this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2023
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Bruh Republicans are open about backing trump even if he goes to jail. Trump has openly talked about how he wants to get rid of the constitution. They could have prevented him from running again after his failed coup attempt and they let him off the hook.
At least some good has come from the Biden presidency, which tbh I didn't expect at all. Some progress is better than no progress. 15 min wage for federal contract workers, an NLRB that is more pro-union than ever in my lifetime, an actual attempt at student loan debt reduction (which he should just nix via executive order but I digress), a 15% minimum corporate tax rate, bring back microchip manufacturing, and there's more that I can't list off the top of my head.
Babysteps sure, but it's better than nothing and way better than the backwards trajectory we got during the trump presidency and beyond the trump presidency due to his SC appointments.
Perfect? Hell no. But something. We need to take the wins we can get while still hammering him from the left to do more.
Your "harm reduction" president has not reduced much harm at all, no matter how you scramble in the dirt to try to hold up shiny things to wave at me.
It's just
The last three years, especially with covid and climate change, were not wins. Even the pretense of slowing the damage down is weak to false now.
Jesus Christ might as well just give up on everything with your attitude lol
Being a leftist is coming to grips with how bad the situation is
Dude ik shit is bad. I would have much preferred someone else be president rn, but we are stuck with Biden so we have to make due.
And 2024 is going to be Biden v trump again. A shitty matchup, ik, but again we have to make due.
Bring a leftist also means trying to make the most of a bad situation. This isn't about what you or I want, it's about what's right for the working class given our current situation. And between Biden and trump, Biden is far better for the working class than trump could ever be.
Why are you even talking about the presidency at this point? It's not real. You just saw 'the good' party openly admit that it's not democratic and it's against you. You know the same donors run both parties. Why are you still in this framing?
Because 1 party does everything their donors say, the other does most of the stuff their donors say but still shows it's able to be pushed by their voters to do good.
Do you really think that the donor class wanted the recent NLRB rule change that helps unions against union busting? No, but it happened because unlike the Republican party, the Democratic party can be swayed to fight for the working class. Is it perfect? No, but it's something.
But they aren't really swayed, they are playing the good guys to prevent riots. The role they fill, regardless of how any democrat personally feels, is the role of the small concession to prevent riot. It's super helpful to capitalism to have a tiny outlet so that the major exploitation is ignored. It's only "better" when you obsess with the short term goals and can't see the projects over decades and across borders. Sometimes I get it, honestly, like I am never mad at comrades voting for the hope that trans and indigenous comrades aren't genocided. But it's just not good strategy to think about that decision for more than like 4 minutes a year because of the above stated functional argument.
With one hand they give you a ruling that says that if an employer breaks labor law (and the DoL agrees to enforce it), card check gets a union instead of a union vote.
With the other they take away three years of work labor organizing through impossible hoops by breaking the strike of the railworkers, who got nothing to show for it.
What's the point of a union if you can't strike?
We came to the conclusions because we want to avoid giving up. Once you realize that settling for "harm reduction" is also a form of giving up, you learn to think strategically and read people who think strategically about these things for real improvement. Like Lenin.
Unfortunately harm reduction is all we can do rn, unless you are ready to start a working class revolution, which would require the majority of the working class to be on board with us. And idk about you, but I don't think the American working class is there just yet.
It ain't there because people like you put more energy into performing in electoral theatrics for the enemies of the working class rather than investing that energy in organizing, educating, and agitating your fellow worker.
Or maybe I'm actually trying to help the working class by taking any win we can get whereas you'd rather watch the world burn than see the working class get any kind of win because it's not big enough for you.
I am begging you to take the energy you're putting into convincing others to
and redirect it toward learning to handle a rifle.
Why not both..
Lmao tell that to the Russians and Ukrainian workers who are dying by the thousands because of your utopianist belief in "taking any win".
Absolute scum. There is zero difference material difference between you and the Democrats under biden. You can keep saying you're a leftist or that you work in the interests of the working class, but you actions - or lack thereof - speaks louder than any phrasemongering you do.
I'm apparently more of a leftist than you if you're willing to throw the working class under the bus purely because the wins we are getting are smaller than you'd like.. hell, they're smaller than I'd like too. But it's something, which is better than nothing or worse, outright reversals.
All your online posturing is doing absolutely nothing for the working class. Stop throwing around leftist ideals as if you actually give a damn. I wish we were in a better spot, but we aren't. We are here, this is the hand we've been dealt, we have to make the most of it. The alternative is fascism winning, and you and I being lined up and shot like dogs.
And bringing up the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Oh boy, let me guess. You'd rather we stop supporting Ukraine and if it just happens to fall to Russia, so be it? Please..
So some rail unions would like to talk to you about 'taking any win we can get' I'd imagine.
Yes and I'm still pissed at Biden about that. That doesn't mean he hasn't done good.
How are you doing that except for voting for Biden? The class conscious workers who aren't succeeding in spreading that are the ones at fault, like me (and you, though I'm not convinced of you being class conscious). I'm trying my best though, in many organizations around many topics, to push my analysis further and improve it and the organizations to reach the goals of socialism.