This actually was a bit of a process. After Hoover, America was a serious shithole. A Hooverville was a shanty town. We call them homeless encampments now. It took Roosevelt’s new deal to pull us out with a lot of national programs.
Then WW2 happened and we were super in debt, and we needed to get really organized to develop a robust union-supported middle class, so that our GDP outpaced our debt + interest + spending.
And the owner class took all that personally. Before the war, the industrialists organized a propaganda campaign to instill capitalist values in the US (and no small amount of fascism). They weren’t yet good at it but got better with time.
And once big industries were unionized and regulated, Lewis F. Powell Jr. wrote his notorious memorandum outlining the plan to recapture the government, especially the courts, in order to create a pro-commercial state, e.g. one in which unions weren’t welcome, regulations weren’t enforced, and the working class knew their place.
And the owner class has been following that agenda since. Of course, it is turning the US back into a shithole on the verge of fiscal collapse, but they don’t care. Nor do they listen to the economics experts that point out that liberal democratic societies end up far richer, including their owner class. They think as Trump does, that they’re the experts on everything, and they surround themselves with sycophants who don’t disagree with them or challenge their ideas.
In the 1970s, but especially after Reagan, lobbyists and special interest groups gained access to elected officials, and got really clever in all the ways that they can bribe them. Politician went from being a decent career into a gateway into the owner class, and so people ran for office not to do things (e.g. to create change) but to be adjacent to power. Nowadays, money is super entrenched. Campaign contributions are dwarfed by PAC money which is dwarved by Superpacs, and then there’s the promise of post-career cushy high-paying jobs… as lobbyists.
(Apparently it’s super humiliating. Once you’re in office, if you want to keep your campaign sponsors happy – and willing to keep you in office – you have to pass what they say. They give you the bills prewritten and expect them to be passed verbatim. Fail, and that sweet high-paying job you were promised after your political career is gone. So elected officials beholden to large sponsors are forced to be absolutely subservient. It explains why it’s so natural for Republicans to abdicate all responsibility to Trump, and why establishment Democrats are incredibly milquetoast, and make every excuse not to pass public-serving legislation. It also explains why establishment Democrats are fighting progressive and DSA factions more fiercely than they fight Republicans, even though the GOP is actively trying to unmake the two-party system and arrest the Dems as political enemies as soon as they get the chance.)
Progressives and DSA are gaining traction specifically because the establishment Democrats are just weak Republicans, and many of those who’d vote for them would rather vote for the guy with the fancier suit and the better memes. Progressives and DSA are coming into office with an actual platform beyond we’re better than the Republicans and are trying to actually pass public-serving policy.
Trump, in the meantime, has a knack for inviting people to be their worst selves. He attracts voters who just want to vote based on vibes, rather than a platform and their own best interests. Trump also is openly racist in contrast to the dog-whistle racist Republican party of 2015. White racist Americans found refreshing. He’s only saying what we all are thinking. Since then, the Republican party now has a purity test, that either you’re 100% MAGA devout, or you’re a RINO. And already we’re starting to see the MAGA movement start to cut into their own ranks, excluding those who are not quite perfect.
I like this
Brand new account likes inaccurate memes designed to depress voter turnout? Color me surprised.
Where is it inaccurate? Bring recipes.
It is a reductive simplification, to the point of uselessness. Look up the actual legislation that gets passed and gets voted on, who in what parties votes for what. But you’re not here to engage in good faith, you’re here to both sides so republicans win the midterms.
Can’t you tell us what the good legislation they’re passing is? Since you like posting here so much. You should have a notepad full of urls ready to go.
The fact that you dont know yourself shows how little you actually care or pay attention to politics, AND how little you understand how it works - they can’t pass any legislation while idiots like you ensure the Republicans maintain control.
I’m just one little upvote
Both sides are the same? We mush have an election coming up.
BoTh SiDeS eLeCtIoN cOmInG. There’s always an election coming. Every two years. When do you think it’s appropriate to discuss the corporate ownership of our political parties?
