You Lemmy.ml people asked Biden to step down because he's old. What did you expect? He stepped down because he's old just like you wanted, and even endorsed a candidate who doesn't have any dementia at all. Who did you expect him to endorse, Mao's zombie?
His age was a known issue 4 years ago, it would have been extra democratic if he had stepped down before the primaries so we could really vote on a candidate.
No, my entire point is that it is not hindsight, as we knew it 4 years ago.
Democrats def tried to hide his dementia from the public. One of my biggest problems with them. It was only after the debates, when they found out everyone was onto them, that they finally decided to switch him out.
What did you expect?
They expected daddy Putin to not send them to the front lines. They were never going to go "oh cool we got what we wanted we'll shut up now" because it was never about Biden's age at all, it's about hurting Democrats. Same thing with Gaza. They don't give a fuck about Palestinians. They just want to hurt Democrats.
They don’t give a fuck about Palestinians. They just want to hurt Democrats.
Where did you get that fantasy take from? Got anything at all to back that up?
I can tell you how I see it. I have never, and would never vote for any republican. They are not serious people and they are to be countered, ostracized, not associated with, ridiculed. But bad dems threaten everything as well, and also might lead us to being locked in the current bad voting selections pattern we keep being fed by monied interests in our party. The dumbing down and dilluting of the party platform under milktoast idiot centrists like Biden and Harris may also effectively disolve our party. Thats worth fighting. And its worth withholding support as well, if only to try to shake the party back on some sort of track. If you dont see the logic in that, its fine. I dont need your permisison on how I will vote, or what I beleive in. No one does. Do your own thing, but maybe dont namecall people who are probably your allies and just going about it in a different way than you. Theres nothing down that road but an even worse off party than the shitshow we have going right now because of centrist incompetence.
Great post, friend! Glad there are more people standing up to people who try to bully others about how they vote. Stay strong!
Your last 19 posts are about Trump vs Harris, and you are going to say people are bullying people in the comments? You are clearly encouraging it and trying to get people to see things the way you want them to.. bullying others about how they vote one might say?
I don't write the articles, I just post articles I find interesting. I believe people should vote for who they want to vote for. I'm not influencing anyone's vote. The articles I post are readily available on news sites.
That's like saying news channels don't influence anyone's vote by broadcasting what information they choose. It is all influence.
Except the difference is that they produce the pieces. I don't.
In fact, I don't even literally post "the article," I just post a link to the article. It's up to the reader to decide if they want to read it or not.
And of course like I mentioned before, I strongly believe in and support people's right to vote for who they want to.
Thank you!
Instead of “incumbent endorses someone new”, some were hoping for more of a “primary process to select a candidate” type deal, in the American tradition.
Only been a tradition for 50 years. Relatively young compared to the age of many political dealmakers.
You're right, the bar was set so low that only James Cameron could find it, but the Dems did clear the bar. And that's why the lesser fascist will be getting my vote this November.
But we also want the party to be better. Real policies that might just make a difference in our lifetimes, not compromising with the party of greater fascism, and a minor token gesture towards not using taxpayer money to fund genocide, as a treat.
You Lemmy.ml people asked Biden to step down because he’s old.
I asked him to step down because for the last 50 years he's been an incredily bad democrat and never did deserve any of our support. His support of the far right murderous fascist zionist splinter group. His consistent racist "gaffes". His lack of support for reproductive rights that he blamed on his catholicism. His stupid lawmaking about the drug wars, 3 strikes, and civil asset forfeiture. His 3 attempts to cut social security. His fascist-light policing viewpoints. His willingness to wade into peoples lives about gay rights when he should have just left everyone the hell alone and shut his piehole. His support and backing of a grifter lobbyist son. His lack of support for ending the filibuster, which just enables the GOP to hold the government hostage every few months. His lack of support for expanding the supreme court. His tired embrace of the worst of the GOP members. His outrageous increasing of police funding in response to Defund&Reallocate. His backstabbing Obama on negotiations he should have kept out of. His consistent lack of support for health care reform and a public option. His utter shafting of Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas confirmation trials, which should have been a layup for anyone competent, which gave us one of the worst Supreme court justices in our countrys history. In the last 50 years look at every wrong turn this country has taken, and You'll find Bidens ugly mug leading the charge. The man is always wrong about nearly everything, and he never misses a chance to make a bad deal or sell out his party. He's an idiot's idiot and he never deserved any of our support and breaks everything he touches, including our party and now the entire western world order.
"Never underestimate Joe Biden's ability to fuck everything up".
--Barack Obama
Obama also urged Biden in 2016 and again in 2020 not to run.
