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Aside from this being a little fucking melodramatic and defeatist, the thing that really bothers me is the implicit assumption that if only we'd all just vote blue no matter who we wouldn't have this problem, like the Democratic Party hasn't been kowtowing to and enabling those same oligarchs to undermine our democracy. It's like they're standing in the rubble of a bombing and saying, 'This is happening because you chose the short fuse on the bomb, if only you had chosen the long fuse we ~~wouldn't have noticed this happening quite so quickly~~ wouldn't be having this problem!'
Don't get me wrong, boom tomorrow is definitely better than boom today, but it's important to not forget that there was never not going to be a boom.
I mean, nobody who paid attention actually thought the democrats did enough. The whole point was to buy enough time to hopefully shame them into doing something progressive instead of token concessions, but it's a moot point now.
That's been failing for the 30+ years during which I voted blue, why does anyone imagine it would suddenly start succeeding now?
Then the equation is still fascism now vs fascism later. Fascism later was still worth a shot.
Every time I see people trashing the vote blue no matter who people, I just see "democrats suck so we might as well have the fascism now." Which if you're an accelerationist then sure.
No doubt, I'm not saying fascism now is better by any stretch (which is why I said 'boom tomorrow is definitely better than boom today' in the comment that started this thread), I'm saying we should be pissed about the fact that our only choices are both fascism and do something about it.
Not to be churlish but does gay marriage just not count as progressive now? Or marijuana legalization? Exceptions to the rule possibly, but pretty fucking big exceptions if so.
A bit, sure. But while I'm happy people can marry whoever they want, it's not meaningful change for like 90% of Americans. It's not economic change. What little they've done there in the past 30-40 years has been weak, stop-gap, pared-down versions of good progressive ideas. How's that universal healthcare going again? Oh right, we got the ACA instead which did some good things and helped some people, no question, but it didn't change much for most Americans.
The only way to have time to stop the bomb from going off is to choose the longer fuse. We didn't even give ourselves a chance to replace neoliberalism with socialism, people let fascism win in 2024.
Stopping the bomb from going off is wishful thinking, but I agree, that's why I said 'boom tomorrow is definitely better than boom today`.
It's not wishful thinking. It was possible, but hard, to make a course correction, but we failed to even give ourselves the time to do it.
The longer fuse was still a fuse and was picked over and over for so many years without anything else done. At this point other then being able to say "don't blame me I voted for kodos" there is little value in the "long fuse" party. The us needed real options outside of fascism vs fascism lite.
Neoliberalism isn't fascist lite, but it does lead to fascism. I doubt I'm alone, at the time anyway, in thinking Obama was at least a progressive candidate. Hindsight is 20/20. Obama was yet another neoliberal. But considering American history, electing a Black president whose slogan was hope seemed like we were bucking trends, when in fact we were doing more of the same.
It has become more obvious now with two Bernie runs and three full Trump runs that neoliberalism is a sales pitch for the scam that is late-stage capitalism. But it's not for a lack of trying people have been picking the long fuse party. This country rejected Hillary Clinton twice, probably not for the right reasons in all cases, but at least some people were looking for alternatives to what they saw as Bill Clinton's version of the Democrats.
We need socialism. And I can't guarantee we would have gotten there in one or even two more general elections. But if Trump showed us anything, it is possible to co-opt a modern political party with a populist narrative. What Trump did to the Republicans is what Bernie tried to do to the Democrats. Someone else younger, I don't know who, needed to be given a chance to do that and we did not create an opportunity for them to even try.
How much time would you need and what would you do?
I effectively answered this in the comment to M0oP0o, but I'll go into more detail here. We needed one or two more election cycles for a candidate with a populist narrative about progressive and socialist change to co-opt the Democratic party. By co-opt I mean totally control it, the way Trump has taken over the Republican party. This would be hard, since the owner class has a class interest in stopping progressives and socialists and supporting neoliberals and fascists, but it wasn't impossible. As far as policy, the short answer is a serious of constitutional amendments to ensure majority rule in all branches of government and mandate worker own corporations while also completely redistributing wealth.
Considering the death toll and the long term destruction to the Earth's environment a four year Trump term would cause, it seems like it would be worth it to go for a political Hail Mary. Especially when a christo-fascist regime starting with Trump will undoubtedly last much longer than four years. The damage will not be constrained to America, but will be global.
Not mention people seem to forget that before Nazi Germany was defeated it conquered most of continental Europe. Even if it doesn't happen in the next four years, this fascist Trump administration is laying the ground work for conquering North America. People on lemmy tend to use the word imperialism a lot when describing America. So they jump ahead to assuming that American empire is dying when it is American democracy that has died. American empire is getting started now. In the sense that America, as a fascist nation, is going to exert itself on everyone it deems to be in its regional sphere of influence. I don't know how long it will last, but it's going to take a lot to stop North America from becoming a one to one match with America.
