I haven’t argued they have no blood on their hands. But their responsibility in creating and sustaining settler ideology and empire is not fundamentally different or greater than any other part of the bourgeois class or the colonial power structure. I take issue with your idea that they somehow do the most work in defending settler ideology. They shouldn’t be treated as an exceptional force in the maintenance of settler ideology and I’m wondering how your statement could even be quantified. I also take issue with the idea that they are responsible for creating something (what it is you don’t say). The Dems are about 200 years old. Settler ideology and the colonial power structure stretch back 500 years. The dems are one expression of that settler ideology, not the other way around.
And specifically we’re talking about the rise of trump and the maga movement. For all we can say about the dems, for all of their fault in helping to unleash that force, at the end of the day it didn’t come from their camp. It came from something with a long history in this country that greatly predates the dems that has been present on the American landscape since the first European settlement. The dems are a part of that force which I think is what you’re saying, but I don’t think the dems can truly be blamed except as one part of a wider condemnation of capitalism, colonialism and empire. To single out the dems in assigning blame for the rise of trump to me just seems to be missing the forest for the trees.
They are the group that made trump happen. They are the most proximal cause. You are right trump would exist without them. He wouldn’t be a problem without their support and protection. The current crop of the DNC is still guilty of the old sins those hundres of years ago. They didn’t have to join an evil organization for the purpose of profiting off evil but they did. In every meaningful well they are fully culpable of every sin of the empire. More importantly if they were removed the odds of fixing things go up. If the GOP was removed the DNC would just keep on enacting conservative policies with no change at all.
And so I say again trump and the maga movement did not come from the dem party camp. You’re falling into the trap I criticized in my initial comment of denying trump and his supporters agency. The actions of Hillary Clinton and the dnc are widely known at least on this site, but those actions they took in 2016 that allowed trump to seize power did not create trump and the maga movement. Go back to the tea party, the Republican revolution, the moral majority, the southern strategy. The ideological predecessors of the maga movement had been consolidating themselves in the gop throughout the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st. The extent to which the dems are blameful is merely inaction, co-signing the destruction of the left and acting as a bourgeois party supporting these trends, or at least supporting the colonial power structure from which these trends are a natural consequence. Which are serious charges. But the gop is equally blameful in this, why I take issue with your claim that the absence of the dems increases the chances of achieving socialism in this country. And while both parties act as bourgeois parties do, the gop becomes home to the direct predecessors leading to the maga movement.
To say the dems are the group that made trump happen ignores the actual groups who placed him in power and how present his ideas are in the American landscape. Hillary Clinton didn’t force half the country to become fascists and rabid settlers in 2016. Fwiw I don’t think blaming the dems for the rise of trump is wrong per se, I just think the focus is skewed away from the places where trump’s support actually springs from. And it tends to pin larger picture stuff on the dems that is in reality much larger than the dems
Trumps support springs from the DNC. If they weren’t so powerfully suppressing the left trump would never have gotten popular. He was originally an outsider to the left on mainstream politics on several issues and people responded positively enough to that to start the ball rolling. Trump is a symptom of a diseases the DNC prevents us from treating. They are the most proximate cause of all this.
Yeah this is exactly the perspective I’m against so I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. To argue that without the dnc the USA would somehow develop into some socialist utopia is a perspective completely at odds with the entirety of US and global history. Without the dnc the bourgeois class still exists and this is the fundamental roadblock to socialism. The Marxist contradiction is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, not one liberal political party and another group which actually is mostly just another liberal political party and includes mostly liberals and much of the bourgeois class. I don’t argue with you on the basis that the dnc has nothing to answer for wrt the rise of trump, I argue with the idea that the dnc represents some sort of exceptional force in us politics that is uniquely responsible for the rise of trump and the maga movement. You’re doing great man theory just replacing the great man with the great party.
I also don’t know what you mean when you say trump was an outsider on the left since he was never on the left. He attacked Hillary from both her right and left, but he was never on the left.
The party system is a big part of the government. It’s like a 5th estate. The DNC is the mechanism through which the owning classes opress the natural and strong revolutionary leftist tendencies among the US people. Without a controlled opposition the American people have a clear preference for socialist policy. Trump campaigned to the left of the DNC originally. He was also incoherrently rascist but so is the DNC so to most people that isn’t a deal breaker.
“natural and strong revolutionary leftist tendencies among the US people” have you met the US people? Have you read about US history? You are doing exactly what I accused your perspective of doing in my original comment, casting white Americans as some sort of pure innocent group that has been deluded and tempted into evil by Hillary Clinton and the dnc. What is this clear preference for socialist policy? Californians rejecting an anti-slavery amendment? Floridians deciding not to expand abortion access? Voting in a guy twice explicitly campaigning on mass deportations of workers?
