Fuck the DNC. The day I watched their goons push & shove my friends & allies down the stairs of their DC HQ for peacefully protesting was the day I knew they really were the monsters they claimed to be trying to protect us from
They vote to fund ICE, Biden did nothing to release the Epstein files or go after obvious sedition in the name of bipartisanship. His SAVE act was desperately needed after he signed into law the inability to discharge overwhelming amounts of student debt in bankruptcy. He has personally voted to increase police funding. Obama started putting kids in cages and continued the funding of ICE. There's more but that's what's just on the surface of what I remember right now.
It is the same story in lots of countries now, with the pretend to be left (but center-right) party you go down and with the ultra right wing you go down quickly and on wheels
A key part of protest voting is taking ownership of the election result. After the dems loose the election, regardless of whether your protest movement actually was causal for the loss, you need to claim that you are responsible, and if the dems don't meet your demands, they'll never win an election again.
Well, I assume that a democratic party that meets the demands of an actual socialist/communist will be unrecognizable from the pile of pathetic cowards we have today, having only the name in common.
While I won’t argue that this has often been the role of the Democratic Party, and I have no doubt that it is a priority of the current party leadership, it is not an inherent function of the party. With our current electoral system, it is inevitable that our politics will be dominated by two parties. Republicans are the worse choice of the two on literally every single issue, including being less open than Democrats to changes to the electoral system itself. The solution, as leftists, is not to abandon the Democratic Party, but rather to take it over from within and elect party leadership focused on real change and not upholding the status quo. This approach is much more feasible and potentially much faster than trying to build a new party from the ground up, and much less destructive and painful for the people than violent revolution and the civil war that would likely ensue.
While I won’t argue that this has often been the role of the Democratic Party, and I have no doubt that it is a priority of the current party leadership, it is not an inherent function of the party.
How do we the people create any true influence over the DNC? Aren't they like the final approver for a democratic presidential candidate? And the DNC board isn't elected by the people as far as I know. How could we ever have a true leftist democratic party if the DNC is running things?
We can get a lot of the way there by not rubber stamping their bad candidates. They need to know that if they play chicken with the voters we wont blink-- but we always have in the past. We'll let the republicans drive this country right into the gutter if the DNC doesnt actually court our vote and just does whatever the rich donors and AIPAC want. The centrist voters would rather roll over and say they were powerless to influence the DNC, and vote for whatever trashy candidate the DNC sleezes into place. Theres nothing down that centrist road. It'l be a painful fight and we'll take a lot of lumps letting republicans win if the DNC effs with us, but its the only strategy we realistically have.
They argued, and won in court, that they are a private corporation and voters are not entitled to fair elections and they are under no obligation to listen to the will of the voters regarding the candidates they select to win the nomination of their party
Anyone paying attention to political history in the US knows it is an inherent function of the party. Liberals have always been the gatekeepers of capital, always placing a firewall between the left and structural change.
Only about 20% of eligible voters vote in the primaries. If we want candidates that will fight for our interests, we need to do more than simply voting Democrat in the general elections.
I’ve been using the following sites to find candidates that aren’t taking AIPAC money and are focused on supporting the working class:
Got to be careful with those because a lot of them are transitioning away from AIPAC specifically to AIPAC adjacent. Still taking that Zionist money, but under a different name.
We also have to get involved. Our congressman, who takes hundreds of thousands from AIPAC and lives outside the area he represents, ran unopposed because I didn't find out he didn't have a challenger until it was too late to file. Local Dems should have been ready to pounce on him but nada. Had I been more involved, might have been able to primary him. At least make him go on the record about where he lives and the Israel money.
My spouse is watching The Good Place, and just got to the end of season 3. There's a scene where one character is explaining to a council of people from heaven that life is so complex nowadays that nobody can get into heaven, and for the last 500 years not a single person can get into heaven.
The council then says they're going to spend 400 years forming a committee, and then that committee will spend 1000 years forming its own investigative committee to make sure there's no conflict of interest, THEN they'll investigate the system to see if there's a problem.
The first character then exclaims that I those 1400 years before the investigation even starts people will still be going to hell regardless of how good they tried to be.
The committee then states they are "deeply concerned" by that, which got me to start cackling.
The committee sums up my view of democrats.
Even if they are concerned by the daily atrocities and banality of evil, they're too concerned about doing things "by the book" and too concerned with the status quo changing that they are basically doing nothing. They might think they're acting swiftly, but the whole time all the people suffering are continuing to suffer.
This is why they worked so hard to convince anyone who cares to never vote. The only Dems who vote love the current party, as is clear by how hard they're crashing out over progressives in the primaries. You gotta push the needle incessantly.
Even if they are concerned by the daily atrocities and banality of evil
You must not be American. Right now all branches of the Federal Government and the majority of states' governments are Republican. Democrats have absolutely no power to do anything but talk.
The US isn't a European style parliament where minority parties have some power.
It's funny how when Republicans are the minority power, they get everything they want, when Republicans are the majority power they get everything they want. But when Democrats are in either position, they can't do anything.
You must not be American. Right now all branches of the Federal Government and the majority of states’ governments are Republican. Democrats have absolutely no power to do anything but talk.
It's funny that when the roles are reversed and democrats have majorities, they're still powerless. They're just malingering and useless.
You're right that Democrats are near-powerless right now, but it was only a few short years ago when they were in power. Let's not forget their actions.
When in power, they did not concern themselves with the daily atrocities or the banality of evil.
Their overwhelming support for the genocide in Palestine is just the tip of the banality iceberg.
