Biden is well past his prime, had a shitty performance last night, hate his record on Israel, but I’m still voting for him because he’s not Trump and I’d prefer that our representative democracy continued. Moving to a braindead, functionally illiterate dictatorship just seems like an all-around worse move in every respect. Not sure about his chances, but whatever, there’s not really any other alternative at this point.
Can you tell me what makes you believe that Trump is or will be a dictator? Don’t use Jan 6th.
So - ignoring the time he sent a mob to try and overthrow the US government, how about we use the fact that he literally said he’d be a dictator?
Or maybe the fact that his legal defense against trying to overthrow the government was that the President is immune from all crimes. His lawyers even literally said he could have his political opponents murdered, and so long as the surviving politicians don’t impeach and convict him he can’t be held liable for it.
They’re arguing a legal framework under which he can murder the opposition, and then kill anyone that tries to remove him from office.
He said he would in exactly those words.
Don’t use Jan 6th
explain why you think he’s authoritarian, but don’t talk about that time he instigated a failed fascist coup
I’ll admit, if you move the goalposts like that it gets a lot harder to score.
Can you tell me why Hitler was a bad person? Don’t use the holocaust.
Persecution of male homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, pacifists, the mentally ill / disabled, and political opponents. Stealing thousands of mostly Slavic children from their parents and having them adopted by ethnic Germans.
Don’t use the time he instigated a coupe attempt as a reason?
Can you tell me why putting my hand on an electric burner that is red hot is a bad idea? Don’t use anyone’s past experiences being burned by hot objects.
Sure you could technically go into a complex explanation using physics as to why it’s a bad idea, but why?
My defense is the U.S. Constitution. I don’t see it as even a possibility that anyone would attempt to become a dictator in the U.S.
You don’t see how many brazenly unconstitutional acts there were during the Trump presidency? And don’t see that nothing was done about them because no one in his party was willing to challenge him and they held the majority? That’s exactly how a democracy turns into a dictatorship. Without mentioning that democracy depends on smooth transitions of power. Unfortunately I no longer believe our constitution is as strong as I once did.
I agree, I dislike when congress gets bypassed.
The Constitution is a piece of paper and says whatever 6 Republicans think it says.
Regardless, SCOTUS has no actual enforcement mechanism. Whoever can order the guys with guns is in charge just like everywhere else in the world.
I highly recommend “On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century” by historian Timothy Snyder If you can’t get a book or audio book the author also reads it on YouTube.
Hey, thanks for the recommendation!
The constitution is decided by the Supreme Court in the end. The American system of government makes the selection of justices political appointees for life. That is why you have Republican and Democrat justices. Political. So the constitution gets bent into any political shape according to power possession.
Don’t for a second believe that the United States can’t sleepwalk into a dictatorship. People are already describing Jan 6 as an ordinary tourist visit. What will it take for the public to see the danger with their own eyes.
Hm… that makes sense. We slept walked into this clown world in the Western world. Good point.
If inciting an attack on the capital and destabilizing the worlds oldest democracy doesn’t immediately discount Trump from your voting decisions then you’re braindead lol. Imagine trying to argue past that, despite 9 years of existing with Trump as a political figure.
destabilizing the worlds oldest democracy
What did he do to San Marino???
You right lmaooo. That’s funny, I guess I should say oldest democracy with real world power.
Have you been paying attention to the details of Jan 6th? So far it looks like it was a setup, completely out of Trump’s control.
Before you respond, have you been paying attention to the details of Jan 6th?
The details like Trump saying he loved the insurrectionists? Yeah, I paid attention to that.
I can waste my time going through that exercise, but it’s pretty clear to any thinking person that that’s what the plan is on the Republican side, just look at the words, rhetoric and actions they’ve been taking for the past 10+ years. Otherwise, you’re maliciously asking me to go through the mental effort of writing up an attack on Trump that you’ve already decided to ignore and/or counter with some feeble bad faith argument. You’re a waste of my time and everybody else’s.
Ah okay… so you’re full of chit as per usual. Let me guess, Maddow is your favorite all-time commentator?
Why don’t YOU go ahead and write me up a 2-page essay on why Trump isn’t planning a dictatorship, cite your sources. That’s essentially what you’re asking me to do and it’s guaranteed you’ll give a short, flippant remark that doesn’t actually address any of the issues brought up, basically wasting my time. It’ll be a bunch of whataboutism, gaslighting, misdirection, and BS, that’s the standard MO.
The answer is simple. Because of the U.S. Constitution. It’s not just a piece of paper.
Congrats on doing exactly what they said you would.