Trump never campaigned to the left of the dnc. Trump used some left wing talking points to seize upon most people’s dissatisfaction with neoliberalism, but being against neoliberalism isn’t by nature left wing. There have always been right wing critics of neoliberalism, and trump only ever espoused economic nationalism, America first policy and the continuation and growth of empire. His platform was for the members of the bourgeoisie hurt by neoliberalism and globalization, never for the working class.
Yes. The US people are strongly ideologically incoherent. We like policy’s from the far left and far right We want to shoot guns at the government for being oppressive and to also opress people. When ever it is offered people respond hugely positively to socialist policy. It simply isn’t offered enough for that preference to be meaningfully measured. Look at the 70s. Or the recent blm. Trump using some left wing talking points is infact campaigning to the left of the DNC. He didn’t government that way but if you are a low engagement type of voter you can get that vibe. The DNC is far enough to the right that most fascist parties are too the left of them.
The recent conservative turn in this country is in many ways due to the reaction to blm. The entire history of the 70s is right wing reaction to civil rights and the great sixties social movements, and as the decade progresses the neoliberal consensus more and more takes shape until finally coming to ascendancy under Reagan who is given more of a popular mandate than trump has ever had. More than half the time the “oppression” we want to shoot the government for is “I’m being taxed as a small business owner” or “I the vaunted small business owner am being asked to comply with regulations put in place to benefit the working class.” Hardly a revolutionary outlook. For every great example of revolutionary politics in this country, you can find like 100x as many examples of Americans expressing the violent colonial settler ideology upon which the country was founded. I’m not arguing that Americans are irredeemable, but many of the popular movements in this country were in reality not as popular as we want to believe. There was always popular support for the opposition to these movements, and it’s that opposition from which trump emerges.
Trump threw out crumbs to the left in 2016, but he didn’t campaign as a left wing candidate. He also campaigned to the right of the dnc and his most vocal support always came from the far right. Lifting a couple Bernie sanders-esque talking points doesn’t make one a left wing candidate when you’re also making statements far to the right of any other candidate in the field. Why focus in on the couple vaguely left wing statements when you have more right wing talking points and your political platform is right-wing?
I haven’t argued they have no blood on their hands. But their responsibility in creating and sustaining settler ideology and empire is not fundamentally different or greater than any other part of the bourgeois class or the colonial power structure. I take issue with your idea that they somehow do the most work in defending settler ideology. They shouldn’t be treated as an exceptional force in the maintenance of settler ideology and I’m wondering how your statement could even be quantified. I also take issue with the idea that they are responsible for creating something (what it is you don’t say). The Dems are about 200 years old. Settler ideology and the colonial power structure stretch back 500 years. The dems are one expression of that settler ideology, not the other way around.
And specifically we’re talking about the rise of trump and the maga movement. For all we can say about the dems, for all of their fault in helping to unleash that force, at the end of the day it didn’t come from their camp. It came from something with a long history in this country that greatly predates the dems that has been present on the American landscape since the first European settlement. The dems are a part of that force which I think is what you’re saying, but I don’t think the dems can truly be blamed except as one part of a wider condemnation of capitalism, colonialism and empire. To single out the dems in assigning blame for the rise of trump to me just seems to be missing the forest for the trees.
They are the group that made trump happen. They are the most proximal cause. You are right trump would exist without them. He wouldn’t be a problem without their support and protection. The current crop of the DNC is still guilty of the old sins those hundres of years ago. They didn’t have to join an evil organization for the purpose of profiting off evil but they did. In every meaningful well they are fully culpable of every sin of the empire. More importantly if they were removed the odds of fixing things go up. If the GOP was removed the DNC would just keep on enacting conservative policies with no change at all.
And so I say again trump and the maga movement did not come from the dem party camp. You’re falling into the trap I criticized in my initial comment of denying trump and his supporters agency. The actions of Hillary Clinton and the dnc are widely known at least on this site, but those actions they took in 2016 that allowed trump to seize power did not create trump and the maga movement. Go back to the tea party, the Republican revolution, the moral majority, the southern strategy. The ideological predecessors of the maga movement had been consolidating themselves in the gop throughout the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st. The extent to which the dems are blameful is merely inaction, co-signing the destruction of the left and acting as a bourgeois party supporting these trends, or at least supporting the colonial power structure from which these trends are a natural consequence. Which are serious charges. But the gop is equally blameful in this, why I take issue with your claim that the absence of the dems increases the chances of achieving socialism in this country. And while both parties act as bourgeois parties do, the gop becomes home to the direct predecessors leading to the maga movement.
