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Reductive. Neoliberalism protects and foments fascism as we ratchet a little further to the right each election cycle.
The reason why the rachet turns further to the right each election cycle is because non-conservatives in the US have an abysmal voter turnout.
Neoliberalism is the product of leftists deciding not to vote because there's no "good" option, and leftists will perpetuate this cycle by refusing to acknowledge incremental progress as a good thing.
If only there was a way to increase voter turnout, like giving voters what they want... nah, that'd make too much sense. The democrats are too smart to give people what they want.
Democrats do that. They appeal to centrists because those are the people who turn out to vote.
Leftists don't get representation, the ratchet turns right. Funny how that works
Or maybe the centrists turn out because they're the ones that democrats appeal to. Obama ran on a progressive campaign and won big in 2008, so it's clear that it works. The problem is that he then immediately turned around and instituted centrist policy as usual.
Same thing with Biden. Ran on $10,000 of student debt relief for everyone, improving the climate, and not being Trump. People figured they could push him left, that was the argument. Now he's been a lot better than I thought he would be admittedly. But still, the student debt relief has been extremely targeted, he made foreign electric cars more expensive, and he's materially supporting a genocide while yelling at the protests against it. If they can't push him left in 4 years, then the theory was proven wrong, candidates can't be pushed left, and it's right for leftists not to vote for them. Democrats don't feel they have to move left because leftists have no other choice about who to vote for, so I get the calculus on their parts, but it's becoming dangerous.
It also depends on how much supporting a current genocide is a red line for someone. That seems to be the biggest difference I see in these posts. Some people can't bring themselves to vote for someone who does that no matter what. Others seem to be more malleable and forgiving about it. I know which one I am, but honestly, no judgment on either. I waffle between them myself. I don't feel nearly as much pressure as others,though, because I don't live in a swing state, so my vote doesn't matter.
Obama ran on a progressive campaign and won big in 2008, so it’s clear that it works
God. It's fascinating how little self-proclaimed leftists remember 2008.
Which part am I wrong about? Obama ran on affordable healthcare, abortion rights, being anti-bailout for too-big-to-fail entities, and being anti-war. He won a supermajority. Then he scaled back his healthcare plan, said abortion rights "aren't a top priority", continued bush's bailouts and added more, and invaded/bombed more countries during his term.
Obama passed the best affordable healthcare plan he could.
On abortion rights, he was no more left than Hillary. On the bailouts, he was openly in support of the Bush bailout plan even before the election. On war, Obama was openly in favor of the continuation of the war in Afghanistan and harder military policy against several countries, some of which even McCain wasn't onboard on.
But hey, whatever helps fuel your delusional "If only candidates were more left, then they would DEFINITELY win in a landslide!" outlook.
The democrats are all moderate republicans, which in itself is an oxymoron. Don't believe me, here is Obama saying just that (about himself); https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJIlZxHfclc Now imagine you somehow get total control of all braches, and to top it off 3 weeks filibuster proof. You can do anything, but you don't really want change. What do you do? Well implement RomneyCare, call it ObamaCare and leave out the public option, which will ensure it be a giveaway to big pharma. Seems good at first glance, but leaving out the public option really killed it, as they intended.
Regarding roe...
The first thing I'll do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdrOrwmk78Y
Im pro choice https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nmzdkAbu8dY
Not my highest priority https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RxiDZejZFjg
parody... No https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1z4uhxpOnN0
Obama had full control of both houses and the White House, they could have passed whatever they wanted.
Instead we still didn’t get single payer healthcare.
Obama was really good at letting people project what they wanted on to him politically, while still broadly holding to the neoliberal agenda, and lots of people were insanely naïve at the time. I mean, you had people who claimed to actually expect the election of Obama to usher in a post-racial epoch in the USA, as though all the racists were going to say, "Aw, shucks, the black guy won? Well, hang it up boys, we have to face reality and accept we've been wrong all along."
He also benefitted from pretty excellent political cover from criticism, where, like many vocal Biden supporters are doing right now, any criticism of him would be associated with outright support of the vilest opinions espoused by the GOP at the time. If you said "You know, this Obama guy isn't as great as he's being made out to be," you'd have people assuming you were some nutjob that thought he was secretly Kenyan, or whatever other crazy conspiracies the Tea Party folks trotted out. I don't think it was purely malicious or cynical attempts to discredit people all the time, but there was a big chunk of people who wanted to believe in their conception of Obama, which couldn't admit that he wasn't the savior sent from on high to resolve all the country's problems in exactly the manner they had hoped he would.
