This actually was a bit of a process. After Hoover, America was a serious shithole. A Hooverville was a shanty town. We call them homeless encampments now. It took Roosevelt’s new deal to pull us out with a lot of national programs.
Then WW2 happened and we were super in debt, and we needed to get really organized to develop a robust union-supported middle class, so that our GDP outpaced our debt + interest + spending.
And the owner class took all that personally. Before the war, the industrialists organized a propaganda campaign to instill capitalist values in the US (and no small amount of fascism). They weren’t yet good at it but got better with time.
And once big industries were unionized and regulated, Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote his notorious memorandum outlining the plan to recapture the government, especially the courts, in order to create a pro-commercial state, e.g. one in which unions weren’t welcome, regulations weren’t enforced, and the working class knew their place.
And the owner class has been following that agenda since. Of course, it is turning the US back into a shithole on the verge of fiscal collapse, but they don’t care. Nor do they listen to the economics experts that point out that liberal democratic societies end up far richer, including their owner class. They think as Trump does, that they’re the experts on everything, and they surround themselves with sycophants who don’t disagree with them or challenge their ideas.
In the 1970s, but especially after Reagan, lobbyists and special interest groups gained access to elected officials, and got really clever in all the ways that they can bribe them. Politician went from being a decent career into a gateway into the owner class, and so people ran for office not to do things (e.g. to create change) but to be adjacent to power. Nowadays, money is super entrenched. Campaign contributions are dwarfed by PAC money which is dwarved by Superpacs, and then there’s the promise of post-career cushy high-paying jobs… as lobbyists.
(Apparently it’s super humiliating. Once you’re in office, if you want to keep your campaign sponsors happy – and willing to keep you in office – you have to pass what they say. They give you the bills prewritten and expect them to be passed verbatim. Fail, and that sweet high-paying job you were promised after your political career is gone. So elected officials beholden to large sponsors are forced to be absolutely subservient. It explains why it’s so natural for Republicans to abdicate all responsibility to Trump, and why establishment Democrats are incredibly milquetoast, and make every excuse not to pass public-serving legislation. It also explains why establishment Democrats are fighting progressive and DSA factions more fiercely than they fight Republicans, even though the GOP is actively trying to unmake the two-party system and arrest the Dems as political enemies as soon as they get the chance.)
Progressives and DSA are gaining traction specifically because the establishment Democrats are just weak Republicans, and many of those who’d vote for them would rather vote for the guy with the fancier suit and the better memes. Progressives and DSA are coming into office with an actual platform beyond we’re better than the Republicans and are trying to actually pass public-serving policy.
Trump, in the meantime, has a knack for inviting people to be their worst selves. He attracts voters who just want to vote based on vibes, rather than a platform and their own best interests. Trump also is openly racist in contrast to the dog-whistle racist Republican party of 2015. White racist Americans found refreshing. He’s only saying what we all are thinking. Since then, the Republican party now has a purity test, that either you’re 100% MAGA devout, or you’re a RINO. And already we’re starting to see the MAGA movement start to cut into their own ranks, excluding those who are not quite perfect.
I like this
I’ve been saying similar things for a long time now. Repulicrats and Demicrans are two sides of the same coin. Bush signed in the patriot act. I got all excited to make a change and voted for Obama. Then he signs in the expansion of the patriot act and carpet bombs the shit out of Syria.
IMO democrats aren’t really “left.” They’re more like “were going to use the federal gov to protect corporations” and then the GOP is more like “were going to use the state and local governments to protect corporations”
And then every November, Americans vote to protect corporations.
That’s old news. Now Democrats are we’re going to use the federal government to (mostly) pass protectionist legislation. and the GOP is like We’re going to dismantle democracy, turn the US into a single-party autocracy and then no-one’s vote will matter anymore.
Once they do that, the Democrats will become enemies of the state and will be arrested. But then, the executive will find that Congress is entirely useless. It’ll be easy to get them to pass an enabling act after which elected officials don’t really need to go to work.
By then, though, the country is going to be bankrupt, and will have no friends. If there’s a half-functional military left, the US might try to annex Canada or Mexico.
Look you’re either down to use your allotment of violence this November to fight back within the system, or you’re mad enough to fight The System, and build anew.
super secret option
Both, both is also good.
Anything else makes you a Republican Asset. Fascism is already here, and I don’t believe you can vote your way out, but there is value in getting the data to prove it. There is value in giving The Democratic Party enough rope to hang themselves with. To prove to both yourself and others that even with more power The Democratic Party will still only fight with strongly worded letters.
There is also value in pumping up the DSA faction inside the party, and helping them takeover.
