Spineless liberals cant even hold the line much more than one month, in any collation they are the weakest link
So an independent, a dude that essentially went maga after a stroke, and 6 other centrist Democrats making a deal means liberals are “spineless”.
I guess we should all stop voting because both sides are the same right bro?!?!
The cowardice is significantly deeper than those six Democrats, its also with Chuck Schumer and the entire party. Quite frankly if the party had even the semblance of a spine than they would have purged many of these politicans long ago. The party should uphold an absolute basic standard and if we had a real left wing party than it absolutely would.
It’s pretty obvious that without an institution there’s absolutely nothing that will be done to stop the Epstein class. A large enough institution will include some traitors.
“Let us remember that a traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not intend. It can be so, sometimes.”
Going by the recent bullshit in today’s senate, they are right-lite
Charles Schumer makes policy decisions based on an imaginary Republican family.
Democrats have been basically Republicans since the Clinton administration.
Democrats are controlled opposition, which the belief is solidified by the recent senate vote. I’ll still vote blue, but if the politician option of it being a coward/establishment then I might as well vote for a rat. Absolute disgusted our elected leaders have no spine as Republicans continue on their quest to achieve fascism and white supremacy.
Fuck those 6 and fuck Schumer.
I’ll still vote blue, but if the politician option of it being a coward/establishment then I might as well vote for a rat.
why not vote for 3rd party instead of wasting your vote like this?
When did America decide to remove first past the post? Oh they didn’t …so how is 3rd party not a wasted vote?
not only is it possible, but it has happened and is currently happening in our lifetimes: either read a non-western history book to see several historical examples of political duopolies being overturned by 3rd parties (until the americans reversed it) or look for modern sources showing a 3rd party named morena overthrow its american backed duopoloy in mexico less than 10 years ago.
Because the system currently only supports 2 parties for president. We would need current politicians to be selfless enough to make the necessary changes that would allow for a 3rd party to receive enough funding and media coverage for the vast majority of the American voters - who pay no attention at all to politics - to hear about them. Our politicians only work for themselves, and have no reason to work against their own interests by introducing a 3rd party - hell, they’ve almost condensed down to a single party, but at least one side of it is still keeping up appearances enough to only terrorize its people a little bit so that they can say they’re better than the other guys.
Presidential voting is just trying to use the system to change the system, which only works when the system itself works. The current system is broken to the point that presidential voting won’t fix it - the best we can do is make sure the lesser of the evils wins until we can garner enough support for an actual overthrowing of the system, then begin the work to make one that would allow for politicians that actually care about us. A presidential vote to make actual change is a wasted vote, because a vote no longer holds that much power in America. The best it can do on its own is hold back the greater evil.
For local elections you should absolutely vote for the most progressive person you can, because the voters that don’t pay attention don’t even show up to those votes, making them much more volatile to the point where a true leftist can win. Maybe we’d even be able to get a new generation of politicians to change the system from the ground up over the course of several decades, if the country lasts that long. But the presidential election is far too padded by people who would vote for their party’s candidate even if they killed their own mother - it can’t suddenly change, not in its current state.
You cant build popular support for dismantling the system as it is while you’re actively advocating for people to accept the lesser evil.
Imagine if Sanders got up on the senate floor and said “i believe we cannot compromise on ACA subsidies and let millions of americans lose health coverage, be forced to ration their insulin or die because they cant afford a doctor, but I’ll be voting to reopen the government without them anyway because i have no choice”.
Democrats rely on the inherent violence of a 2 party system. Playing into it isnt pragmatic, it’s denial. Either we’re in this together or we aren’t, and democrats have made it perfectly clear that they aren’t.
I’m not advocating for people to accept the lesser evil, I’m asking them to understand that their vote is no longer a form of acceptance - it doesn’t hold enough power for you to use it that way anymore. Your acceptance or rejection of the system comes from your actions outside of the polling place, in the form of protests and what inevitably comes after protests if they’re ignored for long enough.
A vote in the presidential election currently only holds the power to slightly shift the current power between bad and worse. It’s like the trolley problem - there’s no real 3rd track right now, no matter how much we want one. If we start building one now at the local level, maybe there will be one for someone later, but we’ve gotta make our own lever choice without it for now.
