The fire alarm has been going off for 5 years and they’re just now noticing the fire.
Yeah, while the republicans have basically openly moved to reactionary and fascist politics, thus implicitly accepting the status quo is over, the influential parts of the Democrats seem to have been clinging completely to the idea that the status quo is what is to be preserved - even though material reality will not make that possible.
Right now, we seem to be in a historical moment, where old privileges are breaking away from a continuing crisis in capitalism that basically has been smouldering since the (late) 70s and kept stable through neoliberal policies thus far. Old privileges being lost results in a reactionary shift worldwide at the moment. It will be harrowing, but there is at least always the possibility of the pendulum swinging the other way - right now, in the coming years, organisation, connecting people, openly presenting radical alternatives to prepare for that moment seems to be the most important work to me.
The Dems are reactionaries and that is a terrible best option.
Would you mind expanding on what you mean by material conditions and fascism in relation to old privileges (don’t know what you mean by the latter)?
So, I am heading to bed for the night, because I have been awake all night and day and the day before to catch the debate - but the short answer is: The decline of the middle class and the petite burgeoisie - which I in this case view not in the traditional definition, but also broader, as all the people owning a little bit of capital i.e. savings for old age in some fond or maybe a house of their own. Also the disappearance of job security and stable work relations.
With it, the conservative “lets keep things as they were” mindset of people who had a decent enough life, i.e. mostly boomers that lived through the economic growth phase of the post-war era, but also younger people dreaming of that time or having profited from it through their parents, comes into crisis. But as this mindset argues from its own experience, it dreams of the past (“Things worked back then, right?”), while missing, that the very same “working” system was what had within it, already the inherent nature that eventually led to it decaying around us. So they need to explain the decline as something caused by an outsider, a malevolent force.
At the same time, this decline of the middle class leads them to try and grasp to divisions that might “save” them from proletarisation - becoming properly dependend on paycheck to paycheck and owning nothing but their own labour power to sell on the market. So, racism for example - if you are white, you might just be spared from the above fate. And you can kick down, targeting all those brown people below instead of punching up - the latter is a lot more risky after all. And the people up above can’t be at fault, after all, you (or the people you heard about from the past) had a great life when those were around, right? It just have to be the “right” people, like you and the people of your nationality/race/religion/other ingroup - often depressingly arbitrary.
This is still a very reductive summary, a lot is missing, globalisation, how it relates to the net rate of profit, how consolidation happens, details about the ideology of our current times. But broken down to it’s basics it can be summarised as such. The middle class is disappearing as a consequence of capitalist development, which leads to them becoming panicky and diving headfirst into ideology.
Well, anyway, good night, hope it was possible to understand what I was trying to bring across in my rambling
Thanks! The increasing difference between material conditions of the upper middle class / petit bourgeoisie and the proletariat, and the often ensuing split of the middle class into these two, is definitely a contention point that allows for quick fascist demagogues to capitalize on. I see that the loss of “old privileges” for the former fortunate middle class allows for admiration of some greater past, which plays well into the fascist textbook.
However, I do think the far right’s success within young males, for example, is a different symptom of the same condition. That young people whose futures are diminished by capitalist exploitation tend towards fascism as their solution, while fully educated about its past and its options, is what baffles me the most.
Maybe I am overlooking something and that is why I did not get your point originally nor that which I described above, but to me there seems to be a disconnect of logic that is exceptional, even when taking into consideration that we are talking about supporters of the far right.
Yes, you raise a very important point that I completely glanced over with sleep-deprived tunnel vision brain. Young males are a group, where ideological factors are a lot more prevalent. A constant barrage of presenting the desirable thing to be succesful - everything from sexual gratification to security in life depends on it - is given to, well, actually everyone, but even today still predominately young males. In addition, the ideological explanation presents no proper “out” that has analytical value: If you don’t succeed, you are just some sort of beta cuck or whatever. How about you buy this course by this YouTube influencer, on how to get money and pussy by changing your own inadequacy, which of course in reality throws the vast majority of their fans into dependence and diminishes any resources they had.
