this post was submitted on 18 May 2024
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How so? Union membership was at all time highs, we'd just had FDR's new deal. Labor and non ownership classes have never benefited from government in a similar fashion since that time.
That isn't to discount the civil rights act etc. More people being represented is good. The problem being, that while more people were "technically" represented. Everyone collectively has less to show for it. With inequality approaching or exceeding even the guilded age. Because the government increasingly represents only a single class of person.
In the 1970s?
I feel like 'technically' is doing a lot of fucking lifting here.
What about the '70s? The 70s itself isn't very descriptive. On the whole being inexorably tied to Nixon really pushes home the point that things were becoming less democratic then. It's also the time period in which the modern techniques of gerrymandering were being developed and explored. As a direct response to civil rights. Again less democratic.
And technically is an accurate term. What is democracy? Is democracy just being able to cast a ballot, that then gets creatively discarded. Or is something beyond casting a ballot required. Remember, Russia is technically a democracy too. As was the Soviet Union. I would argue that the US has had a better record on that front domestically. But it's a low bar. Not necessarily something we should be bragging about. Are we really a democracy? We should be. But are we actually.