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So what are the factions of capital that the democrat and republican parties represent? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by CaliforniaSpectre@hexbear.net to c/chat@hexbear.net

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I'm listening to Hell of Presidents again and it's always incredibly refreshing to hear such a materialist framing for the early days of the US. Like understanding why the goal of not forming parties immediately failed because of conflicts between different factions of capital (e.g. southern slavers vs. northern bankers).

But then what do Republicans and Democrats represent today? I understand they are historical holdovers from over a century ago, so they have have metastasized into a whole lot more than just representing one or two factions of capital, but there must be some materialist divide between them? Or maybe during the neoliberal turn it was recognized by capital to set aside differences and ultimately control both to give the working class even less power than they already had. But now it seems like the tech fascists are trying to coalesce into the Republicans, and I guess that's what the Republicans are atm, just a more openly fascistic bourgeois party than the democrats?

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[–] Dimmer06@hexbear.net 12 points 1 day ago

Most large capitalists play both sides and most capitalists are dominated by financial capital which also plays both sides. Labor tends to vote Democrat and the smaller capitalists tend to vote Republican but make no mistake, there isn't a real democracy around what the state should do or how production should be organized. The institutions of the state were made to work against democracy and have only entrenched themselves against it further in the last 60 years or so. They don't even lie about it to us either. They've just conditioned us so well that we don't question why institutions like the courts or the military are supposed to be "apolitical" or even how they can be.