It is theoretically possible to get out of this in the next elections, but it was highly unlikely before Trump's inauguration. Now that he's trying to tip the scales in his favor in future elections this becomes even more increasingly unlikely. The nature of fascist regimes is that the dictator prioritizes loyalty over everything. Which means competent individuals are completely overlooked for consideration in hiring and appointments. Hence fascist incompetence. We cannot rule fascist incompetence out, but we cannot predict where it will strike. Incompetence could cause the fascists to lose at the ballot box, but it could also strike when they try to invade a neighbor. Since we don't know when or how an opportunity will arise we have to keep an open mind so we can exploit it when it does.
The 2024 election was our last scheduled opportunity to defeat fascists. So we really should have given it everything we had while we had a chance even if it was a long shot. We don't know when we will get another now. It might be in 2026 and 2028 with elections. Or it might be in 2029, in a completely hypothetical scenario, where after winning a third term Trump dies of old age and infighting creates an opportunity for rebellion. We've gone from having a regularly scheduled opportunity to try to make things better to who knows when we get another. And we still have to do all the same work we had to do before, but it will be harder because now we have to defeat a fascist regime first.
What I don't get from the American people, who have always portrait themselves as champions of everything with this attitude now of "there was no way to avoid it because we are legless turtles and all we can do is vote blue or red and hope our daddies do right by us"
True, the last election would not had saved you but anyone with a firing neuron saw this coming 40 years ago and you all did fuck all to avoid it while still making ignorant jokes about the French being cowards
Yeah, I've been expecting this shit since childhood. Weird now how the people who raised me to see it coming consistently voted to make it happen.
that sucks brother
there's a reason The Grapes of Wrath has that turtle section in it...
Take North Korean propaganda, paint it red white and blue and give it a specific set of "freedoms" and you'll have any answer of "how". We're literally made to be this way. Even those of us with a "firing neuron" are a result of this propaganda, granted just not in the intended way. Drowning and understanding why we're drowning ends the same way.
Indeed, although anyone who says they knew what shape this would take 40 years ago was either a liar or a time traveler, I've been watching it go to shit for my entire life. I too tried voting blue for 30 years only to watch them unwind and fall apart when the chips were down. Now I favor rather more extreme measures, but most Americans are like 'waah, I keep choosing the lesser evil, why do we keep getting evil?!'
Hmmm maybe for common folks like you and I. But there have been plenty of literature warning about this, it is our own fault (talking in general, not just about America as I am not American) not to heed the advise of those who actually looked into this. For most of us, it is not that it was impossible to predict, it was more like it was much more convenient to believe the comfortable lie than to face the harsh reality
The world is absolutely flooded with people warning about literally everything all the time. Sometimes a few of them happen to be right; that doesn't make them prescient, just lucky. Broken clocks, and all that. Whose advice do you follow? The guy who says fascism is on the rise, or the guy who says the economy is going to unrecoverably tank? Does it matter that both of them have pretty good evidence to suggest that they might be right? Or that there are 400 more books released in any given year that claim that fascism is on the decline and the economy is booming like there's no tomorrow, and that they also have pretty good evidence to suggest that they might be right? This is the nature of prediction: it's all down to how you interpret the signs and signals.
The more recent you look the more that becomes the case, but 40 years ago anyone who said 'in 40 years we're going to have a fascist dictator of a president who wants to ransack the courts he packed' or whatever would just be one more whisper in the hurricane.
If everyone on the outside looking in had been saying the same thing for decades and continually been proven right- I dunno, I’d probably listen to them at some point instead of calling them alarmists and flipping them the bird for daring to weigh in on your problems.
If such a mythical creature exists then feel free to correct me, but meanwhile I'm going to wonder how they have been accurately predicting the future for 40 years and aren't the most famous person on earth? Like you get a couple billion dollars in the bank and every motherfucker who knows how to operate a keyboard is asking your opinion on stupid shit, how is this guy not on the front page like every day? Elon Musk has only been publicly-known for like 15 years and I can't buy a pack of smokes without hearing about his opinion on some bullshit or other, so your guy must be flying way under the radar.
I've been hoping to hear some sort of glimmer of a thought from someone that when America does wrestle control back from the fascists, and history says you will, one way or another, that you don't just rebuild the same system that produced Trump and his techno-fascist mates in the first place.
This interview was the first time I've actually heard it.
IDK why people are so hopeful of fascism falling within their lifetime?
The fascists in power now have technology in everybody's pockets, even your light bulbs for crying out loud
They can track you within feet across the country. And a lot of this stuff, you can't really avoid. You can't really go off the grid if you want to have a normal job now
Not only that, look at China. China is still here and has been for quite some time...
Buttigieg is establishment democrat. Actually listen to him instead of doing what most people do, which is stare at him and wait for him to "say something gay" and then be impressed that he's such a great orator. He's never advocated for the social and financial overhaul that the US needs. He's argued that the system is sufficient for our best outcomes, the same system that is currently on fire.
