I’m not in the US, but it seems to me that the Republicans keep breaking norms and procedures, including politicising impeachment and ignoring illegal, immoral and plain bad conduct.
They also seem to be fine with not applying the same standard across the isle.
On the other hand, either Democrats follow new precedent, with even more devolving, or they keep the old decorum and get their asses kicked by Republican foul play.
What ways out of this spiral are there?
There is more discussion that might be useful here: https://ponder.cat/post/1453581
I’m sure the French were asking this exact question in 1788.
EAT THE RICH!
This is the way. Rise of the proletariat!
France is also smaller than Texas. I would like to see a revolution, but we are so spread out I can’t see it happening.
Not as a united nation, no. I think this is the start of the dissolution of the US as a single entity. The divisions will become clear soon.
Sure France is smaller but it was in 1789, going to Paris at this time would take days or weeks, now in a day or two anyone with a car could move through the US.
The communication is way easier now, it’s much easier to get organized on a large scale.
I would strongly argue that it is more difficult now.
There is mass communication, yes, but 90% of that communication is rolled on over to the government with the exact location, search history, secrets, psychological profile, medical histoey, vices, everything at the tip of their fingers for every single dissident to exploit and blackmail them into stopping.
In those days if a letter wasn’t signed and resistance posters were put up at odd hours, nobody would be able to track down the leader and who was doing it. Now, the surveillance state is so big, it would take a matter of hours to make a full roster of the resistance and have an “accidental” police raid on their house where they are killed “by mistake” and it is ruled a suicide.
The entire success of revolution movements came out of anonymity and the fact that the government couldn’t snuff out the organization and break it up. Now, with technology, it is quite trivial to break anonymity anywhere on the main internet. Long lasting organization is much much harder.
That isn’t even getting into engineered addictive media to keep people occupied and demotivates just enough to not get organized.
Most of the nation has the surveillance equipment they need in their homes.
deleted by creator
Grass-roots local freaking organization. People keep waiting for someone to save them not realizing: they’re someone. Get involved with whatever local org is trying to improve people’s lives. Address the problems that the right wing is lying about solving. Support whatever local candidate aligns with that view or hell become that candidate. Then get more people on board. We all love Bernie right? Well that’s what Bernie has been preaching for decades. And the results for his state have been great.
The extreme right flourishes because the establishment (left and right) has for decades ignored real people’s issues. You hears those interviews with Trump voters? They’re not talking about wanting to reinstate the Third Reich, they’re complaining about their real life hardships being ignored by politicians. And yeah Trump is obviously lying but desperate people will believe a lie if no one else is providing a better alternative.
You’re not wrong, but I don’t see the relevance to the topic? Unless this is part of the public revolt?
Organising to protect immigrants in your area is admirable, but how do you get rid of the necessity to do that? You’ll have to replace the politicians, no?
And you’ll probably need to be revolution sized and well organised to be able to do that when they ignore any procedure or deal that doesn’t benefit them in the specific moment.
There’s not going to be a public revolt or at least I wouldn’t hold my breath. And besides public revolts may feel cathartic but historically they don’t have the kind of outcome we’d hope for. Not to mention the civil war that’d likely ensue.
There’s no overnight solution to this problem. And you can’t start from the top if you’re not already a billionaire with a private social media network. But you can get people on your side or rather show that you’re on their side.
The real enemy is the same for both of us: the 0.01%. Trump supporters have just been brainwashed into thinking Trump is the man to solve that problem. And to be fair a lot of the left has been brainwashed into thinking the establishment Democrats are the only way forward.
But in the end it’s the extreme right that profits from us screaming insults at each other.
When has there been a revolution without a revolt in all of history?
When has there been a 180° change without a revolution in all of history?
In much of the world, Unions were forged in blood of many revolts.
Nation separation and independence was almost exclusively revolution.
Even the civil rights (which most people have been whitewashed into thinking was peaceful) had the black panthers. They have been completely villified, but the civil rights movement would not have succeeded without their willingness to use violence.
History has shown time and time again that violence works and peaceful movements are stamped out 99% of the time.
