[adamredwoods]

From https://sherwood.news/tech/hyperion/

>> Per the report, the package of tax breaks and incentives was achieved through local officials bound by nondisclosure agreements, quietly struck legislative deals, and parliamentary sleight of hand to avoid public scrutiny of the deal.

>> So the residents of Richland Parish did not have much of a heads-up on what was coming.

No voting, no public interests, only closed-door politics.

[heylook]

Yet another moment where Strangers in Their Own Land[0] is prescient.

From an interview[1] given by the author: "I think the next most important reason they distrusted the federal government is their experience with protective agencies in the state of Louisiana, and they thought, “Gosh, these are a lot of people we pay taxes to but they don't really protect us.” And they’re right, because Louisiana is an oil state - that was a big discovery for me - and it outsources, in a way, the moral dirty work to the state. So, the state actually pretends to protect the citizenry from hazardous waste and pollution of air and water and ground, but it doesn't actually protect it very much. It gives out permits, as one Tea Party person said "like candy." And so, they felt the federal government is just a bigger, badder version of a state government which isn't protecting us. So, they'd had bad experience. They’d been burned, and I think that's the second kind of source of resistance to the government. But the third is that they saw the government as an instrument of what I'll call “the line cutters.”"

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strangers_in_Their_Own_Land [1] https://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=18-P13-000...

[cucumber3732842]

Man, "instrument of the 'line cutters'" describes my government to a tee and I live in one of the wealthiest states.

[selimthegrim]

There was a public hearing of the state public service commission I attended which essentially boiled down to well all these big Wall Street banks are guaranteeing payment so it should be fine and plus we need jobs up there.

[pesus]

I wonder if they actually believed it would bring more than a handful of permanent jobs or whether they're just saying to get their bribe.

[selimthegrim]

Foster Campbell is a famously honest person. He also famously drove his car into a gap in pavement on an under construction interstate at 40 miles an hour so you decide for yourself what that says about him.

[laweijfmvo]

but there will be voting; all of the elected officials will have to face elections at some point, and voters can put their feet down right now: everyone is voted out.

[rjbwork]

And then those companies can give them their due ~~bribes~~ totally free and unrelated gifts out of the goodness of their hearts to such illustrious paragons of American governance, as legalized by the supreme court recently.

[nomorewords]

When the damage is already done?

[philipallstar]

That is how everyone decision works, yes. That's why you want limited government. Voting where you can't vote with your money is a very low-quality, delayed signal.

[tech_ken]

If you assume that decision makers operate entirely in silo from their constituents then yes, that's how this works. Howver if you are operating in the normal mode of democracy where decision makers consult impacted parties through town halls, solicited feedback, subcommittees, etc etc then there are ample opportunities to obtain high-quality, low-latency signals. "Voting with your money" is (IM personal O) a scapegoat for government leaders to avoid doing their due-diligence (not to mention the massive power imbalance that results from people with lots of money 'voting' way more than people with less money).

[philipallstar]

> If you assume that decision makers operate entirely in silo from their constituents then yes, that's how this works.

Most places have two parties, each of which has a position on several thousand issues. You have two choices: combination A of the several thousand issues, or combination B. You don't get to choose with any more granularity than that.

> not to mention the massive power imbalance that results from people with lots of money 'voting' way more than people with less money

This is a power rectification. If you have two streaming services and one is bad, that bad one will fairly quickly receive far less money as people vote with their wallets. That's not rich people with thousands of accounts "voting" for the winner, it's just a more direct system of people choosing with money.

Politics has a far stronger link to an individual's money swaying decisions than that.

[shimman]

It's okay, as the on-going damage continues Americans tend to be well armed enough to go on a few rampages here and there.

[hgoel]

Americans are very good at talking tough like that, only to use their arms against innocent randos.

[shimman]

That's the point. Society suffers and continues to suffers while the elites run havoc.

[TFYS]

The new people voted in are likely to be corporate stooges as well, as they have good and well funded infrastructure behind them for getting elected.

[pertymcpert]

That's already factored in the cost of doing business for them.