This reminds me of Obama so much. On one hand it would be nice to have another leader who unites the country, but Obama wasn't necessarily good for our nation's long-term future. He was not a leftist or advocate for the poor, he was also establishment Dem/Liberal who passed every opportunity to create real and lasting change in the country.
Buttigieg is currently touring the right-wing spaces and dropping his messages there without resistance because he's advocating for preserving the wealth in the country. He's tacitly being endorsed by the billionaire class. They want a return to normalcy, and Buttigieg may have exactly what the country needs to get there, which is clear messaging, hypnotic blue eyes and an appeal to many men's latent curiosity about what what a strong homosexual male even looks like... or if nothing else, an avenue for libs and neo-libs to feel performatively progressive by dropping his name. It's enthralling to the masses and we should all be terrified.
He is going to be a strong candidate if we have elections again, and I would take him over Trump, but we need to understand what he is. He is NOT our leftist savior, he's barely more progressive than a liberal savior.
I want to make it clear, if he's the final candidate against like, Mecha Trump or Don JR or Vance or someone equally absurd, we all better push Buttigieg's booty up that hill and I will wave that rainbow flag along with everyone else. But we have to understand that it's a band-aid on a massive infected wound that's bleeding out.
I'm not gonna disagree with any of that, as I'm not super familiar with him. I'm just saying it's the first time during this entire Trump fiasco I've heard anyone even suggest that maybe we shouldn't just revert to the pre-Trump status quo should anything ever actually be done about stopping him. I'm hoping others are saying it, I just haven't heard it.
What section does he mention it (if just one or two)? Don't have the free time for listening to the full hour, unfortunately, but I am curious (if you don't mind, of course).
Yep, we now basically have a one party system. Both sides are controlled by the 1%. We need a party that will get rid of the 1%, but that will never happen. They learned their lesson with FDR and watch for someone like him just to make sure he doesn't get in to office.
I.. I'm conflicted. Buttigieg talks a great game, I like much of what he has to say, but at the same time when he was in the 2020 primary I read an article that talked about how he had the most corporate/PAC support of any candidate and I wonder.. does he actually believe what he's saying, or is he just charismatic enough to pull off seeming like he does and he's just like every other career politician? And also even if he's 100% sincere and he wins the white house in 2028, he doesn't have a free hand because the money required to win a national election comes with rather sturdy strings attached, so I don't think he can accomplish what he claims to want.
But it is, I will admit, rather refreshing to find a Democrat who does in fact have some good-sounding ideas about how to make things better instead of just 'vote for me or the world will literally blow up!11'
Watch his messaging when he tours FOX and other right-wing podcasts and youtube channels. He talks to the right without without resistance or pushback from the hosts because he's advocating preservation of existing systems instead of actual overhaul to our nation's policies and financial systems.
He is likely going to be our next Obama. Charming and beloved by many, but secretly propped up by the billionaire class who want to keep feasting from the table of status-quo. Obama was a great leader, but as a president, he passed on very real opportunities to make lasting change over and over. He didn't exercise his power in any remotely overreaching way even when he had house and senate. He didn't pack the Supreme Court and didn't enshrine rights in any way that would protect people. He could have rammed single-payer healthcare through and been hated and loved by many, probably impeached, but we would have had something great from it.
We really need to do better as a nation understanding the different between leadership and management. And we need to pick people for our local and community elections that have these qualities. They are the ones who prop up the larger system and the ones who largely run unopposed because people are far more fascinated with Buttigieg's dazzling blue eyes than what their local comptroller believes.
Yeah, I just watched the ~hour long interview he did with Jon Stewart that someone posted, and like it was all good-sounding ideas that may do some good but don't meaningfully challenge the status quo. Which is a pretty good summary of Democratic policy for the last 40 years. I'll give it to him though, he's definitely charismatic (I can't help but like him even though I think he's not very far left of, say, Hillary Clinton who is a full-on neoliberal) and he could probably win and be a damned sight better than the current administration. But also that's maybe not the best long-term because we need the system to fail messily as it is right now to wake people up to the alternatives. I hate advocating for accelerationism because even if the harm caused in the short term is outweighed by the harm prevented long-term, I still have a hard time advocating for things that I know will definitely cause harm.
The d’s had 50 years to come up with their own plan. And they did nothing. We had a choice of different sides of the same coin and here we are.
Even if they had the time frame that Republicans had with drafting and promoting Project 2025, they could have had their own. They knew it existed, only Trump pretended it never existed and was a hoax.
If the DNC had its own Project 2025, something like "Project End Fascism" it could have worked. Instead we got "Maybe 100K for new home owners. Not gonna go after the corporations buying every home."
Oh you didn't hear? You can't say oligarchs because American simpletons need to hear "king" instead because we have a long history of fighting kings and definitely not because the term oligarch applies to more than just Trump but instead better describes the cozy relationship between money and power in this country and illustrates that the rich have captured the government.