That’s the only answer needed. No one is becoming a dictator in the U.S.
A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.
He wants to ignore or terminate the constitution.
Election fraud means the election would be voided and it would have to go to contingent election? I forget the process. I have no idea wtf Trump is talking about.
I’m not a, “MAGA” soldier. Quite frankly he’s just the better option of the two.
chit /chĭt/
noun.A child. A saucy girl or young woman. A statement of an amount owed for food and drink, especially one signed to indicate acceptance of the charge.I looked it up too because that’s wild.
chit /CHit/ noun a short official note, memorandum, or voucher, typically recording a sum owed. "write out a chit for whatever you take from the drinks cupboard"How is it wild? Because you use it incorrectly in almost every comment you make?
Because I’ve never heard nor read someone use, “chit” instead of “shit” and come to find out it’s an actual word (excluding chitchat) with multiple meanings.
I’m intentionally using, “chit”… being that I’m Latino and if you ever heard a boater Latino say shit, it sounds like chit.
The more you know!
Not American, and hate Trump and Biden equally. I say vote Trump. He’s the slim shady of US politics - he’s only giving you things you say with your friends inside of your living room, the only difference is he’s got the balls to say it in front of you all and don’t have to sugar coat it at all.
So instead of avoiding your discomfort of acknowledging what the US is, just vote trump and let it be clear to everyone
Or not. It doesn’t matter what you do, Trump is winning anyway. You guys are going to have cheetos man for president whether you, or we, like it or not.
Yea the things my family who likes him says in the living room is mostly ignorant compilations of how they think the government works and dumb white trash racist garbage so no thanks.
My point was entirely that the US taken as a whole is white trash racist garbage, but ok.
So your logic is that supporting garbage is better than supporting the anti-garbage because it makes clear to everyone that you and everybody else are supporting garbage? Don’t you think voting Trump because “he will win” is a self-fulfulling prophecy?
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.
Hey man, under Biden we defeated Medicare. Mission Accomplished.
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.
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.
Please replace him with Hillary or Bernie or something it would be so funny. They could even have Hillary and Bernie debate for the candidacy 😂
The Democrats knew this was going to happen. There’s no way they couldn’t. And I don’t mean Democrat supporters, many of whom were vehement that Biden was fine like so many anecdotes in this thread recount. I mean the Democrat leadership, who manage his campaign and more than likely manage his presidency. Unlike the public, they have access to him. They have his medical records, the reports of his doctors and caregivers, everything. There’s no way they didn’t know this would happen if he debated.
They might start seeding support for a different candidate into their supporter’s discourse after this, but they will have been planning for this outcome long ago. And when a left-leaning (left from a US Overton window) news platform hosts a debate that shows him up that badly and then publishes commentary like this, you have to wonder if that caused friction with the DNC or if they assented to it.
As the party starts singling out a replacement, the question I hope people start asking is why they didn’t replace Biden earlier? Did they need to wait until the urgency of imminent elections made their new candidate more palatable? And if they don’t replace Biden, why are they letting Trump win?
Welp, we’re fucked.
No. We’re “un-fucked”.
We cant win with Biden.
We CAN win without him.
Finally the dense mother fuckers who have been denying Biden’s inadequacy have been dragged, kicking and screaming, into reality.
We’ll have a brokered convention (like all conventions before 1970’s), we’ll get “generic corporate democrat”, and they’ll be instantly polling in the low to mid 50’s and we’ll actually have a fucking chance.
Biden has had no chance at winning this election at any point in his candidacy. Ever. Look at the polling. Look at the data. He’s never stood a chance and plenty of people here and elsewhere have been trying to get this through some extremely thick skulls that have basically been insisting that we need to run an un-electable candidate.
Well the goose is cooked. The rat is out of the bag. Here comes the moose or whatever. He’s done. Adios Biden, don’t let the door hit you on the way out. You did fine on some stuff but wow you fucked up on Gaza/Israel.
Minutes after that debate Newsom was on MSNBC. We’re gonna get Newsom, or maybe Inslee; a way smarter choice would be Witmer or Andy Beshear.
And guess what? Litterally ANY GENERIC CANDIDATE PUTS 10 POINTS BACK ON THE BOARD.
Bam. Switch candidates and Democrats are instantaneously back in this race.
This probably doesn’t work, and it’s probably not as good idea as anyone hopes (genuinely or not). It might happen anyway, but no matter what, we’re coasting toward a second Trump presidency, just like all the Russian agitprops here wanted all along.
