Kash Patel looks like he’s constantly, just now, finding out that he’s gotten way too high and accidentally joined up with the Nazis and just remembered he’s a dark skinned minority named Kash Patel.

Don’t worry. There is a small army of well laid McKinsey consultants right now reassuring the DNC that while economic populism won for Mamdani it would never work outside of New York. They will tell the ghouls bought and paid for by big money donors that yesterday wasn’t a complete loss, Liz Cheney could get some sympathy votes on the ticket if the DNC is just brave enough to make her the VP nom and pivot to the center.

The reason Dems are doing this is clear.

If Mamdani wins they can go “we endorsed him, he won because of the backing of the party”

If Mamdani loses they can go “see, we told you that we need to pivot further right. We told you. We didn’t sabotage him, we endorsed him for goodness sake”

Withhold endorsement and throw mud in the water all the way up to the end then try to slap a last minute endorsement on there so they can absolve themselves of any blame and pretend like the “time to vote left is the primaries” like they won’t ratfuck you after you win the primary.

I think the day of the church shooting (the more recent one) there were two other mass shootings.

It is quite odd to become numb to this. I remember coming home from school and seeing the columbine shooting on every channel, it being a discussion for weeks and months.

They used to be rare enough to be named. Now they are so common I have to qualify which recent church shooting I’m talking about. I saw a headline recently that just said “3 mass shootings today” and I didn’t even bother to find out the details.

The details barely ever change, the response is always the same nothing, the people in power just don’t care. Over time even if you do care you just become exhausted. There’s literally not enough time to process one mass shooting before the next.

And now fascism has arrived and has decided it wants to make war against the citizens, so it’s a bad disarm. The loudest gun owners are excited about this turn of events, but they aren’t the only gun owners.

Part of me thinks this is all to the benefit of the owner class. A scared population is easier to control, just promise them safety. An isolated population that has no third place to go to due to the threat of violence is easier to exploit. They don’t fix it because it’s working just fine for them.

It is also infuriating because Biden spent his term dealing with the fallout of Covid.

Americans got totally fucked during the pandemic. The government handed out a one time payment to some of the population that wouldn’t be enough to cover a months rent on a single bedroom apartment.

They then did the paycheck protection program where they handed out gobs of money to business owners. These “loans” were forgiven and plenty of wealthy business owners just ended up pocketing piles of money.

So you have an incompetent trump government failing to do public health policy, then only helping the owner class, causing massive inflation.

The republicans always do this. They take over a healthy economy, pass policies that supercharge it in the short term but are completely unsustainable in the long term.

The economy crashes, the voters put a democrat in office, the democrat spends their term cleaning up the mess, and then gets shit for having a crappy economy.

You aren’t revealing some mystical secrets of the universe I’m too dense to understand.

I know the DNC would love to blame their electoral failure on third parties. They aren’t a shitty uninspiring party that cant articulate an authentic compelling vision for the future, it’s the stupid voters. These dumb dumb voters just won’t vote for them because they got tricked, hood winked into voting for, I forget who was the spoiler that cost Harris her victory. I know people like to blame Bernie for 2016, even though the actual data clearly showed Bernie voters loyally voted along with the party in greater numbers than Clinton voters did for Obama.

You think you are being the adult in the room stamping your feet and throwing a tantrum that the dumbass voters dont want to vote for the garbage neolib party that offers them nothing. I’ve got an adult sized wake up pill for you PARTIES HAVE TO WIN VOTES! And if your solution is to tell everyone, the party is fine we just need these dumbass voters to fall in line, you’ve got bigger problems than arguing with some guy on Lemmy.

The inside strategy has given us two trump presidencies and has directly led to the current situation we find ourselves in.

The progressive caucus is the group that needs to divorce itself from the DNC.

Progressive policies are widely popular and the progressive brand is not marred by the same unpopularity as the democrats.

