Discuss
My take is both yes and no.
The ‘yes’ part is democrats alienating their working class base, refusing to take fascism seriously, and playing into Trump’s martyrdom
The ‘no’ part is that fascists outnumber non-fascists in the US. It’s a settler-colonial nation. Democrats could stand for something but that ‘something’ is too unpopular no matter how correct it is.
Im using these quotes to say yes, broadly liberals (democrats) have had a hand in the fascism of the US; of which has always been fascistic, but as the “left wing of fascism” has put on a smiling face to trick us.
As far as I’m concerned, “liberal” is the most meaningless word in the dictionary. History has shown me that as long as some white middle class people can live high on the hog, take vacations in Europe, send their children to private schools, and reap the benefits of their white skin privileges, then they are “liberals.” But when times get hard and money gets tight, they pull of that liberal mask and you’re talking to Adolf Hitler. They feel sorry for the so called under privileged just as long as they can maintain their own privileges
Assata Shakur, 1988 from Assata : An Autobiography
There’s also that Malcom X quote about liberals being the “smiling foxes.”
A quote about George Jackson’s politics :
For Jackson, echoing the prison writings of the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci (an author whose translated writings were found in Jackson’s cell after his death), fascism referred chiefly to state-led economic development and the incorporation of organized labor.
In other words, for Jackson, fascism involved not only racist repression but also national development and reform. In this sense, the U.S. of the 1960s-70s was fertile fascist soil indeed. Such an expansive understanding of political domination may complicate and enrich antifascist sentiments percolating today around the defense of existing, often hard-won political liberties. Jackson forces us to rethink the distinctions between conservative and liberal administrations and to confront the legacies of even the New Deal and Great Society within a longer history of capitalism and U.S. imperialism.
Yes. The GOP could not win if there was anything oposition at all. Like, if the DNC promised to made the superbowl a national holiday they would have the senate and the the executive tied up. By refusing to do even thst they are knowingly facilitating the GOP
Of course not. They did everything in their power to stop his rise.
They didn’t promote his 2016 primary run because they thought it would make the election a shoo-in for Hillary if he won the nomination.
They didn’t ratfuck the only candidate who paid even lip-service to addressing the economic contradictions inherent to capitalism which immiserate the populace. They didn’t choose to run a corporate-owned, deeply unpopular warmonger instead. They ran a strong candidate who was universally beloved by Americans, someone who is so radiant and pure of heart that she is light itself.
They didn’t play into every provocation from Trump to act as part of his PR machine a la the Streisand effect.
They didn’t bungle governance for 4 years so badly that people were eager for a change.
They didn’t handle Covid worse than Trump and get far more people killed and disabled by it with their grand reopening.
They didn’t doggedly commit to genocide even knowing it would cost them votes in key battleground states.
The Democrats did nothing to help Trump rise to power and did everything they could to stop his rise, but Trump was too much of a political mastermind and he was willing to break rules to win. He’s only won because he lies and cheats, which the Democrats never do.
Frankly, it is concerning and problematic of you to even ask that question because everyone knows the answer is obviously “No”. Would you ask other questions where the answer is obviously no, such as “Does a bear not shit in the woods?”, “Did NATO expansion trigger Putin’s invasion of Ukraine?”, “should the US stop funding and arming Israel?”
I’m getting really strong Russian bot vibes from this poster. Mods, where are you? Why haven’t you banned this propagandist yet?
Just you wait, “/u/Dirt_Owl”, if that’s your real name – or should I say грязная сова – I’ve summoned the mods and they’ll soon deport you back to RuZZia.
I understand the criticisms of the democrats and have often made them myself, but sometimes I worry that the focus on the dems diminishes the agency of the actual Trump supporters.
The dems didn’t conjure up the settler colonial ideology in 2016. The dems didn’t create wholesale a legacy of racism, colonialism and genocide in 2016. White Americans were not some pure innocent race tempted into evil by Hillary Clinton.
The dems’ role in the rise of trump is more of a “just the way it happened to play out.” As capitalism and empire collapse, climate crisis is ramped up, a figure like Trump in the American landscape was an inevitability. The dems have nothing to do with this, at least not any exceptional role. But the fact that it was Trump in 2016 - the fact that it happened how it happened - that’s the dem’s fault. But it wouldn’t have happened at all, even if the dems did everything the same, if the US populace had not been primed for the entire country’s history to embrace fascist rhetoric. The dems should be criticized for the actions they did take, and the dems and liberals in general should continue to be criticized for inaction. But in terms of the rise of trump, I just find the focus on the dems sort of useless, as if shitty electoral strategy allows us to ignore the entirety of settler colonial and fascist ideology that’s baked into the American landscape.