Do we have a six month period in between elections or something?
Meanwhile, bOtH sIdEs made a BILLION dollars in the last election (that we know of), and, as usual, the winner ignored their own platform (as BoTh SiDeS routinely do). Billionaires shared the victory stage with Trump, clapping and smiling. They don’t go away when the Democrats win.
Twenty years since last minimum wage increase.
With all this national debt, you’d think we’d have something to show for it.
A temporary trillionaire?
We spent it mostly on tax breaks for the rich. We have billionaires with record levels of wealth and even had the first ever trillionaire to show for it.
IMO democrats aren’t really “left.” They’re more like “were going to use the federal gov to protect corporations” and then the GOP is more like “were going to use the state and local governments to protect corporations”
And then every November, Americans vote to protect corporations.
That’s old news. Now Democrats are we’re going to use the federal government to (mostly) pass protectionist legislation. and the GOP is like We’re going to dismantle democracy, turn the US into a single-party autocracy and then no-one’s vote will matter anymore.
Once they do that, the Democrats will become enemies of the state and will be arrested. But then, the executive will find that Congress is entirely useless. It’ll be easy to get them to pass an enabling act after which elected officials don’t really need to go to work.
By then, though, the country is going to be bankrupt, and will have no friends. If there’s a half-functional military left, the US might try to annex Canada or Mexico.
I’ve been saying similar things for a long time now. Repulicrats and Demicrans are two sides of the same coin. Bush signed in the patriot act. I got all excited to make a change and voted for Obama. Then he signs in the expansion of the patriot act and carpet bombs the shit out of Syria.
There’s a lot of liberals in here thinking they’re leftists, or trying to “unify the left” in their usual bullshit ways.
Our government is like a company with two different managers. One manager is a wonderful boss, and everybody loves them, and wants to work for them. The other manager is a raging asshole, and everybody despises him, and nobody wants to work for him.
In reality, nobody works for either manager, they work for the corporation, and the managers are just there to do the corporations bidding, and advance the corporation’s agenda. They might approach it differently, but ultimately they are both responsible for meeting the corporation’s agenda.
That’s the Dems vs MAGAs. They might have totally different approaches, but ultimately, they are there to serve the demands of the Sociopathic Oligarchs, and our job is to pay for it.
Nobody is going to read all your propaganda bullshit, next time just say BOTH SIDES SAME DURP!! Same message, fewer words, makes sure MAGA stays in power just like you want.
Oh look, another lemmy post trying to help Republicans win the midterms. Fucking lemmings and their unrelenting lack of political literacy.
Democrats could always replace First-past-the-post voting in the blue states they control. Then the people could run alongside the democrats with no spoiler effect.
But then democrats would have to actually compete, and capitalists hate competition.
Yeah you tell em! If Dems were in power we would be able to make Israel’s genocide look milder!
Oh look another brand new account trying to get people not to vote.
Oh look a dip who can’t read and is putting words in peoples mouths. Stop posting your pathetic cuck thoughts online. The world would be a better place.
To put it in a way YOU might understand: less of your thoughts posted online would mean more Mamdani’s elected.
Why are all you right wing weirdos obsessed with cuckery? Are you going to bring up your obsession with BBC and girlcock too? Fuckin creep.
More words in mouths from the feckless cow. right wing if you disagree with meeeeee.
I call you a cuck because you sit and watch democrats and republicans fuck our country up while talking up one of the fuckers in an online corner.
You should do something productive instead of going online and defending rich pedos because they wear your team colors.
It’s ok to want to suck a dick. Just go suck some cock instead of burning down the country because you’re sexually repressed.
You write what you want to write. I’ll keep calling you a pedo loving cuck until you stop doing that. A downvote from the likes of y’all is a W for me.
The left have a job in all this too, and it is to sit back and let it all happen. Occasionally be dismissive of the voting process and attack liberals that might otherwise agree with you, without educating them first.
If you’re for some reason not cool with losing, you should probably begin working to reform your party into something that’s actually helpful and effective.
