This is very reminiscent of Gore Vidal’s quote, which happens to make a better case imo:
There is only one party in the United States, the Property Party … and it has two right wings: Republican and Democrat.
Republicans are a bit stupider, more rigid, more doctrinaire in their laissez-faire capitalism than the Democrats, who are cuter, prettier, a bit more corrupt — until recently … and more willing than the Republicans to make small adjustments when the poor, the black, the anti-imperialists get out of hand. But, essentially, there is no difference between the two parties
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With the hard right turn into Fascism the GOP has been heading. They are in no way similar now. One now stands for and is working towards the destruction of the Country and the other is trying to stop it.
what are they doing to stop the destruction of the country? Name actual policies.
Your choices on the voting computer come November:
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Blue Kool-aid Fascism ©️
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Red Kool-aid Fascism ™️
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I agree that Republicans are worse. But Democrats can’t or won’t stop them even at the sharpest points of disagreement, and Democrats basically agree with Republicans far too often.
If you can’t see the readily apparent difference in the laws that Dems and Repubs pass, as well as the difference in how judges from their respective parties vote, you’re missing the forest for the trees.
Treating both sides as if they are the same lets the worse side off easy and allows them to gain power.
Democrats had a majority in the Senate and Congress and they decided to compromise with the Republicans to gut Joe Biden’s Build Back Better infrastructure plan. The Democrats gutted their own plans! What’s the point of even voting for such a spineless corrupt party? And where’s the difference?
I think the most egregious democrat betrayal was after Obama got in and he had 60 senate seats and a house majority, enough to force anything through, and he elected to strike the public option from what people call “Obamacare.”
That’s pretty much the best proof also that Democrats are completely captured by Capital. If it was a tug of war type thing, that’s clearly a moment when the president who was elected to pass exactly those types of laws would eat some corporate shit, and force congress to do the right thing. But no, the democrats and republicans both are incredibly opposed to EVER giving a drop of relief. I kinda think they’re legitimately scared that if people get one “good” thing they’ll see the real purpose of government, to serve the people, and demand everything. They’re complicit fully in the right wing “starve the beast” school of thought where you convince people the point of government is to… not exist (exist for military contracts!) or whatever by purposely defunding underfunding and means testing everything.
It’s so goddamn blood boiling infuriating to see every possible good thing get chopped down to nothing and then layers of means testing slopped on top. And when the final bill sucks complete shit you get legitimate dumbasses shrugging and saying “guess the government can’t do anything!” Dense motherfuckers!
I’ve typed myself into a rage
I kinda think they’re legitimately scared that if people get one “good” thing they’ll see the real purpose of government, to serve the people, and demand everything.
They are also wrong about that. In Poland PiS did excactly one thing right and they are winning ever since (though certainly not because of that, but it did not made them to lose in any case)
I’ve typed myself into a rage
Good. I regularly remind myself of all the things I hate to see in this world so I don’t lose my anger and passion for change. It may not be the healthiest choice for me personally to constantly be on the edge of busting into furious diatribes about the violence inherent in the system, but it keeps me working to make progress for the next generation and to educate others.
Also, I love the phrase “typed myself into a rage”
It’s funny because there’s more debate in “autocratic” China that only allows one party than in the US where, I keep hearing, the Dems and Reps disagree so vehemently over core issues
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Democrats aren’t actively passing laws to genocide me, a trans person.
You aren’t the only person or the only demographic in the world. People accross the world are having their lands stolen and their homes burned to make way for capitalist accumulation that is demanded by markets controlled by colonial powers and systems empowered by democrats and republicans alike. If the violence itself isn’t terrifying enough, it also shows the never ending bloodsport of development will always be preserved by sanctimonious enablers that can’t and won’t see past their own nose and would rather bludgeon people with their identity to extort people into supporting a system that will crush them once you are no longer politically convenint.
Okay so we stop voting. How do we organize and gather power as leftists in the US while the republican party runs rampant with no opposition stripping rights from it’s citizens while also continuing the destruction the US perpetuates?
