If the Republicans are going to call the Democrats communists and socialist regardless of how moderate a campaign Democrats run, Democrats might as well lean further left on economic policy. Appealing to the right does nothing because the right can appeal to the right better than the center-left can
None of that will work anymore. The far right owns the house, the senate, the government enforcement agencies, and the Supreme Court. We’re nearing the end of the monopoly game and you don’t get anything extra for landing on free parking. The restraints for any of the rich and powerful just got taken off.
Pretty much this. The Business Plot succeeded, it just took another 100 years. Now they have their Mussolini-like strongman, and a fully captured legislative and judicial system, all without a March on Rome.
What do you think January 6th was?
Treason?
Well yeah, but it was also a literal march on our Capital.
A beerhall putsch, a failed one, but still, it was a sign of what was yet to come…
They didn’t even have to show up to the party or draw a direct line to the cannon fodder
Which is precisely why they don’t. They don’t exist to threaten the establishment, they are part of it, and are there to provide the illusion of choice so that the public feel like we’re helping while those in power do whatever they need to at our expense to keep that power. Playing by the rules and within the systems they have set out for us can and will only ever maintain the status quo.
This makes sense if one has never been in any sort of leadership role or public-facing organization before.
It’s true in very narrow senses which are stretched to breaking because really it isn’t true.
This assumes the dems have any interest in actually improving the lives of Americans.
Jangling keys of “maybe if I get the senate I’ll raise minimum wage? Do you want… Legal weed sometime?” sure works well. Just look at that electoral map!
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Just because they implement good policy from time to time doesn’t mean they give a shit about Americans.
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Congrats on not even attempting to understand the point I’m making.
Joe Biden suddenly turns into Joe Stalin…
Yup. Democratic leadership would rather trump win than run a left-facing campaign and candidate. What’s the definition of insanity?
Democratic leadership has to call corporate donors before they can make any decisions
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100%
Here in deep-red Missouri the $15 minimum wage passed in a landslide, but for some reason, all Democrats wanted to talk about was tax cuts that no one thinks they’ll actually pass anyway.
Democratic consultants. The problem.
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Magas will eat a lot of good people first, unfortunately. And the show will be extended over many years. Another enemy or bad group will always be found.
The “and then they came for” moment won’t hit critical mass for aomg time if ever. It’s terrifying to think how long an authoritarian group could maintain power with the technology and military power available today.
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Well that’s one way to look at this positively.
How do you see this going down? Internal power struggles and tantrum hissy fits?
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Democratic Party : Republican Party :: Washington Generals : Harlem Globetrotters
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Democratic leadership is those of us who do the thankless work of playing politics to help others.
Find something different. You won’t. Sure Progressive Party Whatever - they’ll run into the exact same thing. You’re re-inventing the wheel because you don’t know that.
That’s…
I’m not sure we’re all talking about the same thing. The Democratic Party has been playing to the “center” longer than any of us have been alive, while shunning, excommunicating, and often literally arresting anyone to the left. And all that accomplishes and has ever accomplished is the Overton window shifting further and further right. Kamala was running on bragging about hiring “the good” republicans while sidestepping the massive issues anyone even slightly progressive wanted to talk about (and what almost surely turned off a huge portion of voters), which is the ongoing genocide in Gaza. She finally said the day before the election that she would do “everything in her power to end the war,” which is still not nearly enough when discussing a fuckin genocide.
So many of the people I know are leftists. None of them voted for her because of it. Sure, the democrats and liberals I know did—my parents, for example. But they have voted democrat the entire time I’ve been alive. They are solid, reliable Dem voters. They’re not the people she needed to appeal to either—but keeping them was certainly more important than any mythical “centrist/swing” voter.
Everyone that was arrested for sitting in school buildings protesting the genocide, everyone who is sickened by what we’re seeing. Who couldn’t stomach voting for someone who didn’t feel the need to say it was a genocide that sickens them. THOSE are the people the dems gain when, like in 2020, things are so bad they hold their noses and increase turnout, and they’re the votes they lose when they hold office and maintain the genocidal status quo.