Cabal of clown pedos are your party. Both parties. Not everyone wants to be a cuck about it.
If Trump runs I might vote for him for the first time so you might be willing to give up your little 600 sqft shack and 80 hour work week.
Until then always remember that violence isn’t the answer! And that the Dems tried their best!
Lol. Both sides.
Sounds about right.
Even in this example, there is one side that is obviously far far worse than the other.
I don’t think we should really be heralding the “better” side as the ones that are going to save us. Remember their goals are ultimately the same.
Only in the most broad sense, i.e. control of the government. What they want to do with that power is very very different (especially if you are nonwhite, LGBT, or a woman).
I’m not dismissing those things because that’s the only area of debate in the United States. But the Democrats and the Republicans don’t support universal healthcare, they don’t support workers rights, they support corporations right to pillage the environment, they support the genocide in Palestine and broadly they support American Hegemony abroad. The only thing they disagree on is the gender, skin color, and sexuality of the people who can’t get healthcare or parental leave.
Between the ACA, Medicare expansions, pre-existing condition coverage requirements, VA funding, and medication price reduction, Democrats have ensured that tens of millions of Americans have healthcare. Republicans have done their best to strip this away.
Democrat states usually do not have “right to work” laws that weaken union membership.
Democrats heavily pushed for a move away from fossil fuels, subsidized the expansion of electric car use, increased protected lands, and strengthened environmental laws. Republicans have undone most of this.
Democratic support of Israel is rapidly waning under public pressure. Republicans have not weakened their stance an inch.
Democrats funded and supported international aid across the world to generate soft power. Republicans have pulled this back and replaced it with threats and military force.
Dems are not perfect, but they are closer to your ideal by an immense amount.
I think the difference between us is that I think the Democrats can at best accomplish half measures that don’t fix the fundamental structure of the system. The ACA hands more power and money to insurance companies, it doesn’t fix the fundamental problem. The Democrats support of Israel is “waning” but that hasn’t really altered anything on the ground or even stopped the money from flowing.
Republicans have pulled this back and replaced it with threats and military force.
You’re acting like Obama didn’t endorse more drone strikes than any president in history.
Like sure they are “technically” better but not in any of the ways that matter.
Half measures add up if you keep doing them. If you go half way 3 times you are 87.5% of the way there. You know what I mean?
I don’t think we should refuse to help people unless we fix the underlying problem. It’s not like we should have waited to end slavery until we eliminated racism, right? Expanding healthcare to another 50-60 million makes a hell of a lot of difference to those people. I would say that is better “in a way that matters”.
You’re acting like Obama didn’t endorse more drone strikes than any president in history.
That we know of. Trump stopped reporting the numbers, so I wouldn’t bet on that record holding.
Yep. But both sides still went to prison though.
Just as both of those cops couldn’t be left on the street, the democrat party of today can’t be same democrat party of tomorrow. We’re going to make it better or we’re not going to have a country just like Minneapolis didn’t have police station after kicking those murder charges down the road.
Letting republicans set the standard? Im gonna be honest, this is not a good look for you.
It’s simply choosing the least objectionable of the two options.
Not really.
A guy standing in a room watching a rape or murder is also irredeemable scum.
Less bad than the one committing it. Maybe not “far far” but still.
I can and will argue that its just as bad. Kinda like pointing and laughing at shipwreck survivors before you leave them to drown.
There is a reason however that in such cases the law differentiates between murder and accessory to murder. The latter carries less severe penalties. They are simply not the same thing and one is objectively worse than the other.
Law means less than nothing to morality.
Morals are relative. The law is not (at least ideally).
My point was that what the laws says is right or wrong should have no bearing on what actually is right or wrong.
Where I am from, it was illegal for blacks to drink from certain fountains. The law is always flawed, even if we don’t see it as such today.
Many argued it was immoral for black people and white people to drink from the same fountains too. That’s the problem with using morals as a standard.
