The United States is Falling Apart and the World is Taking Notice
The United States is imploding. The reign of Donald Trump is not only challenging and threatening the very foundations of its constitutional democracy, it
In three weeks, Donald Trump has imploded whatever positive image the United States might have had internationally.
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good old lefty progressivism reduced to: "look at what trump is doing!"
if you're truly progressive or left, you have as much ire for the democratic party-- if not more.
You're getting downvoted by the same people who got upset by calling out that Kamala and Biden were not good candidates.
If they were, they would have beat this idiot.
The DNC has no idea, nor does it care, what people really need or want. They don't represent our reality. The only Dems who do are... You guessed it: Progressive.
AOC, Bernie, Ro Khana, Cori Bush, Nina Turner... None of them are supported by the establishment wing of the Democratic Party. All of them have people in mind over reelection.
It's time for a sea change.
I think Kamala was an embarrassment that deserved to be called out, Biden is evil, and the establishment often cares more about suppressing progressives than beating Republicans, but I absolutely downvoted that dumb as shit comment.
The Democrats can be responsible for failing to defeat fascism, complicit in genocide and the backsliding of civil rights, and a problem in need of active and forceful change without saying stupid things like they're just as bad as the guy empowering Nazis, destroying the civil service, and persecuting trans people with deadly results.
That's fucking stupid online edgelord politics.
complicit in genocide
stupid things like they're just as bad as the guy empowering Nazis
They're the same picture
The people you're arguing with and you always seem to want the same progressive candidate, but it ain't reflecting in the vote counts. I'm not even gonna argue from my viewpoint anymore, cause it doesn't matter when we want the same thing. What can we do together to make sure that changes? Especially in local and state elections, that seems to be where we can make the most impact.
You're going out and voting for every primary for progressive candidates, right? Cause we both gotta do it, cause there's just that many Nazis out there. And we need our friends and families to do so too, and I imagine you are just the same as I am and talking with them.
So if everyone is doing their best in their small world, what's the next step, or what are we missing in your opinion? And I'm asking this with sincerity, whether you believe it or not.
And since it's a while to the next voting time, do you see any worthwhile plan of resistance? There's a couple of general strike/don't work days planned coming up, but pessimism seems strong there. How are you feeling about them or other options?
They don't even want the same candidate. Whenever those candidates come up they complain that they sold out or they're not radical enough. Whatever the deeper motivation is, their only perceivable act seems to be to complain.
As to action, I do agree with the general sentiment that it needs to be sustained. The protests need to have a cost and disrupt regular life beyond just people taking a day off. But I think things are tense enough that something like BLM could kick off again. People just need to believe it's time. A protest day after day, or a multiweek protest on a specific day, could convince people it's real. A one and done protest following the prescribed route isn't useless (it reminds people that basically half the country hates the guy), but it's something people see and think they did their resistance and now it's back to regular life.
We’re not voting again. There won’t be another election. There hasn’t been free and fair elections since 2000 but most have their heads in the sand about electoral theft.
I’m done protesting. I’ve been protesting since the Iraq war. The people organizing protests are lame, want the protest to be peaceful and not annoy anyone. Fuck that. They’re such fucking losers. Completely brainwashed since birth that non-violence is the answer. The government is violent towards us every goddamn day and holds a monopoly on violence. There was a protest by me with a set time of a few hours and then everyone goes home. Total fucking losers. About as useful as making a social media post.
Give me a gun and some coordinates on where the capitalists are hiding and I’ll shoot. That’s the only way forward now. More Luigi.
Your actions are indistinguishable from someone trying to suppress progressive action. You call for something no one is going to do (take up arms) and make moronic absolutist statements to drive rancor within progressive action.
You don't need someone to give you coordinates or get you a gun. You could do that yourself. If you're serious, just go do it, and mention Lemmy so we all get to say we interacted with the guy online. You don't need our help or approval if you think that's the next step. But you're not going to do anything, just bitch about everyone else doing things you say are pointless. You're just here to talk a big game and criticize everyone else to kill any sort of organizing or solidarity.
Protesting does not work. if it did we wouldn’t be in this fucking position.
You know what the right does? They show up fucking armed.
If you're going to be a martyr, that's a huge commitment. Right now, folks like you and I are just toeing the line and hoping someone else makes the decision for us. But if you're going to toe that line and you're not already armed, you're just volunteering to be slaughtered. Get armed, train, and be ready for when your rights are violated.
100%
Give me a gun and some coordinates on where the capitalists are hiding and I’ll shoot.
