Since Donald Trump’s election, his opposition party hasn’t acted much like one. The same cannot be said of Bernie Sanders, who hit the road this weekend in red states in an effort to stoke pushback to Trump’s slash-and-burn plutocratic governance.
“Trumpism is not going to be defeated by inside-the-Beltway politicians,” he said.
Some are getting enthusiastic, but if you look at the past decades: one realizes that it’s the same small group/ type of people being motivated and excited again and again, with zero effect seen years later.
Big changes that become extremely popular and supported by the public and are largely looked back on by future generations as positive or even necessary are often instigated and initiated by small groups of passionate people who are genuine in their desire for a better world.
Do not underestimate the power of small groups of passionate people who want to make the world a better kinder place. You can’t bribe these people, you can’t distract these people, you can’t silence these people, you have to jail and kill every single last one to stop them from agitating the shit out of the general population to get normal people to fight for better treatment for themselves and others. Every single one of these people is from the perspective of an authoritarian dictator a nightmare to deal with since like a catastrophically deadly virus, it only takes one of these people spreading the contagion uncontrolled and unnoticed to tear the body apart.
The federal government and many states are not democracies; any strategy that assumes this will not work. Any movement that will not fix bad voting systems will fail.
Agreed, I don’t mean to downplay the gravity of this situation, but on the other hand I think many people are comfortably past the point of needing to hold on to the structures that define the status quo. Government does not exist once the majority of people stop believing in it a basic level. Violence and control still exist, and they yet may win the day, but no matter what happens in the realm of physical bodies struggling against other physical bodies in the realm of ideas they have already lost and that means that no arrangement of threats or violent systems of control will truly ever be stable.
I am not trying to negate the worry and fear you are speaking to, it is rational, things are looking very grim in the US and lots of other places too (a lot of places because of the US ughh) I was just trying to point out that good people don’t need a functioning top down government/hierarchy to be good people. Communities will persist and individuals will perish, along with rugged individualism as a pseudo-religion.
Now is the time to find and connect with the people in your life that don’t look to rules to understand how to be kind, but rather look to the heart they wear on their sleeve and extend in vulnerable expressions of trust to odd people who don’t quite fit in. Those people exist and they will always exist.
Which isn’t to say that you are wrong or that things are going to be good, or that good people are going to win in the nearterm.
Now is a time to look towards Indigenous voices, Black voices, voices of minorities of disabled communities, voices of people with unusual minds, lives and bodies. These people are used to living, fighting and persisting in this kind of reality, it is only the rest of us that are newly born into a much scarier world where things we thought were safe actually want to hurt us for reasons we have no control over.
But unless there is good governance, or a plan to create good governance, it’s not political here, only common sense in what you are saying.
Politics means changing the current governance, which these movements cannot because they are too kind, gentle and naive. Activists I talked to in the last few years, people of different backgrounds seem to have an amazing trait of speaking true to their causes yet have a childlike faith in the very people who oppress them to run fair elections in many states. Or absent that, a failure to speak on that publicly.
One cannot do politics by voting unless there are accurate ballot counts that pass United Nations standards
And I think those living in the states which do have real democracy are affected by those which are not.
Until then, I think it’s good that people are banding together as more of a community; just don’t call it effective politics in the level of national or many states
Until then, I think it’s good that people are banding together as more of a community; just don’t call it effective politics in the level of national or many states
Fair and again I think your critique is a super important one, I am responding because I think what you are saying is important. What I am trying to suggest is that maybe we shouldn’t strive for movements that work on the level of states or federal governments right now, now is the moment maybe to work along vectors that exist as alternatives to those structures of power. I guess in a way that is what you are saying is necessary, I think we are both speaking to the existential need for a progressive embrace of radicalism in this moment.
One of the reasons we (in the USA) are in this mess is the collapse of community structures, both along ethnic and general lines. What I witnessed decades ago, with grassroots and community outreach, is not possible today due to how many times people have moved, changed careers and adapted to new technology ( the USA in the last two generations had more change than Europe in the first industrial revolution, by many metrics, and after such changes it takes time). Its why local politics is often not talked about.
