All the takes are correct and yet they also miss the point.
Yes, it was insane for the Democrats to think they could win by running a soulless candidate, without a shred of progressive policy vision, pursuing endorsements from neocon war-hawks everybody hates, while arming and funding a genocide, and belittling and crushing those who have enough morality to protest it. It is enraging that the Democrats are so smug and blind to this.
But these are all just symptoms. The deeper reality is that liberalism has failed, liberalism is dead, and people urgently need to wake up to this fact and respond accordingly. It is a defunct ideology that cannot offer any meaningful solutions to our social and ecological crises and it must be abandoned.
Democrats have proven over and over again that they cannot accept even basic steps like public healthcare, affordable housing, and a public job guarantee - things that would dramatically improve the material, social and political conditions of the working classes. And they cannot accept a public finance strategy that would steer production away from fossil fuels and toward green transition to give us a shot at a liveable future.
Why? Because these things run against the objectives of capital accumulation. And for liberals capital is sacrosanct. They will do whatever it takes to ensure elite accumulation, it is their only consistent commitment. At home, they suppress and demonize progressive and socialist tendencies. Abroad, they engage in endless wars and violence to suppress input prices in the global South and prevent any possibility of sovereign economic development.
The Democrats have done all this purposefully and knowingly, for my whole life, not as some kind of “mistake” but in full consciousness that it is in the interests of capital.
And because liberalism cannot address our crises, and because it crushes socialist alternatives, it inevitably paves the way for right-wing populism. They know this pattern, and yet they risk it every time - this election being only the most recent example. They did it in 2016, when they actively crushed the Sanders campaign and sent Trump to the White House. They do it because ultimately they (and I mean the liberal ruling class here) don’t really mind if fascists take power, so long as the latter too ensure the conditions for capital accumulation. They 100% prefer this to the possibility of a socialist alternative.
So, progressives have to face reality. The dream of “converting” the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted. The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.
Comrades all in favor of making Jason change his name so we don’t confuse him for the patsoc? Or i guess we could send the patsoc on a vacation…m
Every goddamn time
I thought it was a pejorative misspelling of the patsoc’s name yeah
Yeah i was about to come in here with
😆
I would like to enter a “Why should I change, he’s the one who sucks” defense on this guy’s behalf
I literally thought this was the patsoc until I saw this comment.
Oh shit… I was so confused reading this.
yeah them and Matt Gertz getting so much misdirected to them by spelling
The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.
“Where did that bring you? Back to me.”
So, progressives have to face reality. The dream of “converting” the Democratic party is dead. This is now a fact and it must be accepted.
I feel like I read this post in 2016, and yet all the “progressives” and “leftists” get sheepdogged every four years. A friend of mine clowned on me for using “leftism” for a while, but I understand now that it’s a canard to distract people from communism, which is the only alternative to this horrible machine.
For me it was in 2008 during Obama’s first term. I voted for him after McCain said we should nuke Iran, but thought Obama would at least do something decent about the wars in the Middle East and the looming housing crisis/recession.
Haahahaahahaa nope! Dumbass 20-something me actually thought the guy with a Goldman Sachs cabinet would do something for the working class? What a dumbass! Best we can do is drone striking weddings, birthdays, and schools while making sure Wall Street faces zero consequences for the worst economic crisis in the US since the Depression.
Oh and you have to buy your own insurance and get a fine higher than the monthly cost if you don’t.
actually thought the guy with a Goldman Sachs cabinet would do something for the working class
A lot of people here thought that (I’m not trying to dog anyone, I hoped for that too, more just making a point that it was a common sentiment early on). Dems have been baiting like this for years
Hell, Bill Clinton had a ‘universal healthcare plan’
Dems in 2028:
‘Vote for 101% Hitler or 105% Hitler will win’
Keep mixing up this guy with that one fucked up hitlerite “communist” on twitter
lol I always have to do a double take when I see his name too
I mix them both up with the guy who shot Reagan.
The way I tell them apart is that Jackson Hinkle (the guy you’re talking about) has a last name as his first name. And that last name happens to be the president that oversaw the trail of tears.
Yeah I was like at first
Jason doesn’t understand American politics thinking that us politicians need to actually offer something to people
Good post Mr. Hickel make 'em cry
The only option is to build a mass-based movement that can reclaim the working classes and mobilize a political vehicle that can integrate disparate progressive struggles into a unified and formidable political force and achieve substantive transformation. This will take real work, actual organizing, but it must be done and that process must begin now.
That’s the conclusion my folks came to.
they didn’t have to pursue neo-con warhawks. Neo-con warhawks always preferred the Dems over Trump. Trump is too erractic for their liking