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Yeah, that’s definitely not what that meant.
Yeah no. I hate the democrats, I’m a registered libertarian. The popular vote said they’re fine with project 2025.
I don’t really care what issues anyone had. It was exesetential. We failed. That’s not a party issue, it’s an American issue. I don’t care about turnout, if you didn’t turn out you don’t care. Thats not on the party that’s on you. I don’t care about policy, it’s all about to get worse, we’ve seen it. Parties cease to matter when there’s dead bodies in the halls of government. We all saw the worst fucking coup attempt in history… And it worked. There is no party to blame for that. 2016 came down to poor leadership, this is just… deserved.
We’ll see what’s left to re-build with.
It is a party issue. The reason Democrats couldn’t effectively run on the issue of democracy is that they THEMSELVES did not treat Trump as a threat to democracy. Actions speak louder than words. Democrats called Trump a fascist and a threat to democracy. But they didn’t even start an investigation of him til two years into the Biden term. That man should have been arrested day one, hauled in front of a military tribunal, charged with treason, and dealt with accordingly. Any SCOTUS justices that tried to prevent this should have been charged as accessories after the fact and similarly tried as enemies of the republic.
THAT is the rational response to a former president that tried to overthrow the government. Trump should have been six feet under before Biden finished his first 100 days. That is the kind of urgency that is needed when a true existential threat is present. Look what happens when a random citizen tries to walk into the White House carrying a rifle. Do you think they weigh the political calculus of dealing with the person and how to respond to them without angering voters? No, they do what is necessary, then and there. That is what you do in an emergency.
What kind of existential threat do you just ignore for two years and then slow-walk? If China were invading Hawaii, would we move with that kind of sloth? No, an existential threat requires immediate action. By giving so much deference to Trump, Biden made extremely clear that he didn’t believe Trump to be an existential threat to democracy. Entirely because of his actions, any later campaign pleas about the threat of Trump fell of deaf ears. If the president of the United States won’t take something seriously as a threat to democracy, why would anyone expect voters to?
I don’t disagree they did a bad job. Clearly. Again, I don’t even like them in the first place for similar reasons. What I’m saying is there was exactly one way to avoid all of this this week, and we all signed off on it. The democrats didn’t make anyone stay home. The democrats didn’t make anyone vote for Trump. Individuals can’t take the action you described above, but they had an option to stop it from getting worse, and chose not to.
If you think the party is busted fine, I freaking agree. It’s not picking evil from the lesser of the two, it’s picking who you want to fight.
Again I’ll say, the dems didn’t do this, we all did. The dysfunction of a party doesn’t excuse individuals had a choice, and chose this.
All of the Zionists need to be tossed out.
Israel actually doesn’t matter to most Americans, sad as it is.
That’s about to change.
Why? Boots on the ground? What was the attention span for troops in Afghanistan?
The time it was a lot of attention same with the Vietnam war. It will create a left push.
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Can you send the primary source for those numbers. I was looking for this information weeks ago and couldn’t find it.
I can’t believe the Dick Cheney fans forgot to vote
Tens, literally tens of voters Liz Cheney brought to the table.
But it’s cool! She’s the friend of bigots! That makes brown and queer people feel welcomed, right?
I was downvoted to oblivion for questioning this move as a campaign strategy. I wonder if I should look and see how that turned out.
Hey I was downvoted again for saying “I got downvoted for being right.” Again, I was right.
As was I on here and reddit. It’s crazy.
But Dick Cheney! Dick Cheney!
They gonna go hunting with him?
America’s far left is just normal shit.
“Hey how about everybody gets food and can see the doctor”
“How about suck my dick and be my slave”
“Whoa whoa you two, let’s be civil. Especially you, first guy 😠”
Too scared of the spooky communism👻👻
A spectre is haunting the United States 👻
America’s left is what you describe as the far-left, but the far-left is much the same as it is everywhere else, Marxists and Anarchists. The far-left is relatively consistent internationally because its built on centuries of theory and practice.