You're so smart but you don't know where they are? Looks like another Internet Tough Guy.
You’ve got a GPS tracker on these technofascists?
Uhh, you could just post up within 5 miles of Wall Street and see about 15,000 of them on an average day. Is the US short of capitalists? Are you really not acting only because you have no targets?
Although, I guess your original message DID say "Give me a gun...". So it seems like your only asset is some vague ambition to do something, but you seem to lack the equipment and motivation. Keep it up with your tough guy internet posts though, it's really making an impact.
Shooting some mid level finance manager isn’t gonna do shit but make things worse. I want a billionaire technofascist.
Well, maybe you'll get lucky and one will walk by your bedroom door.
The Democrats can be responsible for failing to defeat fascism, complicit in genocide and the backsliding of civil rights, and a problem in need of active and forceful change without saying stupid things like they're just as bad as the guy empowering Nazis, destroying the civil service, and persecuting trans people with deadly results.
No, they’re literally the same thing. They’re the genociders. Backsliding of civil rights? No they cynically campaigned off roe v Wade for fifty fucking years. Persecuting trans people? Oh they’re now pivoting further right because they learn all the wrong lessons in service to capital and are helping the republicans with anti trans bills of their own.
Your defense of the indefensible and irredeemable is fucking pathetic.
I have a very real fear that even if a truly progressive democratic candidate runs for president, they still won't win.
Don't get me wrong, they still should actually give it a shot. There's literally no other winning alternative for the Dems.
Instead, I think you're very right about the DNC not knowing what people want. There is a huge, mildly surprising amount of support in this country for bigotry. There is a surprising amount of people locked into the Nazi vote, and you know I'm not exaggerating. This is what people actually want. As it turns out, they chose fascism over treating specific people as people, same as last time, and times before.
This is America. And it has allies with other bigots and land grabbing warmongers.
May we both survive, and here's to hoping we can get a progressive candidate next time, if we get a next time. It's always worth it to fight for someone's right to just exist.
I have a very real fear that even if a truly progressive democratic candidate runs for president, they still won't win.
I get what you mean, but remember that many people voted for Trump because they wanted change, not because they were exceptionally thrilled about his bigotry. The Bernie-Trump pipeline is a very real phenomenon (see also AOC-Trump voters) and makes the GOP seem like they have more popular support than they really do.
I don't see it that way, where are these supposed trump regretting folk? I haven't seen them. I thought I saw one in a friend I miss, and then he spews the qanon bullshit that passes for doge talking points.
By overwhelming majority, they're cool with this. This is America, when someone shows you who they are, believe them.
So, what then. Continue this mindless pendulous torture? You think what we've done until now has been effective?
I think I was being a bit reactive because I'm so used to the knee-jerk negative. You make good points, in your third paragraph especially. That said, I don't think you're entirely wrong about the Nazi vote there, even though it's tongue-in-cheek. There are Dems reaching across the aisle to vote for Trump's nominees. They need to be blockading the same way the GOP did for legitimate good-faith votes proffered by Dems. Merrick Garland for SCOTUS under Obama comes to mind. (I feel like Garland as a Justice would have done less harm than his milquetoast performance as the Attorney General.)
You seem to think I'm arguing with you. Fight the good fight. Progressive or bust, encourage everyone to vote in primaries. There's literally no other alternative for a future. We either resist from here at every point, or we're done. Let's see how the lawyers do over the next few days, reevaluate, and let's see how far we get until we get enough public outcry to actually do something.
What else do you think we could do?
My apologies. I think I was just flying off the cuff. Amending my initial reply to you, as I see you were indeed being constructive.
see above.
Valid points on Merrick Garland too. He was disappointing in many respects, but yeah, they fucked him hard on the supreme court nomination didn't they.
Fuck them back, let's be entirely clear, if the pendulum does swing... This is how it's supposed to go, right? Living wage is gonna get a whole lot easier when you can just throw executive orders at private business, and launch lawsuits for not listening good enough. No takes backsies for the fucking pigs this time.
The democrats will never give people what they want because they work in service to capital.
That sea of change is coming whether it's DNC-approved or not. That change appears to be in the form of a far-right authoritarian regime in part for its failure to participate in change in more meaningful ways that actually mobilizes voters.
Yup. Nazis for the next 50 years. Great move America. We can cry all we want about the Dems, the party is dead. We need to focus on the future.
It’s time for a sea change.
Well, you're getting your wish. The only problem is we're chained to the rock on the beach and your requested tide is rising. We're not going to survive your sea change.
