A Comm for Historymemes

2251 readers

1125 users here now

A place to share history memes!

Rules:

No sexism, racism, homophobia, transphobia, assorted bigotry, etc.
No fascism, atrocity denial, etc.
Tag NSFW pics as NSFW.
Follow all Lemmy.world rules.

Banner courtesy of @[email protected]

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

159

The origins of the Republican party (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 days ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

46 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

An internal takeover—if possible—would be ideal, yes. However, the reason the Tea Party was so successful was because the GOP was open to change and the Tea Party had billionaire money behind them.

"the GOP was open to change"

I hear this line all the goddamn time, but it was just not fucking so. It was forced to accede to change by large amounts of its base demonstrating electoral activity, both in primaries and in the general, despite a desire to limit the radicals of their base from influence.

The billionaire money is correct, though.

Rather than the Tea Party I’ll talk MAGA because frankly I was way too young to know anything politics during the age of the tea party. The left’s equivalent of Trump is/was Bernie, but let’s face it: Is Bernie far to the left as Trump is far to the right?

Their respective distances measured relative to the average American voter? Yes.

Bernie’s tendency to fall in with the establishment heavily contrasts with Trump’s willingness to say screw the establishment and say whatever he wants about whoever he wants.

what

Christ, man, do not tell me that's what you think strong leadership is.

Now if I’m wrong and young voters are indeed incapable of patient and sustained activity even with strong leadership (which Bernie has been trying to be but is not), then America is screwed either way because moderates can’t fight fascism.

Looking for a leader to save us is exactly why we're in this fucking mess, man.

Very true, so make those promises. Say you’ll make healthcare and energy dirt cheap, tax the rich and give that money to the poor and middle class, expand social welfare, make it so people won’t need expensive cars to get around, etc etc. The right will hate your guts for it, but giving a shit about what the right thinks is a recipe for failure.

Okay, the next step is - you're asked 'how?'

And unlike the GOP base, the Dem base is not satisfied with "It'll work, trust me."

You're left with "Losing your base who thinks you're a liar and/or a shitwit" or "Losing the swing voters who will get bored and tune out of any real explanation that's solid, or else find the soundbite against it more compelling than that egghead stuff".

Yeah absolutely. I guess my fundamental assumption going into this is that civic detachment can be fixed by the knowledge that politics is important and can do good things for you rather than being a slew of lesser evils who promise to screw you slightly less than the other guy. I mean it works the other way so maybe?

The only way that works is by immense education on civic matters. The idea that the Dems just forgot to lie about being good is absurd. Many of the left-wing detractors on Lemmy, where the average commenter is more politically informed than the average voter couldn't name jack fucking shit about the Dem platform in 2024.

Narratives are more powerful than facts, and certainly more powerful than party platforms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I hear this line all the goddamn time, but it was just not fucking so. It was forced to accede to change by large amounts of its base demonstrating electoral activity, both in primaries and in the general, despite a desire to limit the radicals of their base from influence.

I mean they had their thumb on the primary a lot less than the DNC, at least. That's why Trump made it to the general in 2016 rather than the GOP's preferred candidate.

Their respective distances measured relative to the average American voter? Yes.

Distance from the center is irrelevant; the relevant quality here is position on the absolute left-right scale, with socialism/anarchy on one end and fascism on the other (the center does not exist in this view, as that is inherently relative). And I have to say, Trump is a lot more fascist than Bernie is anarchist. That's the problem here; Trump fought with his political establishment and won, while Bernie and the rest of the American left didn't.

Christ, man, do not tell me that's what you think strong leadership is.

Yes and no. Trump is the ultimate representation of the base desires of his constituents, a man who "grabs them by the pussy", calls Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals and publicly calls for a ban on Muslims. He also says whatever the fuck he wants—which happens to be what his constituents want to hear—whenever the fuck he wants, something something quite part out loud. These are traits of strong leadership that Trump possesses and nobody on the left does. Taken out of the general insanity of Trump, they'd be willingness to be radical and stand up for your principles. Of course it's not like Trump possesses these qualities; he's just a narcissist, but this and that are different problems.

Okay, the next step is - you're asked 'how?'

A public option (or single payer healthcare, depending on how radical you want to go), investment in renewables, tax laws and funding the IRS, investing in public transportation (point to NYC or similar for an example of that in action), respectively. The rationale behind a lot of leftwing policies is fundamentally very simple; the complexity comes from the execution, which low-information voters don't care about and high-information voters will listen to long explanations for.

The idea that the Dems just forgot to lie about being good is absurd.

They didn't; they simply lost the option to even lie about being good, because being good is antithetical to the desires of their donors.

Many of the left-wing detractors on Lemmy, where the average commenter is more politically informed than the average voter couldn't name jack fucking shit about the Dem platform in 2024.

That's because the Dem platform was just that bad. The Dems treated their own platform as irrelevant and almost completely focused on the democracy stuff without any action to back it up. The average Lemmy left-wing detractor could name the main points of the GOP platform, because the GOP is both better at building narratives and actually cares about their (absolutely horrible, to be clear) platform.