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The left wants to squeeze the rich until money comes out. Centrist republicans don’t.
That’s why those controlling the Democratic party will not save us. The left needs to take it from them.
The pneumatic press is this century’s guillotine.
And you Americans do this by ignoring primaries, by not volunteering for your leftists candidates, not donating or spreading the word and knocking doors. Instead you guys sit on your ass and bitch about the candidate that was picked without any of your input. You say “get rid of the old white man” and when you get an educated black woman you go “eeew not that, we meant the other ancient white guy Bernie”
You’re all a ball of contradictions and nobody is left enough or good enough to be an ally. You demand democrats stand up to republicans but the moment one does you bitch and bury them and call them fake leftists, no wonder they rather just sit out and let you guys reap what you sowed
The American left is just as toxic and deranged as the American right just in the opposite way. It’s no surprise since you all came from the same deranged country.
Again im pointing out the AMERICAN left, leftists around the world think you guys are a bunch of babies
And you Americans do this by ignoring primaries
The primaries we didn’t get in 2024? Those primaries?
We only had 4 plus months to go, we needed that time to fundraise! /s
Nevermind most of this country’s history they didn’t choose the candidate until late August. And the front runner usually didn’t get picked.
Kamala raised the most money too, apparently still believing money is what wins elections. The money follows the likely winner, it’s not the deciding factor.
Lmao there hasnt been a primary yet, ya cunt. 53,000 people came out in protest of ICE in Minneapolis and they’re now being told to get ready to vote for a donor-approved prostate-tumor who’s ‘fine’ with ICE so long as they play nice with local police.
Centrists accuse leftists of never getting involved, but they just pretend not to notice when they actually do.
Nothing but insults, toxicity and excuses. Exactly what I’m talking about. You’re a nation of terrorist dirtbags with no civility
Educated woman huh? Sold out corporatist running as status quo. The only one that thinks people vote for candidates because their race and gender are the dem establishment. I suppose you accuse blacks and woman of being racist and sexist too as they rejected her. No one liked her, she wasn’t trying to be popular, and that’s why she was chosen.
You might as well be working for the republicans here, helping to affix us with candidates that can’t win. A generally important Maga person, or gimp for short.
Always the absolute worst comments. You’re just here to ragebait arent you.
Democrats should have promised to tax the rich and use that money to build a new Third Reich to appease both sides 🙄
Alternatively force women to have abortions and appease both sides.
PugJesus in a nutshell
Crazy how Lemmy is still small enough to have famous/infamous commenters. I wonder if I have a rep? I feel like I comment a lot but probably nothing compared to them
It helps a lot to have a memorable username, mfed1122.
Well now I’m gonna remember you 🧐
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I know I’ve got rep for pissing off tankies and tankie adjacent, so I’m doing it right.
I hope the villains of your imagination fear you.
Is that shithead still around? I thought he might have died
I got into it with him just a few days back, don’t recall what it was over. I’m not a fan.
The dude’s the most well respected anti-Tankie anarchist on the platform, I don’t expect him to go away any time soon.
You call everyone you don’t like a tankie.
I call people Tankies when they promote the interests of Russian and Chinese militaristic dictatorship and expansion. They’re here on the Fediverse in large numbers because it’s a small part of their many well funded psyops such as Chinese run TikTok and operations on FaceBook and YouTube going back over well over a decade.
I admit I may have declared a couple of false positives, but probably less times than I hit the nail on the head.
I call people Tankies when
When they are to your left about anything at all.
None of the people I call tankies are left. All tankies are conservatives.
All tankies are conservatives.
Yes, yes. Everyone to your left is all the way to your right. But not like the actual right. Wouldn’t want to compromise with them.
What is a leftist according to you then ??
The guy’s a propaganda machine pretending to be something on the left, doing what the tankie do for the west, so a certified Wankie.
lol yeah okay pal
He’s fighting for the deep-non-state. /s
We need nationwide Ranked Choice Voting because I agree that many Democrats are far from perfect and, in an ideal world, I would love to vote for a third party or independent candidate, the reality is that; unless you happen to live in a state with Ranked Choice Voting (Maine, for example) you might indirectly be helping a Republican win. As imperfect as many Democrats are, they are usually far better and usually more sane than the Republicans.
They support genocide. That’s not “imperfect,” it’s reprehensible.