Ask Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema if Democrats were really "in power." Republicans have been willing to shred the Constitution in order to get what they want, but it works primarily because they operate virtually in lock step with one another, even if they sometimes allow one member or another to vote No on some horrifying bill or another, so long as that No vote won't change the end result.
Democrats have the opposite problem: in recent memory they've only ever had the narrowest of majorities in Congress, and they're a bunch of cats on a good day, so there's always a few Democrats in vulnerable seats that will break with the party in order to maintain their "outsider" image with their purple district voters. Add on that Democrats for the most part don't want to shred the Constitution, and it's very difficult for them to achieve their goals.
And add on that most media in this country is owned and operated by billionaires and it constantly pushes the narrative that anything to the left of Ronald Reagan is basically Karl Marx, and you've got an electorate that is on balance very suspicious of things that, to a reasonable person, would obviously make the world a better place, like universal healthcare, free pre-K education, police reform, immigration reform, and so on.
The Democrats that do want to make the world a better place are essentially trying to play honest baseball with unreliable teammates, shitty coaches and managers, opponents who are 'roided out of their minds, and umpires who won't call objective balls and strikes. Even for the ones who are trying to improve things (and they do exist!) it's an appalling situation.
Ask Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema if Democrats were really “in power.”
They were. They wielded power through people like Manchin and Sinema.
Democrats have the opposite problem: in recent memory they’ve only ever had the narrowest of majorities in Congress, and they’re a bunch of cats on a good day, so there’s always a few Democrats in vulnerable seats that will break with the party in order to maintain their “outsider” image with their purple district voters.
Well, that's all the party needs to do the only thing the party is for. Being the pawl on the ratchet.
you missed genocide. How do you measure mass murder against the loss of student loan forgiveness? Not willing to take a stand on that? How about industrial scale rape with Epstein? The dems didnt handle that but its just not as important as replacing coal with solar huh?
you have no idea how I voted. but lying about whether I got student loan forgiveness isn't scoring you any points, nor is your bad faith accusation that I, or anyone who didn't vote for Trump, wanted trump.
Basic human rights and dignity is what we wanted and the DNC didnt offer it so I did my best to not lift a finger to help the DNC this last election, after a lifetime of straight blue voting.
And I'll do it again if they keep running the worst candidates they think they can get away with. I'll take the quick death over the slow one, thanks. If that makes you mad, great, I'm past mad.
they could also jettison "My job is to keep the dems supporting Israel and nothing else" Schumer as the minority leader any time they wanted to with an internal democratic leadership vote. They only need a small number of dem senators to call for the internal vote, but it never gets called for. So evidently it's not just schumer-- it's the whole party's job.
Under the US system, they have no more power than you. The military and the FBI are legally loyal to the President. Congressional representatives have no army.
Harris would be president right now if she would have just said she'd end the genocide, and no other changes. Progressives dont need purity, they need the most basic , basic floor of human dignity and thats not on offer from the DNC and people like yourself, chaogomu. And you know it.
Encourage people to take power into their own hands by any means necessary. Stop downplaying and condemning the use of violence to get shit done. If a city needs to burn down and cops need to die, then so be it.
So your big plan is either a cross between and unwinnable civil war and a terrorist movement guaranteed to drive people away from the cause.
Sure.
I'm not going to join in on your suicide by cop plan, but you go ahead. Pull a Luigi, make it count. Otherwise, wait until after November so that if wide scale uncivil disobedience becomes necessary, it will be seen as justified and not some psycho lashing out.
Democrats are far from perfect, but the gulf between Democrats and Republicans is immense and the false "both sides" rhetoric is tiring and a big reason why we're in this mess.
Do you think we'd have war in Iran, no USAID, and dismantled regulatory agencies if Kamala had won the last election? There is a choice.
Your daily reminder that BlueMaga liberals don't consider non-westeners to be human, because that's the only way you can describe active genocide as "not perfect"
Do you think we’d have war in Iran, no USAID, and dismantled regulatory agencies if Kamala had won the last election?
100% I do think we'd be at war with Iran under Harris. The war was launched at Netenyahu's demand and Biden's white house had "no limits" when it came to Israel. When did Biden or Harris ever flat out say no to Israel and back it with actions? One weapon system being delayed for a few days and some propoganda vibes is what you lot base your entire argument on. Biden gave Israel anything and everything it wanted, and Harris is married to a frothing zionist, and he and his zionist brother ran her campaign. To suggest Harris would have been better or stronger is pure fantasy. AIPAC 100% runs the dems, and AIPAC would have gotten their war either way.
Why is Biden/Harris's stand on this matter ok with you? Why do you draw the line specifically at Iran war? Is it because it raised your gas prices, but you dont give a crap about what else Israel is doing with US taxpayer money?
No, I’ll agree with you in general, but I would also say that both sides are generally working for billionaires and operate generally as neoliberal parties. Biden even proudly confessed his capitalist convictions.
I don’t disagree that if this last election had gone differently we’d be in a different probably better position, but I also don’t think we have universal healthcare. Plenty more nuance to that than will fit in a comments section, but yes I agree but there’s a lot more to it and people hear democratic promises but don’t often see democratic action.
But also at this point it’s becoming less two neoliberal parties and more the neoliberal party and the fascist party, so yes I’ll 100% take the neoliberal over the fascist.
The choice was almost always, come to choose the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately people think by not voting it will somehow make a difference, when in reality it just shows that people give up when it’s too hard and expect someone else to fix it.
