3mo ago

Missed it by that much

377 comments

"69.16% of Americans are okay with fascism" isn't really a resounding defense of the health of American democracy in the face of fascism, though.
- More people didn't vote at all than let this demented rapist burn everything down.
  Fucking idiots.
  
  This is democracy manifest!
  
  Hands off my penush!
  
  Empty votes plus Trump votes still mean the majority of US was for, or at least indifferent about getting a fascist as a president.
  
  The attack on public education paid its dividends. A huge part of that 36% likely didn’t even know where, when, or how to vote. Never underestimate the stupidity of fellow humans, it’s a capacity we have in abundance.
  
  I mean this is wrong for many reasons, not the least of which is all the road blocks put in place to dissuade people to vote. Look into how some places didn't put prepaid postage on mail-in votes, meaning people had to pay for the luxury to vote. Look at how the election is held the evening of a work day, and many people are unable to leave their jobs to go vote without risking their livelihood. Look at how people are randomly unregistered to vote without their knowledge (this happens to me every year, despite actively voting even in local elections and living in the same place.) Look at how they offered a boatload of money to people who voted Republican, despite how that has always been illegal.
  You may say that these people are still at fault, and to some degree I agree with you, but if you haven't been so poor that you couldn't eat, couldn't keep your utilities on, couldn't drive anywhere extra because you have no money for gas or public transit, then you have no idea where a large portion of the would-be eligible voters are coming from.
  On top of this, the Democrats didn't focus at all on how they were going to make poor people's lives better. While the Republicans straight up lied, they heavily covered how Trump would supposedly lift the working class out of poverty.
  I live quite comfortably now, but I haven't always, and a huge part of what my fellow Democrats miss is just how desperate it makes you not having your daily needs met. Poor folks fall for the lies because the only thing they have a privilege of caring about is getting food on the table.
  Sure, there are the bigots and the racists, and if someone voted R because of that, they are 100% the problem. But I'm pretty sure the majority of people who voted R or didn't vote were just busy trying to survive and hopeful that the lies Trump told would change their lives forever.
  
  No.
  
  Maybe the democrats should stop running ruling class candidates while expecting the working class to "fall in line?"
  How come you never blame the people doing the same thing but expecting different results? If history is anything to go by, choosing a female to run for president guarantees a trump victory.
  It's a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless. Unfortunately you people have been conditioned to cover your ears to hard truths and just pretend reality is a different way.
  
  Maybe the democrats should stop running ruling class candidates while expecting the working class to “fall in line?”
  Would you remind me who won the Dem primary in 2016, and who won in 2020?
  How come you never blame the people doing the same thing but expecting different results?
  God, the irony is painful.
  If history is anything to go by, choosing a female to run for president guarantees a trump victory.
  It’s a hard truth, but a truth nonetheless. Unfortunately you people have been conditioned to cover your ears to hard truths and just pretend reality is a different way.
  The fuck
  
  Would you remind me who won the Dem primary in 2016, and who won in 2020?
  You already know the answers. Joe won because although he doesn't support the working class, he didn't have being a woman working against him. He also had the benefit of people voting trump out of office.
  God, the irony is painful.
  How so? I don't expect anything different. I expect this song and dance to go on until I die and probably quite awhile after.
  The fuck
  "Unfortunately you people have been conditioned to cover your ears to hard truths and just pretend reality is a different way." I rest my case.
  
  You already know the answers. Joe won because although he doesn’t support the working class, he didn’t have being a woman working against him. He also had the benefit of people voting trump out of office.
  ... do you know what the fuck a primary is
  How so? I don’t expect anything different. I expect this song and dance to go on until I die and probably quite awhile after.
  [American voters choose candidates more conservative than most Lemmy users, myself included]
  "Why are you blaming the voters for their choices?????"
  [repeat every two years since 1992]
  “Unfortunately you people have been conditioned to cover your ears to hard truths and just pretend reality is a different way.” I rest my case.
  Bruh, you're out here pretending that the American working class is Secretly Left(tm). If there's anyone who needs a reality check here...
  
  … do you know what the fuck a primary is
  I'm referring to the general.
  Sorry, the rest of your comment is incoherent nonsense. I can tell you're just throwing ideas out there because you don't want to admit you may be wrong about something, despite how many people agree with you.
  I have to block you now, because you people will never stop until I do. Goodbye.
  