Protest, absolutely. And possibly violent ones, could be. But until we get a good majority of people on our side we’re just going to be fighting our own while the oligarchs laugh. You want to start a fist fight with a conservative over pronouns? It sounds fun but it won’t accomplish anything.
I’m not saying we can get to where we need to be 100% nonviolently but it has to start there. You have to build a base before you can overthrow anything. You’re talking about skipping to the last step without taking all the necessary steps in between. The revolution part is always romanticized but all the hard work that goes into it is ignored. That’s how Occupy failed so miserably.
I believe this is the right video. It should go a long way to answering your question.
Top down organization of political parties like the Democrats in the US is relatively new. Last 50+ years or so, and antidemocratic. Look to when the Democratic party was much better for the average man. And one of the differences you’ll see was it was much more bottom up. Local organization and community building is vital. Not just for left anarchist/libertarians like myself. But to any common man looking for a political party to represent them. Leaving leadership to their own devices is how leadership became so out of touch.
Iirc, Reagan was the first to strongarm a party line and establish the strategy of voting for power over anything which has proven very effective, with courts, gerrymandering, and stalled electoral reforms very helpful to form this current opportunity.
But with the current system where it is, I have trouble seeing any such grass roots being able to accomplish much until they gain a majority enough, for long enough to re-establish the checks & balances. Electoral voting and the two party system makes it incredibly hard for a new party to establish, and even then they will get bogged down in the same malintent behaviour exhibited now. At least enough to appear powerless, ineffectual or otherwise not making change enough to keep taking seats, like the Democrats of the last few cycles.
Do you envision some kind of path short of a revolution to throw out the current politicians?
We don’t need a new party though. And no one should be arguing for one. As it would be ineffectual until we change the system as you said. What we need is local and Community leadership for the Democratic Party. What we need is to not leave the leadership decisions up to those in Washington.
Yes top down leadership can be very effective. But not in the long term. Otherwise the Soviet Union would still exist. Otherwise our parties would still represent us. If we want a party to start representing us again. We need to stop making it them and us. And just make it us. And the only way to do that is to stop relying on someone to lead nationally. Start leading locally. With the national parties only duties to coordinate between new York Democrats, Florida Democrats, Missouri Democrats, and California Democrats. And we get there by community action.
Am I understanding you correctly that you’re advocating for grassroots campaigning for the Democrats?
As in: drumming up public support to vote in a Democrat majority, presumably in the hopes of creating a long term Democrat rule where they could address the checks & balances, the skewed system, the dysfunctional ethics and decorum situation, etc.?
That would indeed be a path forward, but I’m worried that the Republicans would counter campaign very hard, and as proved aren’t hesitant to use any trick they can to not give up power.
It’s what historically worked, but is it still feasible?
Not for national Democrats. State and local Democrats. In a red state like mine. The state apparatus is practically non existent. Republicans run unopposed almost as often as they run against a non Republican. Which includes non Democrats.
Small towns and hamlets organizing as for instance in my case, Missouri Democrats. Run by locals, for locals. Who don’t prostrate themselves at the foot of the National Party as a simple reaction. That would go against the national party when it serves their interests.
Yes the fascists have spent decades putting out antidemocrat propaganda. But when it’s Dave from a few blocks over running. Not some faceless person largely supported by groups outside the state. That sort of propaganda tends to fall flat when they can’t "other” you.
Do this in enough towns and possibly get one of the smaller cities. All of a sudden, the state arm of the National Party might hold less influence than you do. It would be rather easy to force them into irrelevance with something like that. Which is what needs to be done.
It is 100% feasible. When you have a connection to a group to a party. One that’s local and accountable to you. They can try to spread whatever lies they want about it. The people who deal with them will know the truth. Propaganda really only works, and works best about groups you have no real contact with or understanding of. It’s how and why Communists and Jews were targeted in 1930s Germany. They were harmless minorities. But most people didn’t have any stake in defending them or knowing them. So they were easy targets. It’s why the fascist today are targeting trans people and immigrants. A lot of people don’t knowingly have contact of any note with these groups. So they don’t know that the fascists are lying and misrepresenting things. Granted with basic critical thinking skills they should know. But critical thinking skills are not something we value in America unfortunately. Not that we are alone.
