He doesn’t give a shit about the mass starvation, shantytowns, global economic depression, and rise of Nazism into the largest war in human history that left hundreds of millions dead. No, he’s worried because his party wasn’t in power.
Fuck yourself with the largest, sharpest cactus that exists on the planet, you slimy, snivelling pathetic excuse for a fucking human, Rand Paul.
Oh no, what if democrats gain power and give us all healthcare and actually take care of the sick and poor. Wouldn’t that be terrible?
Oh no, what if democrats gain power and give us all healthcare and actually take care of the sick and poor. Wouldn’t that be terrible?
It would be unexpected.
Means they will have another go at undoing all that, is the circle of shit life.
The circle of sociopathy.
He doesn’t have a party, he follows money and his popularity with his crazy fuckin base. The Republican party bought him just like they bought Reagan and I’m still not sure how anyone could be fooled by the exact same playbook.
I read your first paragraph as a prediction of the future, until l realized that you were talking about the Great Depression and WWII.
“Those who ignore history, are doomed to repeat it” is supposed to be cautionary, but MAGA sees it as a game plan.
The largest war in human history, so far…
I’m like, wait, what happened in the 1930s that meant the wipeout of the republicans and what happened in the next 60 years?
Oh yes, an overinflated market crashed during the republican presidency, the burst ignited by the proposal of a tariff increase law, made to shield American industries and that was actually signed into law and significantly worsened the great depression. This pretty much caused the rise of Nazism in Germany and WW2
What happened then in the next 60 years? Oh yeah, the US won the war and became the biggest world superpower, the economy boomed and you had pretty much the most prosperous time in America’s history.
Maaaaybe a republican wipeout isn’t that bad now, is it?
I wish American Voters had memories longer than 4 years. But they don’t.
They got pissed at Bush and the Republicans in 2006 for the war and in 2008 for crashing the economy.
And 2 years later in 2010 they voted in a red wave not seen since reconstruction.
Donald Trump tried to overthrow the government and 4 years later they gave him another chance. If Trump shot a crowd of people on 5th avenue the kids of the victims would vote for him 4 years later.
There were massive voter suppression campaigns in both those election cycles. And it doesn’t help that the neo Liberals highjacked the democratic party, marginalizing labor. People are not motivated to vote for the lesser of two evils.
People are not motivated to vote for the lesser of two evils.
Neoliberals and centrists need to get this through their firewall of condescencion towards leftists, no matter how much y’all hate leftists (and laugh at leftists with your more conservative friends) you need to understand the average person in the US hates you and your leaders far more than than they hate genuine leftists that actually fight for the working class instead of spitting on them and publicly calling them stupid.
Neoliberals and centrists need to get this through their firewall of condescencion towards leftists
It won’t. They benefit from corporate greed as much as the right does. They are enablers of fascism.
Yeah the lure of power won’t sway them because the point of them holding power is to KEEP the working class from influencing policy.
Leftists in America are a tiny minority that happens to be in a kingmaker role because the Dems and Repubs are nearly evenly matched. There is no vast silent majority of Leftists. You’re in an internet bubble.
YOU need to get onboard with OUR ideas.
Your ideas got us here. With democracy hanging by a thread because both the corporate Democrats and Republicans spent decades weakening the lower classes to enrich themselves. How many 70-80% approval rating policy idea have the Democrats spurned over the years because it would mildly inconvenience their mega donors in the short term?
Can you name any?
Democrats haven’t been in power for decades.
Decades? They had the presidency and both halves of Congress for the first two years under Obama and all they gave us was Mitt Romney’s health care plan. And again during the first half of Biden’s term.
The Democratic leadership keeps actively stopping attempts to corral the ability of congressmen to get rich off inside trading. They spent the whole campaign season last year supporting and assisting in a very public genocide. Trustbusting has basically been forgotten - we only have the illusion of choice in our much each industry from the media to even our food products are dominated by like 3-4 companies within it.
Whenever they do happen to get power, they do nothing with it, and then act surprised when they immediately lose it again.
They had the presidency and both halves of Congress for the first two years under Obama
They had a majority that could override Republicans for all of like 2 months
And again during the first half of Biden’s term.
Never had a supermajority, even though they did get a few epic bills in through some brilliant legislative maneuvering.
and all they gave us was Mitt Romney’s health care plan
Obamacare has saved literally thousands of lives and saved countless more from poverty inducing medical costs and you act like that’s nothing. It’s the single best piece of legislation in the last 50 years at least. And we did that with just a few months of power.