I’m not advocating for people to accept the lesser evil, I’m asking them to understand that their vote is no longer a form of acceptance
This is a fun rhetorical trick, but I’m not interested in playing a semantic game over the definition of ‘acceptance’. This:
A vote in the presidential election currently only holds the power to slightly shift the current power between bad and worse
is absolutely advocating for the lesser evil. Fine if you don’t want to call that ‘acceptance’, but what I’m pointing to is not the choice itself, it’s the act of advocating for it to begin with. Spending any amount of energy trying to convey the importance of voting for the moderate wing of fascism is a distraction from the message that both parties pose an existential threat to the working class. If your goal is to build support for radical systemic change, then there should be no ambiguity about what actions are necessary to achieve it. To use your bullshit trolly problem analogy- the ‘two tracks’ forced choice is a distraction from the fact that we need to stop the fucking trolly. Even if we end up pulling that lever in the end, you will never get enough people to get off to help derail it if you keep ensuring them that the worst will be averted even if they chose not to.
You can’t build a popular movement against the democratic coalition while openly admitting that you have no choice but to support them no matter how aligned they are with the fascists. Liberals will continue happily existing in the status quo until it’s made clear to them that their privileged position within it is threatened along with everyone else’s if they choose not to act.
I don’t understand your point. Voting is not a form of protest or revolution - you either overthrow the government, or you don’t; voting is just the thing you do in the meantime to hopefully keep living to eventually overthrow the government. If the system worked, sure, voting would keep it working, but thinking of voting as a way to change the system at this point is like thinking an oil change will fix a broken engine. I vote for the lesser evil not because I accept them or want them to be in charge, but because I know the person I want in charge will never be placed in charge by the current system. I advocate for revolution because I know we need it, and that the system cannot be fixed in my lifetime without it, but voting is an entirely separate thing, and can only be used as a tool to keep the world from falling apart quite as quickly as it would under the greater evil.
presidential elections do seem like a really lofty goal, but history has given us plenty of examples to prove that it’s possible; with mexico being the most recent one with amlo & shienbaum.
i think it’s a testament to the power of american propaganda that a 3rd party candidate won a presidential election in not only one of the largest and most populous countries of the world; but one of the closest possible to the united states and most of americans are still completely unaware that it actually happened and that it happened in our lifetime.
That’s exactly what I’m saying. Our media has the vast majority of the voters’ sole attention - they don’t know and don’t care that other options exist. If a presidential candidate doesn’t have equal media coverage to the other 2 parties, they immediately lose more Americans than they would need to win the election.
the media and republican/democrat duopoly are powered by the same source, the american oligarchy; expecting the media to ever give airtime to 3rd party is unrealistic.
it’s self-fulfilling propaganda that we’re inflicting upon ourselves.
Correct, which is why the 3rd part is itself unrealistic. We need to change things from the ground-up at a local level, which will take decades, or overthrow everything and start over, which will lead to a huge amount of deaths regardless of whether or not we even win the battle. Regardless, to win the presidential election with a 3rd party right now, we need the media, and that’s not going to happen, so to put your vote in that hole is the same as not voting.
You mean the two Dems and the independent that acted as scabs and went against the rest of the democratic party?
US Senate advances bill to end federal shutdown
Sunday’s deal was brokered by Democratic Senators Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, both from New Hampshire, and Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, said a person familiar with the talks. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the chamber’s top Democrat, voted against the measure. Many Democrats on the Hill watched the deal unfold with displeasure.
I meant the 5 fuckwads that gave in to repugs demands
I agree this should be the career ending vote for 8 scabs, but I also think refusing to replace them with better candidates if they also run as dems, won’t do anything other than guarantee the re-election of 8 scabs.
It doesnt matter if they’re democrat or independent - what matters is that they aren’t a class traitor.
Do whatever you want but I sure as fuck wouldnt vote for a democrat who is going to sell me out as soon as acting in my interest is politically inconvenient.
it’s always just one or 2 democrats.
Oh, yeah this is defo controlled opposition. When people asked for spine, they got jello.
No, the dems are going at their enemies pretty hard.
Agreed. And are simultaneously displaying that the Republicans are their friends.
Not even that distant. They’re the same wealthy pedophile christofascists.
I’m wondering when the rest of you guys are going to realize that electoralism is a huge waste of time, effort and energy. Elections are a distraction to make us think we can effect change through the system. But the problem IS the system. There is only one way forward, and it’s through a revolution that abolishes the entire existing structures of power.
We need to accept this reality, so we can actually start the long process of how to achieve that.