Good god. You win elections from the center. A center vote that switches from R to D is worth double because the R loses one vote and D gains one. You literally win from the center.
If you want the center to move, then make the Dems win overwhelmingly and consistently in President, house of reps, and senators.
So do you think republicans are catering to centrists with their full dive into fascism or do you think only democrats need to appeal to "centrists" for some reason?
Trump won by appealing to the manufacturing jobs sector, and because of the protest Hillary vote. As much as I want to believe people were/are informed about his fascism, they really aren't.
And now, because Trump won one election, the whole Overton window moved right. You know, because he won an election. You want to move the Overton window? Vote.
Biden won an election more recently than him. Weird how the Overton window moves when Republicans win an election but not when Democrats do. Wonder if there's a reason for that.
Hell, Bernie (and Warren) moved the widow more by running in a primary than they did by winning.
The reason is because Dems have to actually do things like pass legislation. Which more often than not requires all 3 of house, senate, and president. All the GOP has to do is block things and yell immigrants. Progress takes, you know, actual work. Stagnation or regression takes next to nothing.
like giving voters what they want
Funny enough, giving voters what they want is inevitably decried by Very Serious Online Leftists
Neoliberalism exists for many reasons. But blaming leftists is strange. We would be a lot better off if voting was not so hard for black and brown people, for instance. We can at least agree on that.
Yeah, I'm on board with making voting easier for everyone. Voter turnout is ultimately the only way short of violent revolution to fix shit in this country.
Voting is difficult enough for people who don't vote conservative, which is why when leftists refuse to vote out of principle because their perfect candidates aren't a choice, they're figuratively stepping on the rake.
Totally agree about voting and its need for ease. But I can tell you more leftists vote than don't, I can promise you that. Systemically that's not the biggest problem. And I certainly plan to vote and I won't be helping Trump with it.
I hope you're right, but I'll say that I've definitely seen more people in this election cycle say there's no point in picking between two fascists than any other cycle I've been a part of. Especially here on lemmy
Yeah totally. Social media is bashing and circlejerking, even in the open source spaces. Not the best lens into reality.
No one will vote for our shitty candidates.
Should we run better ones?
No blame the people for us not having a good candidate
Great, so you're going to overhaul the system and get us better candidates?
No?
Even if we assume for the sake of the argument that your ridiculous assertion is true, "Let's do fascism faster" is exactly the kind of bootlicking take I would expect from a tankie.
Never said I was a tankie bruh. A party that bases itself on a slightly more gentle fascism isn't the cart we should be attaching ourselves to.
It will never ever be the right election for y'all liberal centrists who shit post on left folks. It is always the next one. Point is, if we want to be rid of this fucking fascist shit, we have to build solidarity with the left.
Not interested in the whole yelling at each other thing, so genuinely asking here. What exactly does not voting democrat get the left in the US? Is the OP's assumption that you want to accelerate fascism actually correct?
So far I haven't seen any reason other than either accelerationism or "because it makes me feel bad" and I refuse to believe that's all that's behind it.
I'm really having a hard time, and I genuinely think it's important to try to understand the points of view and beliefs of those we disagree with, rather than immediately turning to infighting.
Political parties exist in the free market just like corporations. If they can't earn votes a new party will form. It's happened before and it will happen again. That's why they message with fear. It's effective at turning off any critical thinking.
Political parties exist in the free market just like corporations.
Tell me more about the political free market under Project 2025.
In fact, tell me more about how quickly firms rise and fall in the free market. It's instantaneous, right?
Sometimes it is. Sometimes you have to push it off the cliff.
Sometimes it is.
lmao
Shifts the policies of the Democratic party so that they appeal to leftists. Not going to get into an ongoing debate, but just so you can't say you haven't seen any other reasons (which sounds fake to me but okay).
I appreciate it. I'm not here to debate you and I have no reason to lie about not having seen anything else, though I'm honestly a bit hurt that you think that, but I guess you've been nothing but attacked so far so perhaps it's understandable.
Thanks for understanding. 🏳️⚧️💖
Yeah, it is dogpiling and bullying in here. The reasons are here in the comments and elsewhere.