Anyway. For your actual specifics
The Democratic leadership keeps actively stopping attempts to corral the ability of congressmen to get rich off inside trading
Biden calls for ban on congressional stock trading - never taken up by Repub led Congress
Democrats make last-ditch effort to ban stock trading by lawmakers
- Opposed/blocked by Republicans in Congress
Trustbusting has basically been forgotten
FTC Sues Amazon for Illegally Maintaining Monopoly Power
United Health Lawsuit Named Among FTC’s Biggest Wins
Big Pharma Braces for More FTC Suits Over M&A Bound for Approval
Gaza I’ll give you. That’s really the only hugely popular (among non-republicans) issue they refused to support.
So I’m assuming you’re a liberal? Let’s hear these ideas, seriously.
Sure!
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All people are equal before the law. Discrimination is abhorrent, and people’s personal freedoms should be respected until they harm others. Liberals and Leftists pretty much agree 100% on this so I won’t spend more time on it.
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Capitalism is the most powerful social engine for beneficial progress that the world has ever seen, but we need to keep it under control. It’s like an engine - harnessed, throttled, and controlled explosive power to drive us forward at a manageable pace. Strong regulations, strong unions, progressive taxes, and heavy government incentives are the ways we keep capitalism under control. Currently, it is OUT of control and is doing far more harm than good.
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Taxes on the rich should be higher, loopholes should be closed, and enforcement should be stepped up. There’s no consensus on exactly how much higher, but they all agree they should be higher.
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At the same time, we recognize the potential economic effects of taxing the rich. If we’re not careful, they’ll just move their money elsewhere. So we want to raise taxes to the extent possible without triggering flight of the wealthy.
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Everyone deserves a minimum standard of living. Food, shelter, and healthcare are human rights and should be free for those who can’t afford it.
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Immigrants are good for the economy. Even the illegal ones. We should be making immigration easier.
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Climate change is real, is man-made, and it is our duty as humans to do our best to fix it. However, we can do so to a large extent without causing hardship among everyday people, by making intelligent changes upstream from consumers. We can have economic growth AND tackle climate change, if we’re smart about it.
Obviously, left-leaning liberalism is a wide-ranging ideology but these are the main ones that came to mind immediately. The biggest difference between liberalism and Leftism is that Leftists want to tear down capitalism and Liberals want to control it.
I’m into it. I do think capitalism has far overstayed its welcome. I agree with everything you’ve written here, I just see it as a stepping stone to socialism rather than an end goal.
Fair enough. I think a lot of Liberals view socialism (like no shit real “own the means of production” socialism, rather than European capitalist-lite socialism of today) the same way as me: it sounds nice, it just doesn’t seem to work very well in practice. But hey if we can get it to work, neat. In the mean time, let’s get capitalism under control.
Leftism is that Leftists want to tear down capitalism and Liberals want to control it.
No the biggest difference is that Leftists want to address the fundamental, existential problems with capitalism and Liberals want to paper over it and not face the reality while still pretending they are part of the solution.
I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sounds of thousands of starving Ukranians. What was that again? Something about Capitalism being the root of all evil and Socialism being perfect in every way?
This is what a lot of young leftists hand wave away
Everyone deserves a minimum standard of living. Food, shelter, and healthcare are human rights and should be free for those who can’t afford it. - Immigrants are good for the economy. Even the illegal ones. We should be making immigration easier.
Taking in infinite immigrants and providing food shelter and healthcare for them and their lineage until the end of time ALONG WITH all of the disadvantaged citizens is not economically sustainable. You’d effectively be turning the U.S. into the world’s homeless shelter. At some point, likely sooner than later, all the raised taxes in the world on the businesses that don’t leave won’t be enough to care for everyone.
I’m all for compassion but it has to be reasoned compassion. You can’t just look at what your version of Utopia is and say that’s what we should do. Humanity is not perfect and neither will any society it builds be. But at the same time we can’t let perfect be the enemy of the good, and so we engage in these discussions.
Taking in infinite immigrants and providing food shelter and healthcare for them and their lineage until the end of time ALONG WITH all of the disadvantaged citizens is not economically sustainable.
I disagree.
You’d effectively be turning the U.S. into the world’s homeless shelter.
Fuck yeah we would.
Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.
Here’s the thing about immigrants: they start businesses. They get degrees. They make money. They pay taxes. They drive the economic engine forward. They’re not helpless fucking children, they are smart and driven and capable adults who happen to not speak your language and may have browner skin than you.
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Democracy will not save us. People that won’t vote unless they fall in love can fall out of love much more easily.
Do vote, it’s low effort and it can make a marginal difference. Just make your plans assuming you party will lose and if they win they will disappoint.
Your treating this as if the same people are voting different ways. It’s usually much more along the lines of voters staying home one election and voting in another.
Edit - autocorrect got naughty!
Keep in mind that the voting system itself is rigged. States with lower populations tend to have more representation per capita due to the Electoral College. This biases everything towards red states.
And that doesn’t even get at the decades of gerrymandering…
EC needs to go away, too.