This demand to be succesful, dominant, happy and stoic, weighing on the superego as basically an old dream of success that is becoming more and more unattainable but is still presented everywhere, is also in conflict with material reality. Being the breadwinner of a household where you have a wife that delivers reproductive labour and sexual gratification to you, while you earn the money and keep her dependent? Even with chauvinists that are deep into that ideological prison, households being able to earn enough money without both people working (often even more than two jobs) is not what we are seeing in the present and the future. So, this discrepancy has to be explained in a way, that is compatible with their ideology.
As a side note: parts of the liberal, more well-off “left” (a very relative term here) will basically just give them the answer “well, you are a stupid, low-IQ chud loser, so its your own fault” - basically reinforcing the very “sink or swim, be succesful, if you can’t be, it means something about you is wrong” ideology that creates this whole mess to begin with.
But of course, the answer many will then land on is a variant of my previous post: It worked in the past, right? An outside malevolent force must have corrupted this. It’s the feminists. It’s the Jews. It’s the insert enemy here. That is the core of it again - discrepancy between material reality and ideological demands and dreams within society. Concerning young men, the extreme right also has good illusionary ways to provide them with a sense of being powerful when they are in reality not, through violence that doesn’t threaten the upper classes, and relative privilege within their ideological stratified view of reality.
Ironically, that material reality of proletarisation can even fuel “tradwife” romanticism for some women - basically, the dream of being a loved and loving housewife, being submissive to and dependent on their husband and his income, anything, just to escape the dread of having to work under current conditions without any of the security of the past. (Note that actual submissive impulses that people potentially have as a fetish are a whole other thing in that discussion, but it is relevant, that for some submissive people at least, that can of course also add to the allure of that fantasy, just as the idea of being a breadwinner that has a dependent person giving them sexual gratification and admiration is alluring to people with dominant fetishisations)
You are a hexbear lmao. You suck up to dictators around the world. I dont think we can take your comment serious since you always argue in bad faith.
Ad hominem
You argue in bad faith
Get bent
Yeah, obviously they are the laughing stock here… You should pay more mind to content than affiliations. Even though dbzer0 is a cool admin with a cool community, your comment does not portray you as such.
pay more mind to content than affiliations
That’s not really possible when commenters with certain affiliations are known to be manipulative and participate in bad faith.
Eh, to the extent that Hexbear meme-culture is both prevalent and constitutes as participation in bad faith, that would be true. This was not an example of this, which only serves to prove that the reply was actually in bad faith itself.
You know it is pretty bad when a bunch of CNN commentators think he got smoked.
CNN got bought out by right wing media a little while ago iirc
Doesn’t mean they’re wrong.
Think? They know, we all know. The world knows. The proof is in the pudding. People have been saying it. Biden is NOT capable of existing independently (needs assistance just for directions), much less of being a president.
Trump would only win if the Democrat party found someone seemingly more inept than him.
I am impressed that the Democrat party managed to present not one, but two outstandingly incompetent candidates. In a row. That’s some bottom of the barrel advanced scraping techniques right there. They even managed to get a representation of both sexes.
I’m sure Mr. Biden will be terribly distraught, as soon as he is able to understand what’s happening around him at the moment.
The Democrats are still stuck in this post-Clinton seniority mindset where they unofficially pick a candidate before primaries even begin, based on who has been around the longest and who has held the highest position. Remember “it’s her turn”? Yes, yes, I know it didn’t work against Obama, but heading into the debates everyone assumed Hillary would be the candidate until Obama put on the better show. More to the point, I think Obama breaking through scared the establishment Dems into doubling down on primary fuckery. See what happened to Bernie, twice. So now we have a president who knows all the right people but plays politics with the 1990s rulebook and has a terminal case of crusty old man voice.
Still better than Trump.