America’s democratic party is much further right than any left leaning European party. Yet, even in the countries where those are or have been in power, the scary communist vision American propaganda promoted never materialized. People’s lives got just a little better as a whole in most cases. American capitalism is a cancer just as much as communism is an unattainable utopia. The answer, as in most cases, lies in the middle, but that’s something the American electorate really struggles to grasp.
First of all, I absolutely agree that the Democrats are a right-wing party, and the center-right European Social Democracies generally have higher living standards for most people than in America. However, I believe you have overlooked what I believe are critical factors, and you can correct me if I’m wrong here:
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The Social Safety Nets in these Social Democracies are shrinking in most cases
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Most of the Value consumed in these Social Democracies, the grear, vast majority, comes from countries in the Global South paid far less than the Value created for the Global North, meaning they depend on Imperialism
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Disparity continues to rise as Capitalism continues to centralize into fewer and fewer larger and larger Monopolist syndicates, the trend is still towards instability
The reason they haven’t “turned to Communism” is because they have never wanted to, they have been fundamentaly structured around Capitalism as the dominant Mode of Production and rely on Imperialism to subsidize their cost of living.
The reason America is different is because it is the global Hegemonic power. The “World Police.” Why is it that the US outspends the rest of the world on the military? So it can project soft power all around the world, securing unequal trade deals with the wealthy Capitalist classes in the Global South. The world trades in US dollars, which the US fights to maintain because it profits from that. This internally causes hyper-disparity between the wealthy and the poor in America.
Finally, I want to ask why you say Communism is an “unattainable utopia.” Marxists have thus far been proven correct in their thesis that markets trend towards centralization through competition over time, and that as firms get larger they begin to develop infrastructure for their own internalized planning. The concept of a fully publicly owned, centrally planned economy is built up by Capitalism itself. That’s without speaking to the fact that there are already Socialist states working towards said goal of full public ownership and central planning.
Why do you say the answer is a “middle ground?” What does this look like?
Honestly… I’m not sure at this point. I was somewhat nihilistic before, but these past few years have brought that sentiment to a whole new level for me…
The main limiting factor towards a true communist utopia is one: we’re human. As such, we are unfortunately individualistic by nature, and it’s been proven time and time again that the accumulation of wealth and power only strengthens that sentiment in the vast majority of the population. Under these constraints, I don’t see a path to fully public, decentralized governance and economic equality, someone will always attempt to centralize both.
What can be done is increase regulations, break up monopolies, put on safety guards and ensure better redistribution, and use, of wealth by increasing taxes to the ruling class. So basically yeah, some form of democratic socialism.
But then again, since decisions are made by the ruling class, that is unlikely to happen, it’s not in their best interest.
And as we’ve seen this time around, you just can’t beat stupidity. All the good intentions and overwhelming proof in the world won’t do you any good if people are unwilling to listen. Oftentimes, even the highly educated are unwilling to listen, what chance do you have with the average person?
I’ll address what you said in a moment, but I really do think you should read theory. If nihilism is overtaking you, in my opinion that means you have likely not properly analyzed our conditions, nor how to fix them. I keep an “introduction to Marxist theory” reading list I can link if you want.
First, no Communist is “Utopian.” Utopianism refers to the strategy of trying to figure out the right formula and directly create it, rather than analyzing existing structures and where they are headed. Communists analyze Capitalism and advocate for Socialism because Capitalism creates the conditions for Socicalism naturally, over time, by forming monopolies that can be folded into the public sector and centrally planned.
Secondly, you are making a critical misunderstanding of Communism. Communism is fully publicly owned and centrally planned. This is the entire purpose of public ownership, once you have public ownership you can plan things centrally, along democratic lines.
