WYSK: There funded by dark money PACS, but some good reporting has brought out these names: David Koch, Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Mark Cuban, Harlan Crow, and Michael Bloomberg. Some of there members are most famous for stopping big bills. Joe Leiberman, for example, single handedly stopped the single payer portion of the ACA. Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsen Simena kept the John Lewis voting rights act from passing, and famously kept the senate from repealing the filibuster.

    • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The dems are never going to pass voting reform for the same reason the UK labour party (a considerably further left party than the dems) has never passed it despite pretending they would consider it for multiple decades now. They benefit from FPTP. All they would be doing is diluting their power and handing over a huge portion of the political landscape to socialists who would immediately become relevant, they would then be forced to actually come to agreements with those socialists as opposed to just completely and totally ignoring them as they do currently.

        • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Pink washing doesn’t make the party “left”. It doesn’t absolve the democrats of being warmongers, global keepers of imperialism, upholders of torture facilities or the border concentration camps full of children.

          What makes them left or right is where they sit economically as representatives of the capitalist class, the millionaires and billionaires.

          Even David Cameron, former leader of the Tories, is to the left of Biden.

          I absolutely agree that Labour throwing trans people under a bus is abhorrent though. Unfortunately with the way things are there is no left spoiler alternative to go for, although the Greens will probably function as one they’re very far from what the those of us in the third of the country who fought for Corbyn believe in.

        • Move to lemm.ee@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          And you think that the dems wouldn’t magically find someone else to do a spoiler vote on issues they don’t really want to pass? Lmao why are americans this hilariously naive? These people do not represent the average working class person, they represent millionaires and billionaires, they represent the very corporate owners that the fediverse exists to escape from. When you finally realise this you will begin to start seeing through the bullshit. Half of this stuff can be done via Executive powers. They don’t do it because they do not want to.

          • thallamabond@lemmy.worldOP
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            1 year ago

            The point of this entire post is to try to illustrate how you do not have to buy out an entire political party, when you only have to get to those on the margins of a majority.

            You put all democrats into a little box, things are more nuanced than that. Yes, people with tons of money have tons of influence is US politics, this post illustrates specific names and examples.

            Do you have anything to add to this conversation, or do you just want to paint with broad strokes?

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              1 year ago

              I will paint party politics with broad strokes because that is exactly what party politics is. Collectives representing collectives. You don’t get to individualise it as and when it suits you, then collectivise it as and when it suits you at other times.

              The path of America from now until its end is liberals increasingly doing nothing to prevent the declining standards of living of millions of people while enriching the people they actually represent up until the population becomes so alienated that they give up on them. Then? Fascism. Until the country is torn into pieces.

              There is no off ramp. And I will continue to advocate that people organise around planning for this inevitability through means outside of the useless dems ushering in this fascism. Anything else is morally reprehensible.

              The Supreme Court just decided that businesses refusing business to protected minorities is free speech. The door is open for segregation again. What are the Dems going to do about it? Actually fucking use any powers in their hands or just tell people to voooooooote? They’ll do nothing, because they’re complicit.

              • thallamabond@lemmy.worldOP
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                1 year ago

                Not a fan of todays supreme court decisions today either.

                The rest of your response is unhinged, I’m going to keep going to my day job, and voting for the most progressive candidates.

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                  1 year ago

                  There’s nothing “unhinged” about recognising the fact that I as a trans person am the subject matter of genocide legislation today and that all rights across the board are regressing as fascists continue to make gains even at times when Dems hold every single power necessary to stop them. The fact that you hand wave the direction of the country away when oppressed groups are screaming at them to do something (spoiler: they’ll keep doing nothing) is part of the reason that you’re seeing this enormous leftwards radicalisation and shift away from liberalism.

                  Resorting to ableism because you don’t like people to your left critiquing you is also partially responsible.

          • TheDubz87@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Unfortunately, we’re all so polarized left/right, red/blue, that everyone’s become blind to this. The big wigs started a culture/political war to keep us away from the class war. And they’ve won unfortunately. Part of the reason I can’t get I to politics with anyone, because while they all scream left or right, I’m out here on my soap box screaming tear the whole government down and start over. The “progressive” parties will only push as hard as they can without losing any of their/their corporate overlords excess income.

