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Have some civility.
(lemmy.ml)
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this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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Capitalism = bad. I'm fully behind that, and see it as the root of the problem. What I don't see is a path forward that doesn't involve incremental progress, even if not all demographics are served. At least not without violence that will be disrupt even more.
I think this is where we disagree, but I might still be missing something.
You (assorted folks responding to me) want an epoch change where we rise up and take back the power we have. We have it right now, but the price to pay to enforce that is too high for me.
I want a progression where we work towards owning that power. We had it partially when unions were still strong, but it was undermined. In my mind, the solution is education, but I have no power to enact that directly. My ability to influence is limited to my local org and voting.
A green party, socialist party, etc, will never win an election in our current environment. Votes there are literally useless, if not spoiling a candidate that has at least some if your views. The system is rigged, sure, but you can't flip this table and walk away.
Can we separate this discussion into talking about politics and elections and eliminate Israel/Palestine? I'm a-religious, pro Palestine, pro humanitarian, but having that angle seems to quickly degenerate every conversation into 'both sides are genocide' and avoid the'how do we move forward' question. I think these can be separated, but maybe that is also a place we disagree.
No, you can't "eliminate palestine"
But do you actually see a path forward that does involve incremental progress?
I've watched politics incrementally change from Clinton's Third Way to Bush's War on Terror to McCain/Palin and the Tea Party to Trump.
I've watched Fox news incrementally change, I've watched print media incrementally be bought up.
I'm hearing about abortion getting banned, hate crimes going up, school shootings, people being abducted and sent to death camps in El Salvador.
When does this incremental change move us forward instead of backwards?
I'm not the assorted folks responding. What I personally want is a reform. I like the idea of democracy. I do not think we have it.
I think the system we currently have is rigged and not capable of producing the incremental change you ask of it.
Where I agree with everyone else, is that if we have to resort to revolution just to get the slightest pedestrian changes to the electoral system to let incremental change takeover (repeal citizens united, disband both parties, disallow "parties" to subvert primaries, remove big money, etc)... why set it back up more or less the same?
When those other leftists accept revolution as inevitable they can dream bigger beyond the current system.
The more liberalism is cooped by capitalists to resist the reforms liberalism itself demands, the less liberalism as a coherent movement can thrive.
This leaves actual liberals like you and me disenfranchised and without a party. A further leftist might describe that as defeatist.
You've captured the flaw in liberalism extremely succinctly. Liberal ideology calls for the capitalist class to hold all the material power, inevitably leading them to do away with liberal reforms because the ideological liberals don't have the power to stop them.
Thank you!
It wasn't a compliment
When my goal is to describe the flaws of liberalism succinctly and you say "You've captured the flaw in liberalism extremely succinctly." I have a hard time taking that as an insult, ngl.
Sorry, I didn't realize you had abandoned liberalism between that comment and the previous one. You probably should have said something.
If you have been following politics from the Clinton era, then you wound have seen the progress and incremental change first hand especially regarding social rights.
Gay marriage didn't exist. They were denied their existence in the military, and on TV.
We went from that to adding new letters to the ltgb alliance every few years. To pronouns and kinks like furries being accepted.
A black president was unimaginable. There were still people alive that experienced segregation.
Most of what you are listing are reactions to the progress. The bigots pushed back, and they won partly because they convinced us to be more cynical and divisive. To ignore and forget the progress that was made and spin as negatively as possible all the change we see.
Incremental change is moving forward 3 steps after falling back 2, not giving up because we couldn't be at step 5 by now.
Once again, socially left and economically right isn't left! There's a reason why Republicans blather on about LGBTQIA, while also embracing the likes of Santos, Thiel and Cook. For goodness’ sake, can you not see the mismatch between words and actions of politicians of any affiliation?
Liberalism is when some of the war criminals are PoC
Democrats spent decades fucking about with half-measures until the courts stepped in. And since democrats are so utterly useless at everything, they didn't codify Obergefell (after all, they didn't want to kill the filibuster they haven't bothered to block any of trump's agenda with) and the supreme court is likely gonna overturn it. But that's just an opportunity for more fundraising spam, which was the sum total of democrats' actions when the courts overturned Roe.
Are we really going to pretend that if LGBT rights were pushed and promoted by the democrats in the 90s, the American populace was just going to accept it? The Republicans would likely have a supermajority and the presidency after Clinton's 1st term.
Look what happened when we had 8 years with a black president.
I'm not saying the democrats did everything right, but the logic on incremental progress is correct vs tear it all down if it's not a utopia already
As opposed to taking credit for the work they didn't fucking do.