Pretty sure everyone supports genocide at this point. The only difference being who is the genocider and who is the genocidee.
They’re gonna run a Schumer/Clinton ticket in 2028.
Nah it’ll be Newsom because they think his online
precensespamming will draw in young voters
ha ha, don’t even say it. My pessimistic predictions that after biden they would force kamala that would lose that I made way back before biden was even in turned out to be correct. Once again the dems did worse than I knew they would, even though I knew they would do worse than I thought, they still did worse than that, which I knew they would.
Are we running numbers? I got $5 on Newsom being somewhere in the ticket
Democrats have been moving to the right with their program like someone paid them to chase republicans on that stage
It’s accurate for sure.
Democrats made a failed attempt to acquire a potentially valuable resource to their cause, Americans who vote consistently.
People who don’t vote or donate to their party are literally worthless in their eyes.
I vote consistently because I don’t want fascism running the government. They take consistent voters for granted. They should court the disenfranchised with progressive policies but that runs counter to their donor handlers’ goals so they pander to the right more and more instead.
Then they will lose funding and the average voter will vote republican because ads work when you are as misinformed as the average voter.
I love how there’s always a bullshit justification for moving to the right like centrists want.
People who don’t vote or donate BIG MONEY to their party are literally worthless in their eyes.
Ftfy
Fascism it is I guess. I wish things could be different, but the liberals didn’t want to compromise. Oh well.
Well no. Compromising with the left risks communism. Letting the right get everything they want; that’s just fine.
I can’t tell which group you’re calling the liberals who don’t compromise. Is it the left who won’t vote the Republicans out or is it the DNC?
Big money lefties and those that support the genocide Israel is committing.
Is that really left and or liberal if it is neither progressive nor respects human rights? If anything Israel genocide is a conservative centrist policy.
That’s fair to think if you’re not from the US, but many Democrats are considered left here and they’re really not. They may support the gays, minorities, or equality of women in some respects, but they’re right-wing in almost every other way.
They may support the gays, minorities, or equality of women in some respects
Until they get any pushback at all from conservatives.
Some of them sure, but some are staunch allies in that respect, but are billionaire bootlickers or Zionists. They can fuck off too.
Some of them sure
Always just enough of them.
If anything Israel genocide is a conservative centrist policy.
And for some reason, it wasn’t a winning issue with a party full of leftists and liberals. But conservatives like you loved it so much you would rather lose to trump that suggest that it stop.
Nobody who cared about a single Palestinian life should ever have considered allowing Trump to win for even a single moment. Nobody who protested the dems in the general actually cared about Palestine unless there was a serious and major disinformation campaign pressuring them to do so.
This nation’s official stance went from “end the war and bring peace to the middle east” to Pete Hegest as Secretary of War declaring “death or exodus” for every Palestinian.
Your argument can’t see past your own hand. By endorsing a party continually getting worse every cycle, the party is guaranteeing the republicans would win, making fighting for democrats a waste of time and energy, they refuse to do what is needed to win, and stop the fascist political machine.
We knew they couldn’t win as their only selling point being better than the other guy, while getting worse every cycle. Not just on foreign policy, on selling us out to the plutocracy, not changing anything back, that they see themselves as good cop to R bad cop is inescapable, apparently thinking election theft projections are all performative. In denial that Republicans aren’t playing bad cop, but Hitler.
On foreign policy specifically, Biden kicked off that round by endorsing veritable blood libel, claiming to have seen the evidence of 40 beheaded babies by Hamas, a patently false allegation, and never corrected himself. All for a country working to sabotage him, with blackmail on half of our politicians and businessman.
There is, and never was, any way out from the abyss of fascism, with these democrats running the opposition. The only path is getting new leadership.
The only thing that has gotten worse every cycle is livelihood in the USA because the DNC have been left out of power for over 13 years.
The DNC keep moving left but the campaigns against them by foreign powers and billionaires gets stronger every day.
Nobody who cared about a single Palestinian life should ever have considered allowing Trump to win for even a single moment.
Yeah. But democrats wanted genocide so badly that they preferred trump over telling netanyahu no. Lord knows you did.
I wish the Democrats had the balls to use that messaging. Instead, it’s us leftists trying to convince the radical centrists like Cassandra of Troy.
Not so much anymore. It’s pretty clear this is what they want.
