Controlled Opposition

The two-party system is not fake, it's a very real inevitability of FPtP voting.
For example: This 60-second animation shows how divided Congress has become over the last 60 years
Ignoring that also turns everything to the right (if not through actual voting, through lower turnout).
- The two party system is inevitable under FPTP, true. But that does not mean change is impossible. The Tea Party managed to take over the Republican Party from the inside out.
  We need a Guillotine Party to do the same thing to the Democratic Party.
  
  I'm not seeking to defend FPTP, butf the two party system is inevitable, how come the UK has 393 political parties? It's true that one of two parties usually wins, but against that backdrop, the SNP was able to flourish in Scotland. In America you literally have Republican, Democratic parties and Independents. It is not inevitable but it certainly isn't a good system for the modern age.
- This 60-second animation shows how divided Congress has become over the last 60 years
  Of course it worsened visibly with Reagan.
  Incidentally, I mildly disagree with OP's analogy. Yes, the wheel is turning further to the right, yes, the democrats aren't doing enough to stop or even wheel it back, but there's no spring coil in the wheel, it wouldn't snap back by itself if you removed the blue from the picture. That's bullshit.
  
  It worsened visibly with the dixiecrat switch, because they are a single issue voting bloc (racism).
  They actually tried to run as a third party, but the dixiecrat party lost in 48, having failed to spoil truman. Thurmond's speeches here are quite profound.
  The problem is that we have a voting bloc that literally wants only one thing, and it's concrete, not a vague notion of Healthcare and reducing income inequality with no concrete steps and massive, united opposing interests.
  Maybe get minorities to appreciate how many dixiecrats vote the way they do only because they see non-whites as animals?
  Doubtful. I didn't believe it myself till I lived there, the level of hate is just impossible to fathom.
  
  Considering almost every single group of people supports progressive policies, and the fact that the policies that are most important to the median citizen are completely ignored by congress means that yes, if a leftist party was allowed to take power the wheel would snap back very far to the left.
- Plenty of awful capitalist controlled democracys have different voting systems and multiple parties and are still following America's lead into Fascism.
  This was maybe a thing to care about a decade or two ago.
- Its possible for both to be true. Id much prefer a ranked choice voting system.
  What's also important would be to 1) unionize businesses over a certain size 2) convert those businesses to worker Cooperatives
  A worker cooperative is a business that is owned collectively by all the employees and decisions are made through democracy (structure depending on application).
  Some countries have had programs where unions can buy shares of the company they represent and the government will match it. Then either the union eventually owns the majority shares and it effectively becomes a worker cooperative or the state and the union own majority shares.

Is this meme intentionally ignoring the massive progress on lgbt rights in the last decades or no? It's an overly simplistic representation of a very complicated issue
- Democrats understand that being gay doesn't restrict their power. Republicans hate gays because they are religiously indoctrinated to hate them.
  You can be gay under Democrats, but you're sure as shit gonna stay a slave.
  
  We are not slaves by quite some stretch, as much as Republicans want that back. "Wage slavery" is a fun term, but it doesn't actually reflect the variety of options people have available to them that real slaves do not.
  As long as we can unionize, the chains cannot bind us.
- Democrats aren't doing anything to try and stop the dismantling and reversing of said progress on lgbt rights in the last decades.
  They are targeting all things lgbt and won't stop until officially lgbt never existed and it's a thing to be stopped by all means.
  That's how i took it, this is the current situation.
- Agreed.
  It resonates with people because in recent years we've seen an uptick in conservative politics.
  The reality is that progressive vs conservative policies exist in a homeostatic relationship and there's an ebb and flow as societal norms and the overton window wander around.
  The US electoral system is not representative. Wealthy donors have too much control. There are valid criticisms to be made of the Dems ...
  ... but ultimately it's an absurdity to suggest that the democrats block movement back to the left. In the US if you want progressive policies implemented you need to vote Democrat. That's it.
  
  In the US if you want progressive policies implemented you need to vote Democrat. That's it.
  Hell no what the shit? This thinking is why the US is going fascist. Voting democrat as a vehicle for change has been demonstrated to be a failed proposition.
- But that's extremely damaging to the narrative, so we're just gonna... ignore it.
- America has gotten further left, and we seem to have recovered from the Republican-lite era of the '90s. But the Republicans keep gaining power and moderates keep voting for them despite agreeing with Dems.
- Civil rights are liberal, not left specifically.

this is ridiculous and completely incorrect.
pretty colors, vapid content.
Bernie, AOC, Abrams and others are fighting for the expansion and protection of civil rights.
trump is taking away and devaluing civil rights.
- Bernie is a centrist at best. Things like civil rights are bare minimum, I'm talking about fundamental workers rights like the right to unionize, repealing Taft-Hartley, setting up matching programs with unions so that they can buy up their companies and become worker cooperatives, etc.
  I believe Bernie is more based than centrism in his real views, but his public views are centrist at best.
  He exists to deal with the revolutionary energy that is building and make people feel like their voices are being heard under the current establishment. But the reality is that you need corporate backing to win an election in the US by design. It is a corporate oligarchy, not a democracy
  