And they have the gall to say they’re voting that way “for the economy”
I’ve stopped believing there is anything that will make people stop voting Republican
Lack of elections could….
How’s that for government efficiency?! Don’t even have to vote anymore.
I’m thinking the breadlines will probably manage.
Breadlines?.. Have you been paying attention to the actions of the last decades? They even arrest church staff for feeding homeless people.
No. They just want people to die in the gutter.
Yeah, this time around there will be no government assisted breadlines cause this government is ineffectual at best and outright malicious at worst.
With the current price of bread? Nah, it will be Soylent protein bars this time around (the green ones are the best!).
How does it taste?
Breadlines ? That’s socialism. Can’t have that…
Certainly not for the folks who just think they are Republicans like it’s a racial identity or something. That’s some shit I can’t understand.
The Republican party deserves to die for allowing Donald Trump to rise to power. The Democrat party deserves to die for being useless to stop them. America needs a whole new fresh start with new parties
We were within 2% of stopping them. If you bastards had got on board, we wouldn’t be in this mess.
Let’s blame the voters instead of our shit policy and campaign that promises them nothing much more than republican lite
Would that not be better than full fascism?
Either way leads there eventually. You’ll see it soon enough.
I don’t understand what you could possibly mean by this comment. We, as in the American electorate, directly chose fascism. What the fuck do you mean that we will see it soon enough? We didn’t take the path you say also leads there eventually, the only way to tell where it leads is theory. We are never going to see the real world impacts of the choice we did not make.
Fascism and fascism light still lead to fascism. You can take the long road home or the highway to hell, but either way goes there.
Democrats and republicans act as adversaries. What you should look at is what kinds of things do they consistently vote for and against in unison.
After 18 months of republicans and democrats signing bombs that are tearing apart poor families sleeping in tents - how do you not see that they are both your enemy?
If the democrats really wanted to help people, why have they never gone scorched earth with helping people the way Trump is using the power to hurt people.
Help people so hard that they could never vote against you again? Universal healthcare - don’t want it? Too bad it’s free now. And it’s way more efficient than private.
Tax cuts for the poor and middle class while taxing the wealthy? Aww sorry I know you’re mad the billionaires pay more because you’re still waiting for that money to trickle down, but you pay less.
Free secondary education and day care for parents? Here’s chances to make your life better without drowning in debt and payments now enjoy making a better life.
But no. The democrats say “fuck the people” every time they have a chance to make a difference because they are the same as republicans. They only vote for war, tax cuts for the wealthy, and benefits package/pay increases for themselves.
Where are they now to save the students whose visas are arbitrarily being revoked? Where are they in the name of free speech? Doing 24 hour self promos in the chamber that accomplish exactly nothing and then running to MSNBC to brag about talking for that day straight.
It’s a clownshow and I am befuddled on how most people do not see through this.
I blame the owners of news and social media. How can people make good decisions if they can’t perceive reality?
No fuck yes. Blame them.
Are you saying that trump won because his policy and campaign was stellar.
Trump won because his base acted instead of passively watching. They took over everything and all the left could say was “don’t roll with them something something pigs”
The voters and especially the non-voters are to blame along with the politicians. Why shouldn’t they be responsible for voting against their own interests or sitting it out after having seen a Trump presidency?
Why not both.
Chaotic evil is more showy but that doesn’t mean that lawful evil isn’t also evil.
Na. It’s the Democrats politicians fault. Send more money to Israel.
or better yet, no parties at all and force some of our morons to actually learn their candidates beyond just party lines.
Idk, I’d totally be in favor of ranked voting; with several parties that correspond to music genres where people could identify the party’s values based on vibes. Ex: Acid Polka Party, Nu Delta Blues Party, Hyper Uplifting Metal Party, etc.
That will never happen.
Part of me wonder if this is worth saving. We need to start over.
All things end.
I just wish I wasn’t alive when it happened.
Where’s Thanos when we need him
A quick snap death would be preferable to what’s coming.
But bruh if u vote for third party, it’s a win for Donald Trump bruh.
It needs a new electoral system too.
Yep the one that farmers does not select president for whole United States and 6th largest economy of world aka California.
I think they bumped up to 5th recently
That was correct. Until the day the voting system changes, voting third party for anything national will be the same as not voting at all as far as results go. This isn’t good, it isn’t right, but it’s the world we live in and the system we are operating under.
It’s a nice catch 22 innit
It literally was.
See, they thought they could control him, like they did Reagan, and Bush Jr. Bush Sr. went along willingly.
But Trump is an overgrown 5 year old, and needs to feel he’s in charge. Like any typical narcissist.
Or, better idea, no parties like the founders intended
Notice that’s their top concern. Not hurting Americans, not pissing off allies, not a recession, not handing off the title of World Superpower to China, but losing their jobs is their top concern.
