[zepto]

It’s not really ‘the American model’ - it’s the model America was founded to try to avoid. The trend you identify seems to be in all political systems.

The fact that america as a political ideal is not immune to the trend does seem to be a failure.

[tomerv]

In what way is this "the model America was founded to try to avoid"?

[thesuperbigfrog]

It can be argued that the separation of powers and systems of checks and balances defined in the US Constitution help to ensure that no single person or group holds too much power over the American people:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separation_of_powers_under_the...

[sangnoir]

> American people

It's public knowledge that there always was been an asterisk on "people" from the very beginning, and who it encompasses is always shifting. A lot of dismay comes from people learning that the government (any arm) of the day doesn't include them in this group[1].

1. "He's not hurting the people he needs to be hurting."

[zepto]

This has been true of all governments of all kinds thoughout all of time.

Once again, it’s something America can only be criticized for because the goal is for it to be something different.

It’s fair to criticize America for not living up to its ideals.

It’s intellectually dishonest to imply that the ideals don’t exist.

[sangnoir]

I'm having trouble understanding, the tone sounds like it's a rebuttal to my comment, but the words appear to agree with me, maybe?

My entire point was that a lot of disappointment stems from America failing to live up to its ideals[1], and the people who thought they were (or deserve to be) in the in-group, are dismayed to find out they are in the out-group.

1. I'll hasten to add that those ideals are often retconned. "We the people" didn't mean all people (by today's standards). See Dred Scott.

[zepto]

I think it is a rebuttal.

You talk about it being public knowledge that there is an ‘asterisk’ by ‘we the people’, as if slavery was some secret.

Also how does Dred Scott support this innuendo?

There was nothing secret about the ideals, and nothing secret about slavery, and nobody was surprised to find that slaves weren’t considered to be citizens. This discrepancy was a source of some public disagreements.

The retconning is the idea that the ideals were somehow a fraud, rather than an extraordinary step forward at a time that was far more brutal than today, and that people had to work hard to try to establish the ideals as more than just words on paper.

[tomerv]

Isn't that only about separating government powers? As in separating Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches. I just don't see the connection to non-government economical powers. Seems like a stretch.

[thesuperbigfrog]

>> Isn't that only about separating government powers?

Yes.

However, non-government economical powers are subject to laws created by the government.

Anti-trust laws and anti-monopoly laws in particular were created to address problems where non-government economical powers become too powerful. These laws fall under the Commerce Clause (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause) of the US Constitution.

The law doesn't guarantee that people will be prosperous or happy, only that they will be free from an overly tyrannical government.

If a US citizen feels that a non-government economical power is too powerful, they should work with their elected representatives to make laws to restrain those overly powerful non-government economical powers.