Nah, that letting them set the terms. Yes, if the DNC is not allowed to meaningfully use power than their hands are tied. However, the ontl reason they have that rule is because they want to let the GOP win. So no. That’s all fake.
Don’t understand what you’re trying to say
You are wrong. If we assume the DNC is acting in good faith and not lying to you your position makes sense. However we have no reason to assume they are anything other than untrustworthy mass murderers
Sorry, maybe I’m still misunderstanding, but I don’t see how this responds to what I was saying above. Whether or not the dems are lying (I’m assuming lying about being anti-trump and against the current hard right turn) I don’t believe contradicts my point that when explaining the rise of trump settler colonial ideology, the racial landscape of the us, and the collapse of empire are more important than any action by the dems. Things like the pied piper strategy commonly blamed for the rise of trump are important and should be criticized, but the only reason those things had the effect they did is because of the things cited above that are baked into the American landscape. Without Clinton and the dnc’s actions in 2016 we still get a trump-like figure, though maybe not in 2016.
In terms of the furtherance of settler colonial ideology and the maintenance of racial hierarchy, the dems are to blame, but I don’t believe more than any other bourgeois capitalist. I think this this is what you mean when you’re talking about how the dems are lying, like they’re not really against trump and the inaction is deliberate. But they’re a bourgeois party so any action (or inaction) is due to that imo, not anything specific to the dem party. In terms of actions specific to the dem party, there’s still important stuff to criticize there, but to me the focus tends to be skewed when the rise and continuing support of trump is really rooted in things that go far beyond the dem party.
If they were simply little guys doing their best that would be one thing.
They are a fundamental part of our government. They helped create those vibes. They have blood on their hands from the lives spent to enshrine their power over vibes here in the country. They are responsible for creating and they do the most work in defending it. Down to the last intern they deserve the wall for their sins.
I haven’t argued they have no blood on their hands. But their responsibility in creating and sustaining settler ideology and empire is not fundamentally different or greater than any other part of the bourgeois class or the colonial power structure. I take issue with your idea that they somehow do the most work in defending settle ideology. They shouldn’t be treated as an exceptional force in the maintenance of settler ideology and I’m wondering how your statement could even be quantified. I also take issue with the idea that they are responsible for creating something (what it is you don’t say). The Dems are about 200 years old. Settler ideology and the colonial power structure stretch back 500 years. The dems are one expression of that settler ideology, not the other way around.
And specifically we’re talking about the rise of trump and the maga movement. For all we can say about the dems, for all of their fault in helping to unleash that force, at the end of the day it didn’t come from their camp. It came from something with a long history in this country that greatly predates the dems that has been present on the American landscape since the first European settlement. The dems are a part of that force which I think is what you’re saying, but I don’t think the dems can truly be blamed except as one part of a wider condemnation of capitalism, colonialism and empire. To single out the dems in assigning blame for the rise of trump to me just seems to be missing the forest for the trees.
Agreed
only in the most direct and literal senses.
If
didn’t make the stupid joke at correspondence dinner Trump might still be a Democratic party donorThe bombing people one? No judgment if that was the line, just curious how that tipped you over the edge?
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Who else to blame? They had power. Their usage of the power led them to this.
If Democrats hadn’t cheated in 2016, Bernie would have won in 2016 and 2020.
If Democrats hadn’t cheated in 2020, Bernie would have won in 2020 and 2024.
Simple as
I don’t think Bernie would’ve had two terms, he would’ve face constant attack from the media and both parties, and literally 0 of his planned “make the boot of capital stomp slightly less hard” strategies would’ve actually been passed, and the media would be calling him a failure nonstop and saying “this is what happens when you elect a socialist.”
Alternatively, Bernie being malleable imperialist succdem would do what every succdem ever do when elected and he would be a second coming of Obama.
I guess it depends heavily on how quickly he folds. He would either pay lip service to social policy (and be vilified) or abandon it entirely and lose popular support even as the media praises him for “reaching across the aisle”
Yeah, in case such like this i remember Roosevelt New Deal that was aimed at saving capitalism, but the capitalist hated him so much they tried to coup him. So obligatory reminder that ruling class is not monolithic and not entirely rational even in case of their class interests (as the election of Trump also clearly shows!).