If Biden is polling down 10 points or worse at the convention, they could drag someone else onto the stage, but my suspicion is that no one else outperforms him on short notice, even after his abysmal performance in the debate.
A few reasons:
- Newsom probably doesn’t want it. If he calculates Trump wins either way (not unreasonable), he’s not going to want that loss on his record since he’s already gunning for 28. He would be the best chance at getting an up-and-comer who already has good name recognition and looks and sounds good.
- Harris. If Harris wants it, she has a lot of leverage to make it hard or outright impossible for the party to push anyone else out in front of her. She’s a poor candidate for a lot of reasons, but she’s also the most attached to Biden. That’s both good and bad for her. If they want to run anyone else, they have to have her playing ball too. Ask yourself, if you were Kamala Harris, would you give up your only conceivable chance at the Oval in favor of another non-Biden candidate? Remember, in any scenario the odds are good Trump wins anyway.
- The truth may be that the party would rather just let Trump win. That sounds unthinkable, but this isn’t a secret cabal of idealists we’re talking about: it’s a bunch of self-interested rich people who want to put themselves in power. Getting them to do anything for the public good is difficult under the best circumstances. They could easily decide–rightly–that Biden is still their best shot at beating Trump. That was the call in 2020, and it paid off. Don’t forget that many of these same names being batted around now were active in the party four years ago. Newsom loses to Trump, and he’s largely seen as the best alternative. If you’re running the party and looking at those odds, you should run Biden if you actually want the best chance at winning. You might decide it’s just a lost cause and start planning for a four year long nightmare.
Good luck with Project 2025, because that’s what third party voters are voting for.
We need to get rid of FPTP voting before a 2 party system can be derailed.
Are you like, actually touched?
We’re talking about the Democratic nominee right now. Not any third party candidate.
Are you? Because people are still thinking about voting third party. Despite the fact that the system in place will not allow a third party candidate to prevail. And voting third party takes away from the Democratic party vote every time.
You are just clueless.
Sure thing, Bud.
🫵 🤡
Biden is the Democratic nominee. Sure it’s not official until August 19-22 but unless he resigns, dies, or is otherwise fully incapacitated before then, he is the candidate who will be on the ballots in November. None of those possibilities seem likely.
We haven’t had a convention. We don’t until August.
Biden is not the nominee. You should try and learn how things actually work.
Maybe look at history from time immemorial. Biden is the nominee. As unfortunate as that may be, that’s our reality.
Whats your bet? Lay down some money.
Not only switch candidates, but have Biden have the humility to back that person. Do it in the name of Democracy, you know: this election is too important and I realize we need a stronger candidate than I can be. That would sell well, and that’s what’s needed for better or worse: a good narrative
LOL. A lot of flowery language there but not much substance. The Dems can’t switch now. Trump can instantly snatch on to that and attack whoever replaces Biden as an inferior desperate backup. Trump will say you Democrats have no idea what they’re doing and they can’t even stand behind their incumbent. This isn’t only about 2024 but also about the midterms. Who would vote for a party that backstabs their incumbent?
Yeah your just wrong.
You obviously don’t know the rules for the DNC or how primary’s work, or have any kind of meaningful political acumen. You are your archetypes have been spouting this plainly wrong “political wisdom” both here and across cable news for months, years even. And reality has now bucked your claims.
Bidens not the nominee. He lost that last night. And it’s a good thing. He’s losing dramatically to Trump right now.
Such confidence in statements that will be proven wrong in a matter of days. LOL. You’ll forget these comments by then though.
I mean I’m taking bets.
I’ll take 20:1 if you feel so generous as to give me those odds.
I’ll lay down $20: Biden isn’t the nominee; and a second $20: Biden is does not win the Presidential election.
If I’m wrong on the nominee, you get $20. If I’m wrong on them winning the presidency, another $20.
If I’m right on the nominee, you pay me $400. If I’m right on them not winning the Presidency (for any reason), that’s another $400 you owe me.
Bet? Or coward that doesn’t really believe what they believe when they are held accountable?
If you don’t like those odds, feel free to offer odds you prefer and I’ll consider them.
How would we enforce the bet?
Why 20:1 and not 1:1?
Or even 1:20 if you’re so confident?
Believe in yourself. Take the 1:20 bet.
That’ll show me.
20:1 specifically?
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html
That’s just the odds of Biden (or Trump for that matter) keeling over for literally any reason whatsoever based on the social security actuarial table. So if I can get 20:1, I should be break even betting against any octogenarian.
