- cross-posted to:
- chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
- memes@midwest.social
- cross-posted to:
- chapotraphouse@hexbear.net
- memes@midwest.social
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Always remember that left and right are difficult terms: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left–right_political_spectrum
In Germany Harris would have been conservative CDU (the most conservative/right party before the AfD turned up) and Trump would have been in the AfD. However, CDU is still fine. Nothing bad about being conservative. I disagree with most of their opinions but they are valid political opinions. AfD and Trump share political opinions that are undemocratic, dangerous and stupid.
You could’ve made this image using paint in under 5 minutes, did you really need to waste half a liter of water to have AI generate it?
Sure, Jan.
The following can all be true:
- The Democrats are a right wing neoliberal party.
- The Democrats are the most left-wing option that is realistically available to American voters.
- The Democrats can be pushed further left if American progressives work to do so.
- The Democrats - at the party level - will resist such a change, but that resistance can still be overcome.
- In the long term, massive structural overhauls and the downfall of capitalism are the only things that will save America and the world
- In the near term, voting consistly and enthusiastically for the least bad option can still protect vulnerable groups from harm and create changes that lay the groundwork for those structural overhauls.
That is their entire point. Two party system means that they can take up all space for opposition to Republicans while making their policies bipartisan.
The Democratic party is entirely built to fight any leftward movement, it isn’t just that the progressives didn’t try. They have been trying for 80 years. It is that the entire party is structured and designed to fight that. That is the actual reason Trump could come from the outside and completely reshape the Republicans, but the Dems can form rank and resist Bernie and the progressives.
The Democrats have shown overwhelmingly and repeatedly that they would rather lose to Republicans than move at all to the left.
Then primary the bad actors and reform the Democrat party.
This is your option. There is no other option than violent revolution and I can assure you from spending my entire life in this country that modern Americans don’t have it in them.
If conservatives can morph the Republican party into the traitorous entity it is now, then liberals can reform the Democrat party to move more to the left.
History proves party reformation is possible, and inevitable.
Liberals will never move left cause they’re pro-capitalism.
Point 3 is wrong. The working classes in the States are already increasingly left, while the DNC is increasingly rightward. The DNC doesn’t care about what voters want, but what their donors need. That’s why it’s critical to engage with parties like PSL.
I think we’re showing mixed results on your third bullet. It did seem that way, for a while, as we pushed on social issues. And when it came time to get on with the economic issues, the core management team of the party rallied, and rather than adopt the left flank to win, steps right to hand control to Republicans.
And it’s happened more than once now, to obvious and clear effect: the goal of the Democratic party isn’t to win elections, it’s to keep the country idealogically aligned with a neoliberal ruling class. And if that means handing control of government to Republicans, they’ll do so, then blame the left (even though it’s them moving to the right losing elections).
To the fourth bullet, no, it’s not clear that within the machinations of the party infrastructure it can be overcome. Because if not now, when? Party leadership has never been weaker or more vulnerable nor the times more desperate. Democrats as a party poll worse than Trump, yet progressives can win elections with both the entire Republican and Democratic apparatus gunning to take them down. yet somehow we can’t replace Schumer’s or Jefferies.
Skipping to the 6th point, again, that isn’t actually borne out by the evidence. It’s not something well know in advance and only as an artifact of history. What’s been extremely clearly is that so far, voting has been wildly insufficient to make the kinds of structural changes necessary. Obama is the classic example of this. He runs on healthcare, holding wallstreet accountable, and ending the wars; he delivers corporate “access”, bails out the banks, and continues the wars. The voters did their job and the system didn’t work.
So a relentless optimism that the system will just work as intended doesn’t seem warranted, and it’s clearly not going in a good direction.
Until we recognize that the Democratic party, it at least it’s current and historical structure is at the core of the problem with why we can’t advance political change, its pretty clear that this decent into autocracy, fascism, and a degraded quality of life is inevitable. The Democratic party isn’t just part of the problem: it’s the core element of the problem.
Liberals call this “purity testing,” but fundamentally the democrats stand for perpetuating capitalism and imperialism. These two points of contention are irreconcilable with any leftist.
If I’m trying to create anything worth anything you’re goddamn right I’m gonna test my ingredients for purity
I agree, though I’d say there’s a difference between criticism and self-criticism with what we think of as “purity testing,” ie demonizing AES or other movements for their imperfections.
“purity testing” more like them gaslighting people into believing that they are left wing and getting defensive when they are proved not to be
Bingo.
