this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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chapotraphouse

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This is no honeymoon, the American "left" will never recover from the Harris/Walz combo; every major base of support (demographic/economic) is covered; Black woman with a jovial heartlandish white man standing behind her is the universal password for the legendary "competent American fascism" software update leftists have been prophesying.

They got this shit locked for at least eight years, Walz is suburbanite catnip and Harris has the identity libs eating out her hands, along with big tech, wallstreet, and the zionist lobby who are now methodically eliminating the last holdouts of the post-2016 nascent left movement

There is no credible avenue of leverage here, the libs can effectively respond to any leftist utterance with accusations of racism, misogyny, and purity testing and it will stick. Already we have most liberals being one rhetorical step away from defending Walz unleashing the National Guard on BLM protesters

There is no point in engaging with domestic national politics at this current time, the ball is firmly overseas

The only series of events that can undermine this new DNC paradigm is Israel blowing up the world and the US mobilizing to save it. Not even the collapse of Ukraine can dent it now, since that was "Biden's project"

Hate to say it, but the DNC won a firm generational victory

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[–] [email protected] 88 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (4 children)

You miss one important thing. Material conditions will continue to get worse. We are past the point where we can have another Obama pretending everything is just fine while the vast majority can't afford shit. It's not 2008 anymore, they can't pretend the economic shit will get better because people already have 16 years of the opposite.

The damage is done, there is no recovery for them. They will win this election, but people will still be poor and angry, the US economy will still be crumbing and China will continue to improve. Something will have to give.

[–] [email protected] 36 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah and also Harris is more Selina Myers than Obama, I'm not convinced she can even beat Trump, but people will quickly get sick of her if she does. She's having a burst of support only in relation to replacing Genocide Joe's doomed campaign

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I’m pretty sure a ham sandwich with a bit of mold on the corner could beat Trump. Hillary and Mr Genocide are some of the only people who could lose to him.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's all true, but my point is that their victory will deradicalize people away from leftism and socialism and instead radicalize them toward the competent fascism the DNC now represents even as it makes them poorer, something will give but the potential of a countervailing force emerging domestically has been foreclosed for at least a decade, unless something major happens overseas

I'm pretty much just copinly admiring the engineering quality of the off-ramp the dems built overnight on the highway leading toward worse conditions

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Agree with the sentiment, but maybe 2008 is a bad example to use for ”the economic shit will get better” peltier-laugh

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Nono, I meant it's a good example of it not getting better.

because people already have 16 years of the opposite.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I see what you meant now.

I'd also say the optimism of the Obama getting elected era is long gone, but that might be just a me thing, because I see these libs everywhere online acting like it's still the end of history.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 months ago

Those libs are a minority. Most people are at least aware that shit sucks, even if they don't want to admit it.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

As long as they can get away with blaming Republicans or a rotating villain for obstruction the Dems won't have to do shit. "Progressive" Dems were calling Obama out for not doing things he could get away with like firing people and executive orders and libs were still defending him. Libs happily defended his Grand Bargain where he volunteered to cut Social Security payments. There's a lot more people radicalized now to be sure, but the Dems still have a pretty good stranglehold on people's vision of what's possible.

[–] [email protected] 57 points 2 months ago

Let go of left-electoralism, comrade.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 2 months ago (5 children)

Hate to say it, but the DNC won a firm generational victory

lmao trump was shot in the fucking head on live tv and everyone forgot about it in a week

every time anything sort of happens we all decide [x faction] has won the country for another generation and then within a matter of days another thing sort of happens

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[–] [email protected] 49 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They got this shit locked for at least eight years

Lets not underestimate the Democrats unparalleled skill at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (1 children)

There was talk of "permanent Democratic majorities" after 2008, and the Obama coalition was much stronger than whatever this thrown-together emergency plan is.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Yea hope nobody takes this as an excuse but part of the reason there wasn't more urgency at the end of Obama second term (other than he was a neolib who never actually wanted to accomplish any progressive goals) was because theybwere operating under the assumption they were never gonna lose the white house again

