Well hello there! Would you like to know how the United States works? I knew you would!
Okay, so, if you live in the United States you are what they call a citizen. (The United States of America is called a country.) As a citizen you pay a subscription fee, called taxes, that is based on how much money you made in the past year. In return for your subscription you get benefits such as well-maintained roads, clean air, a functional legal system, and a chance to vote periodically for the country's leadership.
(If you are not a documented citizen, you may be here on a trial period (refugee). If you do not pay taxes you are either a pirate (criminal) or a VIP on a complementary membership (wealthy). Oddly enough the people on the trial period are considered the most problematic by half the country's leadership.)
Now, you may notice that the roads are not very well maintained and the air is kind of smelly and overheated. That's because for the past forty years (at least), around half of the country's leadership (the same ones against trial periods) have insisted on a subscription plan where the majority of the country pays at the highest tier, but the people with the most money get complementary memberships. And despite the accountants pointing out this doesn't work and isn't good business (governance), this faction insists on sticking with it and lowering subscription fees.
Why are they doing this? Well part of it is they tend to have the most money, and so do their friends. But also, they want the country to get in enough trouble that they can convince the subscribers (citizens) to vote them into total control. Once that happens they can change the subscriber rules so the subscribers don't get to vote at all, and chance their benefits to what they think citizens should have (rights based on being white, male and wealthy), and all the members who disagree with them can be removed from the service (deported/arrested/executed).
Does it seem like they should be allowed to do this? That's right, it doesn't! But we let them because a lot of subscribers get told by marketing (the press) that this is a good thing for them and a bad thing for people they don't like. And the people who aren't trying to get the country in trouble, don't want to admit to the subscribers that a good part of the leadership wants to tear the service down - it's bad P.R.
So why is this important? Well, a while back the leadership passed a rule that if the country built up a certain amount of debt, they would stop paying their bills. There wasn't an actual requirement to do this, but leadership thought it was a good idea and assumed everyone would stick to it.
Anyway, next week we might hit that limit, and the anti-trial period faction would be very happy if the country stopped paying its bills so they can blame the CEO (President) and have him voted out. So they're forcing the rest of leadership to agree to a bunch of changes that will also hurt the country, but not as obviously.
So what can you do? Not much! The main thing is to vote against the people trying to wreck the service, but that system is heavily weighted in their favor so it's not easy. You also need to vote for people who are trying to fix the service, but again, that's an uphill battle. Still, try your best!
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