The first basic step is always to keep the boulder from rolling further downhill by voting to prevent more decline. Given enough time, change can happen, you just have to realize it’s incredibly slow moving like evolution and requires more of us at the top instead of sitting on our hands and letting social influence turds fill the offices.
It isn’t like this can’t be retaken, it just requires more than one person taking office.
Youre right i guess we should all just start voting for more republicans. Maybe well get jd vance mext. Maybe hegseth wants to take a shot. Since theyre all the same anyways. Maybe patel or noeme then she can shoot dogs all day and itll be totally fine. Or better yet just stop voting all together. Who needs all that noise. Just let them do whatever amd we can go back to being serfs
These type of people would never be in politics if liberals held their own politicians accountable. Every time they turn a blind eye to something their political leaders do it allows them to get worse and worse because they know there are no consequences.
Are russians in the room right now? Your cognitive dissonance got triggered as fuck. BTW DSA are gatekeeping liberals that will also fight the working class in favor of capitalism
We weren't selling them weapons. We weren't running interference for them at the UN. Nice false equivalence in support of the genocide that centrists were actively assisting. Centrists have only one policy they won't abandon at the first hint of pushback, and it's genocide.
I didn't say anything about a dictatorship. A democracy isn't thousands of people propping up a single figurehead to "represent" them, time has taught us countless times all that accomplishes is a recipe for corruption. Democracy looks like people assemblies and congresses, people actually representing people. The fact that you and others saw my comment and immediately went to dictatorship actually really illustrates my point. The west has a lot to learn about democracy.
Yes, BUT, it's easier to infiltrate them with the people's politicians than it is the other side. If the people stop being idiots and stop voting for the Right, which doesn't even have the veneer of their interests on their policies, and only vote dem irrespective of how duplicitous they are, then the dem block can be broken up into middle managers vs actual leftists, and the overton window can start shifting back the other way, many years from now.
If your voting options are for Fiery Pits of Hell vs Endless Limbo, you vote Endless Limbo no matter how far from Heaven it happens to be right now.
And yeah, go and do things that might change the system. Just remember that not voting is not abstention: it's complicity in electing the Fiery Pits of Hell, by design.
There are several state secessionist movements, which at various times were gaining popularity, but none of them seems to be even close and from what I can tell they all peaked years ago. You'd think that if they had any chance that right now they'd be stronger than ever, but it doesn't seem to be the case, unfortunately.
Realize that this post is not made by a hexbear user, not on a hexbear comm, and being enjoyed by users that also aren't on hexbear. What you have here is actually nothing but evidence that these views are held by more than just hexbear users. Yet with your way of thinking, you somehow manage to recast evidence against your belief that "the only kind of people who like this stuff are hexbear users and all that comes along with that" as evidence for that same belief.
It would be like if I thought that vaccines are a hoax to make money, and when my doctor best friend says "actually vaccines are legitimately good for you bro" my reaction isn't "oh this is evidence against me" but I just say "ahhh big pharma mentality is leaking, they must have got to him!"
It's a subtle way of trapping yourself into an unfalsifiable belief system. Be careful!
In the United States, for over a hundred years, the ruling interests
tirelessly propagated anticommunism among the populace, until it
became more like a religious orthodoxy than a political analysis.
During the cold war, the anticommunist ideological framework could
transform any data about existing communist societies into hostile
evidence. If the Soviets refused to negotiate a point, they were intransigent and belligerent; if they appeared willing to make concessions,
this was but a skillful ploy to put us off our guard. By opposing arms
limitations, they would have demonstrated their aggressive intent; but
when in fact they supported most armament treaties, it was because
they were mendacious and manipulative. If the churches in the USSR
were empty, this demonstrated that religion was suppressed; but if the
churches were full, this meant the people were rejecting the regime's
atheistic ideology. If the workers went on strike (as happened on
infrequent occasions), this was evidence of their alienation from the
collectivist system; if they didn't go on strike, this was because they
were intimidated and lacked freedom. A scarcity of consumer goods
demonstrated the failure of the economic system; an improvement in
consumer supplies meant only that the leaders were attempting to
placate a restive population and so maintain a firmer hold over them.
If communists in the United States played an important role
struggling for the rights of workers, the poor, African-Americans,
women, and others, this was only their guileful way of gathering support among disfranchised groups and gaining power for themselves.
How one gained power by fighting for the rights of powerless groups
was never explained. What we are dealing with is a nonfalsifiable
orthodoxy, so assiduously marketed by the ruling interests that it
affected people across the entire political spectrum.
Corsicanguppy,
The dems started a genocide with Israel and sent troops and bombs and pallets of taxpayer cash over to help. Whatever you think about both sideesism, Theres got to be a line which is "too far". And if mass murder of innocents, starvation of a population, bombing westerners including Americans so Israel can steal land isnt that line, and industrial scale pedophilia and murder with Epstein isnt that line, then I wonder if you actually have any lines at all. Dems need to stand for something and they dont. Why not?
I think its partially because they have massive support without having to do anything. And here you are demanding that support be given, in exchange for.. nothing at all given back to us.
I think "nothing will fundamentally change" is good enough for you because you've got yours.
As long as we have this broken first-past-the-post electoral system, I will vote blue, no matter what. When we have something better (proportional representation, for example), I will entertain more nuanced parties. Until then, at least the D leaders haven't actively dismantled democracy.