*losing power over others not just theor jobs
not handing off the title of World Superpower to China
They put in the hours. Maybe they’ve fucking earned it. But if it makes you feel any better, most of the BRICS are rocketing upwards and positioned to match or eclipse the US by the end of the century. That’s just what happens when you implement modern industrial policies under a more egalitarian social system. Spreading the wealth engages more of the population in high value productive activities that benefit the national economy in the long run.
After you’ve built a broadly productive economic engine, the only thing holding you back is the size of your productive population. At that point, policies like universal health care and efficient mass transit really start paying dividends.
It’s not like they needed us to fumble in order to take the trophy, but all the same we didn’t need to just hand them the ball and walk away.
Don’t threaten me with a good time!!!
Also, it’s a wheel. The Cons ruin the economy, voters get mad and vote Democrat, Democrat fixes economy, voters don’t like the spending even though it’s improving everything so vote Con, the Cons ruin the economy, ect ect so on and so forth
The Democrats get penalized for not fixing it fast enough or good enough.
This could be a super duper long play hustle. Where after 4 years they just lay down and then in 12 years they slip back in and really fuck shit up after the left can’t fix anything they have done.
By then AI will be in control, everyone will have elons chip in their brain and president baron will be choking kittens on the Whitehouse lawn to a stadium crowd while hologram kid rock plays the classics.
Look out for project 2037 mark my words
That’s the same everywhere, not just the US.
The right destroys what the left/center build so the left/center rebuild it and then the right destroys it again.
This is so true it hurts to read it.
Yeah, I find it kinda funny that the “great again” era that is constantly referenced is actually this era of loosing the House and the Senate that is specifically being refrenced now. Mate, you can’t have it both ways; do you want the house and the Senate and the House or do you want it to be “great again?”
Wouldn’t that be nice.
Nicer would be the utter destruction of the Republican Party, followed by a split between the Corporate Democrats and Progressives into two parties.
Or if the current R leadership becomes irrelevant, the Dems win for many terms in a row, and the new generation of Rs decide to appeal to the left by doing another party swap
So we’ll have like five progressives and the rest will be liberal corporate heels. We still won’t get anything useful. But at least we wouldn’t have republicans, so it’s better than nothing.
Corporate Dems need to go away too.
Sure is telling that his biggest worry is republicans losing power and not the sort of fucking depression that was the cause last time.
We Lost the House and Senate for 60 Years.
I sure fucking hope so, you piece of shit.
Hopefully the republicans can go the way of the whigs, the democratic party can become the conservative party they so desperately want to be, and we can create an actual party on the left.
I’ve wanted this for ages. And it’s represented so well in Republicans having only one platform: “Oppose Democrats. If it makes a Democrat angry, do it.”
Cleanse - and I mean CLEANSE - the opposition party. No one here can claim the Democrats never have good ideas. And yet, we can definitely do better than them. A better party means having better ideas - not just “Stop them libruls”. Bernie just toured the States with a message of exactly what that would look like.
I believe the second point of his tour was to make sure everyone knows that AOC is his political heir. He can’t keep it up forever.
Republicans should be wiped out. Fools, monsters, and traitors. They’ve done incalculable damage to the world and all those who live here.
Every Republican that dies should be cause for celebration.
Maybe when the MAGA dorks try to convince us this is short term for long term gain; what they don’t realize is ousting the republican stranglehold on the country is the long term gain.
If they do, I’ll remind them of all the times Democrats reduced the deficit for long-term gain, and then Republicans pointed only to last year’s DJIA.
Not one time have I seen a Republican acknowledge those statistics, no matter in what form they are presented. Not once.
Which is not a knock against you, but yet more evidence how how willfully they will bury their heads in the sand if you encourage them to hate people they already want to hate + tell them they are patriots for doing so.
Look, I’m pissed too, I want them tf out of power and I want them to face consequences for what they’ve done. But celebrating the death of every Republican is more than a little extreme. The top dogs / those responsible? Sure. But let’s not go calling for the deaths of our countrymen - who are, tbh, blind fools who’ve been brainwashed by propaganda. That doesn’t make them worthy of death. I’d recommend avoiding turning the heat straight to 100 unless you want to watch our country walk an even darker path in coming years. If you’ve convinced yourself that’s the outcome you actually want - of civil war and all the other fucked up shit that tends to come with war - then you’re your own type of blind fool.
I’m sorry. My grandpa taught me the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. He was a smart dude
I wouldn’t disagree. But not every Republican is on board with or even aware of what’s happening. As someone who’s escaped a cult, it’s hard to see through a smoke screen of propaganda, misinformation and dogma when you’re surrounded by it. Getting us to fall into left vs right, black vs white etc camps and fight each other to the death is exactly what the rich elite (our actual enemies) want to happen. I’d recommend Andrew Callaghan’s film “Dear Kelly” for a first hand look at what this looks like in action; how an otherwise innocuous, well meaning citizen can be brainwashed by far right propaganda and how quickly they can lose touch with reality - as well as how they can be brought back from that brink.