This is the guy we're getting all sentimental about? You really think Joe Biden is the best the dems had to offer? That just tells me that many people dont actually read the news, miss their deceased grandpa and will vote for a huckster on personality vibes alone. Biden was about to lose to Donald Trump. Think about that for a minute. How bad do you have to lose the faith and support of your own party's voters to lose to a man like that. Biden could only have possibly competed against someone as bad as Trump, and Trump could only have competed with someone as bad as Biden.
Drag didn't care how bad Biden is as long as he's not Trump. Drag is glad Kamala is running instead, because she's better than him. But drag would have been happy to elect Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man as president.
You're alright Drag.
:-). And thank you for letting me vent so excessively and not calling me on it. I needed that. I'm a lifelong Dem straight ticket voter who cant stand Biden. Or Harris.
And I hate how we are trapped in both parties fielding bad candidates with no end in site anytime soon. Harris will try to run twice and after that they are queuing up bloody-hands mealy-mouthed Blinken.
Drag is trying to avoid venting about Harris until after the election. Preventing the fourth reich is more important than all of drag's concerns about the Harris campaign. Drag doesn't like it, but drag doesn't like protesting under the hot sun or arguing with transphobes either, and drag does those. This is one more sacrifice for the cause.
Drag thinks if Trump loses badly enough, the GOP could collapse. It could schism and maybe neither side will be able to stand up to the Democrats. When the GOP isn't a threat anymore, we can either vote Greens or split the Democrats in two to make a left party. We can pass electoral college reform and ranked choice voting. We can make a democracy. And we can gather weapons and organise all the while and try to achieve a revolution. But all of that requires Trump to be gone.
We need to help Harris so we can move beyond her. She's a stepping stone on the path to the future. We're gonna stomp on her head and get one step closer to having someone like AOC in the white house.
I wanted him to step down primarily because of his support for genocide. Biden was obviously unfit and unacceptable for a ton of reasons, just because his successor doesn't share one of those problems doesn't make her automatically acceptable. Its arguable that it would better if the president is mentally unfit, if they're pursuing an agenda that is fundamentally wrong.
Do you believe there is a candidate for president who will end the genocide in Palestine? And also end the genocide of Ukrainians in Crimea?
There are third party candidates who support ending the Palestinian genocide by stopping arms shipments, but neither major candidate does.
I have no knowledge regarding a genocide in Crimea or how it could be best addressed, and I believe questioning or examining evidence for any claim of genocide is against .world rules, so I suppose I'll have to give you the benefit of the doubt, but said claim doesn't really factor into my calculations.
I don't consider either question all that relevant.
Anytime someone claims to be American but mentions third party candidate when voting, I highly doubt their citizenship or whether they are fit to vote at all.
A third party candidate hasn’t won the presidency EVER. A vote for 3rd party is not only a wasted vote, but more often than not it siphons enough votes from the majority candidate to allow the minority candidate to win.
A third party candidate hasn’t won the presidency EVER. A vote for 3rd party is not only a wasted vote, but more often than not it siphons enough votes from the majority candidate to allow the minority candidate to win.
Lincoln. Lincoln wasn't on the ballot across the South and won.
Anytime someone claims to be American but mentions third party candidate when voting, I highly doubt their citizenship or whether they are fit to vote at all.
"Anytime someone doesn't vote how I want, they shouldn't be able to vote." Damn we're really busting out the "If you don't vote for who I want, you're a communist!" playbook from Fox News?
It doesn't "siphon" votes from the "majority" candidate. You're assuming that the 3rd party voters would vote for the Dem candidate if the 3rd party candidate didn't exist but most likely those people just wouldn't vote at all if that was the case.
I am not fit to vote and neither are you but it doesn't matter because there is no voter fitness test and instituting one would be anti-democratic what are you a republican?
My vote is wasted regardless because I don't live in a swing state. There's a better chance that my vote will help get a third party on the map next time than than that it will affect the outcome. Unless you forsee an outcome where Illinois goes red and that's the pivotal state. That fantasy is far more disconnected from reality than anything I believe or aim to achieve.
You can question my citizenship all you want. I regard the US government with hostility and distrust, and I didn't chose to be born here. I'd rather aim to be a citizen of the world. I watched both parties gleefully participate in the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan while most people didn't give a shit because it was out of sight and out of mind, and it was "ok" because the Democrats were slaughtering people "the right way." I remember when they promised to protect whistleblowers and end mass surveillance and then continued it and they hunted Snowden to the ends of the earth for revealing their crimes. I realized back then that the ideology of lesser evilism was complete bullshit and would keep us trapped with the same policies forever.
I regard the US government with hostility and distrust
Leave then.
no you
I have no knowledge regarding a genocide in Crimea [...] said claim doesn’t really factor into my calculations.
Fucking quiet part out loud rofl
It's relevant because those third party candidates are literally, mathematically incapable of reaching 270 electoral votes.
