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The Democrats are not protectors, they're not heroes, they're not martyrs. The Democrat party is not a revolutionary party, they're a party of people who generally liked things the way they were between roughly 1980 and 2016. They're the party of people who did very well for themselves during that period, and as a result they have a lot to lose. They're not going to risk all that they've gained, to fight for someone else's vision of a theoretically better society.
You do realize what the Uvalde cops are famous for right? They arrested parents that tried to get into the school to save their kids. They stopped one of their own from trying to enter the classroom to save his wife.
Democrats want to stop Trump, using a corrupt system, with one arm tied behind their backs, while using the other one to finger wag at ANYONE not following the norms that no longer exist.
Democrats want to stop Trump
Perhaps, but not enough to metaphorically go rushing into a school where there's an active shooter, putting their lives at risk.
Well fuckin said! That is exactly right!
Isn't the 1980s mostly Reagan whom we and democrats alike quite hated for nearly everything?
The Democrats didn't hate Reagan enough to not continue with his neoliberal policies once they got back into office in 1992. In fact, the neoliberal era really started in the late 70s when the Democrat Jimmy Carter was in office.
What did Carter do?
Carter deregulated a lot, including the passenger airline industry.
To be fair, the regulations at the time meant that only the richest assholes could afford to fly anywhere. The airlines were literally forbidden from competing on price.
The problems started when Reagan allowed the first mergers.
I don't know if preventing mergers would have helped. There were a lot of airlines that went bankrupt during that time.
1993
I would put the Democrats as more of a moderate reform party. There is an attempt to make mild change, a lot of which gets undone when Republicans take power.
Half of Lemmy hates democrats more than they hate republicans. I suspects that’s why you are getting all of these downvotes for that opinion. Though I might change “moderate reform” to “extremely mild reform.”
I know that's the reason why I'm getting downvotes. Luckily, because this is Lemmy, downvotes don't really mean much.
It is just funny that you see this back and forth between how people here will never vote for Democrats yet they'll make these grand statements on how Democrats, without their support, should act.
You don't vote for a political party in the hopes that you might be able to push them to represent your interests, you vote for a party who WILL represent your interests.
What kind of fucking power do you have to influence a political party when you tell them that "I will vote for you no matter what you do, but please pretty please be nice to me"?
I swear liberals sound like they're in an abusive relationship with the Democratic party. "They promised it would be better if I go back to them this time. I'm sure it's going to be completely different now!"
It's the Democrats fucking JOB to convince people up vote for them. Don't blame the people if the party can't convince them.
You don't vote for a political party in the hopes that you might be able to push them to represent your interests, you vote for a party who WILL represent your interests.
In a true democracy, yes. That is what you would do.
In a false democracy, like Russia, you would ignore the rigged elections entirely and focus on agitating for the implementation of democracy.
But in a flawed democracy, you have a system where the elections are not exactly rigged, but where you do not have truly proportional representation.
In such a system, your primary focus should be on fixing the system. The closer to a true democracy this is, the easier it will be to accomplish via reform, although one should not discount direct action. However, when an opportunity to vote arises, you should take it. You can't afford to spend all your effort on elections, but ignoring your opportunity to do some harm reduction would be ineffective.
Kamala's presidency was only ever going to, best case scenerio, push off fascism for 4 more years. America was going to become fascist one way or another. She would have continued the neo-liberal project that has been sending Americans further and further into financial distress while giving lip service to minority rights. She would have implemented more minor, corporation friendly social services that don't actually fix anything rather than just place a band-aid on a bullet wound. There was no reform to be had because the Democrat party leadership had all the power and they worked harder to suppress progressive Democrats than they ever did to suppress regressive Republican policies and even full on fascism.
If there are Democrats in that party who actually want to make real improvements for Americans, and there do seem to be some who do, then you have to make sure that they realize that the only way the party has a way forward, that their vision of America has a way forward, is if they battle for the heart of the party so that those Democrats in leadership positions who are all too happy to fall in line with Trump's fascism are rejected and real people who actually care take over the reins. The American people are seeing who is actually fighting for them right now and who is standing by and letting Trump run rampant over everything without any kind of push back.
In such a system, your primary focus should be on fixing the system.
If you're talking about the USA, there isn't really a way forwards within the system. It's effectively rigged. The only way to gain useful power in that system is to work out of it. A vote is free, use it, but in a system that broken, that vote is almost worthless and cannot solve the problem.
It may be a flawed democracy on paper, but when you account for the surrounding conditions, the people don't have the power to choose their leaders. It's as false as Russia's.
I don't know how things will be post-Trump, but up until now I'd say that (especially at the local level) it was very possible to field more left-leaning candidates and move the Overton Window to the left. We know this because the far right has very successfully shifted the discourse rightward, and a door can be traveled through in either direction.
Now, though, I'm not sure if Trump & co will even bother with sham elections. I suppose time will tell.
We know this because the far right has very successfully shifted the discourse rightward, and a door can be traveled through in either direction.
I think there's a false assumption here that the system is symmetrical. The worker class and the owner class generally have different relationships with the political process, and generally have different class interests which drive the worker class 'leftward' and the owner class 'rightward'. (a note on the whole left-right model)
Is the discourse shift organic, or is a large part of it the effect of mass media influence, social media promoting and repressing political topics, police tolerating and repressing some political movements more than others, etc.? Local elections do have more potential for change, but it's not immune from these same environmental factors which amplify the rightward voice in a way we don't have the resources to copy; we don't have billionaires who can buy up 90% of mass media or widely-used social media services, we don't have the power to command law enforcement or to engage in voter suppression legislation.