People are nuanced and groupthink is holding us back as a species. Hold the grand old party to task, and put on blast all those who have been profiting off of the suffering of others and leading the destruction of society. But don’t lower yourselves to their level and paint everyone on the other side of the fence the same shade, or miss the nuances of how these people are being manipulated, and by whom.
The manipulators are the problem. Not the manipulated.
I do agree they are sheep misled. But a penchant for being a Nazi does not a good citizen make.
This soft approach after the civil war is why we are here again.
This reminds me of the Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht. In short: No, not so many of them are victims and puppets.
There are some cases where people are pulled out of cults by exposure to outside opinions. Anyone among the Republicans that has frequently had that exposure, on some level (for instance, hearing arguments from Democratic senators prior to votes) agrees with and wants the destruction.
Now we’re talking.
Do you not think it’s a little hyperbolic to claim that every single member of the Republican party is a Nazi deserving of only death?
I mean, sure, it feels great to sound like a tough guy on the Internet, but you’re talking about tens of millions of Americans.
I understand that you feel the conclusion is disturbing. Can you elaborate on what part of their reasoning is confusing?
I suppose the part that leads to mass murder.
Do you think it’s murder to kill a Nazi?
I believe it is justified. But I’m not going to dignify the question of “is it murder to kill a Nazi” with an answer.
I 100% believe in what I said and so do the mass majority of Americans.
The mass majority of Americans absolutely do not believe in putting to death every Republican.
I said Nazis. You said republicans.
That’s a confession
Read up. The person you responded to was warning against celebrating the death of all Republicans. You responded with something about your grandfather taught you the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. YOU are the one that first equated Republicans with Nazis.
Also, I’m a leftist, you tool.
We don’t have to go door to door shooting everyone registered R. The leadership should definitely go up against the wall.
But every person that votes R is voting for climate disaster, unchecked pandemics, rolling back decades of medical science, violence against queer folks and other minorities, and other horrors.
They might not be a comically evil person who kicks puppies and steals candy from babies, but they’ve thrown what little power they have behind tremendous evil. When that stops, that’s a win.
I concede I could amend my previous statement that they don’t need to die. We can also celebrate them leaving the party and changing themselves so they’re not doing evil anymore.
Have you ever considered that this hostile attitude you show towards individuals is exactly what the system wants out of you?
What feels like resistance is actually just maintenance of the status quo. The elites have replaced class consciousness with culture war. Instead of hostility towards individuals who have been led to believe falsehoods through information warfare and weaponized insecurity, why not aim that hostility towards the systems in place that intentionally makes people afraid and angry?
If we wanted to get a little more psychoanalytical about it- this hatred of the individual who has been duped is pathological. It’s sort of like the Nazi and the Jew. The Nazi needs the idea of the Jew to maintain the Nazi world view. Certain excesses are only justified if you have an omnipresent internal enemy. By placing the Republican voter as the villain, you put yourself in the position of moral superiority.
By placing him down, you put yourself up. But really, I believe this may be subconscious projection. Because you are just as guilty and complicit in maintaining the system as the Republican voter. It’s hard to fix the cognitive dissonance of that position. All of us work, pay rent, pay taxes, buy products, post online, etc- we are tiny cogs that moves the machine forward.
So the elites have created an easy safety valve for that cognitive dissonance. Blame the others. Your life sucks? It’s illegal immigrants. Your life sucks? It’s Republicans. Your life sucks? It’s the gays. Your life sucks? It’s the Miami Cubans. And so on and so on.
Until the working class unites and redirects the hostility towards the pillars of power that keep us in line, there will never be any meaningful change in this country. This hostility you and other users show towards Republican voters is ironically supporting the very thing you claim to hate. We’re doomed to endlessly loop around a Möbius strip.
Because you are just as guilty and complicit in maintaining the system as the Republican voter
This is false
Your life sucks? It’s Republicans.
This is actually true. The ultra wealthy that keep us in this hellscape are republicans. They have much of the blame. But the low level people who keep voting for them also have some of the blame.
Blaming the queers (for example) is a total non-sequitur. They’re just living life. The republicans are dismantling the government, ending vaccination programs, and rolling back environmental protections. They are for real doing actual harm right now. It is not the same as the imaginary harms “the jews” do. People would make up stories about nefarious evils of jews, but meanwhile the republicans are right there on TV doing evil. There was a nazi salute. There was an insurrection. These are things that happened.
The working class republicans are class traitors. They should realize that our interests align, but they don’t, and they are actively doing harm.