They should continue to run under the democratic ticket while converting their caucus machinery into a viable replacement party that can displace the DNC. Instead they currently act as an organ of a failed party that has proven time and again that they are unable to win elections.

I’ve been told to vote for better Dems for 25 years, while they ratfuck anyone even slightly progressive.

They either ratfuck them in the primary with some rigged primary process, or ratfuck then after the primary by allowing Dems to run independent and split the voter base, withholding endorsements, giving half hearted endorsements and when the progressive candidate loses use the outcome of their ratfucking to justify moving further right because anyone left of Nixon is “unelectable”

If one miraculously makes it through those two ratfucks, they will then do anything in their power to make sure they have as little influence as possible on the party, David Hogg found this out firsthand, or in the halls of power, like when they passed over progressives to put a cancer riddled and dying Neolib into a committee chair.

If insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, it’s not clear to me how continuing to support the Dems is going to start working. The neolibs own the party and they don’t seem very interested in divesting their power.

Maybe it’s time for a new party. The danger of splitting the vote when you are already losing and even in the face of authoritarian christofascism somehow less popular than authoritarian christofascism makes me think there’s not much to lose

You can tell from the quality of his work that this might be the first time he’s done any kind of manual labor.

What a thrill for him to pretend he’s a working man. Probably got done went home opened a $12 microbrew and really let his hair down.

You can see in this post how the DNC tries to invalidate even fighting in the primaries.

1. Mamdani wins the primary
2. The DNC does everything in their power to make him lose in the general election
3. When he loses, they can point to that and go “see voters just don’t want that!” In the next primary.

So even after winning in a primary, anyone left of Nixon is going to get rat fucked by the party so they can keep up their bullshit electability narrative.

I agree with you there.

I think that’s part of the issue with neoliberalism, since it doesn’t care to reign in the abuses of the elites.

It’s interesting how the frustrated masses though are so ready to pick someone that’s clearly on the side of the ruling class.

I think that’s the part which might be more prominent in western culture right now. This paradox where people’s lives are made worse every day by businesses, businesses jacking up their rent, businesses gouging prices, businesses invading their privacy. And they finally have enough and go “we need someone to come in and run this country like a business.”

It’s amazing to watch millions of people have legitimate complaints and be completely unable to identify the source of their misery, so much that they hand it even more power.

It’s a good question.

Here are some facts we have to accept about the world first

• as long as authoritarians point their abuses inwards there’s no amount that causes the international community to put a stop to it, especially not against the United States.
• those with authoritarian power rarely surrender it willingly
• institutions do not historically stop fascism

So we are already down the road, whether we collectively want to admit it or not.

Here are some things you can do that might lessen some damage but are unlikely to stop the train

• vote for neoliberals. Go for it, it’s better than the alternative. But if putting neoliberals into power stopped fascism, then electing Biden in 2020 wouldn’t have been followed with trump in 2024
• protest, at least the peaceful do nothing protests that are allowed here. If your protest doesn’t make those with power worry then it’s almost really a protest but a state sanctioned pressure relief.

I would consider myself further left than any party and I hear people that share my views say that you should organize and build community solidarity. These are nice things, we should care for our neighbors and through tough times community can be a major source of strength. Not super likely to topple fascism but could make living through it better.

I see 3 scenarios where fascism fades into, well not really the background but the middle ground.

1. Trump dies. He’s an old sick man, if he dies there will be plenty attempting to take the mantle up. Apple is still Apple without Steve Jobs but there not really a Steve Jobs replacement.
2. Trump starts stupid wars. Stupid here being war with NATO, like trying to take Greenland by force. A war with Iran is also stupid but unlikely to turn people against him.
3. Sustained general strike. This could actually work but the people of this country dont seem to have it in them.

I think we should also understand that the ability to maintain an authoritarian state has improved since Hitler and Mussolini. Hungary, Turkey, the Russian Federation are all examples of effectively authoritarian dictatorships wearing the trappings of democracy to some degree.