“I saved them and they never forgiven me for this” (to paraphrase Zhukov famous saying)
Obama roasting Trump at the House Correspondents video is supposedly what convinced him to run in the first place and he never would have gotten traction in the election if Hillary hadn’t leaned into the Pied Piper strategy.
what convinced him to run
Naw, Trump had run for president before in 2000 as part of the Reform Party, but didn’t make it past the primary. He’d talked about being president as far back as 1988. He told some press in 2004 he’d run, but decided against it because he thought Gore and Bush would beat him in either primary.
What’s the pied piper strategy?
Also is your profile picture a bobbit worm? (Based)
Hillary’s campaign favored Trump as their opponent, and did what they could to elevate him above his competitors in the Republican Primary (though Hillary’s campaign is by no means solely responsible for his triumph over such formidable personalities as… Jeb “Please Clap” Bush, Little Marco, and Ted Cruz). They believed Trump was off the deep end, would carry the Republican Party off the deep end, and lead to an easy victory. Donald Trump did carry the Republican Party off the deep end, but this (famously) did not result in Hillary Clinton being elected President.
The “Pied Piper” is the titular character of an old folk tale in which, after being refused payment for enchanting the plague rats and leading them out of the city, the piper enchants the children and makes them disappear as well.
The Pied Piper thing is a red herring IMO. It demonstrates how cynical the Democratic Party is, but it is not the reason they lost, and not worth dwelling on too much. It is a drop in the bucket next to the torrent of grievances people feel towards the leadership of this country, and how the “Left” (Democrats) insists everything is fine and that “the long arc of history bends towards justice” while doing absolutely fuck-all, while the Right correctly points out that everything is going to SHIT, but directs that justifiable anger at the inept liberal institutions and the most powerless people on Earth instead of the motherfuckers who are seeing meteoric increases in wealth as the bridges collapse and the stores run out of toilet paper.
The Democrats ARE responsible for the rise of Trump, but it is a much bigger picture than some internal campaign memos circulating in 2016. It is their whole character as an organization to scold anybody who suggests a better future is possible. They have an unmaskable contempt for their voters, who owe them everything and deserve nothing in return. They insist on leaving people no choice between “keep things exactly the same,” and “burn it all down,” while building towards the most advanced police surveillance state in the world, ensuring the only people left around to “burn it down” are the cold blooded fascists because any other threat to the status quo is in prison.
The “Pied Piper” is the titular character of an old folk tale in which, after being refused payment for enchanting the plague rats and leading them out of the city, the piper enchants the children and makes them disappear as well.
Always pay your contractors folks
Lots of liberals think a better world is possible but only if they have a super majority in the House and Senate, and the Presidency. Until then, it’s not really democracy and thus the fact that they can’t get anything done is just because they don’t have the votes, so the people must not really want it enough.
They’d love to improve things, but the system gets in the way (but this is good, because the fact that it’s slow or difficult also prevents bad people from doing what they want to do). I think it’s why theres that meme of someone like Joe Biden saying “Someone should do something about this!” when he’s the President and should be able to. They think it’s praxis to get the “people power” to vote for what they want in 2-4 years, but until then, they’re powerless and the best they can do is alert people to be aware of the problems so they can vote better next time.
And of course, harnessing people in any other way, riots, direct action, property damage, many kinds of protests, is anathema to liberals because it’s not part of the system and they have been trained by the media to be absolutely terrified of a revolution because of the possibility something worse always comes along next, or the revolution is worse than what’s happening now. Part of me also thinks there’s that moment of a revolution between systems that scares a lot of people.
Good liberals believe they must establish a legitimate mandate before doing anything fundamentally transformative. Fair enough. There are also a lot of liberals who understand that the system is rigged in various ways to prevent that mandate from ever materializing. It is not uncommon to see Liberals grumbling about gerrymandering, various forms of voter suppression, the electoral college, the filibuster, the limitless deluge of opaque corporate campaign financing, and a number of other issues with our electoral system. They will be stuck in this Limbo forever unless deep reforms can be made to these institutions. You’d think issues like this would be paramount if they ever hoped to achieve any other socially beneficial goals, but at an institutional level, the leadership is absolutely allergic to organizing around any of these issues. The only people who talk about things like campaign finance reform, Citizens United v. FEC, or the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact are individuals who are (unwittingly) deliberately locked out of the system. Sympathetic figures. People who would like to see the system work the way it purports to. People who do believe in democracy as a goal. The leadership doesn’t give a fuck about them and doesn’t even pretend to care about this stuff though. They talk breathlessly about “saving democracy,” but there is absolutely no agenda or slate of reforms to back it up. They are straight up mercenaries who do whatever they are paid to do. This is part of the reason they are evaporating as a political force.