Obama has absolutely absurd charisma. He’s the Democrat version of Trump - knows exactly what to say to his base and knows how to convince moderates he’s not insane.
Clinton and Biden have the charisma of a limp noodle. Sanders has absurd charisma, but he’s seen as too big of a threat to Democrat lobbyists and big corporations.
Sanders would’ve mopped the floor with Trump because he would’ve actually been able to grab the 18-44 demographic (which last saw peaks in 1992 Clinton/Gore and 2008 Obama/Biden, both to unseat a Republican and, coincidentally, a Bush).
Sanders would have been able to avoid the collapse in turnout from working-class Black people in 2016.
Sanders would’ve stopped the increasing right-wing radicalization of the youth of America, or provided a counterweight for left-wing economic radicalization.
The US federal elections are basically a pony show and the DNC doesn’t know how to play the game without throwing out their playbook.
This is about a succinct of a deconstruction of the DNCs hand in this cycle as I’ve seen. They’re effectively Ned Stark
He literally is an old man. Which is the core issue.
Seriously though, I don’t follow American electoral politics much, but why didn’t they swap him out for someone else? It’s a country of ~330m people. Like even the likes of Blinken would have been acceptable to them surely? What’s the actual reasoning?
There’s some stupid adherence to precedent where we don’t primary an encumbant because in the past it didn’t work out well. So now we shut our eyes and pretend he isn’t absolutely one of the worst candidates ever because we refuse to primary him.
An old American tradition to not run a primary during a President’s second term who is running for office. I guess it’s supposed to help unify the party behind a proven winner or something. That’s mostly it. Liberals love traditions, guidelines, and rules more than anyone.
Still better than Trump
If Biden dies and his tombstone is running for president, I’d still vote for his tombstone over trump.
A corporate-controlled genocidal fascist who’s incapable of speaking is the ideal leader under liberalism. Saying mean things destroys democracyTM.
The libs don’t even have a candidate in that country’s weird election format. It’s a tough say that the lesser shit is ideal.
This isn’t even a joke… Like, I keep hearing my conservative family members express that they can’t vote for “someone with dementia”. Glossing past Trump’s many, many, many senior moments, it comes down to the fact the president is supported by an entire cabinet.
If Biden gets poo brain, he’s going to rely on his cabinet. If Trump continues down his poo brain path, he will never rely on a cabinet (especially since it’s full of yes-men). He will just let the dimentia drive him, just like he did in his first term.
E.g. Airports in the 1700s, convincing everyone covid isn’t that bad prior to a vaccine, posting “white power” to his Twitter, tear gassing protesters for a Photo OP where he holds a Bible upside-down. I could go on, and on, and on…
But sure, let’s all pretend Biden’s old man brain is a real serious problem. Because sometimes he… ::checks notes:: falls on stairs, and fumbles words.
These clowns voted for fucking George W. Bush, by the way.
LOOOOOOOOOOOL
Welp, we’re fucked.
We were already fucked.
How to throw an unlosable election
It was never unlosable. People have forgotten how bad Trump was and blame everything on Biden. It’s been an uphill battle.
Although I still think he should have stepped aside for someone with less baggage.
All Biden had to do was be unmemorable and he was guaranteed a second term. His ambitious foreign policy decisions (to put it lightly) and his lack of ability to pass meaningful change despite holding both chambers of Congress in his first 2 years doomed him.
Always 50/50 because two party system, FPTP and electoral college.
People didn’t forget. They never cared. Biden didn’t win by 5 million votes (and that’s not actually a significant percentage), he won by 50k votes in a few counties that flipped their states.
Brah… Biden and Co have begun to blame Trump for the border crisis and the U.S. victims of illegal immigrants (rape, theft, murder, assaults etc…). Literally Biden is the man who created the border crisis and now the rampant crimes across the nation committed by illegal immigrants.
rampant crimes across the nation committed by illegal immigrants
The research does not support the view that immigrants commit crime or are incarcerated at higher rates than native-born Americans.