Do you not think organizing will be easier and less destructive to the millions of people who live in the US while they’re under a right wing neo-liberal party vs a far right fascist party?
Doing a whataboutism doesn’t change the danger your allies are facing. It just let’s them fall by the wayside putting them in danger while not fixing the problems that plague the other groups. Leaving everyone worse off.
Im not going to argue with children.
Lmao okay, I’ve never heard anyone whose older than 22 pull that card but sure I’m a widdle babby
oh no… liberal noises
Your entire statement is the reverse of what it should be. YOU are the one (like many people, so at least you won’t be alone) stuck ignoring the violent system that both parties silently cooperate to uphold while they wage a never ending, back and forth, war over purposely-crafted wedge issues. Things such as: abortion, civil rights for every minority or oppressed group you can imagine, “woke” culture, the list is pretty long and we all know it well.
liberal noises intensify
No, calling them purposely-crafted, or “made up” if you want a more incendiary term to focus on and be mad about, doesn’t mean these issues don’t exist and aren’t extremely important. Of course they are. And that’s precisely why they’re so effective at derailing folks such as yourself and your counterparts, the feral hogs, who advocate for… whatever the fuck they’re on about now days. Killing trans kids and shooting gay people, I suppose. I guess killing abortion doctors and advocates got stale.
You’re falling into a well laid trap. Even for those who see it, it’s still a shitty one. Both of these parties ON THE WHOLE (so don’t give me some picked through list- I don’t care) only care about one thing: capitalism. The interests of capital and thus the interests of capitalists.
The US government is literally just a vehicle for the furtherance of capital’s interests home and abroad. Whether that means waging war in Iraq, supporting dubious regimes worldwide via infinite arms and cash, opposing anti-capitalist (or at least anti-US capitalist) regimes. And opposing is a nice word… slaughtering, genociding, utterly destroying the entire fucking planet and bombing entire cultures out of existence so the billion dollar corporations at home can get a few more billion.
I would love to see a list of politicians who advocate for the complete abolition of: the DoD, the CIA, FBI, ATF, DEA, etc. Becuase THOSE orgs/agencies are the swords of imperialism wielded by the United States only ever in the interests of US capital. When the state dept says “US interests” that’s what it always means. US capital, businesses, the rich guys who own all of us including the illusion of a democracy we have.
And so, in order to keep looking away from that hard truth, that very clear and obvious truth, they’ve constructed all these wedge issues. Constructed in a pretty literal sense. 70%+ of Americans are “pro-choice” (I hate the terminology, but, it’s what’s used…). This is NOT a debated topic and never has been. Most Americans, I don’t know the stat offhand but I’d guess 70-80%, are pro-LGBTQ rights including marriage. Like, these just aren’t actual issues outside of the most INSANE feral hogs on the super far, Christo-Fascist right. So why do we give a shit about them and give them any time of day? Well, that’s a great fucking question isn’t? In anything resembling a “democracy” the hogs would simply be told “cool, we listened to you. You’re dumb and wrong and bad. Abortion is now fully legalized. Eat shit, fucksticks.” And democrats and republicans, and the aristocratic republican fucks like McConnell and George W absolutely DO NOT care about abortion on any sort of moral level, could definitely shove through laws, squash any annoying dissent, and move on. They choose not to though. And of course liberals will cite 500 pages of liberal Democratic bullshit on WHY they can’t just do that- no, the fucking fact is, they can. They just can. They can declare emergencies, they can use the insurrection act, whatever the fuck, it can absolutely be done at any given moment. So we either delude ourselves into believing these bloodless, soulless leeches care about some perceived semblance of “democracy” (ask Iraq, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Russia, Ukraine, Serbia, Syria, Indonesia,… infinite list, how much American lawmakers value democracy) OR they’re choosing, for the purpose of this little round and round and round “game” they play, to do nothing to resolve the conflicts, which again are imaginary conflicts, purely fabricated, and then enact the will of the people to cut back on the excesses of capital.