I want to believe that things can be changed electorally, but I know that it wouldn’t come from anyone near power currently. Mamdani is the greatest hope right now, but he’s ultimately going to be in an ivory tower. He’s also been very clear that he’s being elected to run the ivory tower of America, so I’m not downplaying neither the significance or his awareness of the role.
There’s no argument that Republicans have found a number of large exploits in the system that they are currently manipulating to “win” the US federal government. Whether or not such a system is theoretically capable of being repaired is up for debate, but it sure as hell isn’t going to happen at the hands of fucking Democrats.
I remember when
ObamaAOCwas the hope
I’m going to take this opportunity to link this video by Richard Medhurst
This is not infighting, this is the great Un-Masking
I will also take this oppotunity to link this video about Why Leftist Purity Tests are good.
Never stop Purity Testing, Comrades, Never.
I wouldn’t even call it purity testing, they’re just testing. I’ve seen obsession over purity taken to a counterproductive extent, and I maintain that it can be a problem when dealing with a complex unideal reality, but what BadEmpanada is talking about here is fine. That’s a healthy level of testing, and important in preventing recuperation or sanewashing. Democrats are a bourgeois-controlled party and don’t share our class interests.
To give an example of the kind that is counterproductive, I know of a (small) socialist organisation in my country which has been banned from worker strikes after counterprotesting one, insisting that since industrial unions are bureaucratic, the workers should all just boycott the strike and make their own union. This group claims all other socialist organisations are impure and pseudo-leftist whenever they compromise with material reality and present conditions.
And, obviously, that’s a whole other world of purity testing to what you’re talking about. The problems are when it reaches no-true-Scotsman levels.
I get what you’re saying, regardless; never stop the tests.
Agreed
Democrats? Left? Lmao XD
Fr how do these people think its “left”?!
do a flip!
True, but is the A for anarchists? Anarchists are not left.
Edit: oh, I’m on .ml. I didn’t know yous had a thing going for anarchism as well, now I know.
Anarchism is left. Anarcho-capitalism is a meme ideology that is mostly an offshoot of liberalism, while actual anarchism has a rich history on the left, as the other major umbrella of leftist thought compared to Marxism.
This is a pretty biased way of putting it. The concept of anarchy predates the interpretation used by modern left-leaning self-identified anarchists by a couple of thousand years. In online circles such anarchists often seek to monopolize the term (like you are doing right now), but they factually weren’t the ones to coin it; when it was originally coined by Plato, nobody had any idea what the fuck capitalism or socialism even are, and in fact Plato used it as a cautionary example.
I am guessing your gut reaction will be to recoil at this grave attack on your ideology. I implore you to stop and consider that most people are not in fact at all familiar with left-wing anarchism as defined by Proudhon etc., but are vaguely familiar with the concept from many other sources. Therefore when you talk about anarchism without a qualifier to mean anarchic socialism, most people will assume you are talking about some Mad Max law of the jungle nonsense and then summarily dismiss anything you say as insane rambling.
I’m not an anarchist, I’m a Marxist-Leninist. Not sure where you got the idea that I’m an anarchist from. Secondly, I’m not referring to what the random person thinks anarchy is, but what actual anarchists believe, and among anarchists anarcho-capitalism is fringe, and an offshoot of liberalism. Plato having talked about anarchy at one point doesn’t suddenly mean that the entirety of anarchist history suddenly doesn’t matter.
Secondly, I’m not referring to what the random person thinks anarchy is, but what actual anarchists believe, and among anarchists anarcho-capitalism is fringe, and an offshoot of liberalism.
You’re doing the monopoly thing here again. When by “anarchist” you refer exclusively to left-leaning anarchists, of course anarcho-capitalism is going to be fringe among them.
Not to mention the fact that free-market anarchism is a distinct ideology from anarcho-capitalism and, to my understanding, much less fringe among self-described anarchists. The primary distinction seems to be that anarcho-capitalism exists at a lower energy state, a sort of a decay product that free-market anarchism would likely almost immediately decay into upon contact with the real world.
Plato having talked about anarchy at one point doesn’t suddenly mean that the entirety of anarchist history suddenly doesn’t matter.
One ideology misappropriating the term also doesn’t mean that all other meanings of the word suddenly don’t matter. Don’t get me wrong, I sympathize with many of the ideas of left-leaning anarchists, but they do suck at naming things. When the same concept covers both extreme right-wing libertarianism and extreme socialism, you really should be qualifying it with something to avoid confusion.