A study from 20 years ago by Princeton University says that voters have zero impact on policy or politicians. Democrat leaders are actively dismantling to democracy otherwise that study will not have shown as such.
the D leaders haven't actively dismantled democracy.
they regularly sue to keep green party candidates off of ballots, denying people the choice to vote for someone else. they also argued they don't need to respect the votes even within their own party.
It's not "hopping on the bandwagon", with the way your election system is rigged, there are only two options for a lot of places, anything else is a wasted vote
If you got rid of the Electoral Colleges and the FPP then suddenly it's not a wasted vote
And you know what changes first past the post? Democrats getting off their ass and voting for actual nondemocrat or socialist candidates. If they are pushed past the post by Democrats, then they win. It's as simple as that. Trying to reform a party that is operating exactly as designed will always lead to failure
Oh wait... they have. It was found to not work unless you're in a "safe" voting block, and if you're living anywhere with any amount of swing to it, you INSTEAD make the party you hate win.
I'm sorry, if you legitimately believe the democratic party didn't enshrine voting rights and civil rights into law, then you're either totally ignorant of history or you're intentionally lying to stoke division. I suspect it's the latter
Edit: Who the fuck is downvoting this?! The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act are real legislation, y'all
What you call incendiary is stuff you dont want to hear because it triggers an uncomfortable response in your head. If you cant read this isnt a liberal space, we dont support liberals or the oligarchy they protect
Yep, he killed some of them too. And you can bet the republicans will destroy this country utterly. But Biden and the centrists are captured by genociders. Are we dick-measuring whats worse, is that what you want to argue?
For real. The delusion that one can fully mobilize a political spectrum for an offering, like socialism, that is unavailable is always funny to me. Describe your steps. What steps should we follow to exhume ourselves from this hole without immediately rolling into an even deeper one?
The DNC has shown time and again they will do nothing to roll back republican actions. Their ratchet effect doesnt allow for it. California has a bulletproof democrat supermajority and they cant get progressive legislation passed either, why should anyone believe more democrats at the federal level would be any different?
It's not me that's forcing the DNC to utilize their ratchet effect to prevent Republican actions from ever slipping back. They are the ones that are allowing it to keep getting worse.
The former is plausible but the latter’s not happening any time soon. If major structural change of that sort occurs, I will happily eat my shoe. Agreed, otherwise
the actual mistake of politics is that we have given in to vibes-based voting instead of actually looking at policy proposals and commenting on those.
Yes, there's a lot of with us or against us instead of does this policy make people's lives better?
It's how states get representatives like NC and Tricia Cotham, who ran as a progressive then just switched her entire platform once elected.
Cheers and happy cake day
oh thanks :)
Democracy is the people, and the people are for their emotional validation.
Didn't the ancient greeks point out the exact same problem and basically outlined the cycle of falls?
Fuck the DNC. The day I watched their goons push & shove my friends & allies down the stairs of their DC HQ for peacefully protesting was the day I knew they really were the monsters they claimed to be trying to protect us from
They vote to fund ICE, Biden did nothing to release the Epstein files or go after obvious sedition in the name of bipartisanship. His SAVE act was desperately needed after he signed into law the inability to discharge overwhelming amounts of student debt in bankruptcy. He has personally voted to increase police funding. Obama started putting kids in cages and continued the funding of ICE. There's more but that's what's just on the surface of what I remember right now.
Because democrats enable them.
Democrats drive the truck. Republicans man the water canon.
They have plenty of help with that from BlueMAGA
There's that BlueMAGA covert ableist slurs liberals love to use.
Centrist democrats get abusive when people point out that they're gleefully complicit with fascism.
That's why we say scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds.
Doubling down on the abuse because you're incapable of defending the wing of the party that betrays its voters and supports genocide.
It is the same story in lots of countries now, with the pretend to be left (but center-right) party you go down and with the ultra right wing you go down quickly and on wheels
It's not center right. They just moved the spectrum so far right that far right now appears to be center right. It's sickening. 🤢
A key part of protest voting is taking ownership of the election result. After the dems loose the election, regardless of whether your protest movement actually was causal for the loss, you need to claim that you are responsible, and if the dems don't meet your demands, they'll never win an election again.
but I don't want them to win an election again.
Well, I assume that a democratic party that meets the demands of an actual socialist/communist will be unrecognizable from the pile of pathetic cowards we have today, having only the name in common.
Dems destroyed black lives matter and health care for all as well.
While I won’t argue that this has often been the role of the Democratic Party, and I have no doubt that it is a priority of the current party leadership, it is not an inherent function of the party. With our current electoral system, it is inevitable that our politics will be dominated by two parties. Republicans are the worse choice of the two on literally every single issue, including being less open than Democrats to changes to the electoral system itself. The solution, as leftists, is not to abandon the Democratic Party, but rather to take it over from within and elect party leadership focused on real change and not upholding the status quo. This approach is much more feasible and potentially much faster than trying to build a new party from the ground up, and much less destructive and painful for the people than violent revolution and the civil war that would likely ensue.
The purpose of a system is what it does.
I think the centrists probably hate the voters.
Oh, they've made that clear.
How do we the people create any true influence over the DNC? Aren't they like the final approver for a democratic presidential candidate? And the DNC board isn't elected by the people as far as I know. How could we ever have a true leftist democratic party if the DNC is running things?
We can get a lot of the way there by not rubber stamping their bad candidates. They need to know that if they play chicken with the voters we wont blink-- but we always have in the past. We'll let the republicans drive this country right into the gutter if the DNC doesnt actually court our vote and just does whatever the rich donors and AIPAC want. The centrist voters would rather roll over and say they were powerless to influence the DNC, and vote for whatever trashy candidate the DNC sleezes into place. Theres nothing down that centrist road. It'l be a painful fight and we'll take a lot of lumps letting republicans win if the DNC effs with us, but its the only strategy we realistically have.