I think I’ve overestimated the cohesion between local, state and federal level organisations. I was kind of assuming people like DeSantis and Scott were doing their things to further the party line. And maybe they are the odd ones to do that in contrast to the other state politicians.
I hope you’re right, and it could actually yield a peaceful end to the degrading spiral. It’s gonna be a long road though, here’s wishing you luck and stubbornness!
Politicians decide things, but to actually make stuff happen, the government needs to collect taxes to pay for services that are then provided to the public. I think the idea here is to take out the middleman. You won’t solve the problem country wide, but you’ll help some people, and that’s still worth it. Work together without like-minded people locally, be an inspiration, and show that it works. I’ve only been very briefly part of an activist group (specialized in food saving), so probably best to look elsewhere for good advice on how to do this well.
I agree and it’s what I’m trying to lean into. I’ve been thinking of democracy as a verb or a muscle that has atrophied in me. Corporations certainly aren’t democratic, and most systems we live in nowadays don’t lend themselves towards democratic modes of engagement. My goal is to learn more about unions and look at mutual aid groups and tenant unions and look at examples in American history when people were more civically engaged and try to do more.
The nazis and religious zealots should continue to have their free speech and be able to parade, but they need to be shunned back to the recesses of popularity and life where they were scorned and looked at with disgust and their points were not granted the dignity to be engaged with in ‘debate’. Instead they are now treated as a spectacle and a disbelief that anyone even truly believes those things. They also successfully framed the discussion that they have reason and science on their side, and culturally we all need to understand they are ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag.
I’ll suggest that the nazis and fanatics don’t get to express their nazi or fanatical views.
You can check out Popper’s Paradox/Paradox of Tolerance, which suggests that a tolerant society must counteract intolerance or it spreads to destroy all tolerance.
You’re probably right, I basically agree too, but idk. It just doesn’t seem to ever stop a zealot or a nazi or the spread of their ideology. Not to mention in America it’s basically every zealous evangelists wet dream that one day their bible will be illegal and their gospel will be silenced by the government - they’ve been saying it’ll happen for decades. I’d rather them say what they truly think out loud and for our culture to not tolerate it by collectively being disgusted and enraged and having no pity for if they do get hurt. Like I wish that no one would care or be surprised if someone that says ‘the gays and black culture are degenerate and are agents of demons and Jews’ get their ass beat because they basically should, but to make it law and have the courts and government do it? Idk. Seems like a trap to me. I just want cops to turn a blind eye and no one be surprised if a nazi gets punched. But idk Germany seems to be doing fine with it being illegal. It’s probably just some bs free speech absolutism Ive picked up being American.
Revolution
This is the only way. You don’t defeat fascism peacefully.
Well. You can. But we already passed all the opportunities to do so. Gotta nip it in the bud and we chose not to do so.
you already beat one oppressor, what is one more
I see basically three ways out:
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Democrats/someones sane win overwhelming majority for long enough to harden procedures, cement effective enforcement, and subversion proof the whole system, while not succumbing to their own corruption. Seems incredibly unlikely.
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Autocracy and/or persecution of political rivals, where dissenters “fall out windows” a lot or the legislative body is replaced, until stability reforms and new norms can be reintroduced. Seems most likely currently, and has several contemporary examples.
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Revolt, public and/or military, throwing out all the politicians and imposing exile or lynching of the offending politicians. Seems improbable, and especially to unite enough to throw out all the bad behaviour. Also will lead to a junta, civil strife and/or provisional government which come with their own slew of issues and corruption.
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The Republicans grow a sense of decorum to protect the less privileged party. I can’t imagine this happening without basically a GOP-internal pogrom under a strongman, but Republican conservatism pulls a strongman in the opposite direction. Unless perhaps they’re some kind of upstanding teocrat perhaps?
This is all wild and slightly saddening speculation, please feel free to suggest other paths!
I still think the US states splitting up like the USSR did is entirely on the table.