They had a majority under Obama and another under Biden. They had the opportunity to codify Obergefell. They chose not to. I wonder how upset they were that scotus did what they were unwilling to do because it wasn't iNcReMeNtAl enough.
If scotus hadn't stepped in, democrats would still be fucking about with half-measures.
When Obama had the majority, what did Democrats spend their time and political capital on? I don't know about you but healthcare seems pretty important and affects more people than gay marriage.
Biden used his to deal with a pandemic fallout and he was at least attempting to solve a educational loan bubble.
Keep in mind things like gay marriage and abortion were never in any immediate danger at any time. It has become socially acceptable and used as an empty threat by Republicans. That they were crazy enough to go through with it is just stupidity on their part.
Again, the democrats can be much much better, but you are absolutely ignoring the progress they made that would never have been made under Republican leadership.
Killing the public option and capitulating to republicans.
He was sure able to sell weapons to netanyahu without any problem at all. Bipartisan support, even. But codifying Obergefell wasn't a priority.
Which is why Roe was never overturned.
But they never will.
Yet we got the ACA, but i guess you prefer the old system where Americans can't get insured if they have preexisting conditions.
Sure. Things are easier to pass with bipartisan support. Are you suggesting Obergefell would receive bipartisan support? Lol
Which is irrelevant to my point. Roe was a republican talking point for decades but they were never stupid enough to act on it. When they did there was immediate election fallout. We are still in the "finding out" stage and there can absolutely be more blowback from this down the road.
Which is why you should continue to support the Republicans. That'll show them
Social rights are great, but you're ignoring cost of living and material conditions to paint there being more progress than there has been.
Financially, the average worker has seen the cost of food, housing and transportation increase massively with inflation but wages haven't kept up.
The 2008 banking crisis and COVID 19 have only pushed this even further.
You are viewing everything through the lens of now now now.
Inflation was at record lows from the housing crisis through the pandemic. It only spiked in 2021-2022. Before that, we had nearly 3 decades of sub 2% inflation. You are basing all your conclusions on 3 years worth of data instead of 30.
Look things suck financially right now. Everyone is hurting except the rich and it is absolutely stupid. But no it has not always been that way and social progress is not the reason we are where we are.
We are in financial trouble because we elected a far right party that is breaking everything. Because we would rather be cynical about the Democrats and blame them for the economic fallout of a pandemic instead of having realizing the fallout is due to abysmal mismanagement of said pandemic by the very administration we let back in power.
Inflation has largely been controlled during that period, but real wages have stagnated since at least the housing crisis of '08. It doesn't make a lick of difference how well inflation is managed to the poors when buying power is lost.
Pandemic (and even prior) economic malaise is not the fault nor legacy of the Democrats necessarily, but political cynicism bites both ways, and is a lot harder to overcome when the party tells you economic factors are looking up and asks you to wait it out for an uncertain boom in the future.
Yes, Republican (esp. MAGA) policies and mentalities make that promised economic future dicier, but they deliver a feeling of doing something.
You realize what you are saying doesn't make things any better, right?
Republicans played on the fears and stupidity of the American people and promised to deliver something, anything.
Democrats are trying to explain to the American people than yes, there is a period of higher inflation and prices, but the Biden/Harris administration navigated us out of a pandemic and provided a wage increase that outdated prices from 2020 to Sept 2024. That provided all time high in wages in US history. And this was despite the typical republican obstruction from congress and the judicial. And if given another 4 to 8 years we can continue to improve on this.
And that the American people, faced with facts or feelings, chose to elect the ones that let that ruined our country by mismanaging the pandemic (which caused the economic issues)...again.
No i don't think we should agree with this logic. I want Americans to make smarter and more rational decisions and not have selective amnesia after only 4 years. Just because everything was not fixed in 4 years does not mean we should choose the dumbest possible option just because they delivered a "feeling"
No of course not. Things are what they are.
The Democrats' long-term planning skills are not in question here, but they must recognize that they cannot enact those long-term plans without access to the levers of power- and that short term concessions must be made to that end.
As for voters: we all wish they thought more and weren't constantly led around by the nose, but both facts and feelings are part of their individual calculus for support. Obama was carried in on feelings of hope which vibed with the zeitgeist. Trump came in on a presentation of a strong figure (that we know to be false) that complements the uncertainty about the future that Obama left behind when hope kinda petered out over his term.
The feelings in this case are critical because we know politicos cannot possibly keep all their (sometimes contradictory) campaign promises and they cannot voice their position on every issue. So it falls to the voters to suss out what priorities and allegiances the politician has and how they will respond to any given event.
And because we elected another far right party that is uninterested in fixing anything.
Hey, it’s the self admitted troll who has dedicated themself to stalking every single comment I make because they got big mad I said genocide denial is bad.