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It's the most anti-communist country on the planet, so there's not much hope. Talk of raising wages or organizing collectively, or not agreeing with US imperialist foreign policy gets you labelled a commie / tankie by its witch-hunting, McCarthyite majority.
If there's a list of countries to next take the communist road, the US would be dead last.
democrats are simply the 'lesser evil', and have been since the 1960s, at least.. and we've needed a viable third party left of the mainstream for longer.
republican administrations drag us down and undo gains made. democrats repair some of the damage--but never quite enough, never push progress enough. they lose. it gets undone again and the cycle repeats.
but now it's all getting destroyed. there may not be a continuation of the cycle. it's hell from here on until 'trumpism' and maga are what is completely destroyed.
Yeah.
There is always that cycle that includes "Democrats didn't do everything they promised so they deserve to suffer", which brings in Republicans that cause far more damage.
And given the number of election cycles, you would think there would be some organization by now for overall leftist causes, but there isn't. There is no party or organization out there that can pose an electoral threat. The right produced the TEA party, which morphed to MAGA. Leftists have nothing.
Democrats don't even promise anything anymore. Not since 2008
2008 is what ultimately radicalized me. I volunteered for Obama, put in so much footwork, and really believed he would seek to make change. Looking back now, what a fool I was.
2006 made me suspicious of the Democrats forever. Pelosi and the party ran on defunding the Iraq War, then promptly dropped it upon taking office.
I DID primary for Obama because he was promising a public healthcare option. We all know how that turned out: he ultimately championed a Republican scheme to entrench private insurers. Democrats failed to support their party's signature policy proposal when it mattered.
While Obama expanded the Bush wars...
That's when I gave up all hope in the party making any progress or acting in good faith. They haven't given me any reason to rethink that stance.
Sorry your efforts and enthusiasm were wasted and abused by the DNC...
I recall the Coffee Party having a moment, a nationwide movement planned meetups all coordinated. In Asheville, I attended. the meetup was crashed by Obama's Organizing for America, and I later learned that they crashed meetups everywhere.
I remember the smooth-talking guy and how he hijacked the meeting as we were making real progress. Fuck Obama and fuck the DNC
The hope and change trick worked twice with Obama 1 and trump 1...
Now it feels like a tired trope to get a "safe" regime whore into the white house
@[email protected] I thought we were finally making progress with Rank Choice Voting starting to gain traction, but agree... there may not be enough left to salvage after this unless the MAGA movement collapses before the midterms... assuming we still are have elections and people other than white land owners can vote. Still not entirely sure how far back Trump supporters need to go for the "again" point when America was great.
MAGA are NOT the majority of Americans, but sadly they only slightly exceed the Americans who don't vote at all. While not the government many Americans wanted, when "I'm not into politics" stopped resulting in an immediate response of "so you aren't American?", we ended up with the government we deserve.
We don't have to do anything other then work on passing electoral reform one state at a time. Democrats can be whatever the hell they want, so long as everyone is free to vote how they want with the ability to transfer their vote.
Electoral Reform Videos
First Past The Post voting (What most states use now)
Videos on alternative electoral systems
Historically, that doesn't actually fix systemic issues, though, like the only parties of relevance electorally being pre-approved and backed by the bourgeoisie. Moreover, electoral reform doesn't have a real path to implementation that would make more sense than revolution to begin with.
it’s a long road with a lot more steps but simply “destroying” the notion that democrats are the good guys simply gets you republicans and that’s gotta be the worst way to shift left ever
The road is revolution, not just against the Democrats or Republicans, but the entire system.
revolution is easy to say on the internet but at the end of the day a lot of people die
People die without revolution, historically revolutionary Socialism has come with dramatic improvements in quality of life for the Working Class. Taking down the US Empire would massively uplift the burden on the Global South as well.
perhaps, or perhaps it could be replaced by something worse. there are no guarantees
economic systems don't happen on accident
the nordic states seem to be doing pretty well at riding a good line, and whilst australia is far from socialist, what we have is working great too
accident? no of course not… but consistency… a big bang “revolution” is the easy way out… it’s so easy to say you’ll fight for what you believe in when you don’t have to see what it’ll entail or what will come out the other side of it but the reality is far more bloody and is absolutely not what you have in your head afterwards
the nordic countries do well at the cost of the third world. they are rich because of imperialism.
and you believe a revolution in the US will help the third world?
socialist countries are plenty capable of being exploitative too. a revolution doesn’t change the people - it changes the power structures
a socialist state would not spend public money so corporations can profit from waging endless war instead of just having solid healthcare.
all of the above listed counties have very solid healthcare and are not entirely socialist. what’s your point?
socialism is not a requirement for being a place that treats people with respect and dignity; nor is it a silver bullet
it is a requirement if you want to do that without oppressing brown people elsewhere.
the important thing is not socialism: it’s a government that deals with negative externalities
socialism tends to do better at that simply because often it often does better at long-term planning (but that’s not a given either), but capitalism without corporate bullshit, stock markets, etc (ie actual ownership over a business rather than just ownership over a vague thing where you’re only concerned with line goes up not long term business health) has pretty much the same drivers: long term sustainability and this holding others to account for their negative externalities
This has never done anything in countries that use it, like SK, Japan, Australia, etc. It might make the candidate stacking a little more expensive, but that's it.
If capital stands above the political system, the method of voting doesn't matter.
The Deprogram podcast, Hakim, and Second Thought YT channels all exist to address this. It's rather obvious to anybody willing to learn
Cause they aren't, they are just the "better guys".
They're basically "republicans light": still bad but at least not literal nazis
Step 1: Don't generalize. Don't say "Americans" when you mean "some Americans". As you can see from browsing here and on other media sites, there are a great many vocal people who have voted Democrat for years but are entirely disappointed by decades of failed DNC leadership.
Step 2: Remind people that everyone is on their own side. Politicians might vote the way you want, or not, but their interests will never be exactly the same as yours. Don't ever believe that the two-party system is an accurate description of our values.
Step 3: Share memes of Schumer.
"Some Americans" is still a generalization. Generalizations are extremely useful. We cannot function without them. Perhaps you mean to say, don't over-generalize.
Because three real fight is the rich vs the poor. Even rich democrats.
Also this. As NOFX says, Americas for sale, and you can get a good deal on it, and make a healthy profit. Fucking Pelosi and her kind gotta go
they're not good guys they are simply more competent at government
Believe you me, I've been trying for years. Tribalism runs too deep in the human condition for there to be any obvious fix.
Many Americans don't like either party at this point. Thus the low voter turnout and apathy. Many vote Democrat as the lesser of two evils. Though, the goalpost keep getting pushed to the right, to the point that Democratic party is well right of center. I understand the apathy at this point. But I wish that people understood that if we want things to come back to the left, then we're going to have to vote overwhelmingly Democratic for a while. And not just every four years. Everybody whines the Democrats don't get anything done when they're elected. But they generally only have two years of majority in the house, Senate, because they can't be bothered to vote every two years...