  I’m referring to the general.
  Me:
  Would you remind me who won the Dem primary in 2016, and who won in 2020?
  You:
  You already know the answers. Joe won because although he doesn’t support the working class, he didn’t have being a woman working against him.
  Kind of sounds like you don't know what the fuck a primary is. Or who ran in 2016.
  
  I voted for Harris. But let's be honest. There were two choices on the ballot in 2016, 2020, and 2024:
  Fascism
  Slightly delayed fascism.
  
  I’m glad you voted, but i don’t agree those were the two options.
  I think it was a functioning government implementing more progressive policies vs. absolute shit-spewing catastrophic chaos.
  And as that has already been borne out in the first, what, thirty seconds? Those people who refused to prevent it can get fucked.
  
  Those really were the options though.
  When Biden won in 2020, I distinctly remember saying, "Trump is going to win in 2024." I saw it clearly. It wasn't hard to predict.
  Trump didn't come from nowhere. Learn history. What we are experiencing now is not unique. Whenever wealth inequality gets too great, people demand action. And if those in power aren't willing to move the needle and improve the lot of the working class, then they will turn to demagogues. This happens again and again in sclerotic democracies. It happened in Rome. It happened in ancient Greece. It happened in Revolutionary France. People turn to demagogues who promise to ram change through if they are not taken care of. Yes, it's fucking obvious that Trump isn't going to actually help the people. That's the definition of a demagogue. Yet demagogues crop up again and again whenever democracies face the challenges we are facing now.
  Democrats have proven themselves, time and time again, to not be willing to actually move the needle. Imagine if Biden had showed even half of Trump's willpower, except for good rather than evil. Think of where we would be now.
  This is why the choice was "fascism" or "slightly delayed fascism." Kamala wasn't going to meaningfully move the needle either. If she had won in 2024, Trump or another fascist demagogue would have won in 2028.
  Merely holding the line is not a viable strategy. If you are running against fascism, and you refuse to do anything to meaningfully fight it when you win, you are responsible for getting that fascist elected.
  Trump is responsible for his own sins. But Democrats are the reason he is currently in the White House. He's doing the evil, but they are the ones who put him there.
  
  I think you're right, and it really pisses me off to think about because the republicans were almost guaranteed to win no matter which candidate they put forward. Yet they picked Trump the traitor.
  
  For the best really, if they had chosen a more competent candidate they could be doing a lot more damage with far less bad press and diplomatic fallout
  
  Damn, I have tried at least a dozen times to write comments expressing that idea, and I still haven't managed to phrase it that well. I think I'm just gonna start quoting you instead.
  
  Yeah that’s not how I see it. If we cheated like the republiQans, packed the courts with 15-year old fanatics for us, redrew all the maps against court orders, plowed billions into vote suppression and propaganda, we could end up with enough Democrats in Congress to get big things done.
  We’d have done it fraudulently, as the republiQans have, but we’d all be better off.
  Instead, we try to win honestly with well reasoned arguments and we lose by 1-3% every fucking time and have to govern with incompetent Qanuts who bought their seat with daddy’s chicken plant money.
  Then a new crop of supergeniuses who just got out of polisci 201 light up a phattie and decide this is all part of the plan, man and we’re not gonna participate in this crooked show!
  By the time they’re old enough and experienced enough to laugh at that, it’s been 20 years more of unrelenting Christian Nationalism and Gross Corrupt Incompetence.
  I’m all for the Democrats Fixing It All (again) but saying they’re fascism-lite is stupid. We failed to elect them because we sat at home, and now it’s all on fire. As we’d spent the last year explaining it would.
  
  If we cheated like the republiQans, packed the courts with 15-year old fanatics for us, redrew all the maps against court orders, plowed billions into vote suppression and propaganda, we could end up with enough Democrats in Congress to get big things done.
  And they still wouldn't, because they don't want to. Not with the neoliberals in charge of the party.
  The one thing -- the one thing -- that would've saved American democracy would've been the Democratic Party giving the middle finger to their crony-capitalist major donors and deciding to follow Sanders/Warren/AOC/etc. and meaningfully help the working class instead. But that was precisely the one thing that they abjectly refused to do.
  
  You'll need to define "a long time" there. I don't think it's that long.
  technically 1.5 years under Obama unless you know who Manchin and Lieberman are technically 1.5 under Biden unless you know who Manchin and Sinema are.
  
  And they still wouldn't, because they don't want to. Not with the neoliberals in charge of the party.
  So - serious question - would you want to? Cheat.
  