To say the dems are the group that made trump happen ignores the actual groups who placed him in power and how present his ideas are in the American landscape. Hillary Clinton didn’t force half the country to become fascists and rabid settlers in 2016. Fwiw I don’t think blaming the dems for the rise of trump is wrong per se, I just think the focus is skewed away from the places where trump’s support actually springs from. And it tends to pin larger picture stuff on the dems that is in reality much larger than the dems
Trumps support springs from the DNC. If they weren’t so powerfully suppressing the left trump would never have gotten popular. He was originally an outsider to the left on mainstream politics on several issues and people responded positively enough to that to start the ball rolling. Trump is a symptom of a diseases the DNC prevents us from treating. They are the most proximate cause of all this.
Yeah this is exactly the perspective I’m against so I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree. To argue that without the dnc the USA would somehow develop into some socialist utopia is a perspective completely at odds with the entirety of US and global history. Without the dnc the bourgeois class still exists and this is the fundamental roadblock to socialism. The Marxist contradiction is between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, not one liberal political party and another group which actually is mostly just another liberal political party and includes mostly liberals and much of the bourgeois class. I don’t argue with you on the basis that the dnc has nothing to answer for wrt the rise of trump, I argue with the idea that the dnc represents some sort of exceptional force in us politics that is uniquely responsible for the rise of trump and the maga movement. You’re doing great man theory just replacing the great man with the great party.
I also don’t know what you mean when you say trump was an outsider on the left since he was never on the left. He attacked Hillary from both her right and left, but he was never on the left.
The party system is a big part of the government. It’s like a 5th estate. The DNC is the mechanism through which the owning classes opress the natural and strong revolutionary leftist tendencies among the US people. Without a controlled opposition the American people have a clear preference for socialist policy. Trump campaigned to the left of the DNC originally. He was also incoherrently rascist but so is the DNC so to most people that isn’t a deal breaker.
“natural and strong revolutionary leftist tendencies among the US people” have you met the US people? Have you read about US history? You are doing exactly what I accused your perspective of doing in my original comment, casting white Americans as some sort of pure innocent group that has been deluded and tempted into evil by Hillary Clinton and the dnc. What is this clear preference for socialist policy? Californians rejecting an anti-slavery amendment? Floridians deciding not to expand abortion access? Voting in a guy twice explicitly campaigning on mass deportations of workers?
Trump never campaigned to the left of the dnc. Trump used some left wing talking points to seize upon most people’s dissatisfaction with neoliberalism, but being against neoliberalism isn’t by nature left wing. There have always been right wing critics of neoliberalism, and trump only ever espoused economic nationalism, America first policy and the continuation and growth of empire. His platform was for the members of the bourgeoisie hurt by neoliberalism and globalization, never for the working class.
Yes. The US people are strongly ideologically incoherent. We like policy’s from the far left and far right We want to shoot guns at the government for being oppressive and to also opress people. When ever it is offered people respond hugely positively to socialist policy. It simply isn’t offered enough for that preference to be meaningfully measured. Look at the 70s. Or the recent blm. Trump using some left wing talking points is infact campaigning to the left of the DNC. He didn’t government that way but if you are a low engagement type of voter you can get that vibe. The DNC is far enough to the right that most fascist parties are too the left of them.
The recent conservative turn in this country is in many ways due to the reaction to blm. The entire history of the 70s is right wing reaction to civil rights and the great sixties social movements, and as the decade progresses the neoliberal consensus more and more takes shape until finally coming to ascendancy under Reagan who is given more of a popular mandate than trump has ever had. More than half the time the “oppression” we want to shoot the government for is “I’m being taxed as a small business owner” or “I the vaunted small business owner am being asked to comply with regulations put in place to benefit the working class.” Hardly a revolutionary outlook. For every great example of revolutionary politics in this country, you can find like 100x as many examples of Americans expressing the violent colonial settler ideology upon which the country was founded. I’m not arguing that Americans are irredeemable, but many of the popular movements in this country were in reality not as popular as we want to believe. There was always popular support for the opposition to these movements, and it’s that opposition from which trump emerges.
Trump threw out crumbs to the left in 2016, but he didn’t campaign as a left wing candidate. He also campaigned to the right of the dnc and his most vocal support always came from the far right. Lifting a couple Bernie sanders-esque talking points doesn’t make one a left wing candidate when you’re also making statements far to the right of any other candidate in the field. Why focus in on the couple vaguely left wing statements when you have more right wing talking points and your political platform is right-wing?