They argued, and won in court, that they are a private corporation and voters are not entitled to fair elections and they are under no obligation to listen to the will of the voters regarding the candidates they select to win the nomination of their party
By voting blue only if the candidate is a genocidal piece of shit, and opposing any progressive candidate.
Which is the only thing "vote blue no matter who" has ever meant.
Just like in New York City. Get good candidates and elect them in the primaries.
We've had good candidates for decades. The party's attempts to kill their campaigns are sometimes unsuccessful.
Anyone paying attention to political history in the US knows it is an inherent function of the party. Liberals have always been the gatekeepers of capital, always placing a firewall between the left and structural change.
That's how they passed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, huh? By stopping structural change
Those weren’t passed by voting Blue no matter who, but by organizing, unionizing, striking, protesting, and threatening revolt.
Power concedes nothing without a demand. If you don’t threaten politicians’ careers, they will ignore your pleas.
Unless of course you have the capital to buy favor, which capitalists have and do.
Schoolhouse Rock and The West Wing have endumbened us all.
They sure as shit weren't passed by mindless loyalty to the Democratic party
And I thought that coasting on the 15 year old ACA was a stretch. The party is not the party of LBJ any longer. It's the party of Netanyahu.
Only about 20% of eligible voters vote in the primaries. If we want candidates that will fight for our interests, we need to do more than simply voting Democrat in the general elections.
I’ve been using the following sites to find candidates that aren’t taking AIPAC money and are focused on supporting the working class:
Got to be careful with those because a lot of them are transitioning away from AIPAC specifically to AIPAC adjacent. Still taking that Zionist money, but under a different name.
We also have to get involved. Our congressman, who takes hundreds of thousands from AIPAC and lives outside the area he represents, ran unopposed because I didn't find out he didn't have a challenger until it was too late to file. Local Dems should have been ready to pounce on him but nada. Had I been more involved, might have been able to primary him. At least make him go on the record about where he lives and the Israel money.
My spouse is watching The Good Place, and just got to the end of season 3. There's a scene where one character is explaining to a council of people from heaven that life is so complex nowadays that nobody can get into heaven, and for the last 500 years not a single person can get into heaven.
The council then says they're going to spend 400 years forming a committee, and then that committee will spend 1000 years forming its own investigative committee to make sure there's no conflict of interest, THEN they'll investigate the system to see if there's a problem.
The first character then exclaims that I those 1400 years before the investigation even starts people will still be going to hell regardless of how good they tried to be.
The committee then states they are "deeply concerned" by that, which got me to start cackling.
The committee sums up my view of democrats.
Even if they are concerned by the daily atrocities and banality of evil, they're too concerned about doing things "by the book" and too concerned with the status quo changing that they are basically doing nothing. They might think they're acting swiftly, but the whole time all the people suffering are continuing to suffer.
This is why they worked so hard to convince anyone who cares to never vote. The only Dems who vote love the current party, as is clear by how hard they're crashing out over progressives in the primaries. You gotta push the needle incessantly.
I mean it's not subtle
You must not be American. Right now all branches of the Federal Government and the majority of states' governments are Republican. Democrats have absolutely no power to do anything but talk.
The US isn't a European style parliament where minority parties have some power.
It's funny how when Republicans are the minority power, they get everything they want, when Republicans are the majority power they get everything they want. But when Democrats are in either position, they can't do anything.
It's funny that when the roles are reversed and democrats have majorities, they're still powerless. They're just malingering and useless.
That's an insufficient "get out of accountability for four years of deliberate betrayal plus genocide" card.
You're right that Democrats are near-powerless right now, but it was only a few short years ago when they were in power. Let's not forget their actions.
When in power, they did not concern themselves with the daily atrocities or the banality of evil.
Their overwhelming support for the genocide in Palestine is just the tip of the banality iceberg.
Republicans spend a decade gaining supermajorities in state legislatures and packing the judiciary with republican judges.
Democrats spent a decade celebrating Hillary Clinton's imminent election.
Ask Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema if Democrats were really "in power." Republicans have been willing to shred the Constitution in order to get what they want, but it works primarily because they operate virtually in lock step with one another, even if they sometimes allow one member or another to vote No on some horrifying bill or another, so long as that No vote won't change the end result.
Democrats have the opposite problem: in recent memory they've only ever had the narrowest of majorities in Congress, and they're a bunch of cats on a good day, so there's always a few Democrats in vulnerable seats that will break with the party in order to maintain their "outsider" image with their purple district voters. Add on that Democrats for the most part don't want to shred the Constitution, and it's very difficult for them to achieve their goals.
And add on that most media in this country is owned and operated by billionaires and it constantly pushes the narrative that anything to the left of Ronald Reagan is basically Karl Marx, and you've got an electorate that is on balance very suspicious of things that, to a reasonable person, would obviously make the world a better place, like universal healthcare, free pre-K education, police reform, immigration reform, and so on.
The Democrats that do want to make the world a better place are essentially trying to play honest baseball with unreliable teammates, shitty coaches and managers, opponents who are 'roided out of their minds, and umpires who won't call objective balls and strikes. Even for the ones who are trying to improve things (and they do exist!) it's an appalling situation.
They were. They wielded power through people like Manchin and Sinema.
Well, that's all the party needs to do the only thing the party is for. Being the pawl on the ratchet.