…
What’s more, the arrival of record numbers of immigrants at the United States–Mexico border over the past two years has not corresponded with an overall increase in crime in so-called “blue” cities where many of the recent arrivals have settled. In most places, the opposite has happened — crime, including violent crime, has trended downward (other than larceny and a small increase in robbery) after peaking across the country in 2020. This has been true since the spring of 2022, the year Republican governors, including those in Arizona, Florida, and Texas, began transporting undocumented immigrants to cities with more immigrant-friendly policies, including Boston, Chicago, New York, and Washington.NY has been riddled with crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the recent days, weeks, and months.
Remember the NYPD who were jumped by a gang of illegal immigrants?
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/feb/19/illegal-immigrants-bring-gang-ties-and-violent-cri/
Rape of a 13 year old in NY?
https://abc7chicago.com/post/queens-sexual-assault-new-york-rape-suspect-charged/14972006/
Rape of a 15 year old in NY?
Over 2000 convicted criminals - illegals captured by ICE
I’d keep going… but I see how you roll.
3 examples isn’t a great way to show nationwide trends.
Over 2000 convicted criminals - illegals captured by ICE
This is from 2015.
In New York, a sanctuary city that has received the most immigrants from Republican-run border states, crime decreased in most major categories in 2023 compared to the year before, as confirmed by a January report from the New York City Police Department. This follows reductions in most crime categories in the city in 2022. New York City remains one of the safest big cities in the country despite sensational claims that it is being overwhelmed by crime.
From the same article linked above, since you seem so obsessed with New York City.
The date… that doesn’t invalidate the claim that actual criminals from other nations come into this nation illegally and commit crimes here. That’s additional crimes that could be deterred if we… closed the border tightly. The point I was making with NY, is as of recent, like I mentioned before there’s crimes committed by illegals. Had those illegal not entered our nation and into NY, cops wouldn’t have been jumped, a 13 year old and a 15 year old wouldn’t have been victimized. That’s just NY… and 5 minutes of searching things off the top of my head from what has happened in the last month or two til today.
I’ll do you one better… Cartel in Arizona.
NY has been riddled with crimes committed by illegal immigrants in the recent days, weeks, and months.
One last thing, now that I’m back at my computer:
-
Continued declines across most major crime categories prevailed during January 2024, compared to the first month of last year, and included substantial drops in murder, rape, burglary, and felony assault.
-
Incidents of shootings, murder, and other bellwether crimes in New York City were markedly reduced again in February compared to the same month last year, while major offenses committed in the city’s subway system dropped more than 15 percent. Throughout the five boroughs, overall crime continued its downward trajectory, dipping another 1.1%.
-
New York City saw continued reductions in overall crime through the first quarter of 2024, both above ground, on streets throughout the five boroughs, and below ground, within the nation’s largest subway system. The single month of March 2024, compared to the same month last year, experienced even more drastic crime declines.
-
Overall index crime across New York City dropped another 4.9 percent in the month of April compared to the same month last year, as major crimes in the nation’s largest subway system plummeted another 23 percent, continuing a downward trend that saw previous transit system decreases
-
Overall index crime across New York City dropped another 2.4 percent in May 2024, compared to the same month last year, with the major crime categories of murder, burglary, grand larceny, and grand larceny—auto each seeing dramatic reductions.
The point I was making with NY, is as of recent, like I mentioned before there’s crimes committed by illegals.
So what? There are statistically a lot more crimes being committed by US citizens. Should we start deporting/exiling our own citizens? Should we keep increasing our prison population? Or should we not hold our own citizens to the same kind of standards that you want to apply to everyone else in the world?
-
If 1% of your city are criminals, you let in 200 people, and one of them is a criminal, has the crime rate gone up?
Those damned immigrants.
Edit: Ah, shit, it’s you again…
What country are your parents from?
(No, Latino is not a country)
Remember the NYPD who were jumped by a gang of illegal immigrants?