No, I mean among all anarchists. Anarcho-capitalism is fringe within anarchists, and has no real presence historically outside of a few extreme libertarians. Anarchism historically is tied to communalized production, and while I don’t personally think it has staying power practically, I also recognize it as a thoroughly left-wing ideology historically.
If you think it’s thoroughly left-wing then I think you must not be familiar with individualist and libertarian anarchist thinkers. I don’t think free-market anarchism involves much social production for example. In American political theory anarchism is what gave birth to libertarianism, which is pretty much a right-wing ideology.
I’m aware that they exist, being fringe implies that they do exist but are an extreme minority. Libertarianism is an extension of liberalism, and the anarchist offshoot of libertatianism is as such a more extreme offshoot of liberalism.
Following this to its logical conclusion, we don’t have democracy because only Athenian democracy is democracy, they articulated it first.
What? It’s possible for both modern democracy and Athenian democracy to be democracy, because it is an umbrella term that covers many different implementations of rule by the people.
The exact same thing applies to anarchy. It is possible for both The Culture and Lord of the Flies to be anarchy, because anarchy is an umbrella term that covers many different situations of “no rulers”.
and the concept of height predates the metric system. does that mean you cannot measure height in metres?
I’m not sure what point you’re trying to make here? But to go along with what I assume your analog is, if you’re talking about height then you need to say you’re talking about height regardless of what unit you’re using. “Two metre box” means constrains only one dimension, much the same as the word anarchy by itself does.
just because an ideology predates the left right spectrum (quite flawed as it is but this isn’t the problem), doesn’t mean it can be put in there.
fascism and democracies predated the left-right spectrum, would you say they can’t be there
The political compass has both an X and a Y dimension, you know. As it happens, the Y dimension exists almost specifically because of anarchy.
oh god, don’t bring even more BS into here.
oh god, don’t bring even more arbitrary BS into here.
the phase space of vague stuff like political ideology would have an arbitrary large number of parameters, not whatever 2 you see in memes.
Is the society so painfully brainrotted that people genuinely think memes are realities?
The political compass isn’t a good way to view political ideology in any way. You can’t distill ideology into 4 vaguely defined quadrants.
Anarchists are left. Anything to the left of capitalism is left. Anarchists want to get rid of capitalism.
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Anarcho-capitalism is an oxymoron.
As Wikipedia succinctly (and loosely) put it, anarchy is society without rulers - a society without authority or hierarchy. Authority and hierarchy would definitely be present in anarcho-capitalism. Wealth, power, and influence would likely still concentrate into the hands of the few (i.e. rulers).
It’s essentially just capitalism without an official state and practices like regulation or reigning in corporate power. Corporations would function effectively as states in such a scenario.
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Read a book pls
Could you elaborate? My understanding of anarchism is the goal of eliminating government. That won’t eliminate an economic system that originated organically.
My understanding of anarchism is the goal of eliminating government
The finer details will always change depending who you ask, but yes, it’s generally either the elimination of government, or of all ‘unjust hierarchies’ (which includes state government).
As someone else mentioned, ideological anarchists tend to be socialists, and in this context ‘anarchism’ is assumed to be that socialist strain, but not everyone calling themselves an anarchist is also a socialist. It’s a broad school of thought.
That won’t eliminate an economic system that originated organically.
Capitalism isn’t organic. I can’t think of a case where it has developed outside of a revolution (like the anti-monarchist revolutions) and/or imperial suppression. It requires the enclosure of the commons and development of private property security forces like a police, neither of those are an organic phenomenon.
If anything, I would assume anarchism is more organic, since it could be found in many hunter-gatherer gift economies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primitive_communism#Example_societies
Now, I’m personally not convinced that this makes anarchism appropriate for our industrial/post-industrial societies, but it’s not inorganic.
No its the idea that authority/power is bad and we shouldn’t have it.
Including cops, oligarchs, presidents, kings, popes, and sometimes even bed times.
They most certainly are?
Maybe you are thinking of anarcho-capitalism which is not a serious ideology
Isn’t anarcho capitalism just extremely radical liberalism? In which case people do take it very seriously. I know someone who is flying to some island in the pacific soon to get away from taxes and the government.
Sorta, its the belief that capitalism can (and should) exist without the state, which is what makes me call it an unserious ideology. Seeing as the state arises from class contradiction and capitalism cannot exist without class. There are people who seriously believe this but that doesn’t make it coherent.
That makes sense, thanks for explaining (:
Bruh
Anarchy is the left at its apex, read a book pls
I don’t really think you can meaningfully consider anarchism to be more left than Marxism, more just leftism taken in the direction of communalism rather than collectivization.