Thirdly, human values and thinking is guided by their social relations and material conditions. In Capitalism, a highly individualistic system filled with competition, these values are expressed at greater levels among Capital Owners. However, as it centralizes, the working class becomes more associated, and communal values are expressed at greater levels. This process has been reflected throughout all of history, from the tight-knit family structure of Feudalism to the modern era, the Mode of Production has formed the Base of society, and influenced the laws, culture, art, and so forth forming the Superstructure that reinforces the base, in a cycle that continues to evolve over time as one Mode of Production slowly leads to the next.
As per your “Democratic Socialism,” you are describing “Social Democracy.” There is nothing Socialist about what you described, a Capitalist state with large safety nets is Capitalist regardless. As such, you retain the inherent unsustainability of Capitalism and the further rising disparity it contains, until it is eventually overthrown and Socialism is achieved.
Regarding people’s receptions to ideas, this gets back to the Base and Superstructure argument. As the Base shifts over time, people become accepting of new ideas and values. Focusing on literacy and organizing are the best ways to increase social awareness of systemic issues, and figuring out how to solve them.
I maintain that you should read theory. I can offer a reading list, or answer any questions you might have. I don’t think it’s fair for you to denounce Communism as impossible if you haven’t engaged with the literature enough to fully understand what it even is, or how Communists want to achieve it and why they believe it not only to be possible, but necessary.
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The awful thing is they don’t even see what’s wrong with what you just described.
Extreme left and extreme right are both pieces of shit in my opinion. I’m not a centrist, but I’m not an extremist either. I just want people to not be put in concentration camps because of who they love or what they said online.
I guess it’s just too much to ask for from some people. Well, at least 20 million of them.
They refuse to actually campaign and address people’s concerns. They gaslight, minimize, denigrate, guilt trip, and verbally abuse people and then are surprised Pikachu when no one is happy or motivated to vote for them.
“You owe it to your country to vote.” “You are a bad person/stupid/russian shill etc if you vote for anyone but Kamala.”
These things just stroke your ego and are otherwise thought terminating. They do not get votes. Like holy fuck, if you just listen to people’s concerns and talk with them, it tends to work.
But with Citizens united, campaigns focus around a capitalist spending strategy like it’s Election Christmas. Bernie Sanders, Stacey Abrams, and AOC all had what I’d call “authentic” campaigns, where they requested help with canvassing and phone calls before they requested donations. Like donations were fine, but most emails and texts were asking for workers, volunteers, and physical help. Those requests were completely absent from Kamala’s campaign.
The status quo just doesn’t want the common person to have political literacy. If they teach us how to canvas, then we’ll do it for someone who isn’t status quo. If they show us how to run for office, then we will just run ourselves like AOC did. They are in direct conflict with themselves because they are trying to suppress anything except status quo Dems.
Remember Primaries? Of course that would require the DNC not to turn out the lights when they hear something they don’t like.
“But you had one with Biden and he appointed Harris so you chose that!!!”
“I didn’t hear anyone calling for other candidates.”
That was a response I got from a guy when I brought up the botched primary all thanks to Biden’s hubris.
Like, no shit Sherlock, we couldn’t call for anyone else, there was no time!
Biden left his run so late they just appointed someone else and “that’ll do!”
And then called us naive idealists for wanting… Checks notes democracy when the democracy is at stake.
My ballot had two choices: Biden and uncommitted. I voted uncommitted.
A primary with one name on the ballot is not a primary.
It’s pretty stupid of Dems to think that white conservative racists are going to vote for a black-indian woman? WHAT were they thinking?!!!
They were thinking exactly what they were paid to think.
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No leftist would be bragging about a Trump win. A leftist would be worried about the people who are in danger now. You’re not a leftist if this is your belief.
Their comment history is fucking insane. They appear to support accelerationism, so they got what they wanted.
I wouldn’t brag about kamala either.
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Wow, you know empathy is free, right?
Nah, for some people empathy has the insurmountable cost of destroying the world view which puts them on top.
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Absolutely, we need to place blame where it belongs. Democrats fucked up bad, it is basically 2016 all over again
It’s worse.