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              1 year ago

              The liberals will never recognise the trend of history that they’ve created, or take blame. They will blame the people instead, choosing to blame ontological factors over a materialist understanding of history.

      • voxov7@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ranked choice voting, fix gerrymandering and voter suppression, end disenfranchisement of felons. Such things. I would love to hear any ideas if you or lemmy had some.

      • Rusticus@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Lots of people say and think that Biden is too old and demented but his has been the best Democratic presidency in 50 years.

          • Rusticus@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            Don’t confuse president with presidency. Obama did a poor job of negotiation and was unable to achieve any give and take with republicans. Biden just prevented a government shutdown and has passed far more progressive legislation and has made much more decisive decisions. Biden’s DOD knew Putin was going to attack Ukraine for months and prepared for it.

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              1 year ago

              Biden’s DOD knew Putin was going to attack Ukraine for months and prepared for it.

              As if that matters to a wage earner.

              Under both Obama and Biden, the following statements are true for at least 40,000,000 Americans (probably a whole lot more now): You need multiple jobs to live. You can’t afford health care. You can’t afford to educate yourself or your kids. The majority of the taxes you pay go overseas to fight between eight and ten wars, some of which aren’t ours. Israel gets more in aid from your tax dollars than you do. You are never more than one paycheck away from being ruined and homeless.

              We’re likely going to be an outright fascist state within the next ten years because Democrats, when we gave them power, used it to make the rich wealthier. It’s that simple.

              • Rusticus@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                Loool. Is this a joke?

                Republican policies have destroyed the middle class since Reagan. You just said “you can’t afford to educate yourself or your kids” yet fail to acknowledge Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan.

                You are complaining about problems ENTIRELY CAUSED BY REPUBLICANS yet are blaming Democrats. You call when the shuttle lands crazy man.

                • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

                  Republican policies have destroyed the middle class since Reagan.

                  And we’ve given Democrats several majorities in the last four decades, and they’ve used them to empower the wealthy and kill the middle class even more. At some point a reasonable person has to acknowledge that a failure to act constitutes policy.

                  Biden’s student loan forgiveness plan

                  Biden can forgive student loans unilaterally, and he already has in the case of people who were defrauded, so his so-called plan only served to add red tape to a process that didn’t require it. Effectively, he’s running cover for his wealthy donors on this issue and trying to retain positive optics, which apparently worked really well in your case, but I’m guessing you never had student loan debt, or maybe you’d expect more than performative gestures and empty promises.

                  • Rusticus@lemmy.world
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                    1 year ago

                    You are a shill or troll if you really think any continent human will buy your argument that Democrats are responsible for wealth inequality. Lolol.

                • krolden@lemmy.ml
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                  1 year ago

                  Student loan forgiveness is just a PR stunt if they dont also make all state/community college free for everyone

              • Chetzemoka@kbin.social
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                1 year ago

                Why does no one making this kind of dumbass comment ever acknowledge the very obvious role that Republican obstruction has played in stopping any Democratic attempt to fix this shit in the past 40 years?

                Stop gerrymandering, implement approval voting (easier for most people to understand than ranked choice), watch good legislation actually get passed.

                • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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                  Why does no one making this kind of dumbass comment ever acknowledge the very obvious role that Republican obstruction has played in stopping any Democratic attempt to fix this shit in the past 40 years?

                  Probably because they know more about history than you do, clearly, and aren’t content to watch these vulgar, wealthy Democrats break their promises over the course of entire generations.

                  • Chetzemoka@kbin.social
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                    1 year ago

                    Lmfao, completely ignoring the long history of Republican obstruction, deregulation, tax breaks for the rich, and systemic dismantling of the American middle class.

                    Completely ignoring the accomplishment that was the Affordable Healthcare Act before it was gutted by the Republicans. Ignoring the historic legislation passed by the Biden administration like the Climate Bill and the Infrastructure Bill.

                    But yeah, Democrats have been the real problem the whole time…

                    Stop parroting this propaganda that only benefits the right wing destructionists.