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I'm not sure anyone who is exiting here was really "radicalized" to begin with. Yes, it'll tone down the online rhetoric of some Twitter personalities, but they were always just looking for an excuse to bury their heads deeper in the sand. The people who are really out there doing the work aren't suddenly going to stop organizing and feeding people because a couple of somewhat likeable Democrats got nominated (or elected). When the novelty wears off and everything turns out to be more of the same--austerity politics, forever wars, out of control warming, and no meaningful social reforms--we'll be right back in the same place. The people who are ecstatic about going back to brunch weren't fellow travelers in the first place, and anyone who really was flirting with genuine leftism will quickly be disillusioned. The problem isn't the dismantling of the American left, but rather that there wasn't anything to meaningfully dismantle in the first place. The struggle continues.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I don't know, if they try doing Minnesota-style social democracy on the national level, it will be like giving a small glass of water to someone lost in the desert. People are still going to die of thirst, but they'll die loyal to the party that gave them the sip

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 months ago

I don’t foresee them actually giving them a glass of water though. They’ll give a lot of speeches about how they’ll give you a glass of water, how cool and icey it’s gonna be, but then, wouldn’t you know it, Joe Mansion or the Parmigiantarian said we can’t.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

That's a huge if. I agree that if we get some non-trivial SocDem reforms, that might change things. I don't see that happening, though: Walz did a decent job with that kind of thing as governor in a couple of places at least (and at least does seem to give a shit about the working class), but he's not the Presidential candidate. Plus, the whole rest of the national political machine is very solidly against making any concessions to the working class. I don't see Kamala spending all her political capital trying to make that happen, even if she does win. She's given no signal that that would be a priority--quite the opposite, in fact.

I think they'll use the selection of Walz as a cudgel against the left for quite a while (i.e. "we picked the guy you and Bernie wanted, so shut up and fall in line! You can't control everything here!").

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[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 months ago (2 children)

If it makes you feel better, the American left never recovered from the rug being pulled out from them by the death of FDR and the loss of Henry Wallace in the VP spot.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You're overreacting.

Hate to say it, but the DNC won a firm generational victory

This is the feeling of the moment. News that is about 24 hours has been stretched to be generational. Nothing has staying power and in the short time span that something is held in public memory, everyone claims it has will always be this way.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 months ago

Yeah we need to wait for the new candidate smell to wear off before we can make a sober analysis of the new situation

[–] [email protected] 35 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I think the way in which they defeated Bernie in 2020 when he had a serious(likely) chance of winning is what I'd say is the generational "victory" for them.

Bernie sucks and all but people including the DNC apparently realy believed he was a far bigger threat and he wasn't going to bend the knee. Of course the irony in that is obvious, the jokes write themselves etc. Despite all his sucking he was campaigning on far better platform than the alternative, it was no 99 vs 100% Hitler contest like these days.

IMO you shouldn't have any hopes to begin with. Embrace doomerism, the end of the American empire will come through the headlines of 2.0 C of global warming. We all lost a long time ago anyway.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

IMO you shouldn't have any hopes to begin with. Embrace doomerism

Trust me, electoralism has never held any truck with me, even when I was a default lib I was the "voting doesn't matter" guy, I'm modulating my tone and beliefs for the benefit of any liberal lurkers here who are liable to fall for this circus

I'm a firm believer in the Hasan Piker school of talking to libs; sometimes you got to get down to their level and analyize shit how they would see it, otherwise if I leaned into my true beliefs they'd either find it incomprehensible or threatening to their sensitivities

[–] [email protected] 34 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Will they better or worsen material conditions? Our organising capacity is tied to the system failing and liberals are incapable of addressing systemic failure. Even if Walz attempts to bring his Minnesota reforms to the federal level, the Supreme Court will nix them and the liberals will side with the institution over their own bills. The most unpopular 2020 primary candidate will fall apart just as Biden did when we called it. Liberals in 2028 will be feeling as electorally deflated as they were in 2024.

The democrats will always be bad which is where I break with DSA. There's no salvaging that party or operating within it or pulling the democrats to the left. Liberals are now just more honest about their politics.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

Even if Walz attempts to bring his Minnesoata reforms to the federal level, the Supreme Court will nix them and the liberals will side with the institution over their own bills

This is an important point. The Supreme Court might be the only institution the Republicans control for a few cycles, they're going to use it to the fullest extent they can.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 2 months ago

the DNC won a firm generational victory

Maybe a month ago a bunch of people here were saying Trump was a guaranteed winner in November. Let's slow down.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 months ago

The brunch crowd can think whatever smug, self-satisfied thoughts they want, it won't make conditions deteriorate any less quickly

[–] [email protected] 25 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Lol, sorry but I find it funny we were all "meh" over Trump winning but Harris is making us doom.