Communism wants to achieve anarchy.
Marxist analysis points towards full collectivization of production and distribution globally, it isn’t about communalization and decentralization. When I say “communalization,” I mean anarchists propose horizontalist, decentralized cells, similar to early humanity’s cooperative production but with more interconnection and modern tech. When I say collectivization, I mean the unification of all of humanity into one system, where production and distribution is planned collectively to satisfy the needs of everyone as best as possible.
For anarchists, collectivized society still seems to retain the state, as some anarchists conflate administration with the state as it represents a hierarchy. For Marxists, this focus on communalism creates inter-cell class distinctions, as each cell only truly owns their own means of production, giving rise to class distinctions and thus states in the future.
For Marxists, socialism must have a state, a state can only wither with respect to how far along it has come in collectivizing production and therefore eliminating class. All states are authoritarian, but we cannot get rid of the state without erasing the foundations of the state: class society, and to do so we must collectivize production and distribution globally. Socialist states, where the working class wields its authority against capitalists and fascists, are the means by which this collectivization can actually happen, and are fully in-line with Marx’s beliefs. Communism as a stateless, classless, moneyless society is only possible post-socialism.
Abolishing the state overnight would not create the kind of society Marxists advocate for advancing towards, and if anything, would result in the resumption of competition and the resurgance of capitalism if Marx and Engels predictions are correct.
You are oversimplifying anarchism when you suggest that communalization necessarily leads to new classes or states. Anarchists don’t reject global cooperation, they want it to be based on free association, not authority.
I’m simplifying for the sake of a Lemmy comment, sure, but just because anarchists say they don’t reject global cooperation doesn’t mean the decentralized and communalist nature of anarchism works well with that. Collectivized and planned production and distribution works because it has administration and the advantages large-scale industry and logistics brings. Trying to have a bunch of decentralized communes create, say, a smartphone, would be a nightmare.
anarchism is definitely left. however, this Left right spectrum is bs and definitely cant handle things like the differences between categorically different leftists ideologies.
that’s like having a scale of solid to gas, putting water and milk in the middle because they are both liquid,. but arguing which one is more liquid or gas of the two.
I’m curious to read your arguments about the denial of the political spectrum.
not denying it, just that it is very oversimplified.
Like if you can only compare things by big and small and you are trying to differentiate things by weight or shape. it’s a good rule of thumb in general, just very oversimplified.
Democrats are like half the left tho, so we can either fight prog vs dem, or we can unite to actually take on an external foe
Democrats are right wing.
I suppose you are both referring to USA politics: it seems clear that dems contains many different souls but I wouldn’t call AOC or Sanders right-wing, even here in Europe where we actually have real left.
The left starts at anti-capitalism. Anything other than that is right wing
Don’t Sanders, Mamdani, and AOC call for socialist reforms in the US?
Reformism is not anti-capitalism. Reforms are just nicer capitalism. There will still be capitalism and imperialism but people just get a bigger slice of the imperialist pie until the ruling class decides to take the slice away.
“People get a bigger slice of the … pie until the ruling class decides to take the slice away”
Isn’t that just the same with all systems?The state is the mechanism through which one class exerts its dominance over the others.
Bourgeois states are the enforcement arm of capital. When it offers improved conditions, it is merely a carrot to prevent you from taking actions that may jeopardize its power.
In a similar vein, proletarian controlled states can do the same, but the concessions go towards capital and the day-to-day ruling is on behalf of the workers.
If we want concessions that cannot be revoked, we must overthrow the bourgeois state and replace with a workers state. We cannot reform our way into a society where capital does not have near complete power.
In a state where there are neofascists like Trump, Mamdani is the left, face it. If you deny this, you’re completely ignoring political pragmatism and confusing the historical left with their actual political left.
Socialism is a mode of production, social programs and welfare exist in capitalism and socialism.
And this take is why Trump won. Congrats.
The right wing starts at fascism. Or so it has evolved to.
Vote against fascism next time.
The right wing starts at capitalism. Fascism is capitalism in crisis, forcing austerity domestically when the fruits of imperialism dry up. Trump won because the democrats failed to meaningfully answer the problems of capitalism, alienating their base, and allowing Trump’s base an easy win, it wasn’t because of leftists sitting out of an election.
Trump won with a sliver of majority support in a handful of states because of electoral college fuckery. Every state he lost could have voted against him 10 times harder and he still would have won.
