An entire institution is rarely justified by simply setting up an illusion for the average person to fall for. The US duopoly is a good example for this.
There is a very material incentive for the bourgeoisie to have precisely two parties alternating, that is, the importance of donors.
If the blue team were to lose only a small amount of donors, they would inevitably lose to the red team, and vice versa. If there were more major parties, losing donors could be a calculated decision to not alienate a part of the electorate, because the donations would go to one of the major parties. But in a duopoly situation, the donor’s money go straight to the other party, doubling the relative loss. On the contrary, a monopoly situation is not ideal because the importance of donors is diminished since the campaign is less important therefore money matters less.
This system therefore ensures maximum control over political parties by the bourgeoisie, because it optimises the bargain that donors have over party politicies
Good point. Another reason is that they can blame each other – both for not implementing popular policies while elected (“we can’t do X because the Republicans/Democrats have a majority in Congress”) and for atrocities committed under a president from the other party
Rememeber what Parenti wrote in the “Democracy for the Few”, that entire system is puprosefully constructed so that laws and issues can be plausibly delayed ad inifinitum or outright scrapped with an explanation that is belivable, yet such system have no trouble whasoever in acting fast and effectively when it does benefit the bourgeoisie.
There is a cultural distinction that Matt Christman once made.
The capitalist state will do what it does your choice is to feel guilty about it (democrats) or proud to be an asshole (republican)
There are some differences in the tendencies for funding for various Bourgeoisie industries.
Democrats are more often supported by finance, tech, lawyers and the entertainment industry
Republicans are more often supported by Oil and small business tyrants
Otherwise, yes it is smart for any sufficiently large business to donate to both parties to keep the laws on their side.
This is why I get annoyed when people try to tell me that voting in big elections matter. It doesn’t and it hasn’t for a long time.
this is a topic i really hate arguing about because, in the short term, voting does matter. If you are part of a vulnerable demographic, say you are trans, you have a lot at stake and i won’t blame you for picking the best of two neoliberal parasites.
Of course we understand that not voting is beneficial in the long term because it will eventually delegitimize the system. But i say that from the privileged position of a young, white, cishet male - there are a lot of people who would not survive this kind of approach.
I’m all for the “end justifies the means/sacrifices must be made” type of reasoning, but it is ultimately a choice we can’t force onto the marginalized people that WILL suffer consequences if we “let go” of politics and let the overton windows slide to the right until it collapses.
My suggestion is to just avoid this topic. You have nothing to gain by arguing with someone who wants to vote. It’s like being vegan and arguing with a normal person. Yeah, maybe you can get them to recognize that we eat too much meat - but sure as hell they won’t stop doing so, and you just wasted your time
In general, yes, but it’s a lot easier to work with Democratic voters on the ground and sway them to your side than it is with the die-hard Trumpers.
The parties are the same, but organizing-wise, they are different in your local area and the “base” of the parties are vastly different, imho.
But eh, people will disagree with me on this.
it’s a lot easier to work with Democratic voters on the ground and sway them to your side
Not in my experience
Yeah it can be easier when things are still surface level, but when the awkward task of being critical of the deeper structures of liberalism arises, like human rights and so forth, it becomes no less difficult than arguing with blatant chuavanists.
I would say that nowadays liberals are worse than ever. Certainly they are worse now than they were before 2016.
Fair point. The “lower” level (not a fan of the term) of the Dems have a lot of potential revolutionary people in their ranks. Consider how many people were swayed into radical and socialist politics by the Bernie movement of 2016.
And yet Bernie himself ended up being revealed as an imperialist stooge along with the rest of the “Squad”. And it is fairly clear that most of their supporters ended up going along with them. Those who ended up breaking rank with these “democratic socialists”, becoming communists instead and principled anti-imperialists are only a very small minority.
So the question is did they even do any net good or did they just end up building the left flank of imperialism under a “progressive” social democratic cover?
Are these so-called “progressives” not just pied pipers, or if you will excuse the mixing of metaphors, sheepdogs whose task was to herd the section of the masses with the most revolutionary potential away from truly radical politics of a kind that would pose a real danger to the bourgeois establishment, and into a managed, controlled and system-safe socdem box?
These same people today help legitimize the empire’s lies about Russia and China “from the left”. Their role is to be the leftmost end of “acceptable” politics, they are treated as being the furthest left you can be while still being “reasonable” and not “a violent extremist” or “an apologist for dictatorial regimes”.
It is disturbing to encounter more awareness of the lies of the neoliberal imperialists and more understanding for the rational position of the likes of Assad, Putin and even Xi from certain sections of the right in the US. I see this as a fundamental failure of the US left which has allowed itself to be co-opted into the liberal establishment starting around 2008 and really accelerating in 2016.