Student loan forgiveness? Replacing Coal with Solar? Expanded ACA?
All gone under Trump. But both sides bad.
you missed genocide. How do you measure mass murder against the loss of student loan forgiveness? Not willing to take a stand on that? How about industrial scale rape with Epstein? The dems didnt handle that but its just not as important as replacing coal with solar huh?
all things the Democrats didn't give us
Democrats gave it and Trump reversed it.
But you like it because you "sent a message" because "Kamala didn't earn your vote."
Trump is what you wanted. Trump is what you got.
you have no idea how I voted. but lying about whether I got student loan forgiveness isn't scoring you any points, nor is your bad faith accusation that I, or anyone who didn't vote for Trump, wanted trump.
re-Read the thread. You didn't make that claim and neither did I.
The thread is about policy, not you personally.
Basic human rights and dignity is what we wanted and the DNC didnt offer it so I did my best to not lift a finger to help the DNC this last election, after a lifetime of straight blue voting.
And I'll do it again if they keep running the worst candidates they think they can get away with. I'll take the quick death over the slow one, thanks. If that makes you mad, great, I'm past mad.
I am American, and i am getting very tired of hearing "they CAN'T do things because they have to play by the rules!"
The rules they could change with a simple majority. And any rules they can plausibly make up as well. We can't ignore the Parliamentarian!
they could also jettison "My job is to keep the dems supporting Israel and nothing else" Schumer as the minority leader any time they wanted to with an internal democratic leadership vote. They only need a small number of dem senators to call for the internal vote, but it never gets called for. So evidently it's not just schumer-- it's the whole party's job.
Under the US system, they have no more power than you. The military and the FBI are legally loyal to the President. Congressional representatives have no army.
Why don't you do something more than talk?
I'm doing far more to help people than the democrats as a whole.
Literally any one of the things I volunteer for put me ahead of the majority of them.
Why don't you stop making excuses for people who don't care about you?
Trump is worse than biden. But biden is a genocidal piece of shit just like everyone who still carries water for him.
What exactly do you expect them to do? Don't just say "something", be specific.
Harris would be president right now if she would have just said she'd end the genocide, and no other changes. Progressives dont need purity, they need the most basic , basic floor of human dignity and thats not on offer from the DNC and people like yourself, chaogomu. And you know it.
Keep their promises when we put them in power and stop supporting genocide.
Encourage people to take power into their own hands by any means necessary. Stop downplaying and condemning the use of violence to get shit done. If a city needs to burn down and cops need to die, then so be it.
So your big plan is either a cross between and unwinnable civil war and a terrorist movement guaranteed to drive people away from the cause.
Sure.
I'm not going to join in on your suicide by cop plan, but you go ahead. Pull a Luigi, make it count. Otherwise, wait until after November so that if wide scale uncivil disobedience becomes necessary, it will be seen as justified and not some psycho lashing out.
no, you can't prove this
I think that’s a big reason many Americans don’t vote. It’s not really a choice, just the perception of a choice and the spectacle of a contest.
Democrats are far from perfect, but the gulf between Democrats and Republicans is immense and the false "both sides" rhetoric is tiring and a big reason why we're in this mess.
Do you think we'd have war in Iran, no USAID, and dismantled regulatory agencies if Kamala had won the last election? There is a choice.
Your daily reminder that BlueMaga liberals don't consider non-westeners to be human, because that's the only way you can describe active genocide as "not perfect"
100% I do think we'd be at war with Iran under Harris. The war was launched at Netenyahu's demand and Biden's white house had "no limits" when it came to Israel. When did Biden or Harris ever flat out say no to Israel and back it with actions? One weapon system being delayed for a few days and some propoganda vibes is what you lot base your entire argument on. Biden gave Israel anything and everything it wanted, and Harris is married to a frothing zionist, and he and his zionist brother ran her campaign. To suggest Harris would have been better or stronger is pure fantasy. AIPAC 100% runs the dems, and AIPAC would have gotten their war either way.
https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2024-12/news/biden-continue-arming-israel-despite-insufficient-aid-gaza
No Limits: The Biden Administration's Support for Israel's War on Gaza [https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/waf2.70009]
Why is Biden/Harris's stand on this matter ok with you? Why do you draw the line specifically at Iran war? Is it because it raised your gas prices, but you dont give a crap about what else Israel is doing with US taxpayer money?
You are literally advocating for US imperialism in your BS reply
No, I’ll agree with you in general, but I would also say that both sides are generally working for billionaires and operate generally as neoliberal parties. Biden even proudly confessed his capitalist convictions.
I don’t disagree that if this last election had gone differently we’d be in a different probably better position, but I also don’t think we have universal healthcare. Plenty more nuance to that than will fit in a comments section, but yes I agree but there’s a lot more to it and people hear democratic promises but don’t often see democratic action.
But also at this point it’s becoming less two neoliberal parties and more the neoliberal party and the fascist party, so yes I’ll 100% take the neoliberal over the fascist.
Neoliberals are fascist
The choice was almost always, come to choose the lesser of two evils. Unfortunately people think by not voting it will somehow make a difference, when in reality it just shows that people give up when it’s too hard and expect someone else to fix it. The first basic step is always to keep the boulder from rolling further downhill by voting to prevent more decline. Given enough time, change can happen, you just have to realize it’s incredibly slow moving like evolution and requires more of us at the top instead of sitting on our hands and letting social influence turds fill the offices.
It isn’t like this can’t be retaken, it just requires more than one person taking office.