Ain't that the truth.
If they were, they would have beat this idiot.
I love the shifting of blame. I worry we'll still have to repeat "Binary choice with one option between a 34-time felon and insurrectionist" and people will still blame the dems for not fielding Mother Theresa. A can of spiced ham should have won.
Shift? I predicted that shit from the start. They were always to blame and destined to fail because they were asleep at the wheel.
"Oh, how could we lose to him twice?"
You forgot that the other choice was a genocidal corporate stooge who barely hid his racism before bowing out too late to have a primary and sticking us with brown Hillary Clinton.
They didn't even try to win progressive or working class votes and instead doubled down on genocide and courted the endorsement of the Cheney family.
If you can't even pay lip service to the working class and instead just constantly talk down to them and blame them for their problems, why would they ever vote for you?
Also choosing a religious zealot who promoted suffering a sacred as you example of a perfect candidate shows how out of touch you are.
Brown Hillary Clinton
😭
I actually think that’s offensive to Hillary clinton, she had more substance in her fucking pinky than Kamala had at all. Kamala was the definition of an empty suit but she checked all the demographic identity politics triangulating democrat bullshit that they’re well known for. She was the ultimate DEI hire. No substance, no platform, minimal experience, and didn’t win a single fucking vote to be nominated.
If 1990s Hillary ran I would of voted for her. She genuinely seemed to want to make a positive change in the world back then, especially with healthcare.
She was the ultimate DEI hire.
DEI is something leftists use as an epithet. You're definitely here to advance leftism.
She was shoved down our throats because she’s a black and Indian woman. Not because she has popular support, not because she has vision, not because she has a platform. She received zero votes for the nomination and was anointed in back room deals.
She’s the ultimate DEI candidate, an empty suit who checks all the diversity boxes while not pissing off the capitalists in charge.
There’s plenty of other minority women out there far more capable than her but they’re probably too uppity for the capitalists.
Nothing will fundamentally change.
That’s the biden and Harris campaign in a nutshell. Vote for me I’m a black Indian woman who isn’t trump! Not vote for me I’m gonna work towards universal healthcare, raising the minimum wage, or ending wars. Nope.
Edit - right off the top of my head I’d love to see NY AG Leticia James in a larger position of power, such as president. She’s a black woman and she fucking gets shit done. And she’d greatly piss off the capitalists so it’s never going to happen.
I’ve seen this DNC shill talking point before.
Your irredeemable party only cares about the capitalists it represents, stop simping for a party that doesn’t give a fuck about you and will happily throw you in a meat grinder if they get something out of the deal.
is the democratic party currently destroying every american institution at record pace?
No. They're the ones who could not beat the most deplorable piece of shit to run and win the US presidential elections.
We all need to recognize this if we ever get a chance to vote fairly again.
I mean I'm no fan of Biden or Harris and the Democratic establishment deserves some blame. But with a decades long concerted effort by the billionaire class which owns pretty much all relevant media to undermine democracy and gaslight uninformed citizens (and outright bribe them in some cases) it wasn't exactly a fair fight.
I mean that advantage should have been counteracted by the very existence of Trump. The fact that the DNC failed to capitalize on that is unequivocally their fault.
But with a decades long concerted effort by the billionaire class which owns pretty much all relevant media to undermine democracy and gaslight uninformed citizens (and outright bribe them in some cases) it wasn’t exactly a fair fight.
Sounds like something for the democratic party to have considered when they had the power to do something about it
Absolutely. Which I why I haven't been a supporter since Obama, it's clear they didn't have a plan of attack nor took the threat seriously. But still if one person commits a murder and another person saw it coming but didn't act in time, you can be critical of the second, but it's still the murderer that's to blame.
So, just stay the course? We're good?
The same billionaire class the new DNC chair was fawning over?????
I think the comment above hits on some important truths:
Kamala offered good economic populist policies,
She kind of did, kind of didn't. A trend that could be observed during her campaign (I saw this quantified somewhere but for the life of me can't find it again) was that while she started with economic populism, as the campaign progressed she watered down, took back or outright ignored her early promises and tried to fill the gap with "orange man bad". This wasn't a coincidence; corporate representatives would systematically ask for "clarifications" and "explanations" about her policies and have her walk them back one by one into something acceptable to them. So anyway, the result of this was that the Kamala of election day was not running on an economic populist platform.
The democrats failed to use the blueprint the republicans handed them for passing legislation without full bipartisan support because they're a bunch of decorum addicts
And instead of standing up their still holding on to the decorum. Almost like they're complicit and getting rich being complicit.
