I’ve seen a lot of similar comments lately. People wanting to start 3rd parties etc, because the Democrats suck so bad.
Yes, it’s true. They suck, but if you’re going to beat the Republicans, you’ll need to look at what Trump did. He didn’t start a 3rd party. No, he took the existing party and changed it into whatever the fuck it is now.
You need to change the democratic party from within too, because 3rd parties will always lose because of the first past the post. 3rd parties also have a tendency to branch out, because quite frankly, not being Democrat or Republican isn’t enough of a politic in itself, and you guys don’t get along well on anything else. The Republicans had this issue for a long time until Trump came along providing them with something that united their voters more than the previous politic of simply being not Democrats.
The democratic party already has a framework for running politics and they actually have some kind of democracy within that allows people to change it. Yeah, it will require a lot of work to get enough people engaged in politics to make the change, but it is absolutely much less than what is required to start a successful 3rd party.
Democrats destroyed it when Chuck Shumer sided with Republicans. It is Joever.
I posted this and to my utter amazement both the comments and votes went completely opposed to my expectations:
Your title should have read “How do you destroy the notion that Republicans are the good guys?”
There are far too many Americans that support the far right. They’ve been convinced that conservatism will protect their interests, even while it blatantly destroys them. It is a morally greater objective to turn these people around, and more practically achievable, than undermining its opponent.
Yes, we know. You think liberalism is an ally of conservatism, not an opponent. We’re all very impressed with your extensive knowledge, bravo. You’ve shown nuanced and deep understanding of the political landscape by criticizing the contender of the enemy.
I think most people who criticize the left are like you. More interested in stroking their egos than actually solving a problem. You’re trying to demonstrate mastery of a subject by being critical of it, not because you want it to change but because you want people to be impressed with you.
If you actually wanted things to get better you’d be teaching people to undermine conservatism, which is the greater threat.
Be better.
Conservativism is a wing of liberalism, though. They are based in the same general underlying understanding of economics and methods of solving social problems. Right here you accuse OP of wanting to stroke their ego more than solve a problem, but I don’t believe that’s the case at all. You believing in a different solution does not mean they aren’t also trying to solve problems, this is more of a character assassination than anything else.
Conservativism cannot truly be undermined without also undermining liberalism. Leftists must organize, millitant labor organizing remains the most effective means of combatting conservativism, and is held outside the realm of liberal problem solving, usually. In my opinion, we cannot effectively combat conservativism without also addressing liberalism.
Barring whatever other insanity is in this thread, you’re left with the problem that OP is asking how to destroy democrats. If it were “how do we destroy republicans? Also I’m chill if democrats are also destroyed” that would be a different message. But the message was how do I destroy democrats.
That’s not the issue being discussed, though. In the US, there is the notion among the Working Class that just backing the Democrats harder will solve the ails of society. This isn’t true, though, the answer lies in millitant labor organizing.
Moreover, without erasing the foundations for why there’s a Republican party in the first place, you can’t truly “destroy” it. Another far-right party will continue to take its place, be that the Democrats or a new party. Asking how to destroy a party isn’t the problem, here, the problem is in moving away from using the Democrats to push for change, which historically is a strategic failure, and instead push for millitant labor organizing.
Not sure what you mean by “insanity” in this thread, either.
Stop re-electing these ancient incumbents who are WAY too comfortable being Republican-lite. Vote for younger candidates, preferably someone who was born AFTER the Battle of the Bulge.
I don’t think that makes a difference. Ben Shapiro is young and is alt-right
I think it makes a huge difference- Shapiro is just one person. And to prove the point, look how much influence he, a young guy, is having on our political landscape. Not that they’re the perfect politicians, but look at how much support people like AOC and Tulsi Gabbard drum up. We need people that are energized and that can energize others.
“The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.”
I attribute the quote wrong all the time, but today the internet says it’s from Julius Nyerere, who was a prime minister in Africa back in the 1960s.
This is quote from their former member, Huey Long:
“They’ve got a set of Republican waiters on one side and a set of Democratic waiters on the other side, but no matter which set of waiters brings you the dish, the legislative grub is all prepared in the same Wall Street kitchen”
— Huey Long, campaign speech for the re-election of Senator Hattie Caraway (D-AR), 1932 (Williams p. 589)
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.
Nobody gets labeled a tankie get out of here with your projection lol.
Commie tho, all the time.
Realistically, it’s an impossibility. This view is mostly propagated via liberal news sources, having the main battle be conservatism vs progressivism or left vs right (as opposed to class struggle, the poor vs rich, working class vs capitalists), and since the democrats are more progressive than republicans, they’re the “good guys” who should be supported.
For it to be destroyed, we’d have to catch up to their level of influence and reach or even surpass it, to show people that they’re a party of capitalists who sometimes are progressive, and not an actual ally of the working or middle classes but only pretending to be one. Maybe going one step further too and influencing progressive movements democrats support to pay attention to economic aspects too, given how their root causes aren’t purely social?
But again, it’s impossible for us workers to have such reach, given how well funded media is.
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
Read up on historical revolution, Socialist revolution has a great track record, and if the US Empire didn’t interfere it would be even better.
economic systems don’t happen on accident
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.
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
@adarza@lemmy.ca
@Confidant6198@lemmy.ml 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.
The Deprogram podcast, Hakim, and Second Thought YT channels all exist to address this. It’s rather obvious to anybody willing to learn
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.
Cause they aren’t, they are just the “better guys”.
They’re basically “republicans light”: still bad but at least not literal nazis
Believe you me, I’ve been trying for years. Tribalism runs too deep in the human condition for there to be any obvious fix.
Can’t do it . You must just get labelled a Russian bot and banned
I’m ready for my ban I guess.
