“But over time, the executive branch grew exceedingly powerful. Two world wars emphasized the president’s commander in chief role and removed constraints on its power. By the second half of the 20th century, the republic was routinely fighting wars without its legislative branch, Congress, declaring war, as the Constitution required. With Congress often paralyzed by political conflict, presidents increasingly governed by edicts.”
That video is the best source that I’ve seen that summarizes the relevant points. It’s also the first source I’ve found on the history of neoliberalism. The video is well researched and had an interview with an expert on the topic. So not only is it a highly relevant video to our discussion, it should be shared widely as it is an efficient way to educate people on neoliberalism. It’s also relatively recent so not everyone will have seen it yet.
Many people, if not most people in America and probably the West at large grew up partially internalizing these neoliberal ideas. But many of them don’t even know the name of the ideology let alone where those ideas come from. You argument initially did not seem to recognize neoliberalism as a political ideology. This is a common misconception I see all over lemmy. This gap in education must be corrected as neoliberal ideas are what have lead us to the current fascist regime. And even if we defeat this MAGA dictatorship, we will still need to contented with this pervasive neoliberal thinking when attempting to implement socialist and progressive policies.
Besides the European-American divide where conservatives are referred to as liberal in Europe and progressives are referred to as liberal in America there are actual misconceptions. One being Marxist-Leninists and many other leftists call anyone to the right of them liberals. In addition people conflate classical liberals, neoliberals, neoconservatives, and fascists as the same ideology.
Not being able to identify these ideologies will make people rhetorically ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst. Neoliberals and fascists have their own ideas that need to be countered with arguments that address those ideologies’ actual positions. What we have currently is people resulting to name calling, calling everyone a liberal, which isn’t a persuasive argument.
And yes, the US education system needs an overhaul. But its underfunding is an intentional part of the Republican strategy. An uneducated populace is easier to control. We need to fund our education system in the US and the government in general. In order to fund the government we have to get money out politics, which means taking control of the source of wealth from the owner class. In order to convince people that’s necessary we need them to understand neoliberalism is a sales pitch for the scam that is late-stage capitalism.
That’s a lot of work that needs to be done. Sharing this video is a small thing anyone can do to contribute to that. And what a lot people seem to fail to understand is that whether or not there is a peaceful revolution or violent revolution this work will still need to be done. There’s no shortcut for educating people.