[kovek]

What negative consequences does being unelected have?

[tstrimple]

You're underestimating just how much damage conservative mindsets can do to a state/country/world. From a US perspective, Donald Trump isn't the problem. The tens of millions of American citizens who are willing to vote for someone like Trump in 2024 are a huge fucking problem that will outlive Trump. Even today he has something like an 80% approval rating from conservatives. Some people cheer the concentration camps. And if your only hope is to outvote them, welcome to Nazi Germany.

[malshe]

I'm not at all surprised to learn that Republican politicians royally screwed their constituents. I was going to say maybe these people will vote better next time just to read that Colorado governor is commuting the sentence of Tina Peters. Democratic leadership is so freaking weak it's unbelievable. With one party full of grifters and the other with full of weaklings, we need to abolish this two-party system.

[ChadNauseam]

Does the commutation of Tina Peters' sentence have anything at all to do with this situation?

[alsetmusic]

"Colorado’s Democratic governor commutes ex-election clerk Tina Peters’ sentence after Trump pressure"[0]

I'd say it has nothing to do with the article but a lot to do with the context of OP's post.

0. https://apnews.com/article/tina-peters-polis-colorado-clemen...

[selimthegrim]

Louisiana had a Democratic governor from 2016-2024.

[Forgeties79]

This is missing enormous amounts of context.

JBE came in before Trump made it a sin to vote Democrat in Louisiana and after Jindall (2 term republican) did such a horrific job that the GOP couldn’t recover no matter who they ran. He also faced possibly one of the worst candidates in history in Rispone for his second term. He was one of the last blue dog democrats, had decades of great reputation built up, and had no problem being extremely cozy with oil/gas. He walked a very thin line super confidently and basically was a 1990 Democrat. It didn’t hurt that he basically saw him nothing but success during both of his tenures. He was an incredibly capable governor.

Frankly he’s an anomaly. They won’t have Democrat Governor for decades just like WV won’t have a democrat senator again for a long time since Manchin left.

Keep in mind Louisiana has had a Republican legislature for literally decades now, a super majority years-running currently. The current state is the result of Republican policies and it’s a red fortress for the foreseeable future, especially with the changes they made to primaries and voting, coupled with the recent SCOTUS ruling on gerrymandering. No matter what happens in the coming midterms, I guarantee you the legislature will remain a super major majority for the Republicans. It is a cartel state now where they literally remove positions when Democrats win, as New Orleans learned with their court clerk who was recently elected.

Louisiana is THE Republican state and offers too few electoral votes for the Democrats to pay attention to it. And every year they stay away from it the deeper entrenched Republicans become as they pass more and more laws of favoring their ability to keep their seats. The current legal landscape is so dire it’s an understatement to call it an uphill battle for non-republicans.

[selimthegrim]

You’re missing the killshot that JBE delivered when a question came up about Vitter being faithful to his wife during the debate on live TV and the fact that formerly the governor appointed the speaker of the house in Louisiana, but when Edwards was elected, that power was taken away

[Forgeties79]

Yeah unfortunately that was a big trend for a while. Republican legislatures/governors stripping powers on the way out. Wisconsin had a pretty notorious moment there with Walker

[alsetmusic]

I couldn't agree more. What voters want is progressive policies (healthcare, housing, childcare, taxing mega-corps, etc). Dems are absolutely allergic to anything of the sort. The funny thing is that a lot of people voting on the other side want these things too. It's just that in a vacuum, they also want revenge for society changing without them enough to vote for that when it's dangled in front of them.

I was listening to a podcast recently talking about how if Dems ran on a platform of, "we're going to abolish all the BS from this admin and do the trials correctly and put these crooks in jail," they'd have tons of support (and I agree). But tepid positions and weak statements with no real plan to do anything (other than preserve the status quo) has become the party's playbook. No wonder it's failing.

[malshe]

I recently read “What’s the matter with Kansas” by Thomas Frank. It was eye-opening. One things he mentioned is that as both Democratic and Republican parties aligned on economic issues (I.e., Democrats started working for rich), social issues became distinguishing factors and gained prominence.