No, but I do remember the NYPD harassing a small group of migrants that were just minding their own business on a public sidewalk (without blocking it), ordering them to leave, and then assaulting one of them while he was attempting to comply.
If said migrants came onto U.S. soil illegally, who gives a fk what they have to say or what they’re doing, back to their country they go.
2016 Part 2: Election Boogaloo
As bad as Biden was, CNN were worse. Fuck that shitty network for allowing Trump to lie pretty much nonstop for 90 minutes unchallenged.
they gave both people plenty of time, biden is supposed to be capable of challenging on his own
I disagree. Trump indulged in a gish gallop of lies and bullshit. Biden spent too much time trying to refute some of it and in doing so wasted time which he could’ve used to make his own points.
There should’ve been moderation in place to stop this, there was none.
which he could’ve used to make his own points.
Well I mean he did let everyone know we finally beat Medicare.
Certainly the “moderator” isn’t expected to moderate the thing! /s
It wouldn’t do Biden any favors to be the third most charismatic person on the debate stage.
It takes longer to debunk a lie than to say one. It’s easy to spout out a hundred lies in two minutes, but it takes longer than that to debunk them without just saying “No, that’s a lie” to every one, which also sounds dumb if Trump is saying that, too.
And if Biden wasn’t senile he would have been able to do that.
This post truth thing is a real problem because the average person does not bother checking facts. What they notice is some division, controversy etc. not that one person is lying. Also any moron can see that Biden is old.
Someone with simple answers wins these debates. Notice how Biden says the right things all the time but he won’t reach people like this.
Notice how Biden says the right things all the time
Are you talking about during the debate? “We finally beat Medicare!” ain’t that.
And if you think Biden said the right things about the rail strike or protests around the weapon shipments to Israel you’re living in some kind of grand delusion that excludes millions of people you’re depending on to get Biden re-elected.
Not necessarily.
Perhaps 20 years ago Biden WorldCom acquitted himself better.
That said Trumps performance is a well established debate strategy called a gish gallop - just say dozens of lies and your opponent won’t be able to rebut them all. If they try, they won’t have time for their own points.
Hey if you’re trying to tell me Biden is a shit candidate you’ll get no argument from me. I remain furious at anyone who voted for him in the 2020 primaries.
Actually, the other way around. We keep on compartmentalizing, Trump can lie all he wants and nothing happens, but Joe stutters and it’s a national disgrace… How can you compare one without including the only alternative?
Republicans accept a post-truth society where everything is someone’s propaganda, that the federal government is out to get them and that the union would be better served as a union of state-level republics. Democrats still believe in the existence of a ground truth and want a union with centralized control (i.e., they are Federalists). Like the Federalists, the Democrats are backed by wealthy financial states (New York, California) as opposed to more rural/working-class states (Alabama, Ohio) and support heavy industrial subsidies (Biden’s IRA, CHIPS) as well as weak state governments.
This is a fundamental difference that explains a lot, actually. The role of government has always been to convince populations to pursue the policy goals of the elite. The foundations of representative democracy involve choosing which elites’ policy goals to follow. The Republicans want to follow state elites (to borrow a Chinese proverb, the mountains are high and the President is far away). The Democrats want to follow federal elites.
Here’s the real problem. The US gets to choose between a career politician and a career businessman (swindler, by definition). Who represents the working class? Who represents the people who actually built America’s economy?
Nobody represents the people, but that’s not a new problem nor, in anyway, a new thing in this Trump era
My biggest fear is that the USA always gets to chose someone who does not represent them at all but at least had the notion that we need a planet to live in
Trump is a man child and will see the world burn out of petty spite. And us, in the rest of the world, would have to still live with those consequences
So back to the debate and the choice between Biden and Trump… Sure Biden is a terrible option, like chosing to get cancer… But Trump is like chosing to be gang raped, shot and left for dead in an open sewer and here we are pretending the 2 bad options are somehow the same
My biggest fear is that the USA always gets to chose someone who does not represent them at all but at least had the notion that we need a planet to live in
That’s the part you’re missing. People are legitimately asking themselves “If these two people are my only choices and won’t improve my quality of life do I want to keep living?”