Always remember that while The Democratic Party is far from perfect, this is Russian propaganda. The party and the rules it has to play by are changed by voting locally, early, and often. Spreading the voter apathy message that both parties are the same and our votes are inconsequential just gives more power to the oppressors.
Why are you linking to a crypto-fascist’s book? Because you bought the narrative that he’s “Putin’s brain”? 🙄
Always remember that Russiagate was bullshit.
- IT Pro: Cambridge Analytica models were exaggerated and ineffective, [UK Information Commissioner’s Office] claims
- Wall Street Journal: Mueller Doesn’t Find Trump Campaign Conspired With Russia
- Jacobin: Democrats and Mainstream Media Were the Real Kremlin Assets
- Washington Post: FEC fines DNC, Clinton for violating rules in funding Steele dossier
- Washington Post: Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters
- Jacobin: It Turns Out Hillary Clinton, Not Russian Bots, Lost the 2016 Election
- Matt Taibbi: Move Over, Jayson Blair: Meet Hamilton 68, the New King of Media Fraud The Twitter Files reveal that one of the most common news sources of the Trump era was a scam, making ordinary American political conversations look like Russian spywork
- Jacobin: Why the Twitter Files Are in Fact a Big Deal On the Left, there’s been a temptation to dismiss the revelations about Twitter’s internal censorship system that have emerged from the so-called Twitter Files project. But that would be a mistake: the news is important and the details are alarming.
- MSNBC Repeats Hamilton 68 Lies 279 Times in 11 Minutes
- Matt Taibbi: CIA “Cooked The Intelligence” To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump In 2016
- Aaron Maté: Under Trump, the CIA is still covering up its Russiagate fraud
- Matt Taibbi: Note on New Trump-Russia Disclosures Thanks to explosive new document releases, the Russiagate hoax is now exposed, commencing a new era that will be about accountability for the guilty
- Matt Taibbi: No Doubt Left: Russiagate Was a Cover-Up
- Chris Hedges: Why Russiagate Won’t Go Away The cynical con the Democratic Party and the F.B.I. carried out to falsely portray Donald Trump as a puppet of the Kremlin worked, and continues to work, because it is what those who detest Trump want to believe.
A capitalist party being right-wing is basic left/right understanding. Dugin has nothing to do with this.
I don’t see the link with the wikipedia article of that book with a neoliberal US party been right wing.
Their point, I think, is that we’re secret chaos agents sent by Putler to sap and impurify their precious bodily fluids.
I agree, but I also wonder if the Democratic party can be converted from the inside to change it’s focus.
Probably not. I just winder what the best way forward is. It’s not really clear.
📺 Why the Democratic Party CANNOT and WILL NOT be Reformed
Democrats would rather lose to a Republican, to a conservative, to a fascist, to Trump, than address the material conditions of the American people.
The DNC is designed against entryism, and drives its power not from popular support, but wealthy private donors. What’s important is directly organizing on the ground to form a large, working class party, like PSL. Reading theory and organizing are the best things you can do. If you want somewhere to start with theory, I made an introductory Marxist-Leninist reading list you can check out.
Wow, that’s quite a lot of content to go through. Thanks!
No worries! Honestly it’s designed to turn anyone from not knowing anything at all about Marxism into a capable cadre that can figure out where to go next (like Capital, Anti-Dühring, etc), but just reading section 0a is great if you just want to dip your toes in.
people have been trying that for 60+ years its a no-go, tyhe party is fundamentally anti-working-class
60 years ago, Democrats were creating Medicare, Medicaid, SNAP, and the Job Corps, passing civil rights, voting rights, and labor protection acts, and massively expanding investment in public housing and education. It’s only in the past 45 years things have really gone sideways
The DNC has always been a capitalist and imperialist party, passing social welfare programs doesn’t counter that basic fact, and as such doesn’t counter that leftists have been trying to change them into a leftist party for far longer.
It can’t be reformed. It needs to be burn down and new party started.
The two party system exists to prevent this.
Sure, but there is no other option. We must build up a working class party, if running them electorally doesn’t work, then it will still work when conditions falter and revolution happens.
I mean a conservative project to do exactly this is what transformed the Cheney era neocons into the modern day fascist party we see. So at least in principle that’s possible. but clearly the neocons were more than happy to go along with fascism. Fascism and conservativism have effectively the same goals.
The neoliberals who faced the same kind of insurrection from within their party at the same time were unwilling to adopt progressivism and are still unwilling to adopt progressivism. The right was able to change their party into a fascist one, the left has failed to move the demo party into being a progressive party