The moment they capitulated and caved on the shutdown, all to save themselves and their rich friend’s the horror of losing money over the holidays or being unable to fly to some exotic place on the same runways they refuse to pay taxes to fund, the Democrats proved what everyone already knew. They’re controlled opposition. They’ll fight with everything they have to prevent a progressive candidate from getting anywhere near the system while allowing fascism to kick down the door with lip-service opposition.
Before Biden, the performance was believable, or at least palatable. After allowing tRump to skirt consequences for January 6, and even allowing him to be on the ballot at all, it was clear there was no intention of meaningful opposition or change. Until and unless we can remove these legislative dinosaurs and get progressives or working people into positions of power, no change will happen. I fear that with the wealth inequalities and immense power wielded by a few, it may have become too late to contain this beast. Nothing can save this system.
before biden
You weren’t around for 2000 then?
Sure, but how politically active were you in your teenage years and early twenties?
I recognized what was happening as a literal child.
If we could get our own candidates we could take half of the non partisan right voters. Most of them just vote to reject the democrats not endorse the republicans, and are low information. A true populist would take their loyalties, especially now with the America First crowd rejected and scorned by the party. It’s supposed champion being led around by the party starting a dozen wars at a time.
I completely agree. Zohran is a great example - everyone loves him, even Trump. That’s what a principled and charismatic leftist politician looks like. I wish we had more people like Zohran coming into leadership positions in the Democratic party.
Unfortunately, some people are using bad strategies to try and get more Zohrans. Instead of showing up before the primaries and promoting leftist politicians in competition with moderates, they show up after the primaries and attack moderate politicians in competition with fascists. The former is how you get leftists in power. The latter is how you get fascists in power. The two look the same to those who are… less politically adept. But in truth, they have very different effects.
At the same time, republican orientated influence operations are out there yelling and screaming at people trying to get actual populists in the democratic primaries, or during the anointment process in 2024. Influencing the sheep, and wasting and frustrating the left, to help keep a candidate they can beat to run against them. The oligarchy obviously wanting also to keep their license from being revoked, fearing mild reform more than putting an absolute leader in charge, arrogantly thinking they can control the monster they’ve reared on the right.
You are going around blaming those that didn’t pretend the democrats were doing a good job; and were going to win; and that they would do what is needed after they won, rather than those that saddled us with the doomed to fail, constitutionally unwilling to do what is needed candidate. By the time they get their hack “moderate” coronated, we already lost. There was no situation whereby the democrats would continually win elections selling out more every term and spiting their left base indefinitely while being unpopular and not reforming and not enforcing the law against republicans openly working to fix elections.
Biden didn’t even protect the voting officials from death threats. There was zero chance him or his hand picked replacement were going to stop fascists. Once Kamala got in, it was over. I knew it, you should’ve known it. Which is not saying how I did or didn’t vote so don’t give me the typical emotional accusations without evidence of voting to force the person on the defensive. The question is that the republic is doomed the moment we get these democrats as candidates.
I recently played a very fun game of Diplomacy, which is an old board game about international politics. I was playing as Italy, and it was in My interest to keep both Turkey and Russia as weak as possible while I repelled a French invasion, so that once France was no longer a threat, I could conquer both. So what I did is, I formed alliances with both Turkey and Russia, who were new players, and rather than commit troops to aid either side, I gave them both advice on how to outmaneuver the other. If either of them looked about to win, I would give the other one better advice. It worked great, and the Sultan of Turkey was shocked at My betrayal, since I’d helped him so much. He didn’t realise I was playing both sides.
republican orientated influence operations are out there yelling and screaming at people trying to get actual populists in the democratic primaries, or during the anointment process in 2024
I hadn’t heard that before, but I’m willing to believe it. I also believe that right wing botfarms are promoting fringe left wing movements that attack the Democrats, like Jill Stein’s Greens. I think they’re playing both sides, helping amplify the most stalemate-y versions of both our arguments, to keep the American Left opposed to the Democrats.
I’m a bit smarter and more experienced than the Turkish Sultan in My diplomacy game. I know who the biggest threat is. The Republicans in the real world are the Italy of My game. The biggest threat. I, as an anarcho-communist, are willing to stand by the Democrats, help them beat Trump, and stab them in the back right afterwards with a communist revolution. But yelling from the rooftops about how much I hate them, while Trump is still in power, is not part of that plan. My plan involves subtlety.