There is no value in staying home, and it’s too late this election to build a Third Party Movement. So your options are either get behind Blue, or get ready to get bloody. Otherwise you’re just a whining Republican Asset.
There is also value in pumping up the DSA faction inside the party, and helping them takeover.
Just worth saying again.
Voter depression task force out and about again right in time for midterms. Man “leftists” must really love having Republicans in power.
You folk are either Russian bots, or so far brainwashed by Russian bots you’ve become indistinguishable from them.
Oh, I’ll vote and vote blue no matter who.
But 2024 taught me that Americans do not care. They knew who Trump was. They saw how he is president. They heard what he said he wanted to do once in office. They knew about the Project 2025 Mandate for Leadership and what its plan was. And the majority of voters couldn’t be bothered to vote against him.
On the Democratic side, I get the grievances, except that by not voting for the AIPAC lady, we’re now watching as Israel plans to turn Gaza into a billionaire resort and just massacre the entire region. The Republicans don’t have a conscience to be bargained with, while the Democrats have opinions that can evolve.
The price of eggs was an excuse. Americans voted based on vibes and racism. Not specific racism though they’re being fed fear of brown immigrants, but permission to be racist. And now genocide of everyone not MAGA is in the Overton window.
Maybe all of the Republican election tampering and voter suppression shenanigans will fail to reduce the alleged blue tsunami to a blue trickle, and maybe the after-election shenanigans won’t work, but that doesn’t mean the Democrats are going to get full control of Congress and the Presidency in 2028. And if they do, that doesn’t mean Democrats are actually going to sufficiently overhaul SCOTUS, and then ironclad elections from suppression, tampering, gerrymandering, voter caging and so on. And these things need to be done before any movement towards rebuilding regulatory institutions, soft power departments like USAID, reforming DHS or any of the other things that really need to be done.
And if all this isn’t done in time, then American voters will get impatient, and follow their brainwashing to vote in oligarch puppets again. And this time the US will become a one-party state, and might even see its constitution dismantled.
So, I will vote. I think everyone absolutely needs to vote as if their lives and the lives of everyone they know depends on it. But I thought the same thing in 2024, and the constituency of the United States betrayed me. Seriously, eventually I’m going to end up on ICE’s hit list, and they’ll come for me. After that, they’ll come for everyone else.
SCOTUS has locked federal political power in favor of MAGA. It’s entirely captured. It has the capacity to nullify any or all parts of the Constitution of the United States, if they decide to do so. Expect to see carveouts of the 13th, 14th, 15th and 19th amendments just the way they scalloped the 4th and 5th. We have one chance to stop them. One.
So I’m not going to be dishonest about our actual chances. I still think everyone needs to vote. I also think Americans need to organize twelve million of us behind a single manifesto, so that when we general strike or occupy Washington, we have clear and established demands, and there is clearly nothing they can do about it and stay in power.
But I don’t think Americans are up to the task, even if they are skipping meals and living off ramen. Even if their family is abducted and disappeared by ICE. Even if they’re choking on data center fumes. Moreover because they still believe they have to check the R to prove they’re not effeminate or communist.
I’ll do my diligent duty. Heck I’m looking for my place in the organized resistance. But my faith in the people of the United States is gone. I’m not going to lie about that to purport hope or optimism.
Everyone I don’t like is a Russian bot and other fairy tales
Every single election cycle
There’s a lot of liberals in here thinking they’re leftists, or trying to “unify the left” in their usual bullshit ways.
Weird uptick of both sides bullshit the closer we get to November, go vote.
Predictable uptick
Sounds about right.
Even in this example, there is one side that is obviously far far worse than the other.
I don’t think we should really be heralding the “better” side as the ones that are going to save us. Remember their goals are ultimately the same.
Not really.
A guy standing in a room watching a rape or murder is also irredeemable scum.
Less bad than the one committing it. Maybe not “far far” but still.
I can and will argue that its just as bad. Kinda like pointing and laughing at shipwreck survivors before you leave them to drown.
There is a reason however that in such cases the law differentiates between murder and accessory to murder. The latter carries less severe penalties. They are simply not the same thing and one is objectively worse than the other.
I agree, but also don’t think we should be so devoted as to defend them for being the only ones who can help us and having them watch and do nothing. They’re more concerned with the people running on doing more. Is that an Ally or just the weaker of two enemies?
We should absolutely push the Democrats to do better and support DSA and other farther left candidates. Short term though, they are the best chance to wrest control of the government back from the MAGA fascists.
Cleaner, perhaps, but not usefully better.
It is the job of fascists to make sure any groups who might oppose them are too busy fighting each other to stop them.