California is not going to continue being the republican punching bag and funding red states forever.
A split like this would likely allow some people to move, and ease the tensions measurably.
The states would still trade/function with each other, I don’t expect them to go to war or anything.
States leaving isn’t realistic. They are way more integrated than the EU has ever dreamed of being. Brexit was messy with a mostly independent UK, something like California leaving would take decades of negotiations to replace existing interstate compacts with treaties.
California is interesting because they control much of what the rest of the country wants. They are the gateway for US imports (Ports of LA/LB), provide a significant amount of agriculture, and have one of the highest operating economies in the world.
I’d add NY to that shortlist. Port of Elizabeth is technically NJ but they aren’t fooling anyone.
That’s only true because they are part of the US, which guarantees a lot of free trade/resources from other states. There’s also other things like California being dependent on electricity from other states, the price isn’t going to stay the same.
That demand would have to come through CA anyway regardless, as the existing rail network essentially assumes all Asian sea shipments come through CA. Shipping could be rerouted through Oregon and Washington (assuming they don’t follow suit and split), but it would take decades to get the infrastructure in place. A LOT of US consumption goods are routed through CA ports. Free interstate trade aside, California exports more goods than it imports.
California also imports 30% of it’s power from out-of-state, and with renewables in the Mojave region ramping up, that figure is expected to decrease in the coming decades. While that makes us the largest power importer in the country, we are the 4th largest producer in the country behind TX (who’s grid is isolated from the rest of the country), FL, and PA. On top of that, all new residential construction is required to install a PV system (with minimal exceptions), which certainly helps grid demand, and commercial/industrial operations are adopting solar to offset costs. The fact of the matter is that California is home to a fuckton of people as well as a lot of industry, and yes that demands a lot of power, but CA has been pushing local reliance for a while with promising results.
The USSR was integrated too, and still broke up.
This situation would be more similar to that than Brexit.
The USSR wasn’t integrated, it was centralized. Shortages weren’t shared to reduce impact, resources where distributed by political connection first and need second. Movement was highly controlled.
- Founding fathers roll in their graves so hard they become zombies and take back control to fix their mistakes
The things the founding fathers see as mistakes, right?
Sounds like slavery would be back on the menu in addition to anything they actually fixed.
I think so, they were very much for “the will of the people” and if they saw the will of the people of today is that slavery is bad then they wouldn’t see it as a mistake.
They would absolutely see what Trump and MAGA-GOP are doing as a subversion to that will of the people as a problem though and (after catching them up on 200+ years of technological and sociological development) would see the issues in their original implementation
They were for the will of the rich, land owning white men.
Great suggestion, I’ll put it near the top of the improbable pile.
I think that fox news and other right-wing propaganda media must be dealt with first. Otherwise they’ll continue to demonize any movement that attempts to fix things and ensure that nothing changes.
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Yes. All modern human civilization will collapse with the coming climate change.
At this point? Probably not. Not if history is any indication. We’ve blown right past all the checkpoints that would have prevented this snowball effect. Our legislative processes are almost too irreparably damaged for a healthy democracy to exist. We’ve removed too many regulations regarding money in our politics and not placed enough regulations on the focus of power on individuals and entities within our government.
We’re probably going to go through a really dark period where the quality of life is going to decline, rights will be stripped, and a lot of vulnerable people are going to die and then, hopefully, things will get bad enough that a revolution happens. It won’t be like WW2 where more powerful forces come to our rescue. We’ll have to do it ourselves. And I don’t really have that much faith in our populace doing that. Again, it will take a really significant decline in quality of life for damn near everyone before that’s even possible. It looks like that’s where we’re headed though.
The rich coastal states that can bail out should definitely do so. Cascadia now!
California is lobbing the calexit referendum again. Wheeee
Sadly, I think you’re right.
It’s absurd that the wealthiest people in the world are making all the decisions that effect the rest of us, especially when they’re using that control to influence the rest of us through social media.
I think the only solution is a revolution where wealth is redistributed, probably through violence.
Bezos and Musks assets should just be nationalised. Give them pensions of 10m a year or something in return.
