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Comment by ein0p | Hacker News Reader

Only one thing can make these people work past midnight: abusing the American public. “Representation”, my ass. None of them represents me or anyone I know.

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Agreed, but the cynical side of me thinks that they are representing their constituents. It's just that neither you nor me are their constituents. They pay lip service only during an election year.

I'm politically very conservative. I hate every single one of the Republicans. They claim to want smaller government and less intrusion and then vote for... bigger government, more intrusion, and endless wars.

I still vote, though. Mostly, at this point, it feels like an act of protest more than anything.

I struggle to nail down my political affiliation because there’s literally just one party. They quibble over materially irrelevant hot button issues to create the illusion of choice, but all the bullshit that robs me and my kids or strips us of our rights is _always_ “bipartisan”, passed without reading in the dead of the night. And yeah the only two choices in our upcoming “elections” here are a guy with profound dementia who shakes hands with invisible people, and a narcissist moron con man who writes at a fourth grade level and capitalizes nouns for no reason. And neither side considers this to be a problem. I’m beginning to think this is some kind of a joke and the ruling class is just trying to see how far they can take it before people revolt.

"pro life" is a pretty hard (and exploitive) line separating the two

Keep paying attention to that while they borrow $2T a year and give it to their friends.

That's the rub, I'm afraid. The uniparty looks out for itself while enriching its kindred.

The whole point of having cultural issues like abortion, gay rights, guns etc in the spotlight is because it's much easier to make people emotionally invested into that in lieu of, say, economics, foreign policy, military-industrial complex, or political reform.

E.g. get someone fervently believing that their vote is critical to preventing "murder of children", and you can abuse them economically however the hell you want - they'll hate you but they'll still vote for you because the other guy "murders children". This one is such an oldie but goodie that each party has crafted its own wedge issue around it: abortion for Republicans, guns for Democrats.

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