If your argument is “democrats usually vote for laws that murder less gay people.” Ok, sure. But you have to wake up from the dream at some point and take a look around. They’ve been letting the right wing win for 50 years at least. You gotta fucking ask, at some point, “why?” Right wing economic policies are not now and never have been popular. Not really, not when explicitly explained to people. If you can’t see both sides of the coin are complicit in the elevation and always-further-rightward trend of US politics… then you aren’t paying attention.
The only way out of this shit is the same as it’s always been: rejection of capitalist dogmas. But honestly the US is so far fucking gone at this point that I find it useless to even prescribe fixes. The amount of de-programming and education people here need is… a multi generational project. Almost pointless to even speculate on as an individual. I can tell you simply voting for Biden or AOC is not going to change anything in a meaningful way. Nothing will change while the status quo and mandatory position for representatives is supporting wars and never allowing a single pro-worker/anti-capital bill or law to exist ever. And democrats are simply absolutely not the way out of that.
Once again, liberals need to be reminded that Democrats are actually bankrolling the electoral campaigns of the most extreme Republicans who want to murder immigrants, Black people, and lgbtq as part of their platforms. If that’s not evidence that the Dems and GOP are teammates I don’t know what else can convince them.
Not doubting but wondering if anyone has any specific examples of this?
Cool so the solution is to not vote so the Republicans win all those elections and trans people get genocided on a country level instead of a state level, right? God what a big brain you have, I wonder why I never saw it that way before.
No the solution is to organize and develop real political power so that we don’t have to rely on parties that have neither of our interests in mind. Unless you consider “voting” as the only legitimate form of participation in politics?
No it’s not, not at all, but voting needs to be done and instead of encouraging people not to vote you should be directing them to ways of organizing and developing political power. Voting is like an hour of time (if that) one day every 2 years. It’s not like it’s so hard to do that along with actual means of change.
When did I encourage people not to vote?
You’re responding to me based off of your own emotional investment to the electoral process. Nowhere did I say not to vote.
You were responding positively to a comment that is encouraging people not to vote, pardon for thinking you agreed with that sentiment when you didn’t voice disagreement to it.
Who said voting was the only thing that needs to be done? It is A thing that needs to be done, but it needs to be done and it needs to be for democrats. If there is even a single trans person in your life you should realize this. The GOP are actively attempting to genocide them and the democrats are not, and I’d really like to not be killed because people like you are convincing others not to vote for the party that doesn’t want me dead (aka the party that literally doesn’t care about me instead of the party that cares in a bad way)
The only thing that voting democrat does is to move the Overton Window to the right due to the ratchet effect.
Democrats are fascists too. They are war criminals and third world exploiters. They support the usa war machine and receive lobby money from weapons companies and big oil.
Also, Democrats didn’t care about the rape victims either. They dont care about reproductive rights or Roe v Wade. Democrats could have made it law when they were the supermajority, yet they didn’t do anything just so they could use it as a promise/bargaining chip on some election, yet the Republicans beat them to it. Democrats don’t care about your reproductive rights.
Join the CPUSA!
Unlike your tankie overlords who have never exploited another culture, oppressed their people, committed unspeakable atrocities, or caused huge amounts of climate devastation. 🙄
Oh yes, inb4 whataboutism strawman. You lot would shit yourselves if you had to live under tankie rule. Where you go to prison for simply criticising your tankie overlords.
Unlike your tankie overlords who have never exploited another culture, oppressed their people, committed unspeakable atrocities, or caused huge amounts of climate devastation.
Name them. All of them, or stfu and open a book.
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Nah
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I don’t understand why this is getting downvoted - much like choosing between being kicked in the testicles or being slowly lowered feet-first into a woodchipper, 2 things can be bad, but one remains the stupid choice.
…oh - if you decide not to choose, you’ll still face one of these fates - and there’s a good chance it’ll be the woodchipper.