As a non-American, it’s always looked to me like the Republicans manage to get their shit done whether they’re in charge or not and the Democrats are just there to assure everyone they have a choice in voting and not much else.
The whole thing to me looks like a game of good cop / bad cop. Bad cop comes along beats the shit out you, and then good cop comes along to give you a cup of weak shit coffee as a consolation for your black eye and says something unconvincing about being unhappy with bad cop’s behaviour, before letting bad cop back in to beat the shit out of you some more.
And for every cycle of that, bad cop achieves his goals while good cop just acts as a glorified tea lady that tries to make sure you don’t have any hard feelings about bad cop.
it’s always looked to me like the Republicans manage to get their shit done
This is at least partly propaganda but for sure they succeed in misleading and confusing
The shit republicans get done tends to be
- destroying is easier than building
- misleading is easier than actually doing
- “flood the zone with shit and see what sticks”
- just claim success enough times that people believe it
Find me a philosophy or religious perspective that is unambiguous about brute force.
It’s effective as long as one doesn’t consider the consequences, but the reality of nearly every situation is such that there’s always a better way. Did the US need to nuke two Japanese cities and every inhabitant during WW2? Or were they just too tired, scared of a war of attrition and with the technological option available, they took the easier path?
Mouseland may have been written about Canada but it also applies to the USA.
Republicans getting “shit done”? What a schizo take, unless you mean just generally fucking shit up.
Destroying shit is what they said they’d do. They did it. Therefore they got their shit done.
The problem is that it’s far easier to destroy than build. They suck at building anything. They can’t even build walls. Governing is building. They can’t govern. So they mash the easy button and destroy instead.
“Destroying shit is what we’re going to do” is what the libs hear/see, the average trump voter genuinely thinks he’s actually going to make things better/fulfill his promises.
Libs see the actions for what they are. Farces. Pointless. Things that have no bearing in making anyone’s situation better - unless by “better” it means pissing off the libs. BS like changing the Gulf’s name. Removing sign language from government sites. The only meaningful actions trump takes are the ones to enrich himself and his cronies, remove oversight, or remove challenges to their narrative.
As in “getting their shit done.”
Most of what the clowns promise never gets done. But I agree that their grift is accomplished wonderfully.
Somewhere along the way we decided punching Nazis wasn’t cool. I worry it’s too late now.
The “we” you speak of is a lot smaller of a group than you think.
Is it though? we all claim to hate nazis (largely because of their genocide), but talk about halting a different genocide and suddenly the dems have all wandered off or are staring intently at their shoes.
Ok.
Saying to punch Nazis is against the rules on the new 196.
inb4 drama
No, the ban wasn’t about anything else. Drag has direct statements from multiple mods that it was about violence against Nazis, not about anything else. The admin is not the mod team. The admin’s views are not the reason for the mod team’s actions
convenient of you to leave out this message
Drag thought it would be redundant to include that one, since it just restates a more specific part of what you already said. Plus drag would have to go edit the image again to include it for no extra information, and give everyone more to read. Drag is thankful however that you did send that message, and drag has posted it elsewhere when other users argued the 196 ban was for “promoting suicide”, which didn’t happen, and as you say here, wasn’t part of the decision.
But thank you anyway for the extra context and direct confirmation.
If you really expect people to believe you’re not the troll that you are, maybe don’t bring your bullshit into discussions that have absolutely nothing to do with it.
Your little “inb4 drama” is exactly the type of shit you do to stir the pot. It’s entirely unnecessary and extremely disruptive and you have a very bad reputation of doing exactly this.
I dare you to go one week without turning the topic of discussion into something that involves you being a victim.
We are having a discussion about whether society allows people to say to punch nazis. Drag shared a relevant piece of information about a community on this platform that bans the behaviour. Drag predicted the same old people would come onto this thread to spread lies about drag, and put drag’s response to them in spoilers. What do you know, you and spujb came to harass drag just as expected. If you wanted to “gotcha” drag, you could have just not replied, and drag would have looked the fool. But now everyone can see that just as expected, you couldn’t resist coming to start an argument that has nothing to do with punching nazis.