There is also a deeply inculcated “fear of the other.” We have been propagandized our entire lives to see the United States as a “shining city on the hill.” This is the ONLY perspective allowed in any institutional media organization. As bad as the US may be, we make lamentable mistakes, while our “enemies” commit deliberate atrocities. As bad as the US may be, at least we have “freedom of speech,” unlike China or “North Korea.” We are strongly conditioned to believe that the barbarians are always at the gate, democracy is hanging on by a thread (that thread being the continuity of the US Republic), and that if the US were to collapse, it would not only be a calamity domestically, but for the world. That all the “evil” “regimes” out there are champing at the bit to do who knows what (but evil) and this shambolic country is the only thing preventing them (rather than arming and keeping many of them in power). It is this particular strain of propaganda which produces the non-bourgeois counter-revolutionary Liberal dead-enders. Just “harm reduction” grafted onto geopolitics. I think a lot more of them would be able to swallow the pill of domestic turmoil if they properly understood how intensely the US inhibits democracy globally. This is also why “whatab*utism” is such a readily deployed rhetorical canard. This type of criticism needs to be killed in the crib. It is the most dangerous. For people to realize all the mythology about freedom, democracy, civil rights, and rule of law has always been horseshit.
Part of me also thinks there’s that moment of a revolution between systems that scares a lot of people.
This is the one thing which seems universally true. Whether you are a Communist, a Liberal, or a Fascist, it is terrifying. “The time of monsters”
I imagine both you, SevenSkalls, and myself all were infected with these liberal brainworms at some point, otherwise this sort of perfect analysis of the liberal mindset would be even more impressive than it already is. Spot on.
I think a lot more of them would be able to swallow the pill of domestic turmoil if they properly understood how intensely the US inhibits democracy globally.
I agree. It’s why foreign policy is often the biggest impediment to getting people to make that final leap from progressive lib to future hexbear/grad user, but also seems super important. So often they will have great takes until you talk about China, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, etc. But until they can step beyond that, they will always inhabit the idea that they’re evil and we’re good (well, we have some flaws but deep down still truly good), which prevents so many other realizations by itself.
Hillary Clinton’s campaign identified Trump as their preferred opponent, they felt very confident they’d beat him. They literally funded his campaign so he’d win the primary (but it allowed him to get a lot of media attention).
This is the worm that is coiled around the base of my brain stem.
spoiler
It’s a Ragworm (Nereis pelagica)
Hah! I’ve been counting Nereid mouthparts in bird droppings for my honours program, it’s what I’m planning to get up to tomorrow.
Entirely? No. The contribution they made was pretty staggering tho
The USA has a one-party system with the typical extravagance of having two of them. It’s not about which half of the political front of the bourgeoisie is to blame for x and y, it’s capital doing its things and crumbling under its own contradictions
The Democrats deserve blame in a “men make their own history but they do not make it as they please” sort of way. The bourgeois state can allow tolerate a certain range of options. And that range only narrows and neoliberalism enters its death spiral and the rate of profit falls without an obvious way out. The Democrats could try to actually become a party of the working class, but the capitalists would try to destroy them. Or if they succeeded, I genuinely believe you’d see a coup a la Chile in 1973.
That doesn’t excuse the Democrats, though. They are fully leaning into this.
It was their briber approved Explicit strategy.
They used him to dump their own dirty laundry on and as a shield and excuse for completely abandoning “Teh Left”, and it was a project in the making since before
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Beyond the direct contributions such as the pied piper stuff it’s important to understand the actual political landscape.
The reality is that Democrats do not provide an alternative. Democrats have consistently been behind the biggest pushes to “depoliticize” (in reality de-democratize) issues and shroud them in technocracy. Obama is directly responsible for so much of this such as:
- mechanizing imperialism via drone warfare
- mechanizing deportations
- creating the new era surveillance capitalism where the dynamic between entities such as Google and the government isn’t based in annoying money losing legalistic demands, but a customer / vendor relationship
On these alone the power of the President has been expanded greatly to cater to right wing political governance. These are really “core” tactics and functions that present the fact that there is no alternative.