[tstrimple]

The choice unfortunately often boils down to choosing between blatant psychopathy or completely useless platitudes. Yes. A vote for Democrats results in less harm. But Democrats are never actually willing to address the problems. Democrats would rather reach across the aisle than actually help people as has been proven out ever since my very first eligible vote for Obama. Some Democrats promise "Hope and Change" but won't bother to fight for it. Many Republicans promise to hurt the people you hate and often try to follow through on it. Both sides aren't the same, but neither side will fix anything.

[tzs]

> Democrats would rather reach across the aisle than actually help people as has been proven out ever since my very first eligible vote for Obama.

Obama: Affordable Care Act; allowed LGBTQ+ to openly serve in the military; American Recovery and Reinvestment act supported a lot of infrastructure improvement; Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; JCPOA; A whole bunch of action on climate change.

Biden: Inflation Reduction Act which provided large investments to fight climate change; CHIPS and Science Act; codified federal protection of same sex and interracial marriage; Rejoined the Paris Agreement.

[malshe]

100%. Obama squandered people's mandate...twice. I wish more mainstream (i.e., non socialist) Democratic politicians had strong convictions like Mamdani.

[_DeadFred_]

Yeah, I mean other than my family having insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions. And having years of insurance. And therefor much better quality of life then/now. Obama has what, a few weeks of actual mandate majority power.

Mamdani is basically doing the same thing other Dems do, only the Internet lefties give him the benefit of the doubt/kudos instead of the piling on they give Dems. Abigail Spanberger has been insanely effective yet gets zero of the kudos Mamdani gets because she's just a Dem.

[malshe]

Obama promised change, remember? We were in the worst financial crisis of the modern times and what changed exactly after Obama took over? How many bankers went to the prison? In his 2012 book, Neil Barofsky wrote that Obama appeared to care far more about the Wall Street [1]. Obama also completely ignored the Bush administration lies which led to Iraq invasion. Nobody got punished. During his presidency the senate Democrats were asleep at the wheel, not filling many vacant positions for federal judges, which McConnell later exploited. Overall, Obama's presidency was a lot of talk but no concrete action. It's just because his was sandwiched between two even worse presidencies -- Bush's and Trump's -- he comes out ahead.

1. Bailout: An Inside Account of How Washington Abandoned Main Street While Rescuing Wall Street

[delfinom]

Obama did get a lot done, the biggest problem was congress. The dems in congress are basically an entire seniority driven power structure where the 70+ year old dinosaurs hold complete control. They are the biggest ones resistant to change.

The president can only do so much without laws backing it.

[gizajob]

Don’t worry, if you take a step back it’s been a one party system for decades already.

[alsetmusic]

While this is true with regard to both parties being in the pocket of large corporations, and although it's true that Dems basically don't want any real meaningful reform, Dems don't actively target and try to hurt minority groups like LGBTQ+ people or non-white non-christians. They are indifferent to the people rather than out to eliminate them. Pretending otherwise is a bad-faith lie or an inability to recognize reality.

[_DeadFred_]

Spouting this bs to create indifference lost us the right to chose, made the LGBTQ+ community unsafe, ruined the lives of what hundred of thousands of immigrants to the country, killed USAID, caused many to loose their affordable healthcare plans. Gutted the voter rights act and lost Black representing voting districts in the south just this month. Destroyed our research institutions. Destroyed our public health institutions. Gutted our government oversite of industry such as the FDA.

But yeah, sure. If you aren't female, LGBTQ+, Black, an immigrant, a scientist, someone who needs medical care, someone who eats food, or someone conducting research, they might seem the same.

[LogicFailsMe]

Which is what we keep electing so boohoo. I'd like to be less pessimistic but people are irredeemably irredeemable. I am hugely pro-AI, but the tech bros need to channel more Ronald Reagan* and less f**ing Homelander or this ends very badly for everyone.

*And I hated Ronald Reagan at the time

Now bring me some downvotes to show me the error of my ways... Thank you for restoring my lack of faith in humanity...