I was saying that the right aligned influence operations pretend to be democrats and help get the moderates the nominations because they can beat them to be clear your quote makes it sound like I said the opposite.
My point though, by the time it gets to the general election, it’s already over. There is zero percent chance of stopping the fascists with them running the opposition. Moreover people that stick their necks out for democracy get them chopped off even if the democrats win an election in spite of themselves, as Biden squeaked out a win against a president with 40 percent approval hated more than any man in the country by half the population.
As such, it’s not the fault of those that didn’t vote democratic, it would change nothing, fascists were going to win the moment they got establishment candidates in there.
Beyond that, whose fault is it people voted third party? Those establishment figures do nothing but spite the left. People made clear they won’t vote for democrats if they get continually worse, if they continue to betray issues we care about, and they openly spite us at every turn. We knew they wouldn’t get those votes if they continued to be sold out hacks, and they did it anyway, knowing what the republicans were, and what the electorate was.
As such, it’s wrong-headed to blame voters. Keeping a doomed to fail strategy despite knowing it can’t win negates any criticism they have of voters for not betraying their own interests and supporting candidates owned by the rich that openly spite them worse every cycle. They made clear they won’t support them if they do x or don’t do y, and they did x and didn’t do y. If they got the support anyway, they would continue to get worse, already further right, further sold out to big money, than George HW Bush let alone Nixon. Biden really was giving George W Bush a run for his money.
It is wrongheaded to blame voters, and belies being susceptible to the buck passing arguments the establishment uses to stay in power to fail again. Don’t fall for it.
whose fault is it people voted third party?
I don’t think that’s a productive way to think about things. I mean, I could say “It’s the billionaire’s fault capitalism is destroying our climate” and just go home, safe in the knowledge I didn’t start the fire… but that doesn’t actually help anyone. So I don’t deal in blame.
Blame is Gefühlspolitik - politics based on emotion. I love Diplomacy because it teaches Realpolitik - politics based on what the optimal move is to make in the current situation.
In My current situation, I’m not talking to Joe Biden. I can’t change Joe’s mind. I’m talking to you. I can maybe change your mind, if I’m smart enough. I can convince you to adapt your strategy to the situation you find yourself in, to try and buy a few more years before ICE comes for My family. That’s My goal. A few more years for the revolution to grow, a few more years for people to escape.
Do you want a few more years? And given the current circumstances of the situation, what does your logic and cunning tell you is the best way to get them?
On the contrary, without laying blame the same people that failed stay in power to do it again.
You are basically saying don’t look backward but forward. But not forward but forever twirling, twirling twirling!
We need a clear eyed view of the situation, and to employ reason, and reason decrees without qualification that the establishment is doomed to fail, that they aren’t popular, not trying to be popular, and so unable to reliably win at all. That if they do get in will not fix, will not restore, will not enforce the laws against the connected, will continue to allow all captured government agencies to remain so, continue to allow corporations to cheat us, etc.
Can’t win, won’t be popular, not trying, they quash popular reformists that is their raison de etre. They refuse to address root causes of problems, ie the rich stealing our lunch.
There’s no different between appealing to far-right issues, and popularising far-right issues.
Ultimately all of politics is about what you’re popularising. There are only the issues.
That’s how Trump treats his MAGA base.
That’s how ALL political parties treat their base. “What, you gonna vote for the OTHER guy?”
It’s almost as if they are aware of the actual demographics, and pander accordingly.
There are no real leftists in the US, so I’m not sure why people are still so confused when the DNC doesn’t pander to them.
Especially since they already don’t fucking vote.
Republicans vote, so the party bends over backwards to represent you.
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I get it’s upsetting but there are just objectively way more republicans than there are leftists in the US. So there is logic here.
Also, vote switchers count for double. So there would actually need to be twice as many possible voters on the left for it to be as appealing as the right.
As always the proper solution is to alter the conditions that incentivize this behavior.
Yet time and time again, polling shows that Americans prefer leftist policies when presented with them independently of party affiliation. As well as younger generations trending further left.
Right, but they aren’t presented them independently of party affiliation. They’re told “those scary communists have good policies but they want to destroy America!” And most people believe that.