The swing votes he won in those few states were people fundamentally worried about the same things we are. Childcare, healthcare, cost of living, and keeping their jobs. They had two choices, a man who had a plan, and a woman who said “look how not that guy I am!”
Trump won because he’s mastered the grift and the Democrats dropped the fucking ball, again.
And this take is why Trump won. Congrats.
Anything but enthusiastic complicity with genocide and capitulation to republicans is “why trump won” according to the wing that would rather have trump win than tell netanyahu no ever.
Trump won because Hillary&co deliberately elevated his campaign in the misguided belief that he woukd be easier to beat
Left and right are relative to the actual political spectrum of the subject. There are different approaches to anticapitalism, centrist on the left-wing wants to implement social politics to improve welfare, this doesn’t make it socialists.
Your notion is a very post modernist ideology of absolute relativism, which is an idealist unscientific notion. Socialism starts at anti-capitalism. Anything pro-capitalist is not left wing because everything falls under liberalism which is not a left wing ideology.
That’s not what I wrote but hey, nice sofism here.
They’re not saying that’s what you wrote, the saying that what you wrote was incorrect and they’re right
Anti-capitalists working on socialist reforms are right-wing, and you oppose them?
You guys are truly destined for irrelevancy. 🤣
Bernie Sanders is not a democrat. He is the longest-serving Independent in Congress.
You have two examples of non-quisling democrats, and one isn’t even a democrat.
Both pro-war candidates. Sanders voted to bomb like 8 countries, and AOC has supported israel many times with her votes also, like the iron dome.
Sure. I’m a Communist, surely we can meet halfway under a socialist platform. A politician should earn their votes, so it’s their choice really.
So unite with progressives. Or keep attacking them instead of the republicans your wing of the party just capitulated to.
prog vs dem, or we can unite to actually take on an external foe
This.
Started seeing progs refer to dems as “demoncrats” and now I legitimately can’t tell them apart from MAGA online half the time.
You are the epitome of the suppressed class war you constantly criticize for being in favor of in-group fighting. At least try to remember who your real enemies are.
Leftists support moving onto socialism, democrats support maintaining capitalism and imperialism. This is a fundamentally irreconcilable difference, and is why leftists opposing the democrats isn’t infighting, it’s just fighting. It’s entirely different from MAGA, which also wishes to perpetuate capitalism and imperialism.
And what about what middle America wants? The voters, you know, that we have to get? “Socialism” is a non-starter for people outside of NYC.
Loser talk
As the working class continues to slide into futher and further misery, more and more are awakened to the idea of radical politics, and are more understanding of socialism. Capitalism must decay, so the task of socialists is to organize and teach about socialism, not just vote in lock-step with the right-wing democrats.
middle america wants the same things that leftists wants (eg healthcare, education, childcare, equitable living conditions, etc.).
the word socialism itself is a non starter thanks to the propaganda against it; you only need to see how mamdani was attacked even in new york for it.
Just unite behind us while we sell weapons for genocide and let republicans destroy healthcare!
I can’t think of a way to gwt them to stop fighting us except winning and putting their asses down. They are rhe fucking enemy.
I’d rather they stand back and sit it out, but they cannot risk us getting any win.
Your “left” has a monopoly on dividing the left.
Granted, but that doesn’t make liberals on the left. The left right divide is primarily defined by the property question and liberals agree with conservatives on this matter making both of them on the right.
When you make generalized claims like “Democrats are not the left,” you’re literally claiming that AOC, Sanders, and Mamdani are not the left.
As democrats are so fond of pointing out every time someone complains about his treatment by the democratic party, Sanders is not a democrat.
If you voted for Sanders in a primary election or a local election what party did you vote for?
I see how it is. He’s a democrat when democrats want to falsely claim that they’re worth supporting and an independent when they want to block him.
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I guess it depends on the Democrat just like it depends on the leftist or the independent voting or refusing to vote for him.
It depends on how convenient to centrists it is.
Do you hope for at least some progress for society
Yes. Unfortunately, that’s never on the ballot, thanks to the two party hegemony. Congratulations.
Ah, so Mamdani and Cuomo were the same candidate. Darn. Thanks for opening my eyes. 🙈
I’m not sorry that the machinations of both parties failed to give us the sex pest you preferred in office.
He is like Canada’s NDP.
Yes, they are not, they are socialdemocrats which are rightwing because they support capitalism.
So they don’t pass your purity test, and “nobody should support them.”