Of course, we're not powerless. In fact, as workers, the owner class is dependent on us for their power, and so we have exclusive tools like simple sabotage and strikes, and we are more likely to have more meaningful connections to our communities which can help shift the window beyond the pervasive propaganda. But we must understand that this is an uphill battle, the electoral system as we know it, especially in the US and especially at the federal level, is shaped through decades-if-not-centuries of the rich having the means to influence politicians.
You don't vote for a political party in the hopes that you might be able to push them to represent your interests, you vote for a party who WILL represent your interests.
If you aren't voting for a party that represents your interests because it isn't in that ballot, you should vote for the closest one to get what you can get.
Unless you are going to say Trump is just as bad as Democrats.
In a two party system that just means no political party will ever represent your interests. You're giving up any power that you have to influence politics so that the "lesser of two evils" can slowly drag your country to hell.
Is the progressive change to the Democratic party in the room with us right now, post–2024 presidential election? It seems many believe the lesson is "drop social issues" when that wasn't even mentioned at the DNC. They're also adapting a harder stance towards immigration while not bulging on economic issues.
The party leadership is adopting that stance because they hate progressive politics more than they hate fascism. The thing is though, Americans are seeing who is out there speaking to them directly and who is actually putting up some kind of fight against the encroachment of fascism and who is just standing by and allowing fascism to spread, or in some instances apparently actually buddying up with fascists. It's the progressives who are showing that they actually care about the people, while the mainline party leadership sits back and allows Trump to destroy the American state.
More and more Americans are going to have their eyes opened to who exactly is running their party and to whom their allegiances lie--that being the wealthy and powerful, not the people.
Well yeah. Still doesn't do anything to the "two" in two-party system.
So don't vote and let the greater of two evils drag your country to hell faster?
Don't vote and force the party who gives lip service to representing your interests to actually step up and put their money where their mouth is! Any party who can only run on "we're not as bad as the other guys" doesn't deserve to exist.
How has that been working?
I don't know, nobody has ever had the stones to do it for long enough to matter. How has blithely accepting neo-liberalism's theft of the 99%'s economic future been going?
I voted based on Bernie Sanders's recommendations given he is a politician actually trying to implement change.
I have yet to see any case where not voting has ever led to a system where people get what they want.
Oh no? Have you looked for any?
Yes.
Uh huh. Sure you have.
If you think that Kamala was going to stop fascism from coming to America you're out of your mind. Most Democrats don't have any issue with fascism. Look at what most of them are doing right now. They're just standing by and allowing Trump and the Republicans to do whatever they want with no challenge. They're voting in favour of his insane dept head choices. They're voting in favour of his bills. They've got fucking Gavin Newsom out here doing buddy buddy interviews with open fascists on his podcast. They're censuring their own party members who actually are actually brave and principled enough to stand up and shout down Trump for the harm that his administration has done to the American people.
The only members of the Democratic party that care are people like AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Tim Walz, and Al Green. They're the only ones going out to talk to the American people. They're the only ones standing up against Trump's agenda. The rest of the Democrats don't care because they don't really believe in democracy, they care about money and power.
Harris's VP pick is out there fighting. Where the fuck is Harris? How come she has completely disappeared from politics? Does she not care that America is falling to fascism? No she doesn't.
A Harris presidency was never going to stop fascism because she knows that her wealth and status will shield her and she never cared about the average person past what they could do for her, personally.
The only nominee with a unanimous vote is Marco Rubio, who was appointed in part to be the adult in the room. Trump has some picks that are within the realm of acceptable and there are several picks that are clearly down party lines. Also, the Senate doesn't allow fillabustering for nominee confirmations.
And if the problem with fascism is President Trump, him not being in office would go a long way to preventing fascism. After all, a lot of criticism of Biden recently has been he didn't go full liberal fascist.
So don't vote and let the greater of two evils drag your country to hell faster?
Democrats are the party of controlled opposition. Do you hate Republicans and want a reasonable chance for the opposition to win? Vote Democrat! What's that, you want progressive policies like parental tax credits, universal health care, or regulated housing prices? Tough shit, our corporate overlords say no. Vote for us anyway though to keep a stagnant government or else watch Republicans bring a sledgehammer to its foundations! The DNC desperately needs an overhaul in its leadership.
What are you talking about, clearly The Blue Party of Business and Capitalism is the enemy of The Red Party of Business and Capitalism. Haven't you seen their brand messaging?
I prefer to think of the Democrats/neoliberals as AIDS and Republicans/fascists as pneumonia. It's the pneumonia that kills you, but it's the AIDS that has to be addressed if you want to survive. Establishment Democrats sap our ability to fight off fascism, and now fascism has come for us.
It depends on if the Uvalde cops were being paid NOT to go into the school
…and the American people are the citizens of Uvalde safe in their homes watching it live on their screens.
I think that's a perfect analogy.
I'd like to see Democrats doing a whole fuck more, but this is a shit analogy.
I feel this applies to the current relationship between US and EU as well. Dear EU, step the fuck up!
Oh haven't you heard? They've scheduled an appointment to pick a date for a meeting where they'll sit down to deliberate about a twelve-pronged approach to build towards consensus about using stern words. Keeping my fingers crossed.
That is the truth.
Yesss...the propaganda is working.