America has long been a nation bought by lobbyists to do the bidding of the wealthy. It’s not too crazy to think that we end up just zombie marching along with just enough trappings of democracy to say “it’s not too bad yet” for a long time. We have the national guard occupying US cities while a masked police force abducts people off the streets and illegally traffics them to other nations to be imprisoned without due process and disappeared. There are many red lines that have been crossed that could have been when people stood up, but everyone is waiting for something. That thing might never come.

I wish people could really understand this.

Neoliberalism leads to fascism. Not like in a cartoonish they sit around in some fortress of evil planning a Nazi takeover.

Neoliberalism all over western society has shown itself ineffective at meeting people’s needs.

Neoliberalism wants free markets and limited governments. This leads to capital gaining a huge amount of power because the government categorically doesn’t want to regulate them. That power eventually turns to exploitation of the citizens and capture of the government.

Exploited citizens with an ineffective government get frustrated with a system that’s not meeting their needs. This is the dry tinder in which fascism catches fire, a charismatic person shows up and says “give me unlimited power and I can fix this quagmire you are in” and a lot of people go “fuck it, it can’t be worse than this” and you get a fascist dictator.

Neoliberalism leads to fascism not because they are the same but because neoliberalism creates the perfect environment for fascism to sprout and grow.

America was waking up, as Germany once did, to the awareness that one-third of our people will kill one-third of our people while one-third of our people watches.

Harlan Coben, The Boy from the Woods (Wilde, #1)

Dude imagine living here your entire life, advocating for improvements, voting for the best politicians you can in the primaries, voting for the uninspiring Dems in the general.

I don’t have any faith in my fellow countrymen either. I just live here.

The only thing I’d push back on is that this dumb fuck could have gotten into office and not squandered the soft power of the US. If he were a bombastic boorish idiot that kept the global order running as normal do people give as much of a shit in other countries.

I hate that 75M Americans are cheering right now, and I also hate that almost 100M Americans are just sitting on the sideline in every election going “nah, doesn’t matter enough to vote”

Boy it sure would be scary if there was some part of the Bible that told you that how you treated the least amongst us, the hungry, the immigrant, the homeless, was how you treated god.

I’m sure trump has nothing to worry about, he’s always been real nice to the vulnerable among us right?

Matthew 25:40-45 New International Version

40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

It only took a century of work to build up all that trust and goodwill. We could spend it down in a few months, make a ton of money, certainly there will be no negative long term effects.

The Dems though paint this like it’s a “necessary evil” they just have to accept all these donations from the ultra wealthy because you can’t win any other way

So the position starts off cynically pragmatic, and cynical pragmatism makes for a shitty rallying cry.

But then it doesn’t even work. They sell out to get the big money donations and then lose.

Ineffective cynical pragmatism is an even worse rallying cry.

And any time you get a Sanders or a Mamdani that shows a different path to success they go “oh sure that worked for them but it wouldn’t work anywhere else, only our cynical pragmatism works everywhere as long as you ignore all these electoral defeats”

The Dems though paint this like it’s a “necessary evil” they just have to accept all these donations from the ultra wealthy because you can’t win any other way

So the position starts off cynically pragmatic, and cynical pragmatism makes for a shitty rallying cry.

But then it doesn’t even work. They sell out to get the big money donations and then lose.

Ineffective cynical pragmatism is an even worse rallying cry.

And any time you get a Sanders or a Mamdani that shows a different path to success they go “oh sure that worked for them but it wouldn’t work anywhere else, only our cynical pragmatism works everywhere as long as you ignore all these donations from electoral defeats”

But maybe this time if we cozy up to the wealthy and get a shit ton of money like 11 gojillion dollars the voters won’t mind that we aren’t advancing policies they like.

Harris only got over a billion but I think if we sell out a little bit harder, shift a little further to the right to make our positions more attractive to the uber wealthy, this time it’ll work.