But again, maybe Biden is the status quo which is not great I admit, but Trump is torture then death… How is that even a “close” call to make?
Again you are not fully empathizing with people’s experience under… whoever for the last 20ish years. Some “young” people who are now in their 30s and 40s never really recovered from the financial crisis. Each day is already torture working a dead end job with shit pay where customers scream at them only to return to a tiny apartment with rent creeping up every single month.
It’s not a matter of empathy… If each day is torture under status quo, how is going under a regime promising to make it worse a better option?
You’re trying to trump despair with reason bud. Doesn’t work like that.
Can you actually explain the difference between the options and reconcile the fact that Hillary and the DNC purposefully elevated Trump behind the scenes (entire “lesser evil” rationale is a farce)? Thx!
The fact that the democrats have selected such a terrible candidate that Trump has a running chance for the third time in a row and that the US as a whole has selected two awful candidates for possibly the most important job in the world, that is a disgrace, and it is shameful.
Why is Trump the only alternative? There have to be 1000 better democrats than Biden.
When Jon Stewart referred to Biden’s expression as resting 25th amendment face. 💀
Lol
spoiler
Lmao
I poked into r/politics to see what was up and there’s a bunch of libs wondering how this old guy snuck in and became the nominee somehow, and how whoever did that should be fired. It’s really weird to see the about face, I thought he was a phenomenal candidate with a sterling record last week.
deleted by creator
Please tell me this is a joke
Chinese spies incepted Biden into acting like a demented 81 year old with the Havana syndrome gun.
Lmao
10/10 bit
alarm bells?
wait they didn’t know he was old before this debate?
Apparently millions of people during the 2020 primaries didn’t math long enough to realize Biden would be 86 years old after two terms.
We told you back in November but no one listened.
I distinctly remember that before I left Reddit, I had some lovely discourse with someone who was absolutely inconsolable over my opinion that Biden was too old for the job. Got called ageist and everything else they could think of.
Trust me, I hate being right.
I had a grandmother who died at 88 but was still sharp until that day she passed. It’s clear Biden needs to retire, he’s cognitively unable to act as a president, the media and Democratic establishment need to stop gas lightning us.
Here’s the original link in lemmy.ml if you want to see lemmy.world loser ledditors coping: https://lemmy.ml/post/17384440
I’m European so obviously anti trump (I’ve learnt a lot about politicians that used similar rhetoric, had a different personal cult around them, also tried overthrowing the state - history repeats when not learning from it) but damn, Biden was bad. I’d still vote for Biden simply to avoid trump, but I fear he has no chance to get >50% after that performance.
The democrats hopefully see the writing on the wall and replace him before it’s too late.
It’s over. It was honestly over long ago, it’s just playing out in slow motion.
It will probably continue to play out for another thirty years at least. Increasingly horrible, so at any point “eight years ago” feels like back when things were sane, except we lost our minds decades ago already.
Sorry we’re the nation equivalent of DJ Khaled; we think we’re “suffering from success” but in truth we actually are and we don’t know it.
Problem for dems is that it’s way too late to replace him now. They had to accept reality last year and run a real primary. Instead they waited until the last moment, and now there’s not enough time for somebody new without an existing voter base to start campaigning.
There’s no way Biden can win. According to polls, he’s losing all the swing states, and that was before this debate took place. The DNC is going to give us Trump because they are elitist and don’t actually care about democracy.
Thankfully, he doesn’t actually need to win the majority vote (look up the electoral college if you’re curious/horrified), unfortunately that fact mostly benefits Trump.
It may already be too late to replace him. It would definitely be risky. And it’s not gonna happen unless Biden himself says so. If he runs against whoever the DNC were to pick to run against him or would guarantee a Trump win.
What’s riskier: Replacing him, or keeping him?
Honestly I have no idea