There is a little bit better than a 1 in 15 chance, that for any 81 year old, they’ll die that year. So I hedged it to 1:20 as insurance, because I figured I’m really only betting on the first 9 months of the year. If I can get 1:20, that’s break even odds (actually slightly in my favor). Also, figure the presidency, campaigning; that shit aint a walk in the park. Probably more likely still to die in office than a standard octogenarian.
I’ll give you 10:1 if you bet at least 50 bucks. I lose, you make $50; I win, I make $500. Hows that sound?
Edit: As to how to enforce it, we can make a community and pin it there. ITs similar to what we used to do in a bar I frequented where we would bet pints (very similarly) on whatever was happening. There was a cork-board and bets would get pinned to it. And I trust you.
Your party (Democrat) is peppered with bad elements for the U.S. (Marxist, Socialist, Communist etc…). You mentioned a staunch communist, Newsom. Look at the disaster he made California into. The droves of companies and citizens leaving or have left California. The silly penalty he plans to implement for Californian residents who leave the state (he’s wants to tax all Californians for a set of years if they leave California). The number of businesses that closed, not just from the stupid minimum wage hike but also from the amount of crime in and around the businesses.
The fact that you mentioned Witmer makes me cringe… a neoliberal socialist.
Andy Beshear is the only Dem (to my knowledge) that appears to be moderate. But I have very limited knowledge of his views/goals/accomplishments. He doesn’t come off as a neoliberal or crazy leftisms… yet. He has a bias for Israel which more than likely means he’s corrupted by AIPAC.
Don’t get me wrong, the Republicans are also chitty. Thomas Massie and Rand Paul are two representatives with integrity. The others in the spotlight are chit tier.
staunch communist, Newsom.
Lol.
I love “California disaster” arguments. I have some MAGA relatives that currently live in California, they decided to move and in 2022 in summer visited non-“marxist” states. And you know what? They ended up staying.
I live in California for 25 years now and I love my state. The most opinionated about how shitty California is are people who never been here.
Brah… I can leave my A/C on 68F all day and night and not be pressured to raise it to lol… what was it again? 78F? It’s been a couple years since I’ve left California, I believe 78F is the recommendation during the hotter months. We don’t have to worry about rolling blackouts. We don’t have to pay for grocery bags. Our gas prices currently is a dollar less than Southern California, almost two dollars cheaper than gas in the Bay Area. Beautiful state, no doubt. Chitty politicians, however.
So do I. Also the only time I had an outage in 25 years was due to equipment failure and, there also was a planned maintenance. It never took longer than a couple hours.
Grocery bags cost like what? 50 cents? It encourages having reusable bags which are more practical anyway and don’t break as often.
As for gas, this is a problem with location. On one side we have ocean on the other we have mountains. This causes pollution to be trapped.
This is why Los Angeles was infamous for its smog in 70s and 80s. Catalysts and specifically refined oil helped being it back to healthy levels.
Also I don’t get the obsession with the gas. If you look at prices the gas prices were static for nearly 15 years. It is ridiculous that this is still an argument to anything.
As a California resident, WTF are you talking about?
lol… you got duped into giving away your money to a rail system that failed miserably.
California’s HSR is perhaps the greatest infrastructure failure in the history of the country. And the reason it failed is because of a gross failure of state governance, one on such a grand scale that it is nothing short of a betrayal of Californians. The betrayal dates back to the project’s inception.
dead.jpg
Curious, you ever look into the various groups that lobby to kill high speed rail before it happened? Like, I dunno, maybe the Koch’s and Musk, who have interests in other industries, hamstringing and delaying any possibility of high speed rail.
Note, it ain’t just California in the US who doesn’t have it, it’s all of America.
From what I remember, they also kept increasing the budget for the rail system.
Funny how that happens when people with too much money keep fighting you.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)
Nothing that was said or done in this debate has changed my views or voting preferences. This is an election between two dementia patients. Both are previous generation religious bigots. But only one is an authoritarian fascist. I’m a single policy voter this election. I’ve seen and been shot at by the Aryan Nations. I don’t want to deal with that shit nationally.
authoritarian fascist
Please just say fascist, authoritarian has horseshoe theory vibes which we don’t allow on this com.
So what are the chances he steps down and Camila Harris becomes prez?
Hopefully he doesn’t. A former Cop doesn’t pole well at the best of times. He never should have taken her as a VP candidate.
Not to sound inappropriate but the only reason he picked her was because she was a black woman and he slipped up before announcing his candidate and hastily said he would only choose someone like that for VIP, and Kamala was the only one anyone was talking about at the time.
The fire alarm has been going off for 5 years and they’re just now noticing the fire.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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!