Uh… no? Of course they’d love it to happen, but that’s not how fascists historically operate.
Yeah, fascists never use propaganda to twist the public’s beliefs to their benefit. /S
I’d certainly be interested in historical examples of fascist propaganda meant specifically to divide the opposition (rather than simply gain more supporters).
I mean, the historic Nazis basically presented themselves to the German political establishment as an anti-communist deal with the devil, and it worked well enough for them to take over Germany. Does that count?
I’d say not really. This deal with the devil tactic was ultimately about getting the German political establishment to support them in return for breaking communist skulls, so it falls pretty cleanly under “simply getting more supporters.” What would count would be the Nazis trying to split people who oppose them from other people who oppose them (so social democrats from liberals, communists from social democrats, etc) so that the size of the opposition isn’t changed but it’s directed less effectively. What you’re referring to is just selling oneself to potential supporters, which any political party/movement must do anyway.
Propaganda can have multiple purposes. It also drove a wedge between the far left and the center left. The same goes for the Nazis attacking LGBT people (sound familiar)?
It also drove a wedge between the far left and the center left.
No it didn’t. The people the Nazis were making deals with were squarely on the right of the German political spectrum. We’re talking monarchists, rightwing nationalists and the like. A good proxy for this would be seeing which parties voted for the Enabling Act of 1933, and as you’ll notice immediately if you’re familiar with German politics from this period they’re all rightwing. Hell, most of them weren’t even republican. The center left here was the SPD, and they all (the ones that made it to the Reichstag anyway) voted no, while the communists were too busy suffering state repression. Importantly, the wedge that was driven between these two parties was driven by themselves.
Agreed, but you should still go and vote the brainworm posse out.
This is the time of the year when accounts with a thousand post and ten comments start trying to depress the vote for the only party that has a chance to beat the republicans.
Whoops total accident
There’s a thousand criticisms of US politics I agree with, that make sense; but the one thing that has never made sense to me is why the Republican Party exists.
It’s a horrendous monster with no visible redeeming values. The Democrats can live off “We will fight the monster!” and be opportunistic scumbags, but no explanation given for why that monster exists.
As long as even some of the democrats build up a platform of fighting that monster, and have to pretend to do it, then it’s better than those monsters actually being in charge. I’m not a fan of handwaving the “hard fact” that group still continues to exist as a pure enemy of American success through today’s age, and it turns almost anything else into a lesser evil.
Mostly gerrymandering/voter suppression/corruption (they’re all the same thing, to me). The Republicans are always accusing Democrats of influencing elections, because they know how easy it is.
You can look it up yourself pretty easily: there are about 1.5x as many people who reliably vote Democratic as there are people who reliably vote Republican. The only reason Republicans ever win anything is because of baldfaced voter suppression.
The part that makes even less sense is that majority of Americans support that monster party, even after it got significantly more monstrous (maggot movement)
Republican as a party has existed for basically the same amount of time the US has. It doesn’t really have it’s own goals.
The problem is just that poor people’s voices are actively suppressed in favor of the dollar
This is why I think reforming the Democrats is a lost cause. They would rather torpedo the entire thing than give an actual leftist one iota of power.
El-Sayed / Hasan manufactured controversy playing out right now is a perfect example of what this looks like.
Consider that a lot of this is coming from campaign consultants who eschew the idea of grass roots funded lean campaigns that don’t waste money on TV ad buys(and more consultants).
Also, a lot of this is coming straight from AIPAC. Every single Democrat politician that is engaging in this character assassination spree is getting money from AIPAC.
And, since the lefty candidates tend to communicate to their base via “non traditional” means, traditional media sees them as a threat too.
The whole manufactured controversy is just Israel’s talking points. “Antisemitism” this and “no genocide” that - these aren’t real points and it’s why AIPAC incumbents are being singled out. The situation has become overly apparent that the DNC is hamstrung by foreign interests to be ineffective.
“Foreign interests”.
It’s the same interests as the “natives” ruling class. It’s not about helping Israel or the USA, it’s about money, and these interests are international. The ruling class of the USA is the same ruling class of Earth, the USA is the capital (formerly UK), and Israel is as enslaved to them as the USA, it’s not the “controller”.
it’s about money
That includes war, from primitive accumulation to the MIC. See: The Palestine Laboratory
Absolutley true. Yet, you still need to vote to have any say in what’s happening. Don’t let this stop you and don’t be discouraged in criticizing either. Both are very important democratic freedoms. Voting does more than protesting. Questioning and researching make your vote wiser. Dissent defies these freedoms in many ways.