"we need to slow the decline by mindlessly voting for people who consistently continue the decline"
The margin between lesser and greater evil keeps narrowing.
so do the conservatives, except they are more likely to buy into it.
Youre right i guess we should all just start voting for more republicans. Maybe well get jd vance mext. Maybe hegseth wants to take a shot. Since theyre all the same anyways. Maybe patel or noeme then she can shoot dogs all day and itll be totally fine. Or better yet just stop voting all together. Who needs all that noise. Just let them do whatever amd we can go back to being serfs
Things centrists say when progressives win primaries.
These type of people would never be in politics if liberals held their own politicians accountable. Every time they turn a blind eye to something their political leaders do it allows them to get worse and worse because they know there are no consequences.
You're the one who said it, not anyone else
He is literally the grand exception, are you dumb?
Half the DNC refused to support him during the election despite being the obvious populist because he was too socialist.
The only other candidate I can name is Bernie because I don't even think AOC falls into this category because she has to play compromise in congress.
Are russians in the room right now? Your cognitive dissonance got triggered as fuck. BTW DSA are gatekeeping liberals that will also fight the working class in favor of capitalism
Feel Clean, Vote Green /s
this, but without the sarcasm
Electoralism is the greatest lie the Western population has been sold on, and it's so fiercely defended.
Even at their worst, a democracy is far better than a dictatorship.
The problem is, as it ever was, first past the post voting.
Condorcet warned us, but it was too late for the US to escape it by then.
Do you honestly think we have a "democracy" in the US. I mean, come on.
"Anyone to my left wants a dictatorship!" - the pro-genocide center.
As opposed to the pro-genocide dictatorships of the East.
We weren't selling them weapons. We weren't running interference for them at the UN. Nice false equivalence in support of the genocide that centrists were actively assisting. Centrists have only one policy they won't abandon at the first hint of pushback, and it's genocide.
Only because you don't think that the lives of foreigners have value
Do you mean when both are at their worst democracy is better than dictatorship? Or always?
Dictatorships are evil. Full stop.
A broken democracy is still better than a dictatorship, for the simple reason that even a broken democracy can change with the will of the people.
A dictatorship can only ever change by the will of the dictator, and they are only ever in it for themselves.
I didn't say anything about a dictatorship. A democracy isn't thousands of people propping up a single figurehead to "represent" them, time has taught us countless times all that accomplishes is a recipe for corruption. Democracy looks like people assemblies and congresses, people actually representing people. The fact that you and others saw my comment and immediately went to dictatorship actually really illustrates my point. The west has a lot to learn about democracy.
You said "the west" as if the other major option not "the west" wasn't a totalitarian dictatorship.
Also, local councils and assemblies exist in the US, and they have power, but not quite enough.
And they're correct, Westerners are just programmed to treat it as axiomatically true that foreigners are ontologically evil
Dictatorships are not their people, that's kind of the point.
Did you reply to the wrong comment, because that has nothing to do with what I said.
I would describe it as both sides are beholden to capitalistic influence, just in different ways.
There is no "this is the reason our party exists" conspiracy.
Democrats gave us trump both times.
pretty sure it was hilary, propping him up in the 2016 primary that is responsible for his rise to power
It was also the Clinton campaign that started the birther rumors that Trump used as the centerpiece of his rise to power.
Yes, BUT, it's easier to infiltrate them with the people's politicians than it is the other side. If the people stop being idiots and stop voting for the Right, which doesn't even have the veneer of their interests on their policies, and only vote dem irrespective of how duplicitous they are, then the dem block can be broken up into middle managers vs actual leftists, and the overton window can start shifting back the other way, many years from now.
If your voting options are for Fiery Pits of Hell vs Endless Limbo, you vote Endless Limbo no matter how far from Heaven it happens to be right now.
And yeah, go and do things that might change the system. Just remember that not voting is not abstention: it's complicity in electing the Fiery Pits of Hell, by design.
You will keep up this line long after you've achieved your goal of two identical Fiery Pits of Hell parties.
Reform is a path to failure
They know.
"Everyone who disagrees with me is an evil foreigner"
Hello, senator McCarthy.
McCarthy? So are you afraid of being outed as a Marxist-Leninist that support a capitalist, kleptocratic regime?
No senator, I am not and have never been a member of the communist party
Are you still beating your wife?
I say that both russian and usa are the globe's shitstains and should be permanently fragmented, as there is no hope left in mending them.
There are several state secessionist movements, which at various times were gaining popularity, but none of them seems to be even close and from what I can tell they all peaked years ago. You'd think that if they had any chance that right now they'd be stronger than ever, but it doesn't seem to be the case, unfortunately.
Realize that this post is not made by a hexbear user, not on a hexbear comm, and being enjoyed by users that also aren't on hexbear. What you have here is actually nothing but evidence that these views are held by more than just hexbear users. Yet with your way of thinking, you somehow manage to recast evidence against your belief that "the only kind of people who like this stuff are hexbear users and all that comes along with that" as evidence for that same belief.
It would be like if I thought that vaccines are a hoax to make money, and when my doctor best friend says "actually vaccines are legitimately good for you bro" my reaction isn't "oh this is evidence against me" but I just say "ahhh big pharma mentality is leaking, they must have got to him!"
It's a subtle way of trapping yourself into an unfalsifiable belief system. Be careful!
M. Parenti in Blackshirts and reds
Oh do fuck off.