Everyone is terrible here. In the past I could forgive Republicans because “they didn’t get who he was.” They know and don’t care. Billionaires fighting each other over who gets hegemony is boring. This is their world and we just happen to live here.
Absolutely, we need to place blame where it belongs.
Then instead of blaming one half of the establishment, blame the establishment itself. It is working exactly as it is designed to.
Yea but they won’t court the “left”(what little of a left exists in America) because the DNC doesn’t want leftist or even center-left policies, they like and want center-right policies that republicans 30 years ago pushed.
The problem with that strategy is that moderate Republicans don’t watch the news. They believe that all other Republicans are just like them and hold all the same beliefs, because all their friends are in the same echo chamber. So then they believe all Republican politicians are the same way. They intentionally don’t pay attention to the news because it is full of sensationalism and depressing things they can’t personally control like terrorism and mass shootings. They still believe it’s important to vote, because that’s the patriotic thing to do, and they can just fill the bubbles next to every name marked REP and not have to worry about doing research and learning facts. It’s just the easy way and they’ve lived their whole lives doing things the easy way because of white privilege and generational wealth, but any low points in their lives they will consider to be “hardship” so they “know” that anyone living in poverty is just not trying hard enough, because they personally made it through that “struggle” with barely more than the average effort they usually contribute to anything.
How do I know this? I was raised in a family that is exactly how I described here. The only reason I’m not just like them is that I went to public school and made friends with kids who did not come from the same background. It took about 17 years to finally see all the flawed logic and head-in-sandness before finally breaking free and forging my own path based on my own beliefs.
I mean, there’s a whole lot that went wrong, but the big one was subverting the democratic process with primaries that didn’t really pick a popular candidate (2016 and 2024).
The primaries are the time for the candidate to energize a base of support. Harris has never energized anybody, and it was silly to think that affection for Biden would carry her.
Conservatives vote in force to signal their loyalty to their chosen community.
Progressives stay home when they perceive that their community doesn’t chose them. Harris’ vote totals at the end of this will sit somewhere below Biden 2020, for that reason.
I wouldn’t leave 2020 out. Having politicians ahead of Joe Biden pull out to endorse him ahead of super Tuesday was really irregular and didn’t result in a good candidate either
There werent primaries. None of the challengers had sufficient ballot access.
Yay oligarchy.
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Get organized. Join a Leftist org, find solidarity with fellow comrades, and protect each other. The Dems will not save you, it is up to the Workers to protect themselves. The Party for Socialism and Liberation and Freedom Road Socialist Organization both organize year round, every year, because the battle for progress is a constant struggle, not a single election. See if there is a chapter near you, or start one! Or, see if there’s an org you like more near you and join it, the point is that organizing is the best thing any leftist can do.
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Read theory. A good primer is Blackshirts and Reds. It will help contextualize what fascism is, what causes it, and how to stop it. I can offer a good introductory reading list regarding Marxism if you’d like, but this is a good starting point.
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Aggressively combat white supremacy, misogyny, queerphobia, and other attacks on marginalized communities. Cede no ground.
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Be more industrious, and self-sufficient. Take up gardening, home repair, tinkering. It is through practice that you elevate your problem-solving capabilities. Not only will you improve your skill at one subject, but your general problem-solving muscles get strengthened as well. Theory guides practice, which sharpens theory to be reapplied to better practice.
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Learn self-defense. Get armed, if practical. Be ready to protect yourself and others. The Democrats will not save us, we must save each other.
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Be persistent. If you feel like a single water driplet against a mountain, think of the Grand Canyon. Oh, how our efforts pile up! With consistency, every rock, boulder, even mountain, can be drilled through with nothing but steady and persistent water droplets.
https://www.optionsri.org/post/chattering-classes-activism-is-the-best-remedy-to-authoritarianism
Rest, recuperate, get into a sustainable rhythm. Only we will keep us safe.
If I had canvassed for Harris in Tennessee I’d have been shot.
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