So, wait, if the policies are popular, but the party affiliation isn’t, how the fuck is the go-to strategy to keep the party but give up on the policies instead of the other way around?
Because team sports. And propaganda
Right, but they aren’t presented them independently of party affiliation.
The last candidate who ran on leftist policies was Biden. He won. Of course, he was lying his wrinkly ass off when he did, but he won running on leftist policies.
Only just after the election and before the election, during election only the right wingers get elected.
time and time again, polling shows that Americans prefer leftist policies when presented with them independently of party affiliation
So where are all the leftist voters then?
Right on the table where democrats keep leaving them.
I said voters, if those people aren’t voting, then they aren’t leftist voters.
I think you might be working with a different definition of ‘left’
Leftist people voting for the best of limited options are still leftist voters.
Are they though? How about this, can you still call yourself anti-genocide if you vote for the candidate who puts forth a slower, more well marketted genocide where the same bullets in children and attacks still happen, just with a lot of stern faces and some hand wringing?
So are people who agree with leftist policies but not with right-wing liberal democrats.
Careful now, purity tests abound.
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Who are these leftist policy politicians that leftists refuse to vote for? I have a suspicion that what you’re referring to as leftist policy is actually liberal policy, and you either don’t understand or care to make the distinction.
DNC platform:
Bodily autonomy
Tax the rich
Remove money from politics
Healthcare for all
Regulating industries
Protecting the environment
Renewable power
That’s not borne out by their actions in office. Their actions in office indicate that their platform is genocide and nothing else.
Make all the excuses you want. You know better.
Half of the things on that list were directly accomplished in small parts by the Biden and Obama admins, despite having 48 or less DNC in over 13 years. The problem with your claim is that anybody with a browser can see for themselves that you’re trying to revise history.
Winning a lot of elections that way?
A progressive just won in Fort Worth. In a special election. You know, those things that usually only draw fox-addled octogenarians to the polls.
The “progressives can’t win so we have to make sure to hamstring them all the time” shit is just another centrist lie.
Pretty good, it seems. Feckless Chuck and Mr Jeffries have no complaints.
Yeah Mamdani just won and is a perfect example of a partial solution to what I’m talking about. But since you didn’t ask about my solutions that probably won’t make sense. I’m happy to explain if you actually want to discuss.
But don’t let me rain on your hate parade.
NYC isn’t the federal government.
I think Harris’s failure should be the clue that this isn’t right. You’re not going to win by courting conservatives
She doubled-down on supporting Israel recently.
You know, as a “fuck you” to all her supporters.
Oh, her remaining supporters love that shit.
How can it be wrong? Do you think there are more leftists than republicans? Or do you deny the math advantage of switchers vs those who might stay home?
There are multiple reasons candidates fail. Harris failed largely because voters didn’t know her and they saw her as a stand in for Biden, who they were angry with. Also she had sort of a flailing campaign strategy. And being a black woman never helps in the US.
I’m not arguing democrats or leftists should moderate their positions. My politics are probably not too different from yours. But the first step to solving the problem is understanding it. And this theory that there are 100 million sleeping American communists waiting to be unleashed doesn’t have any evidence behind it. So just running someone further left is not a cheat code for winning elections. There is a lot more to beating fascism than that.
How can it be wrong?
You’re chasing people who hate you and abandoning voters to do it. Stop.
I’m not arguing democrats or leftists should moderate their positions.
But there’s a lot moooooooore fascists! We have to be just like them to win! That always works!!!
Well, as an example, I think something like socialized healthcare could appeal to the majority of Americans. The only reason Democrats don’t press the issue is because they get money from health insurance companies.
I think this goes for many issues seen as “leftist”. Rather than embracing the left, democrats have spent decades moving closer to the middle. This is the reason they’ve been losing. Pushing candidates like Hillary and Harris that give up ground to the right.
I think they need to embrace the left, and work to convince middle America that their policies are good for everyone.
Biden over there having got more votes than anyone in history like
Either we are saying Biden went farther left, or is a direct conflict to this statement
Biden went left. This is just objectively true. He literally just adopted the progressive policy positions his opponents had in exchange for them becoming surrogates.
Harris went right. And she lost.
Now Biden didn’t govern to the left. And that also clearly hurt him/ Kamala in 2024. But he objectively campaigned to court progressives.