But according to right wing and right of center propaganda they’re radical leftist, and “nobody should support them.”
It’s pretty neat that you and the right have the exact same messaging.
I mean, its not really a purity test. It’s just kind of definitions. The political terms “right” and “left” have meant the same thing since the French Revolution. Democrats are not left wing. We can have a whole bunch of ancillary discussions about whether that means people should or shouldn’t vote for them, which I’m not interested in having, but i struggle to see how one could argue in good faith that the Democrats are left wing. Its really not even clear that Ocasio-Cortez or Sanders are “left wing” since neither seems to oppose private property rights, nor do they advocate for the weakening or abolishment of capitalism - the traditional dividing line of left and right.
The political terms “right” and “left” have meant the same thing since the French Revolution.
the weakening or abolishment of capitalism - the traditional dividing line of left and right
Wasn’t the French revolution just abolishing feudalism and the monarchy?
Under feudalism: Left is about abolishing feudalism and the monarchy. Right is about preserving them.
Under capitalism: Left is about abolishing capitalism and the bourgeoisie. Right is about preserving them.
I’m being less than 100% precise here. The line I’m drawing is that abolition of private property rights is co-terminus with abolition of capitalism.
“Ask them ‘what’s more important, human rights or property rights’. If they reply 'property rights are human rights, they’re on the right”.
e: I’m just going to add explicitly, since there’s clearly some confusion looking at the other sister comments. It’s not about monarchism or any of that. Its two things: Property rights and social hierarchies. If you want em gone, you’re on the left. from that perspective you need not change the definition of left and right in 1799 and 1848, and all the same from Maréchal to Mélenchon.
Ok, this is making things more clear, although I get the impression I’d have to know way more about the Fr. Revolution, and maybe the following period in France to actually understand it. Was it really politically commonplace already in early 19th c. to demand abolishment of property?
Who’s Maréchal?
leftism is defined by opposition to the status quo. the french monarchy was capitalist as well as the status quo at the time; we still have monarchies and capitalism is unquestionably the status quo.
leftism is defined by opposition to the status quo
You’ve just introduced a whole other definition of leftism. Also it seems to mean that no leftist society could exist in practice.
the french monarchy was capitalist
From what I can figure out, it was still in principle feudal but moving towards capitalism due to the growth of the bourgeois class. Is that correct?
opposition to the status quo is the definition of leftism, but anyone can be forgiven for not understanding this since westerners define it in the same terms as classical liberalism due to monarchies still (barely) being the status quo back then (and still existing to this day); back then, liberalism was “left” of that.
now-a-days neo-liberalism is the dominant hegemony and it’s pro-capitalist; anything to the left of that is modern day leftism.
I swear that even full trumpists are less obnoxious on the internet than you blue magas because while they try to choke me with the same capitalist nonesense, they are at least more honest and don’t pretend to be on the left.
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Yes, you certainly do seems to think that, thx for confirmation.
Sick burn.
Purity testing is good, you’re just mad because you don’t pass
since when are red lines genocide & ethnic cleansing just simple purity tests?
Since when did AOC, Sanders, and Mamdani give the greenlight for genocide & ethnic cleansing?
i have to assume that this is genuine since i don’t see anything funny about it.
bernie insists the isreali main talking point: isreal has a right to exist and co-opts leftward fervor by lending his support to the party he doesn’t belong to.
aoc voted against marjorie taylor green’s attempts to block the iron dome’s re-inforcements several times as well a voted for the resolution for redefining antisemitism to isreali benefit; include speaking out against the genocide.
mamdani is not at the national level and cannot do anything about it.
Not to mention that MTG wanted that funding redirected to the fascist bullshit she supports at the U.S. border. It’s interesting that Thomas Massie also voted in favor of this bill given he and MTG are part of the Thiel dark money “progressive” team along with hypocrites like Ro Kahnna, who pretend to support Palestine, yet hold investments in fucking Palantir.
that tweet from aoc makes it clear that she values the lives of isrealis over gazans since she ignores the facts that 1) these weapons are going to the idf who doesn’t make a distinction between defensive and offensive where gazans are concerned and 2) the idf had re-appropriated weaponry from one use to the other.
also: nice deflection in ignoring her vote on the definition of antisemitism w a tweet showing a half truth.
That would be 100% accurate
as much as I prefer AOC, or Bernie to the average dem, they are at best cautionary tales about fixing a corrupt system from the inside.
and at best, I would classify them as centrists.