Yeah, confirming trumps picks. Pay fucking attention.
did the democratic party lose twice to trump?
I only agree with half your statement. I can be appalled by the majority government and still think the Dems are dumb as stumps. What do you suggest “lefty progressivism” talk about?
it is the framing of the article that set me off because it is so typically one-sided. "The United States is imploding. The reign of Donald Trump is...."
as though the democrats weren't funding genocide in gaza and spending hundreds of billions on nato expansion and the predictable (essentially promised) war that ensued.
I hope the people who refrained from voting over the genocide stance feel proud of what they accomplished.
I hope the people who refrained from voting over the genocide stance feel proud of what they accomplished.
If Gaza didn't exist the Democrats would still have lost.
Agreed.
spoken like a true democrat.. you lot love to blame the voters for the party's bad policy. (unless i am misreading you-- you're criticizing people who hold genocide to be a red-line?)
I haven't been a democrat since 2017. I registered with the DSA. I vote progressive left when possible or against the gop when it's a toss up. Don't presuppose my affiliation based on a couple of posts and your own sour grapes.
How many human rights campaigns are you a member of?
I 100% blame everyone who voted for Hillary over Bernie in the primary for why we have 2 Trump presidencies.
I used to think that the Democrats were the lesser evil, now I know they are a more insidious evil with polite rhetoric.
100% where I am.
were you saying this throughout the election or only after it?
A few months after I voted for Biden and having realized I was fooled. But the realization came into full force after the insulting response I got from my Democratic representative in November 2023.
so you helped get trump elected
No, I helped get Gaza flattened. I never voted Republican and never will. I think the DNC helped get Trump reelected.
so you think criticizing the DNC and not voting for them is the best way to keep trump out of the whitehouse?
The best way to keep trump out of the Whitehouse was Bernie. Dems refused that and joined a genocide, Trump is the consequence that Americans have to sadly suffer.
were you saying this throughout the election or only after it?
I’ve been saying this since they let bush steal an election in 2000 and go on to commit war crimes without any repercussions. Or how Obama also expanded the executive branches power and authorized drone strikes on Americans abroad without due process (trump will use this in America, just wait). Or how Obama filled his cabinet with Goldman Sachs thieves and refused to hold a single banker accountable for 2008, and worse, bailed out Wall Street and let Main Street rot. Gee, I wonder where the support for trump initially came from. Can’t imagine. Couldn’t be democrats complete and utter failure to be an effective political party for the masses.
Meanwhile, the rich got richer, the government got more powerful, and our lifespans have dropped from deaths of despair and most of us are one emergency away from homelessness.
But yay! Let’s paint rainbows in the street, put pronouns in our bio and fly blm flags and kneel in congress wearing Kente cloth! (I’m queer so miss me with the hOmOpHobIc TrAnsPhObIc bullshit) That’s all the democrats have to offer anymore. Performative bullshit. They -just like the republicans - work to serve the capitalists that own them.
so you helped trump get elected! congrats
"how dare you criticize the party!"
Your inability to hold democrats to account is how trump got elected, genius.
so are you happy with trump in the whitehouse, would you rather have Harris?
I’d rather the United States dissolve at this point. I feel like I’ve lived under a dictatorship of capital my entire life and as someone who doesn’t live in a “swing state” I’ve had no say on federal matters my entire life.
The US has fallen. It’s time for individual states to do what’s best for them. I want mine to leave and join Canada.
in fact supporting the fall of the US makes perfect sense. of course you campaigned against harris in the guise of protecting gaza. so you could get trump elected. so putin and all the enemies of the US could profit from your treasonous actions.
I’m gonna block your dumbass, but before that, I’ve voted in every election including the primaries only to be told my votes don’t matter because of the electoral college. Our politicians are garbage. Red states are robbing blue states of our tax dollars while holding us hostage under their fascist values. Fuck that, let them suffer without our money.
The US was a failing democracy now its a failed one.
yeah yeah blame the system while campaigning against harris
and then block me so you can bury your head in the sand forever
take responsibility
you'd sacrifice the country in the dream that the individual states would not become little capitalist fiefdoms? apart from that quite a few states could not function on their own.
why wait to become part of canada when you can just pop over the border?
maybe you can find another way to get politically involved in the country rather than hastening its demise
You think your housing crisis is bad now, wait until there’s a bunch of American refugees coming over your border. That’s why I suggested making blue states part of Canada. You get our tax dollars we get your healthcare. You get our weapons we get out from being under a fascist dictatorship.