  Oh, sorry if it was unclear: that wasn't referencing the "cheat" part; that was referencing the "get big things done" part.
  Even with a Democrat supermajority, there would still be zero chance of meaningful reforms like ending Citizens' United, instituting single-payer healthcare, Wall Street reform, increasing taxes on the rich, making college affordable, etc. as long as people like Pelosi and Schumer were still in charge. Neoliberals don't want those big things to get done.
  
  Don't insult people. Do not assume people are young or inexperienced. I've been voting for Democrats since 2008. And they've failed again and again. I fully understand why people would just throw their hands up and refuse to vote for the traitors. Don't belittle people who are simply sick of the bullshit and decide "a pox on both your houses!" It's not youthful inexperience, it's disillusionment and exhaustion. People are fucking done with corporate dems. And honestly, the best long term strategy might be just to let the entire Democratic Party be burned to ashes.
  We're not the first country in modern times to fall to right wing autocrats. And one common thing? It's not the captured opposition nominally liberal party that actually drives the autocrats out in the end. Usually the equivalent of the Democratic Party needs to be completely eliminated before the autocrats can be defeated. They suck up all the oxygen and prevent a real opposition party from forming. Typically, a popular front needs to be formed that completely sidelines and crushes the traditional liberal party and the autocrat.
  Realistically, we are probably going to have to let the Democratic Party go the way of the Whigs. There's really no other realistic way we end up defeating MAGAism. A feckless and useless opposition party is often far worse than no opposition party at all.
  
  There are reasons other than abstaining from voting that prevent people from doing so (being homeless, not having ID, etc.). However, fuck voting in a US election - democracy is an illusion.
- You can't just blame a group of people for anything though, it's not like geographic boundaries determine morality.
  Instead you gotta look at what happened this last election. Yeah there was inflation, and the polls point to that as a thing that swayed a lot of people. But the bigger factor was media capture by far-right oligarchs. The top cable news station, the top podcast, and the top social media network for news were all turned into maga propaganda this election. In that environment, the only question is why was it so close?
  And unfortunately, until that changes the next elections are going to be the same. Trump's approval is down, but it's still higher than it was at this point his last term.
  
  You can’t just blame a group of people for anything though, it’s not like geographic boundaries determine morality.
  Culture, in large part, determines morality, and culture is heavily influenced by geopolitical boundaries.
  As an American myself, I have no interest in #notallAmericans defenses. We made our fucking bed, we can lie in it.
  Instead you gotta look at what happened this last election. Yeah there was inflation, and the polls point to that as a thing that swayed a lot of people. But the bigger factor was media capture by far-right oligarchs. The top cable news station, the top podcast, and the top social media network for news were all turned into maga propaganda this election. In that environment, the only question is why was it so close?
  The same reason why it was close in 2020, and in 2016. The same reason why the Tea Party in 2010 took off, why Americans gave Bush Jr. a second term in '04, why the GOP in the 90s saw significant success in running towards fascism. The same reason why Reagan got two terms with overwhelming popularity, why Nixon was elected on a platform of disdain for minorities, why Goldwater was a hit in the GOP and took the South from the Dems in 1964 for the first time since the Civil War.
  We are a broken nation which has never managed to fully reckon with the deeply rooted authoritarian character within our culture. Trump is just the first time when a major party has given full voice to that inner fascist cretin, and it found that the base liked nothing better.
  No excuses, no crisis staring us in the face, no illusions of a Truly Democratic Leader waved about. A creature whose prior term displayed the full range of incompetence and malice towards everything from leftists to Christianity, and whose campaign rhetoric promised nothing more than to get worse in its conduct if elected again. Trump was the final presentation of the question, unambiguous, "Do you, Americans, want fascism?" A mirror looking us flat in the fucking face, and daring us to speak.
  And our response was an overwhelming "Sure, why not."
  
  Culture, in large part, determines morality, and culture is heavily influenced by geopolitical boundaries.
  Even if you meant ethics instead of morality, this is getting real close to some outright blood-and-soil nationalism by placing such cultural importance on border policy.
  
  Even if you meant ethics instead of morality, this is getting real close to some outright blood-and-soil nationalism by placing such cultural importance on border policy.
  Jesus fucking Christ.
- I think 100%. Both these parties don't work for middle class. Exceptions are Bernie and AOC. Without a third party pressure, we cannot win this oligarch war.

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