I agree, but also don’t think we should be so devoted as to defend them for being the only ones who can help us and having them watch and do nothing. They’re more concerned with the people running on doing more. Is that an Ally or just the weaker of two enemies?
We should absolutely push the Democrats to do better and support DSA and other farther left candidates. Short term though, they are the best chance to wrest control of the government back from the MAGA fascists.
They are the best chance insofar as we can change the party. FDR enacted many of his policies because the alternative was a mass uprising leading to murder of the owner class/scabs and the visuals of the societal abandonment of our elderly was dumping gasoline on the fire.
Well vote for progressives in the fuckin primaries and pull the fuckin party left because it’s literally the only fuckin option that isn’t republicans winning. Y’all can refuse to grasp the political reality all you want, but it doesn’t change it.
It’s not refusing to grasp anything to talk about how our options are falling to hell or floating for a while. You’re preaching to the choir about how to change it and if you haven’t noticed: That is what’s happening. We are entitled to bitch in the meantime, especially about areas where corporate and consultant interests superseded people’s own best interests due to record levels of spending and nonstop concern trolling (eg: Cori Bush, Jamaal Bowman, Oliver Larkin, Charles Booker, etc). We also don’t need permission from anyone to do so, thanks for your concern.
Cleaner, perhaps, but not usefully better.
It is the job of fascists to make sure any groups who might oppose them are too busy fighting each other to stop them.
Just let people transfer their vote if their first preference doesn’t win. Then the unrepresented get suffrage, and the democrats get more votes.
Ask yourself why democrats are saying no to these free votes. Maybe the DNC wants us fighting as well if they dont implement this common sense electoral reform in the blue states they control?
Of the states that have adopted election reform, nearly all are Democratic run (Alaska being an exception but they are weird). Meanwhile Republicans have actively passed laws to disenfranchise as many people as possible.
Uh… no? Of course they’d love it to happen, but that’s not how fascists historically operate.
You might wanna do a bit of reading and maybe edit that comment because uh, yeah it kinda is.
Like I said to the other person, if you have evidence to the contrary I’d love to see it.
Yeah, fascists never use propaganda to twist the public’s beliefs to their benefit. /S
I’d certainly be interested in historical examples of fascist propaganda meant specifically to divide the opposition (rather than simply gain more supporters).
How do you think the Germans were convinced to more or less go along with the Holocaust?
If you have a point make it I’m not going to read your mind.
Are you fuckin stupid or deliberately obtuse. Propaganda divided the populace to the point the average German didn’t care their Jewish neighbors were being systematically executed. But at this point it’s apparent you’re deliberately engaging in bad faith so go fuck yourself.
They called themselves National Socialists. There’s one example.
I mean, the historic Nazis basically presented themselves to the German political establishment as an anti-communist deal with the devil, and it worked well enough for them to take over Germany. Does that count?
I’d say not really. This deal with the devil tactic was ultimately about getting the German political establishment to support them in return for breaking communist skulls, so it falls pretty cleanly under “simply getting more supporters.” What would count would be the Nazis trying to split people who oppose them from other people who oppose them (so social democrats from liberals, communists from social democrats, etc) so that the size of the opposition isn’t changed but it’s directed less effectively. What you’re referring to is just selling oneself to potential supporters, which any political party/movement must do anyway.
Propaganda can have multiple purposes. It also drove a wedge between the far left and the center left. The same goes for the Nazis attacking LGBT people (sound familiar)?
It also drove a wedge between the far left and the center left.
No it didn’t. The people the Nazis were making deals with were squarely on the right of the German political spectrum. We’re talking monarchists, rightwing nationalists and the like. A good proxy for this would be seeing which parties voted for the Enabling Act of 1933, and as you’ll notice immediately if you’re familiar with German politics from this period they’re all rightwing. Hell, most of them weren’t even republican. The center left here was the SPD, and they all (the ones that made it to the Reichstag anyway) voted no, while the communists were too busy suffering state repression. Importantly, the wedge that was driven between these two parties was driven by themselves.
Agreed, but you should still go and vote the brainworm posse out.