This is idiotic.
you can leave
Corsicanguppy, The dems started a genocide with Israel and sent troops and bombs and pallets of taxpayer cash over to help. Whatever you think about both sideesism, Theres got to be a line which is "too far". And if mass murder of innocents, starvation of a population, bombing westerners including Americans so Israel can steal land isnt that line, and industrial scale pedophilia and murder with Epstein isnt that line, then I wonder if you actually have any lines at all. Dems need to stand for something and they dont. Why not?
I think its partially because they have massive support without having to do anything. And here you are demanding that support be given, in exchange for.. nothing at all given back to us.
I think "nothing will fundamentally change" is good enough for you because you've got yours.
As long as we have this broken first-past-the-post electoral system, I will vote blue, no matter what. When we have something better (proportional representation, for example), I will entertain more nuanced parties. Until then, at least the D leaders haven't actively dismantled democracy.
A study from 20 years ago by Princeton University says that voters have zero impact on policy or politicians. Democrat leaders are actively dismantling to democracy otherwise that study will not have shown as such.
they regularly sue to keep green party candidates off of ballots, denying people the choice to vote for someone else. they also argued they don't need to respect the votes even within their own party.
"I'll continue to support genocide until someone else makes it convenient not to"
So you want everyone else to do the work and when that job is finished you will hop on our bandwagon and proclaim you always supported us?
It's not "hopping on the bandwagon", with the way your election system is rigged, there are only two options for a lot of places, anything else is a wasted vote
If you got rid of the Electoral Colleges and the FPP then suddenly it's not a wasted vote
And you know what changes first past the post? Democrats getting off their ass and voting for actual nondemocrat or socialist candidates. If they are pushed past the post by Democrats, then they win. It's as simple as that. Trying to reform a party that is operating exactly as designed will always lead to failure
No, all that will do is make republicans win in former Dem safehouses
You woefully underestimate how much the deck is intentionally stacked against everyone but the big two
then their party needs to work harder to EARN those votes
Yes! Genius!
Why has nobody thought of that before???
Oh wait... they have. It was found to not work unless you're in a "safe" voting block, and if you're living anywhere with any amount of swing to it, you INSTEAD make the party you hate win.
I hate them both
You can be working towards voter reform and be voting for Democrats at the same time. They aren't mutually exclusive.
So your plan is to work towards voter reform while supporting the politicians that do not want voter reform?
I'm sure some Democrats would like it, there's people who run on that platform. It's better than letting Republicans win at least.
democrats are republicans
Ah, so you're a moderate and think both sides are the same, got it
No, I'm a communist that sees your parties from the outside, their differences are superficial and their similarities are vast
They might claim to. They'll find the no votes.
As opposed to the Republicans who would never go for voter reform?
Republicans do what they run on.
Democrats don't.
I'm sorry, if you legitimately believe the democratic party didn't enshrine voting rights and civil rights into law, then you're either totally ignorant of history or you're intentionally lying to stoke division. I suspect it's the latter
Edit: Who the fuck is downvoting this?! The Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act are real legislation, y'all
It's not the same party anymore.
Yeah this argument is pretty much on the same level as people who say Republicans fought to end slavery centuries ago
Your account is 8 months old and 100% of your comments and posts are political and incendiary.
What you call incendiary is stuff you dont want to hear because it triggers an uncomfortable response in your head. If you cant read this isnt a liberal space, we dont support liberals or the oligarchy they protect
Still getting triggered by things you don't want to hear?
Same Conservative troll tactic that got Trump elected. You even use their writing style "triggered".
democrats is what got trump elected
Yes, everyone to your left is a conservative.
It's a two party system in the US. If Democrats don't represent your views, you primary them out.
In those primaries that they don't run honestly when they run them at all.
I had like four parties on my presidential ballot
Ok, I will abstain and allow the mass murdering child rapists to run the country instead!
Right, because Biden did so much on those fronts. And because the dem platform plainly states they will take action on those things. Right?
Trump rapes kids.
And you and every other centrist prefer a child rapist over letting people have the choice to vote for someone who might tell netanyahu no.
Biden supported raping people with dogs
Yep, he killed some of them too. And you can bet the republicans will destroy this country utterly. But Biden and the centrists are captured by genociders. Are we dick-measuring whats worse, is that what you want to argue?
Your daily reminder that BlueMaga liberals don't consider foreigners human
That what liberals did by allowing a Trump win the first and second time.
For real. The delusion that one can fully mobilize a political spectrum for an offering, like socialism, that is unavailable is always funny to me. Describe your steps. What steps should we follow to exhume ourselves from this hole without immediately rolling into an even deeper one?
Simple, step one is regaining control of Congress this November.
Literally nothing will get better if Republicans continue to control Congress.
Step two is uncapping the House. There are already members of Congress with bills ready to go that would do just that.
Those two items would fix about 75% of America's problems.
We'll see if that happens or if the party keeps doing everything it can to sabotage progressive candidates.
The DNC has shown time and again they will do nothing to roll back republican actions. Their ratchet effect doesnt allow for it. California has a bulletproof democrat supermajority and they cant get progressive legislation passed either, why should anyone believe more democrats at the federal level would be any different?
So your plan for change is to do nothing and hope, or worse, keep Republicans in power so that they can actively make things worse. Sure.
It's not me that's forcing the DNC to utilize their ratchet effect to prevent Republican actions from ever slipping back. They are the ones that are allowing it to keep getting worse.
Your plan of change is to do nothing and yell at anyone who wants to do anything.
The former is plausible but the latter’s not happening any time soon. If major structural change of that sort occurs, I will happily eat my shoe. Agreed, otherwise