If you have ideas on how to instill class consciousness in the kind of people who vote against their interests, let’s hear it.
Because you are just as guilty and complicit in maintaining the system as the Republican voter
This is false
I disagree. Pick a random Republican voter from this country and you’re very likely to grab someone from a red state. Let’s say Alabama. Their vote is as insignificant as a blue voter in California. So regardless of who you or who they voted for, their impact is nil.
But when we talk about complicity we’re not simply talking about voting. We’re talking about participation in the system. For example, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that in the last few months you have drank a Coca Cola beverage. I don’t mean just their cola, but any of the myriad of drinks they provide. Whether it’s Sprite or Dasani or what have you.
You have contributed to the bottom line of a company that hires death squads to kill labor leaders (this is has been proven in court).
That’s just one infinitesimally small example out of an infinite number of actions you and everyone else have taken that perpetuates the system of exploitation we live. We are the chosen people that get to live in relative opulence while billions around the world struggle to survive.
So I’ll say it again. You are just as complicit. There is just as much blood on your hands as that Republican voter and yet you choose not to see it because it’s easier to maintain the delusion of moral superiority. Why? Again- reducing cognitive dissonance.
The ultra wealthy that keep us in this hellscape are republicans. They have much of the blame.
Here you get closer to the truth. It’s the ultra wealthy that ultimately decide what happens in this country. I’d go so far as to say they have all of the blame. Why? Because they are the only ones that actually have any autonomy. The research has been done before- American public opinion has zero impact on policy.
No matter who you vote for; over the long term the same policies will be enacted regardless.
If you have ideas on how to instill class consciousness in the kind of people who vote against their interests, let’s hear it.
The first step is to get rid of this atmosphere of hostility. You blame someone for the country collapsing, they get defensive and blame you for the country collapsing. We’re in the post-truth era so it doesn’t matter what is true or what is false. People believe what they do based on vibes. This isn’t an accident but intentional.
It is not the same as the imaginary harms “the jews” do. People would make up stories about nefarious evils of jews, but meanwhile the republicans are right there on TV doing evil. There was a nazi salute. There was an insurrection. These are things that happened.
I think we need to make a distinction here.
What we are seeing in the last few months of this administration is not the traditional Republican party. Trump has hijacked the Republican party much like Hitler hijacked the Nazi party. There is no more Republican party- it’s the Trump party.
The question instead that we need to ask is how was this allowed to happen?
The answer is that wealthy people thought it was in their interests. Simple as that. It’s why for example when you had the Trump inauguration the top tech CEOs all came to bend the knee and sat in the front row. The capitalist system has decided that having Trump at the helm is the most profitable outcome.
Trump worked hard to get to this point- he had to defeat the Republican establishment party. The Mitt Romneys and the George Bushes and the Mitch McConnels. Wealthy powerful people who wanted the status quo to continue indefinitely.
I think one key thing you are missing here is that the Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans in creating Trump. Bill Clinton for example amplified Reagan’s economic policies that accelerated our descent into brutal neoliberal capitalism. As we descend further down, people become increasingly insecure.
People who are scared for the financial future vote for dictators. This has happened before and it will happen again. I believe fascism is like a herpes outbreak. It’ll never go away, but your immune system keeps in check most of the time. The issue is that our immune system is weakened and now it has a breakout.
What we are seeing in the last few months of this administration is not the traditional Republican party. Trump has hijacked the Republican party much like Hitler hijacked the Nazi party. There is no more Republican party- it’s the Trump party.
I’m in my mid 50s, as context.
I:
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just missed being old enough for awareness of key events in the civil rights movement, but:
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grew up in a very racially diverse area, surrounded by people who lived those events
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Lived through through/witnessed:
- the Satanic Panic
- the Tipper Gore, 700 Club/Pat Robertson heyday
- the pre- and post- dont-ask-don’t-tell period in the military
- the AIDS Epidemic and homophobia feedback loop that came with it
- the steady progression as it became more and more acceptable over decades for gay people to be open about their sexuality
- the beginnings of the same thing happening for trans people
- and more changes to and challenges to our social norms than I will possibly remember to list here, all along with each and every step of progress continuously made against the strong opposition of conservatives.
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then watched as the entire Republican party gleefully worked to destroy and roll back all areas of progress the very moment they had enough power to do so. They are shitting up the place and destroying as much as they can, as wantonly as they can.
From the rank and file infiltrating and twisting local school boards and libraries all the way up to the whitehouse, they are making things as shitty as they can as fast as they can for as many people as they can. And it didn’t start 2.5 months ago, you could feel it from the moment Trump took office the first time, though even then it was just a louder version of what was already clearly under the surface for decades. We are literally headed towards some freaky blend of WWII Germany and Gilead.