Bullying is when people say something I don't like, and the more I don't like it, the more bullying it is.
This is bullying lol, very disingenuous to the actual situation. Come on.
Oh good, you've asserted that saying something you don't like is bullying. That truly confirms it, then.
Could you give exactly one example of that ever happening?
Hey, remember when we all protest voted in 2016 and drove the Dem party SO far left?
Hey, remember when the Dems ran an unlikable centrist candidate as the lesser of two evils because anyone else wasn't "electable" enough in the DNC's view of centrist voters, and that translated into an electoral win via pinched noses in 2016? I'm really glad we got a dynastic compromise candidate that saved Democracy. That strategy worked out so well for Hillary, I can see why they'd go for it again.
Barely anyone protest voted lol. She got more votes from Bernie voters than Trump got from Gary Johnson voters. She lost because she didn't appeal to specific voters in specific states, and the US has a shit democracy that she didn't correctly strategize for.
Barely anyone protest voted lol.
It was the highest 3rd party vote in, what, 20 years?
She got more votes from Bernie voters than Trump got from Gary Johnson voters. She lost because she didn’t appeal to specific voters in specific states, and the US has a shit democracy that she didn’t correctly strategize for.
Those things are also correct.
My point is not "HILLARY COULD HAVE WON" it was "Pretty clearly, despite widespread discontent on the left and the resulting action of witholding votes to either not vote, write-in, or give to the Green/Libertarian Parties, the DNC did not take losing to a right-wing candidate as proof that they needed to move left in any appreciable way".
I wholeheartedly agree.
I can't tell if you're mocking me, I don't know how much clearer I can be that I just want to know why, if I can't understand why people think it's a good idea then I can't be sure that my views/opinions are actually worth anything.
If you just don't want to talk to me then, that's okay too.
People like this exist to argue. They have no ideology and no beliefs.
I think they were saying they agree with the idea that people should understand the political beliefs of those they disagree with.
Is this a bot? This reply doesn't make any sense.
What are you agreeing with? They asked you for more information.
I was agreeing with not shitting on the left and the need for an attempt to understand them. Not a lot of good faith attempts at understanding happening here, just a lot of bullying.
Idealism is fun, but it's so very extremely privileged.
What is ideal about 40 years of two-party neoliberal movement to the right bringing us to the brink of fascism?
What is privileged about not having healthcare security, job security, in endless war, the environment going to pot, rent exploding, deregulation, ballooning prison numbers, speculative housing markets? Honestly it feels like the privileged who cannot imagine anything different than the bipartisan system that pits us (those on the left and liberals) against each other.
Idealism is fun, but it’s so very extremely privileged.
What is ideal about 40 years of two party neoliberal movement to the right bringing us to the brink of fascism?
Jesus. At least work on your reading comprehension before responding.
Idealism is great when you use it to fight for a better world.
Idealism is privileged when you use it to deny any reduction in harm as not being 'good enough' to permit.
Idealism is privileged when you use it to deny any reduction in harm as not being 'good enough' to permit.
It’s happens all the time when people argue against veganism saying that farming kills the animals in the field despite the fact that meat requires much more crop land to produce.
He just calls anyone to the left of him a tankie. He has no clue what it actually means.
Sorry that I think fascists painted red calling for genocide in America are bad.
Oh? Where's the genocide? Point it out. You guys started this talking point a month ago and nobody has given even an attempt at rationalizing this talking point. You just sound like the guy on the street with a cardboard sign ranting at god. And even better there's a real one going on right now that Biden is supporting. This wouldn't be you trying your hand at some Good Old Projection would it?
Oh? Where’s the genocide? Point it out.
Oh, let me get this straight, you're denying that Trump is genocidal now?
Please, I want this on record.
Show me then. I'm not going to make spurious accusations.
Show me then.
Thank you for confirming that you don't believe Trump is genocidal. I'll remember this for future reference. It's a very common fascist talking point, that their strongman of choice isn't REALLY genocidal.
Go ahead. Don't be surprised if someone shows me actual evidence and I change my position. It's how rational people operate.
Wow, so enlightened.
It's okay, when we're dragged off to the camps for being Democrats, minorities, and 'useless eaters', the tankies will assure us that Biden would have done the same, in 6-10 decades.
Oh, of course. Remember, it's evil to vote for democrats so the best thing to do is not vote at all! /s. Tankie logic.