Please tell me how Biden went left? He clicked resume on the shit from Obamas presidency.
Biden went left of Trump, that’s all. Which Harris was left of as well.
Is there any actual examples of Harris going right of Biden?
Biden went left of Trump, that’s all.
Biden went left of Clinton’s 2020 positions. It was all a lie.
Is there any actual examples of Harris going right of Biden?
Well, she said she wouldn’t change anything from how he did things. Then announced she would appoint a republican to her cabinet, which was further to the right than biden.
He ran on forgiving student loans, creating a public option, and codifying roe v wade
Once he was in office he promptly forgot about all of them.
He attempted all of those things. The student loans were blocked by Republicans and courts on 3 separate occasions, so he only managed to forgive $183Bn of student loans.
The other two things were fillibustered by Republicans in the senate which at its highest DNC was a 51:49 w/ DNC Speakerwith 4 IND and before that a 49:51 w/ GOP speaker.
The only way to obtain real progress is to remove Republicans down to less than 40 like we breifly achieved 16 years ago for 2 months in order to pass medicaid expansion, would have passed the public option if not for IND Leiberman.
He attempted all of those things.
He pretended to.
The other two things were fillibustered by Republicans in the senate which at its highest was a 51:49
It would take 50 to end the filibuster forever. Democrats preferred to keep it around so you would have an excuse. After all, they didn’t need to end the filibuster to accomplish their only policy goal of leveling Gaza.
Her policy stances were left of Biden but the average person doesn’t know jack shit about policy and instead only know she had the Chenneys on stage with her and George W’s endorsement.
No, they weren’t, but the average banjo doesn’t know this.
And to be clear, were talking about the manner in which a candidate campaigns.
Her unrealized gains tax on over a million alone had the potential to save this country, since billionaires and multimillionaires generally gain untaxed income by leveraging their stocks with longterm collateral loans.
I think that had more to do with COVID and Trump, but who knows. Anyway, 4 years later they lost.
Who got the second most votes in history? I’ll give you a hint, it was his opponent. That’s how fucked the US is.
Not in the same election year, Trump got 74 million in 2020. After Biden was gone Trump got 77 million in 2024. Harris got 75 million in 2024.
Yes, the same election year of 2020 gave Biden the most votes in history, and Trump the second most votes in history behind him. Beating the pervious record holder, Obama.
Kamala 2024 would have knocked Trump 2020 down to 3rd, but Trump 2024 retained 2nd place under Biden 2020. So it goes Biden 2020, Trump 2024, Kamala 2024, Trump 2020.
Trump has the 2nd and 4th most votes in history. We are fucked.
And biden still only barely beat trump. After courting the left by running on policies the left likes such as raising the minimum wage, childcare, family leave, revisiting the public option, rescheduling cannabis and so on.
Then he got into office and made it crystal clear that he wasn’t going to do any of that because his only priority was making sure netanyahu got whatever he wanted. He betrayed anyone on the left who voted for him.
But congress got in his waaaay! They didn’t get in his way when he broke the Leahy law to sell weapons for genocide. Funny how the excuses evaporate when it’s the only thing any centrist has ever wanted.
2020 was unprecedented. You can’t compare that to anything.
Yeah population goes up. That’s probably true for most presidential elections.
Totally with a but, look at the percentage of people voting. Recent elections have had turn out percentages the US hasn’t seen since the 60s as well. The records are an indication of population growth, but they are also an indication of more people voting by percentage than do typically, to be fair.
I get it’s upsetting but there are just objectively way more republicans than there are leftists in the US.
I get that you don’t want to hear this because it gets in the way of moving to the right, but republicans won’t vote for republican lite when they have full fat fascist.
All you’re doing is capitulating for no reason. Well, except that you want to.
There are not more republicans. What there are are checked out non voters and a “left” that had so much splintered infighting no one really knows what the left is.
There is also a swath of single issue voters who vote on guns. They actually would flip in a heartbeat with a liberal gun owner platform. It’s not a new phenomenon.
You’re just arguing semantics. If people consistently vote republican then they are republicans right now. That they might switch for the right candidate isn’t really relevant.
But yeah gun stuff is an example of a position someone could use to appeal to fence sitters. It will absolutely piss off a portion of the Democratic base though.
No matter how many positions you abandon or how many minorities you betray, republicans will vote for republicans.