Everything being done now is something conservatives and Republicans I’ve known have been preaching to a greater or lesser degree for as long as I can remember. They were just better in couching it behind nice words back then, and less of them were comfortable being vocal about it. As far as I can tell, Trump has hijacked nothing and no one.
Resistance to him by Republicans at any level has been weak to undetectable the entire time, coming from a tiny minority of (now ousted) Republicans, and that is precisely what gives the lie to this idea that he hijacked a damn thing.
The commenter saying to line them all up is being ridiculous, of course, but they aren’t getting any disdain they haven’t earned, and in any case they aren’t interested in having unity with anyone not like them anyhow, so I don’t see any point whatsoever in this idea that we’re supposed to talk nice and mollycoddle them into some kind of class-aware coalition. That ship has sailed.
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I disagree. Pick a random Republican voter from this country and you’re very likely to grab someone from a red state. Let’s say Alabama. Their vote is as insignificant as a blue voter in California. So regardless of who you or who they voted for, their impact is nil.
They vote in local elections, which are not insignificant, and have real impacts. You have like school board elections decided by a few dozen votes. The conservatives win and start banning books and doing low grade hate crimes against queer people.
You have contributed to the bottom line of a company that hires death squads to kill labor leaders (this is has been proven in court).
We all know there’s no way to be a wholly good person under capitalism. We’re both writing this on hardware that is likely metaphorically soaked in blood. That doesn’t mean that any amount of blood is equal to any other amount of blood.
No matter who you vote for; over the long term the same policies will be enacted regardless.
I don’t think this is necessarily the case. We had a new deal. Trusts were broken up. It is possible to make changes. It’s an uphill battle because of many factors, including the republicans pulling as hard as they can in the opposite direction. The republicans (or more broadly, conservatives and reactionaries. or even more broadly, the ownership class and their useful idiots) are the problem.
The first step is to get rid of this atmosphere of hostility. You blame someone for the country collapsing, they get defensive and blame you for the country collapsing. We’re in the post-truth era so it doesn’t matter what is true or what is false. People believe what they do based on vibes. This isn’t an accident but intentional.
A key difference is they are incorrect. But as you say, we’re in post-truth and facts don’t matter anymore to a lot of people.
This isn’t a serious policy summit because we’re just two dorks on lemmy. In real life you’d have to spend a lot of time massaging people’s emotions so they come a little closer to reality. In my internet-tough-guy persona I just want to shoot every red-hat in the head. I know it’s not that effective, but I’m an emotional sack of meat like everyone else.
And again, they may feel the same way and want to just shoot the queers dead, except that wouldn’t solve any problems. It’s not the queers (or the jews or the blacks) that are voting to remove child labor laws, to remove environmental protections, to keep wages low and prices high. The animosity might be similar but they are wrong.
The answer is that wealthy people thought it was in their interests. Simple as that. It’s why for example when you had the Trump inauguration the top tech CEOs all came to bend the knee and sat in the front row. The capitalist system has decided that having Trump at the helm is the most profitable outcome.
The right wing will always chose fascism and profits over anything else. Given a choice between paying a little more for labor or burning the entire country down, most of the ownership class would burn the country down. They’re not good people. I’m pretty sure that was a key factor in fascism’s rise in ww2- the wealthy class backed fascism because they didn’t want to pay more wages to unions.
I knew a guy that worked for in a smallish factory, and the owner verbatim said “I’ll burn this place down before I let you all unionize.”
Personally, I think they should have broken into that guy’s house at night and murdered him, but I understand not wanting to throw your life away on a class war skirmish that likely won’t make a difference.
I think one key thing you are missing here is that the Democrats are just as guilty as the Republicans in creating Trump. Bill Clinton for example amplified Reagan’s economic policies that accelerated our descent into brutal neoliberal capitalism. As we descend further down, people become increasingly insecure.
I said elsewhere that it’s like squares and rectangles. All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. All republicans are a problem, but not all democrats are a problem. Some are. That doesn’t mean they’re good. Maybe we want stars. Neither of them are stars.
People who are scared for the financial future vote for dictators. This has happened before and it will happen again. I believe fascism is like a herpes outbreak. It’ll never go away, but your immune system keeps in check most of the time. The issue is that our immune system is weakened and now it has a breakout.
It’s funny because that’s such a self destructive behavior. It’s like someone having an itchy outbreak of some kind, and then they scratch and scratch and scratch until it bleeds and it gets infected. What’s the political equivalent of cones for people’s hands so they can’t scratch?
Honestly I’m beginning to wonder if this site hasn’t been invaded by reddit. Are you saying the democrats are going to fuck all about climate change? if so you are seriously deluded
It has, the mass exodus has enabled their bad opinions to be infected upon all of lemmy. .world is the worst for it.
And pray tell why do you not include the Demonrats in your statement? Do you not agree that the Democrats are 100 percent complicit?
