> actual oligarchies
> some voter disenfranchisement
> denied access to elections
> legitimate election fraud
> serious voter intimidation
I don’t completely disagree with you: people do have agency at the end of the day in the US. That said, let’s be careful not to fall into Scotsman fallacies where we don’t accept more subtle forms of oligarchy because they don’t fit our “1984”-esque imagination. Southern states have long histories of subtle voter disenfranchisement (requiring licenses or certificates that Black Americans have in lower percentages, placing polling stations in strategic locations, requiring money to discourage the poor from voting (who lean left), etc.) and it’s short-sighted to “No true Scotsman” that and say “well, it’s not an actual oligarchy because technically people still can vote.” One, in the vein of Niemoller’s “First they came...”, it ignores warning signs or red flags difficult to reverse until it’s too late. Second, it puts the focus on the individual. Sure, people can still vote. They can take off their $#!@ job for a few hours even though their boss is an @$$#@!€ and they need every dollar they can get, take the bus to the voting station 30 minutes away, wait in the line for potentially hours (I waited in just the primary line for 8 hours and I lived in West LA (Democrat, richer, etc.) at the time), only to be told they need a driver’s license which they’ve never had because they’ve never been able to afford a car. Or they actually do have, but this is just one person and most of their friends aren’t voting. Sure, this is possible. But then I ask you to reflect on the purpose of a democratic government if not to enable fair, free, and accessible elections? Especially now that the incumbent president is sueing and refusing to accept the results in a - I don’t way to say decisive, but clear perhaps - election, I guess I would like to know what it takes to consider that “legitimate election fraud”? Is it simply missing the f@$cist aesthetic of red, black, echo-y microphones over a rabid crowd, tanks and semi-automatics down the streets? Once again, once things progress to that level, it might be too late, but that doesn’t mean our current circumstances are any “less” of an “actual oligarchy” just because theyre not as obvious. IMO