Don't worry, online brigading is definitely good praxis though, unlike so-called 'harm reduction' which only extends the period in which minorities can fight for a better future. Don't they know that that's useless, and what they REALLY should be doing is dying to inspire the privileged to finally Rise Up(tm) on their (belated) behalf?
Conflating anyone on the left with being tankies is exactly the problem.
If you don't like being called a tankie, then don't push tankie talking points, champ.
Go and read some, the left is a spectrum. Fuck tankies.
Oh, okay, so accelerationism and anti-democratic sentiment is just normal leftism nowadays? We're all MLs and MLMs? Cool cool cool.
So is this accelerationism or does it not count when democrats do it?:
https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/07/democrats-spend-millions-on-republican-primaries
biden pushing billions of dollars towards israel against the wishes of people who vote for him is pro-democratic?:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/642695/majority-disapprove-israeli-action-gaza.aspx
How about their rigged primaries keeping progressives out? Is that pro-democratic?:
I suppose it's pro-democratic party, but the party's name is ironic.
So is this accelerationism or does it not count when democrats do it?:
Is that what you think accelerationism is? A party trying to run against the enemy it thinks is electorally weakest?
Fucking lmao.
How about their rigged primaries keeping progressives out? Is that pro-democratic?:
Hilarious. Come back when you actually know anything about how 2016 went down. Some of us were fucking there.
You think leftists online are accelerationists because they criticize democrats, but you don't think democrats are accelerationists for outright funding fascists?! Are you being serious?
Yeah, I was also there in 2016 and I remember people like you claiming that hillary was the best shot we had against trump and that it's smart that hillary's team boosted trump because he'd be so easy to win against. The result of the 2016 election should've shut people like you up forever, but instead you all pretend like you're the smartest people on earth.
Yeah, I was also there in 2016 and I remember people like you claiming that hillary was the best shot we had against trump and
That's funny, considering I was an ardent Bernie voter who ended up protest voting in the General.
The result of the 2016 election should’ve shut people like you up forever, but instead you all pretend like you’re the smartest people on earth.
Swing and a miss. It's almost impressive that you're wrong so consistently.
You mean the one did their level best to make sure Clinton won? The one where they gave her all the info ahead of time?
Never said I was a tankie bruh.
Didn't realize that I wasn't allowed to point out tankie behavior like "Faster fascism Good, Actually" unless the poster self-identified, thank you for the information.
Thank you for your inability to listen to reason.
"Reason" here being "Make fascism happen faster"
Forgive me for not finding that a terribly compelling argument.
Use normal words. You are trying intimidate people with confidence and you just end up not making any sort of point. If we vote the right people in and the right people do their job it isn't fascist. We aren't in a fascist regime. You are the only one being "reductive".
The meme oversimplifies what is happening. Our politics has been drifting further to the right with each election and the people in power are fine with that, regardless of whatever party they're a part of.
there you go
Those are normal words, I apologize for not being the right kind of articulate for you. we have been moving right for 40 plus years. Both parties have been complicit. We fight endless wars under both parties. We have lost access to inexpensive higher education under both parties. We have lost the battle to the healthcare industry under both parties. We have seen the rise of the military police state under both parties. We have become spied on in every facet of life under both parties. Our public infrastructure is falling apart and being deregulated under both parties. We have seen the militarization of our borders under both parties.
These are real material problems that we continue to ignore with the focus on these two parties. We've seen a modicum of progress in certain areas, but there has been a lot of loss of freedom and liberty.
I disagree. Neoliberalism and foments are not common at all. You can even look it up statistically if you would like. We are not a fascist regime just because you don't like every decision. That isn't how fascism works. You still have many freedoms others do not. Is it expensive? Absolutely. Is it fair? No. But there are plenty of Democrats fighting the dumbasses for those rights to become easier. So chill on your "we are in a fascist regime" jargon just because you can't get every single little thing you want.
I said we are moving towards fascism. I never said "we are in a fascist regime".
I don't know if we can discuss how using more words attuned with the audience would help? I think I already said that and you didn't take kindly to it.
Foment as much as it could be a synonym for instigate or moving towards as you put it, could also be taken as inspires or motivates an already mobilized force. Maybe it was a poor choice for what you were trying to convey.
A meme? REDUCTIVE?
Jesus. Fucking. Christ.