opportunities, or affordable and equitable healthcare. Same thing with democracy. I think deep down in the crevices of the nation's psyche, we actually don't believe we deserve it.
Yeah, "winner takes all" has a distinctly provincial flavor to it. Ironically, that's also stopping us from forging a sense of solidarity within the broader region and adopting the issues of the next district over as ours as well.
Making common cause with others is an essential ingredient of democracy that we have not had the chance to develop much in this country, IMO, because the subtlke levers of our culture is deliberately designed to divide us into a collection of disconnected individuals who can only care about stuff that impacts us personally.