Squares and rectangles.
All squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.
All republicans are fools/monsters/traitors, but not every Democrat is. Some are. But not all.
You sit down to a table with 9 nazis eating dinner and then there are 10 nazis. I hold every democrat as responsible as the republicans. Leave the damn dem party and form a new one or go with Dr. Stein. The democrats can rot in bloody hell
Fingers crossed
Not happening. There won’t be another legit election.
Considering the rampant gerrymandering, the fucked system that’s the electoral college, this past election having widespread voter intimidation, destruction of mail-in ballot collection boxes…was the last one a legit election? How long has it been since there was one?
Yesterday we voted and kept wi supreme Court leaning Dem despite being outspent 10:1 for the second time in 4 years. You need to keep voting and spread the word. I convinced a co worker to vote that also thought it was useless. Every vote matters
✊ fuck yeah! Keep it going!
Dont forget the swing state statistical anomalies. No, the last one wants fair and none going forward will be either.
was the last one a legit election?
No. And there may also have been hacking of voting machines.
Ever notice how Republicans all at once and very rapidly stopped talking about paper ballots?
I’m gonna go with never.
Of course there will be more legit elections.
What does he expect. Libertarianism is basically enacting the policies that led to the great depression. Trump is reacting in the way that made it worse, but you are the kerosene to his spark. Expect great depression when you get what you want.
I hope he is right. We could do a lot of good if we kept them out of office.
GOP should be banned from American politics. They have repeatedly violated the constitution at this point and are clearly compromised.
Completely agreed, but I’m pretty sure we’ll need new leadership for the Democratic party if we want them to make this happen
How about we burn 'em both down and elect people based on what they’ve already done rather than what they’re going to do?
No, that’s too reasonable - I must be crazy.
I’m not opposed to the idea if people can make it happen, but I think a mutiny will be easier than building a whole new boat
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The Roaring Twenties (1920s) was a time of wild economic growth and insane deregulation. Coolidge and Hoover caused the Great Depression by dismantling the government’s ability to regulate commerce and by raising tariffs to an insane level. America enjoyed a brief Gilded Age for the wealthy that caused a global economic collapse.
The reason Bank of America and Merrill Lynch have to operate as two separate entities is because of the Glass-Steagal act, enacted in response to the Great Depression, which split up commercial and investment banking to stop them from making the same mistakes again.
Like almost every other economic downturn, the Great Depression was caused in large part by laissez faire capitalism. Unregulated banks were gambling with too much of their customer’s money by making extremely risky investments in the stock market and agriculture (in 2008 it would be risky investments in sub-prime mortgages).
The tariffs were temporarily successful at isolating and enforcing american industry (note that the domestic industry was still strong enough to benefit, unlike now). But the Banks’ speculation bubble collapsed in the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and since commercial and investment banking were still intertwined, it wasn’t just people losing the vaue of their stock portfolios - the banks were gambling with the money in their customers’ savings accounts.
Once people realize that the bank doesn’t have the funds to cover all of its accounts, that starts a run on the banks. Without the FDIC to insure your savings, when your bank goes bankrupt, you go bankrupt. The Great Depression begins in full.
Those same tarrifs prevent any relief or recovery from overseas. US citizens couldn’t afford to live. They couldn’t afford to buy domestic goods made down the street or heavily tariffed imports. Even when tariffs were pulled back it took time for supply chains to be rebuilt.
Reciprocal tariffs from overseas craters international demand for US goods, and suddenly US citizens couldn’t afford US products either. No customers, no money. Factories begin to close with no available replacements in the supply chain.
Domestic agriculture and industry collapsed, at a time when there was (intentionally) very little trade with other nations. Americans suffer, starve, and die. Tension builds, eviction standoffs begin, and homeless populations assemble by the thousands in “Hoovervilles” - shanty towns that looked very similar to the living conditions in Gaza pre October 7th.
Without constant planting, irrigation, and harvest, and with the long-term damage done by unregulated agriculture, Middle America becomes the Dust Bowl. It takes less than 5 years for the landscape to transform, and dust storms hit Washington DC in 1935.
90 years ago. 1935. You probably know someone that old. There are about a million Americans alive today who were born at a time when over a million Americans were homeless, many living in refugee camps in the new American Desert. There were cars, and airplanes, and CRT TV’s, and American children starving by the tens of thousands.
All of it started because a Republican President let corporations gamble recklessly without oversight while “protecting” American industry with extreme tariffs that cut the nation off completely from the global economic network.
Look if you don’t want to vote for bears you should have chosen to be born someplace smarter
@Redditsux I hope he’s right.
Best news this year.
Their plan is to not have fair elections anymore.
Elections are over. The US is cooked.
The current regime will enact Russia-style “elections”.
Without violent revolution, the US is over.