Yeah, they’re mostly centrist, somewhat left of center, but they’re far from socialist, let alone communist.
if you gatekeep the left, then no one is left.
Mamdani just won New York. That is good. We should not be critical of his efforts.
Also, his movement is successful in beating the administration. Yours isn’t.
Ciao
Lmao, the left are Marxist and Anarchists
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First of all, you’re not only wrong you’re also kind of a dick.
Second of all, people like you love to mouth off about voting blue no matter who, insist we support whatever Democrat shows up, even if it’s literally a Republican who changed parties to run for a vulnerable seat. Then turn around and tell us that any alternative to just voting isn’t a serious plan and we should all step in line. Which is exactly how we ended up in this fucking mess.
So finally, fuck you buddy.
In the UK we are finally beginning to see a shift away from the traditional 2 big parties, Labour and Conservative. Unfortunately far-right Reform are looking to be the biggest beneficiaries of this shift, however the Greens are polling ahead of Labour and they are filling in that huge gaping hole on the left that was created by Labour’s move to the right.
Not that things are the same in the US other than the two-party system, but it shows that there is hope and that people should not have to settle for the less evil option. Americans should not have to keep voting against things and they should be able to vote for something.
In the UK we are finally beginning to see a shift away from the traditional 2 big parties
Doesn’t Labour have a supermajority in Parliament? That looks more like a one party government to me.
Don’t we have a “worker’s party” in UK ?
I think Jeremy Corbyn was kicking around something. But “Your Party” seems reluctant to leave the launch pad.
How long does it take you to vote for “not Trump”?
A few hours? Still leaves plenty of time to work towards a sustainable alternative.
That’s the reason the left always fails. The right will have power struggles but close ranks when it comes down to ensuring the left (or slightly less right) don’t win.
The left always ensure the worst possible outcome by playing trolley problem at the ballot box.
Tell me you don’t understand how American elections work without actually telling me.
Feel free to explain it to me.
Not in this thread: a serious plan by the high and mighty “progressives” to actually accomplish anything
I gotta say, didn’t the DSA just post up the next New York Mayor? And didn’t he have a laundry list of really popular reforms that the Strong Mayorship of the city effectively hands him a blank check to implement?
Meanwhile, over in Minnesota, the state declared itself a “Trans Refuge” by preventing out-of-state laws from interfering in the practice of gender-affirming health care. In Virginia, the sweep of the state legislature brings the local Ds (who had uniformly supported a trio of constitutional amendments to guarantee Virginians’ right to abortion care, automatically restore voting rights to disenfranchised felons and remove an antiquated law banning same-sex marriage) into a majority needed for their passage.
And that’s before we get into all the progressive ballot amendments - from raising the minimum wage to ending felony disenfranchisement to abolishing the archaic FPTP voting system - that have succeeded in states as blue as California and as red as Florida.
What’s all this about progressives not actually accomplishing anything? Seems like they’re the only ones serious about setting policy.
Not that I have seen any “keep voting blue” lib put forth any plan other than “keep voting blue no matter who and eventually they’ll run a candidate that isn’t dogshit because…” but the DSA and PSL are actually doing something and the way zohran got the establishment spooked its not negligible.
Oh we have accomplished things buddy. Trump is simply exposing American politics for whole world to see.
It’s a shitshow
Politics today:
-Far Left pretending they are normal Left wing, and everyone else are dumb fascists.
-Far Right pretending they are normal Right wing, and everyone else are woke communists.
The “left” in the United States is much further right on the global median. The Democrats are barely a center-left party on the global political spectrum.
Traditionally, at least since the Reagan Coalition was formed, the Democrats have functioned as a Republican-regulation party, the safety valve of rightwing ideas. The Republicans have put all of their chips on the Reagan Coalition, which they know is a tent with limited accommodations for the non-white non-rightwing. Both of these strategies have weaknesses that we can see cracking open in real time.
The Democrats, by comparison, are a much bigger tent of a party, and regional pressures and interests make it much harder for them to break the mold. There are still Democrats that identify as “conservative,” if you can believe that, and a substantial amount of them, too. There used to be “liberal Republicans,” but that number has dwindled into near-zero %.
I’m not in any way forgiving these dissenting senators for destroying what little health care Americans have. If there were any time in history where any one senator could choose to go rogue and still get re-elected, it’s now.
You forgot:
-Centrists pretending they see through everyone by just picking the centerpoint on an arbitrary axis, without actually considering which side is actually correct