You were banned for telling people to kill themselves. You’re a troll. Everyone knows this.
And private message me again with your nonsense and I’m reporting you to your home instance admins.
To clarify, this user didn’t just say “punch Nazis”; this user told a disabled person to commit an act of gun violence that would most likely result in death. Some mods have called that encouraging suicide by cop. Other mods have simply said that inciting a specific act of violence is against the rules. In every instance, though, it’s been modded, because it’s disgusting behavior.
Just clearing up the lies because I am sick of it.
This user did say “punch nazis”, and here’s the proof:
If you want to decide why drag is banned from 196, then apply to be a mod of 196.
You are formally requested to leave drag alone. The next time you reply to drag to spread lies about this, drag will report you for harassment and speak with the Blahaj and .cafe admins.
Corrected; added “just”
Thank you. There’s still another falsehood in your comment, though. You said “Some mods have called that encouraging suicide by cop.”, but as far as drag knows, only Ada has said that. Ada isn’t a mod, she’s an admin. She has no say in 196’s rules, so her opinion isn’t relevant to whether 196 allows nazi-punching. She decided not to ban drag from the instance for that comment, and drag doesn’t think she’d be happy to hear you’re harassing drag over it.
Drag is willing to have a discussion if you’re willing to stay factually accurate. But let’s keep this on topic to the Nazi punching issue. If you want to talk about Ada’s opinions, let’s do that in private messages to avoid disrupting this thread any more.
https://imgur.com/a/4Xf3c6N this was done by a mod in [email protected]
Edited. Glad to be of service.
Most of us are still ok with it, but we won’t be the ones to do it. There aren’t enough that will.
Wait for the Germans to liberate you, I guess.
They’re sliding back into Nazism too.
Yeah, but they’re still a lot less Nazi than the USA were in 1939.
(That’s also something that gives me hope today: There aren’t any full-on Nazi rallies in a packed Madison Square Garden. Yet back then, just 2 years after this photo, the US started supporting the fight against the Nazis.)The US wasn’t run by Nazis in 1939 though. The same (rather popular) guy who was President in 1939 was President in 1941.
It’s very possible Germany becomes run by Nazis again.
It’s very possible Germany becomes run by Nazis again.
Nope. Not a chance. You can quote me on this.
I do see how it looks like it could right now, though.There’s around 25% convinced right wing supporters in Germany. That number hasn’t changed all that much in decades.
Now shit looks bad cause all 25% feel empowered and have rallied behind a single party, instead of being split into reluctant conservative voters, non-voters and a few hardcore Nazi party voters like in the past.
But 25% aren’t enough to take over our system. Our entire country was specifically designed to prevent that, from top to bottom.It is not possible at all. No one familiar with German law and culture think this. This is not a talking point I have ever heard discussed seriously. There ist probably hundreds of reasons why it could never happen. Our legal framework ist very strong and we have a strong civil framework of resistance in case something goes in that direction.
Or Mexico tbh, wait until the civil war is spent and watch the cartels roll in
The US will have a “Revolution of Dignity” moment similar to Ukraine.
If pro-constitution side wins, trump (and leading maga leaders) will flee to russia.
But if the maga wins, the US will remain a fascist nation for decades.
It’s not written in cosmic law that this will occur. The circumstance are certainly leaning in that direction though.
They learned from 2020. So must any opposition evolve. But yeah, moving away from fascism is going to take some blood on both sides. Arguably better than sticking with it where only one side’s blood is shed.
A general strike is probably the best place to start. There’s still a lot that needs to happen to get the placated middle to see the need for more aggressive means.
UAW is organizing one for 2028.
2028 might as well be 3028, feels like
Most could not afford to stop working or buying anything for a stretch of time and this is to prepare for that.
I really don’t know. Me personally, I’m pursuing citizenship in an EU country so I can at least have an exit strategy other than “drive to Canada and hope they let me in”. Other than that, I’m active in my union and I talk with my neighbors. I walk my dog and am visibly a Nice Normal Person who happens to be Queer.