We had 4 years of Biden as the ‘alternative’ and what happened?:
- They adopted Trumps immigration policy
- They bragged about how well they deported people
- They backed a genocide
- CHIPS / sanctions based economic warfare (compared to tariff based)
- Promised cash that they then didn’t give out
Democrats aren’t even “anti-corruption”, they couldn’t get STOCK Act with teeth, and their biggest stars are all guilty of insider trading. The country is too stupid to understand it, but they’re not even trying anymore such as when Hochul said “I talked to some guy at a diner and that’s why we must stop congestion pricing”. She literally did the “Everyone at the Barbershop is talking about Warren” as an excuse for rich people whispering in her ear.
Democrats put a friendly capable face on the same kinds of policies that Trump champions. We’ve also seen that most of the centrist technocrats are more than willing to throw the vulnerable constituencies under the bus and claim that they have the right to adjudicate their lives and views:
- Biden’s comments about how you must vote for him otherwise you’re not black
- Newsom’s explicit backpedaling on LGBT+ rights
- The Party’s reported backpedaling on LGBT+ rights
- Schumer’s comments about his job being to keep “the left” pro-Israel.
One of the most interesting things is DEI itself. Instead of actually pushing for a welfare state, or any kind of material benefits. They created this corpo cultural affect that resulted in makework jobs for the richest BIPOC and GSM people, while ignoring the rest of them because it’s “too hard”. They created this gigantic target that the right wing can point to and say “look at what they’re getting”. Ultimately this type ratchet effect is always based on Democrats pretending that politics isn’t a resource allocation system and that under capitalism it devolves into a winner talk all strategy that snowballs. Why? Well only because it’s an aesthetic foil to the Republicans correct interpretation of the political economy and their political strategy.
It’s a new stanza but a the same rhyme scheme for a lot of the big problem issues, homelessness, free trade, jobs, drug decriminalization, prison/judicial system reform, election reform, etc.
The Democrat vibe under Obamna was that there would never be another Republican again. That’s how cocky they were going into 2016. They were relishing the end of history, again.
I think one of the things that is going to rewrite Obama’s history among liberals is they truly believed that Obama was the apotheosis. They were finally done, they found the point of maximal compromise in the modern age, electing the first Black Moderate Republican President, and for their trouble they were gonna reap only rewards from here on in.
I want to add onto the technocratic style of leadership thing and how that can lead to being bad long-term even when they do good things short-term. The two major examples I can think of are the piecemeal means-tested student loan forgiveness with the overly technocratic way they tried to do a mass forgiveness (with Covid emergency powers or something dumb like that), and the way Biden and the Dems handled the train workers strikes. I’ll focus on the latter as I remember it, because it was harder to explain to people why I didn’t like it, but your post is a good lead-in.
For the strike, Biden, with the aid of sucky Dems in Congress and the always evil Republicans, shut down the strike without giving them any of their demands by splitting the bill into two parts, one that shut down the strike and one that gave them what they want. Of course only the first one passed.
Later, liberals would bring up the fact that Biden helped some of the unions by later doing backroom deals with the companies to try to give them some of the sick days and stuff they were asking for. This succeed, but I would argue is still an extremely anti-working class and terrible way to do this. Long-term, it continues the Reagan precedent of destroying union power, sucks up that energy and transfers it to technocratic Dem politicians. It removes negotiations from the public sphere, where all the workers can participate, and puts it in smoke-filled back rooms and golf courses where only politicians, business owners, and corrupt union leaders can participate. It continues the feeling of “we, the elite, give you things because we are kind, not because you demanded anything”, which is terrible mindset to keep the populace in when you’re trying to organize popular resistance to things. If that strike had gone into the holiday season like it looked like it was going to do, people would have realized how much they needed the workers, and it would’ve helped the workers themselves a realize their own importance and power. But instead, it was cut short and everything resolved itself quietly in the background. Overall, it just sets an awful precedent future fascistic leaders can build to on.
It was so hard to explain this to liberals as well. Ya, I guess he did a couple good stuff for some of the major train unions, but yes I’m also still annoyed as hell. A few sick days does not override destroying popular energy, because guess what, we’re going to need that to ask for more stuff in the future. Godamn I’m making myself mad just remembering all these arguments again lol.