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On energy policy alone, the Republican policy remains based on fossil fuels while the Democrat policy is focused on a transition to renewables.
This enlightened centrism shtick is dopey. You get to be all smug without giving so much as a few seconds thought to understand that while 2 things can be bad, one can be far worse, and we should do what we can to avoid that.
Enlightened centrism
Have you been paying attention to what our ideology actually is? We clown on centrists all the time. We’re MLs, we’re not bloody centrists. We consider liberalism (the ideology of private property and capitalism) to be far right, no matter which MAGA imperialist flavour it’s presented in.
Apologies - I forgot I was in tankieland, where American diabolism takes precedence over even worker enfranchisement.
Back to the point, I’ve given a pretty straightforward, relevant difference you’ve failed to address.
We’re all for worker enfranchisement here, that’s one of the core tenets in Tankieland.
To your point of republican fossil fuels vs democrat renewables:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/10/climate/biden-manchin-fossil-fuel-permits.html
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Center-right, and you failed to address the relevant, significant difference I pointed to.
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lmao even you don’t believe in a better future anymore, you see that you’re fucked and want to cling to the slightly less bad doom compared to the worse one.
Nice job telling me incorrectly what I believe.
I believe we need to take the less bad choice to buy time to advocate and transition to a good one. I’m not so naiive as to think that the Democrats’ current path will suddenly make a dramatic pivot and fix the problem - we need to push them to do far, far better.
I understand the “buying time” argument and why there are those that believe it, but it should be obvious by now that you can’t push the Democrats to “do better.” The most left voices of the party, rather than pulling the party away from fascism, have openly embraced our current trajectory.
Oh you know what, I don’t care for this government. I might make critical statements about it and maybe it will drive societal change and then political change
Oh you know what, I don’t care for this government. I might make critical statements about it and go to prison for it.
One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just isn’t the same. Tankies won’t tell you they’re a bunch of bootlickers, they try to convince you it’s democracy to blame.
Are the tankies in the room with us? You okay bro?
Instead you go to jail in the US based on the colour of your skin.
Similarly, better jail in the US than the gulag.
…oh, and the USSR blew past the systemic racism and violence straight to broad ethnic purges anyhow.
Happy choosing, people!
If we could work our way toward actual communism, that’d be real nice.
In the USA they raise the price of water in their gulags during heat waves to extort more money out of their ethnic minority slave labourers. Hundreds of slaves have died in the past few years from roasting to death in their cells.
The rest of your comment is similarly ignorant yankese.
Nice of you to inaccurately reappropriate the term for soviet labour camp to a US prison. The rate of death in the gulags was 32-36x higher than the rate in US prison.
The US prison system is a fucking disgrace that urgently needs to be fixed, but comparing it to the gulags is disgustingly dishonest tankie apologia.
Bullshit
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What a spectacularly stupid, ironic take. Where are you getting your history from, champ?
Some numbers (fuck me, it’s insane I need to provide these). Between 1930 and 1953, roughly 14 million people were sent to the gulags - 1. 5 million - 1.7 million of those people died in the gulag or shortly thereafter - 10.7% - 12.1%
The rate of death in US prison? 0.33% - that’s 32-36 times worse. You assume the US stats are an order of magnitude off because tankie magic science, and you’re still spectacularly wrong.
Fuck you and your dumb authoritarian apologia.
You compared the USSR to Tsarist Russia rather than the US - why? You can’t have run out of pixels… You only used about 12.
You want more gulag info?
Here you go: https://lemmygrad.ml/comment/704239
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No books, no data, no point?
Your average tankie tends to go on a long, ahistorical rant, but you’re seemingly incapable of even that. You’re even worse than the average tankie.
What an embarrassment.
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quick question champ what happened in europe between 1939 and 1945
There are currently Black, indiginous and environmental activists who are detained under Biden’s law of “domestic terrorism.” Is that what you’re talking about?