It’s scary being queer here, so I might tone that down a bit as I get more scared. Which is what They want, but, hey, I’m scared.
It’s better to be safe, than to be a martyr. Good luck and best wishes!
Thanks. My ancestors avoided WWI and WWII by emigrating. I can’t judge them for that, so it feels fair to give myself the same option.
drive to Canada and hope they let me in
The Canadian folks are slightly more likely to let you pass than their counterparts on the other side, but unfortunately it’s not the Canadians you’ll reach first.
Armed revolution by the workers
Armed being the key word here. Show them what the left actually does with weapons.
Good luck. Feels pretty pointless over here right now.
Don’t get sad - get angry
I’ve been angry since I’ve been politically aware and I’m tired of it. It’s exhausting being angry and having no influence.
I’m too old to be angry all the time.
I still remember being taught about how politics is America is a pendulum.
It swings too far to the right and people get pissed and send it leftward. Then it swings too far to the left and people get pissed and send it rightward.
I have waited my entire life for the swing leftward, and I think I identified what broke America.
Let’s say that this pendulum swinging is necessary, we are a pack of goldfish swinging from left to right looking for something good with short short memories. This system can be metastable, you don’t make a ton of progress on anything but you just sorta bounce between the two sides and the status quo sticks around and you don’t slide into madness.
When 9/11 happened and Ws war on terror emerged, I worried that it would break the system. But in 2008, Obama emerged with a progressive message of hope and change. The pendulum I was told about was about to swing left. I had lived through the right swing of Ws time in office, and now I got to see what the left had to offer (which as a leftist was very exciting).
I watched two phenomenons happen concurrently that broke the system.
- Obama captured the leftward energy that should have swung us back to the left and held it solidly in the center / center-right. He ran as a progressive firebrand and then governed from the center / center right. The big hop and change we got was nationwide Romneycare, a program devised by the Heritage Foundation which has done nothing but entrench the powers of the insurance industry into law.
- Racism broke a large part of the voting public away from reality.
Obama wasn’t the first to do this, Clinton’s triangulation strategy was also a democrat governing from the center.
So we have a captured Democratic Party, beholden to the donor class and they capture the periodic leftswing energy and hold it center / center-right. Things fail to get better and the population goes “well fuck the left doesn’t have any answers, let’s swing the pendulum back the other way”
Over time the result is that the Overton window shifts and shifts and shifts until an oligarch is doing nazi salutes and the corporate media is going “oh he probably isnt really doing a nazi thing, he’s just advancing policies that nazis would love and saying things nazis would say and is excited and you know how hard it is to not do a nazi salute when you are excited.”
Our only hope now is that trump doesn’t slowly boil us into fascism and overplays and the people revolt. But Americans have proven to be willing to just take it in the ass rougher and longer than I’d ever imagine.
It’s more of a ratchet than a pendulum.
But Americans have proven to be willing to just take it in the ass rougher and longer than I’d ever imagine.
For a nation known for being tough guys with guns who will fuck their government, or any government that messes with them, up if necessary, all I’ve actually seen all my life is a bunch of pussies that let the wealthy walk all over us. And I’m not exactly a spring chicken.
Don’t get sad - get organised?
That just sounds like angry with extra steps. And people.
Which is how you gain influence and do something about it, no?
In America, influence means money. If you can’t donate to a politician, you don’t have influence. That’s just how America works. You can’t build influence without wealth. As someome who has been involved with them, protests and marches don’t really cause a stir here any more, people just don’t care and it doesn’t really influence anything. You can get influence through violence, but people aren’t ready for that conversation and the right already has a head start on that anyway.
Considering how little influence those groups already have I doubt it
The two parties tango. The Republicans wouldn’t be getting away with it if the Democrats weren’t beholden to the same moneyed interests.
Did Obama prosecute any of the Bush Jr officials guilty of torture and guilty of invading Iraq over a lie? Worse Obama committed more war crimes.
But why is there a two party tango?
Democrats will implement some policies and laws and then see support collapse as Republicans get voted in. Then people who didn’t vote will complain that Republicans got voted in and dismantled what Democrats were able to do.