  "Bernie is a centrist at best."
  Plainly incorrect:
  Bernie fights for universal healthcare, universal education, strong unions, higher taxes for the wealthy.
  These are radically progressive positions in the US and most other countries.
  "I believe Bernie is more based than centrism in his real views"
  Your belief has no basis in reality, while his political track record is filled with the introduction of legislation and his public advocacy for the causes above and many more.
  "you need corporate backing to win an election in the US by design."
  this is also incorrect, the design was for anyone to be able to enter politics in the US. At a local level, this is still largely possible.
  Corporate backing determining higher-level political outcome is a recent consequence of Citizens United, the ruling by the US Supreme Court that allowed unlimited political funding by the wealthy. That ruling is a corruption of the US political process, not "by design".
  Bernie has also proposed legislation repealing CU and regularly advocates for repealing CU so that the "design" of political entry in the US can be reestablished.
- And the party's leaders are actively trying to stop them.
  Also all of these people were silent or supported the Gaza genocide.
  
  your comment is
  explicitly incorrect since Sanders forced multiple votes on blocking US arms to israel,
  implicitly incorrect since neither of your comments negate the fact that the diagram is incorrect.
- It's not entirely incorrect. The two party system is designed to force both parties to appeal to the average person. But when one side goes radical and still appeals to a big chunk of voters, the other side has to consider how to capture those voters too. In the case of the democrats, that means taking an extremely conservative approach to countering the Republicans, because they somehow still believe there's a chance Republican voters will swing towards them. Young people are looking for a far more left wing government than the democrats are providing and so voter apathy among that demographic is so high, leading to this spiral. There are people fighting for sure, but the average is moving to the right.
  
  "It’s not entirely incorrect."
  The theory is not entirely incorrect.
  The diagram as a representation of American politics, especially with respect to Sanders, is incorrect, lazy and harmful to political comprehension at large.
- To be clear, I'm not dunking on Bernie or AOC. Their intentions might be in the right place.
  I'm saying the system will only allow so much muckraking. The ruling class ultimately determines who is on your ballot in the first place.
  Then you have the list of other problems like first past the post voting, voter ID laws (poll tax), gerrymandering, the electoral college, and the fact that electorates are not legally required to vote the way their representatives vote in the election.
  
  "To be clear, I’m not dunking on Bernie or AOC."
  Not for lack of trying. You failed in mischaracterizing and insulting Sanders because I proved how baseless each of your accusations and assumptions are here: https://sh.itjust.works/post/35914985/17933545
  "Their intentions might be in the right place."
  There's no "might" about it, as I pointed out in the same comment.
  "I’m saying the system will only allow so much muckraking."
  And rivers are only so wide. Profound.
  "The ruling class ultimately determines who is on your ballot in the first place."
  Realizing your earlier error("...by design"), you are now just less accurately paraphrasing my prior comment:
  "the design was for anyone to be able to enter politics in the US. At a local level, this is still largely possible.
  Corporate backing determining higher-level political outcome is a recent consequence of Citizens United, the ruling by the US Supreme Court that allowed unlimited political funding by the wealthy. That ruling is a corruption of the US political process, not “by design”."
  Thanks for backtracking, but pretending you were saying something different than you were before is disingenuous and irritating.
  You were wrong about the US electoral process, or charitably, you misunderstood and mischaracterized it.
  Your diagram is simplistic and fundamentally flawed.
  You made up blatantly false and consistently vague accusations about Sanders and the US electoral system at large.
  I corrected you on these points in earlier comments.
  That's that.
- Civil rights aren't leftwing policy so... okay?
  
  Not okay. Civil rights are firmly left-wing policy, specifically for the politicians mentioned.
  In the US, the left wing works to expand civil rights and protections.
  In the US, the right wing tries to restrict civil rights and protections.

Imagine being this ignorant of recent history.
- Name one left wing policy Democrats have executed in the past 20 years.
  They actively block unions when we should be setting up matching programs so that unions can buy up their companies and convert them to worker cooperatives
  We should be building high speed rail and getting rid of cars in favor of walkable cities and public transport.
  We should be building infrastructure from renewable energy to water delivery systems.
  We need a massive increase on corporate taxes and taxes on the rich. I'm even down for a wealth cap at $5 million.
  We can't even get basic center-right policies like banning politicians from trading stocks or making sure politicians have frozen assets while in office to prevent them from using their position for their own gain.
  To be left wing you have to side with workers rights over property rights, People over employers. That is why the left starts at anti-capitalism.
  
  They actively block unions
  Wow, it's amazing that you just happen to parrot right-wing talking points with no relation to reality
  We should be building high speed rail and getting rid of cars in favor of walkable cities and public transport.
  Holy fucking shit.
  Do you not remember the Obama administration's funding? Do you not remember the fights over public rail?
  We should be building infrastructure from renewable energy to water delivery systems.
  Do you not remember the Biden administration passing the biggest infrastructure bill in the past century, which focused heavily on renewables and included 31 billion for drinking water infrastructure
  We need a massive increase on corporate taxes and taxes on the rich.
  Would you like to remind me of the tax policy the past [checks notes] twenty years of Democratic presidential candidates have ran on?

The SPD effect.

Sometimes I wish this community would require authors to explain the meme. Where is the funny part?
- I don't think it has to be funny? That said I find the ratchet analogy entirely incorrect:
  Yes, the wheel is turning further to the right, yes, the democrats aren’t doing enough to stop or even wheel it back, but there’s no spring coil in the wheel, it wouldn’t snap back by itself if you removed the blue from the picture. That’s bullshit.

Omgord love it this is so flipping true, let's not forget the Imperial Boomerang.