So anything that is community building, is good, and a step toward better lives later. And I totally support that, in whatever form
Big changes that become extremely popular and supported by the public and are largely looked back on by future generations as positive or even necessary are often instigated and initiated by small groups of passionate people who are genuine in their desire for a better world.
Do not underestimate the power of small groups of passionate people who want to make the world a better kinder place. You can’t bribe these people, you can’t distract these people, you can’t silence these people, you have to jail and kill every single last one to stop them from agitating the shit out of the general population to get normal people to fight for better treatment for themselves and others. Every single one of these people is from the perspective of an authoritarian dictator a nightmare to deal with since like a catastrophically deadly virus, it only takes one of these people spreading the contagion uncontrolled and unnoticed to tear the body apart.
Agreed, I don’t mean to downplay the gravity of this situation, but on the other hand I think many people are comfortably past the point of needing to hold on to the structures that define the status quo. Government does not exist once the majority of people stop believing in it a basic level. Violence and control still exist, and they yet may win the day, but no matter what happens in the realm of physical bodies struggling against other physical bodies in the realm of ideas they have already lost and that means that no arrangement of threats or violent systems of control will truly ever be stable.
I take hope in that.
These people have either a working democratic system already, a plan to force that to change, or the ability for organized violence.
The main problem with this sort of movement, and indeed most of the liberal USA online political community is that none of those apply.
I am not trying to negate the worry and fear you are speaking to, it is rational, things are looking very grim in the US and lots of other places too (a lot of places because of the US ughh) I was just trying to point out that good people don’t need a functioning top down government/hierarchy to be good people. Communities will persist and individuals will perish, along with rugged individualism as a pseudo-religion.
Now is the time to find and connect with the people in your life that don’t look to rules to understand how to be kind, but rather look to the heart they wear on their sleeve and extend in vulnerable expressions of trust to odd people who don’t quite fit in. Those people exist and they will always exist.
Which isn’t to say that you are wrong or that things are going to be good, or that good people are going to win in the nearterm.
Now is a time to look towards Indigenous voices, Black voices, voices of minorities of disabled communities, voices of people with unusual minds, lives and bodies. These people are used to living, fighting and persisting in this kind of reality, it is only the rest of us that are newly born into a much scarier world where things we thought were safe actually want to hurt us for reasons we have no control over.
I agree with your sentiment and feelings.
But unless there is good governance, or a plan to create good governance, it’s not political here, only common sense in what you are saying.
Politics means changing the current governance, which these movements cannot because they are too kind, gentle and naive. Activists I talked to in the last few years, people of different backgrounds seem to have an amazing trait of speaking true to their causes yet have a childlike faith in the very people who oppress them to run fair elections in many states. Or absent that, a failure to speak on that publicly.
One cannot do politics by voting unless there are accurate ballot counts that pass United Nations standards
And I think those living in the states which do have real democracy are affected by those which are not.
Until then, I think it’s good that people are banding together as more of a community; just don’t call it effective politics in the level of national or many states
Fair and again I think your critique is a super important one, I am responding because I think what you are saying is important. What I am trying to suggest is that maybe we shouldn’t strive for movements that work on the level of states or federal governments right now, now is the moment maybe to work along vectors that exist as alternatives to those structures of power. I guess in a way that is what you are saying is necessary, I think we are both speaking to the existential need for a progressive embrace of radicalism in this moment.
I can agree with that.
One of the reasons we (in the USA) are in this mess is the collapse of community structures, both along ethnic and general lines. What I witnessed decades ago, with grassroots and community outreach, is not possible today due to how many times people have moved, changed careers and adapted to new technology ( the USA in the last two generations had more change than Europe in the first industrial revolution, by many metrics, and after such changes it takes time). Its why local politics is often not talked about.
So anything that is community building, is good, and a step toward better lives later. And I totally support that, in whatever form