Nobody has won anything here, the left would be in just as shit of a position of Trump wins, or Biden has won.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (9 children)

Yeah, none of these people winning is doom or bloom. Its going to be difficult for any president in the foreseeable future to ever be popular, and not have shiy approval ratings, because peoples lives are going to get worse regardless

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Hate to say it, but the DNC won a firm generational victory

I think you're forgetting the fact that people's lives will continue to get worse. There's not going to be any advantage to being an incumbent. No president is going to be able to say that's peoole are better off now than four years ago and be believed by normal people. Blue and Red MAGA cults will be the only ones saying how good things are when their person is in office.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

The only series of events that can undermine this new DNC paradigm is Israel blowing up the world

Nah, It won't be too long now, the Bernie campaign was itself part of something larger. The Dems are plugging the dam with their fingers.

If the DNC et al had anything left to offer the people they'd be doing it already. The caps are in feeding frenzy mode and the Dems are holding the net but they won't throw it in cuz there's a dude standing in front tossin chum in the water.

There won't be a New Deal, just a new Threat. I wonder what Dem voter turnout will be after 8 more years of that brutality?

I don't think you're wrong in saying the DNC has a firm grip on the near future, my minor point(cope?) is these accelerationist capitalists are driving the DNC and their paradigm right off a cliff. What their destruction heralds iunno but i think things will definitely look different in a decade, and i guess in the end the change I'm hoping for and believe in is that more people see, far more people will know that real change won't happen at the polls.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Simple: I'm not voting for zionist cops, they can all suckstart a chainsaw; death to the settlers, infinite 9/11s upon Amerika.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Calling 8 years a "generational" victory is an overreach. Obama lead to Trump, what new and exciting thing will Harris lead us to?

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

I understand the feeling however I must offer an anecdote.

I was out to dinner with 3 politically disengaged friends. They were scared of project 2025, trump is hitler, gotta vote blue to save democracy etc. one was even a shooter for Israel (but not the bad stuff they’re doing) because her grandpa was Jewish or something.

Despite them being smart enough to recognize that in our solid blue state my vote didn’t matter, I was still knee jerk criticized for being a “trump voter” after pointing out the dems won’t change anything for abortion rights and Palestine.

All of this is to say I had to calm myself down because I care about my friends while also wrestling with the realization that ppl who aren’t touching the computer/phone in order to grasp a clearer picture of current events are in exactly the same place as 2016.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 months ago

"competent American fascism"

This was what the Biden-Harris ticket was touted as and, well, the competence is severely lacking.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 2 months ago

idk if I'd go that far, but even the left libs over in €Urope are squealing over this, very happy to keep running their "parties" like social clubs that never fall out of line with liberal consensus or just drop pretensions and retreat into private philistinism of treats and petty power plays over useless soccdem parties

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They will not solve the underlying issue of material conditions continuing to crumble

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Serious question who is Tim Walz and why he's all over my feed in grad.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

The propaganda blitz really is something. I would like to see how things stand once the honeymoon phase is over. This and the Republicans outing themselves as lizardpeople donning human skin over the last few weeks definitely have shifted the momentum.

My mastodon timeline is pretty anti-American but there is still plenty Walz worshipping is sneaking in. Right now I don't have the bandwidth to learn why a new cracker career politician is a shitstain so I will just ignore this for a couple of week or maybe more.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Yeah they definitely papered over the cracks with this choice. But that brings me to my favorite word, contradictions. The contradictions in the system can only be hidden for so long and even a thoroughly brainwashed populace (Americans) will not be able to ignore them. The thing is will that lead to people recognizing that global socialism is long overdue and an existential need or will it go blue maga and trueanon. So far it seems like the latter. But even blue maga and trueanon will collapse under their own contradictions. Unless we as a species arrive at socialism this braindead cycle will keep repeating and elites will keep scrambling in different ways to maintain their privilege.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Baseless doomerism imo

last holdouts of the post-2016 nascent left movement

I can see why you’d view it that way what with Bush and Bowman’s losses, but one losing season in one electoral arena doesn’t mean that people will go back to being fine with $50k surgeries. This wasn’t on the level of, say, the coordinated Nixon era COINTELPRO campaigns that snuffed out the New Left. There’s still a lot of local and state-level DSA wins, and the orgs that didn’t burn themselves out after the initial post-bernie/covid/blm surge in activity are as strong as ever afaik

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 months ago

If a governor is doing good things it's just so they can run for president and do bad things, iron clad rule

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

You think this destroys all the labor momentum?

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (5 children)

What labor momentum? Union rates are set to fall to single digits this year for the first time ever

The rate was 10.8% in 2020 and this year it's set to fall to 9.9 or 9.8%

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