If you vote for one of them, you are not voting. Those two actions will be equivalent this election. And if you don't vote, and Donald Trump wins, you're gonna find out real quick what genocide can look like.
I already know what genocide looks like. Are you denying that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians right now?
As I said in another comment, my vote has no influence over the outcome anyway because I don't live in a swing state, so your argument is moot. Unless you're trying to tell me that Illinois will be the pivotal state that decides the election.
I have no expectations whatsoever that a third party is going to win this election, obviously. But the idea that it's impossible for a third party to win is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Given the absolute necessity of unseating the genocidal bourgeois parties, and the fact that nothing is lost by doing it, I can see no reason whatsoever why I wouldn't vote for a third party over the Democrats.
Oh look at me pretending not to understand when people explain the same shit to me over and over again
Why do I even engage. Have fun.
I'm not "pretending not to understand" anything. I understand your position completely, I just disagree with it, and you don't seem capable of comprehending that.
I'm still proudly voting third party though. I'm not going to fall for the Duopoly pressure. People are finally getting sick of both parties. Now they are starting to do something about it.
Who? The few thousand protest voters? They will never win in our electoral college, it's quite literally impossible unless a third party completely takes over one of the two major parties (which is not happening this election, so all these protest voters will just elect Trump by default). It's not pressure, it's common sense.
Even tho most of Lemmy hates third parties, I love your comment. I'm a third party supporter! Thank you!
Fair point!
I'm somewhat baffled by him stepping down from running, but remaining president for the entire year. It seems like whoever is running for president, Kamala should have already taken over. It also feels weird having her just get inserted at the end of the process like that's a normal thing, but I can't really complain as I voted no preference anyways.
Your “baffling” has nothing to do with Biden and everything to do with you…
Once it's the Harris regime responsible for airstriking refugee tents are you going to at least have fun at brunch?
Once you recognize the last century of US foreign policy will you get something else to talk about?
Is this suddenly a new topic for you? Any reason? Why is it that I never heard you during Reagan or gwb’s term? Any reason why this shit was quiet during obama’s two terms and what were you doing during trump’s admin?
You want to make this of all things a make or break for Harris why?
We all know why.
I'm glad people are interested in what's happening in Gaza. Fucking finally. But I'd prefer actual empathy to this false bullshit being pushed by nefarious (sometimes state) actors to sow doubt among Democratic voters with the clear goal of electing the guy who will let Netanyahu turn it to dust and start WW3.
bruh i'm talking about shit going on right now, and I was out in the streets getting gassed by cops in 2020 what the fuck are you talking about?
There were insane protests against the Iraq war, if you're really that ignorant of them you were probably just doing what you are now, then.
I’m aware of and participated in those protests. The difference was that no one called democrats genocidal when republicans lied their way into a war.
Yet now the democrats are being called genocidal for basically being in power after decades of policy and foreign relations were already set. Very different from lying about yellow cake. It’s almost like there’s a nuance being lost in your bullshit rhetoric.
Yet now the democrats are being called genocidal for basically being in power after decades of policy and foreign relations were already set.
If you get in power with genocidal policies in place, and do nothing to change them, after running as the people to 'change' things, for 3+ presidential terms, you're going to get tarred with the same brush.
The lying about yellow cake required democrats going along with it. Biden (and many others) voted for the Iraq war on the basis of those lies- I don't think he was swindled, it was a convenient lie to believe if you're a foreign policy hawk.
It takes a lot of time to steer the ship. You’re blaming one party for not instantly correcting the other party’s decade of policy. Maybe blame the voters?
You mention a handful of democrats believing the lies coming from a GOP led White House. That doesn’t impugn the whole party, and you conveniently ignore the source of those lies to attack democrats.
It’s hilarious that the same folks that keep attacking a 2 party system still use it as the basis of their ignorance. As I said before there’s a nuance that gets lost when you spew bullshit.
It's a two party system where both parties have the same genocidal policies around the world, and one of the parties goes "aw shucks, we're so sorry" while the other foams at the mouth.
They're both bad for different reasons, the mad dog is obviously just that, but the person going along with it the whole time pretending to be the reasonable one? That's why they get scorn.
People refuse to even hear criticism of them because 'look how bad the other ones are'
You mention a handful of democrats believing the lies coming from a GOP led White House. That doesn’t impugn the whole party, and you conveniently ignore the source of those lies to attack democrats.
The president/ vice president for the last 12/16 years, is somehow not a fair metric for the party he represents.
He stepped down because he saw that America took his gaffes at the debate more seriously than he thought they should, not because he feels he's not up to the job. Honestly, our way of selecting Presidents sucks. An objective look at this admin versus the last admin would make that decision easy -- Biden has set himself up for success by hiring competent underlings rather than yes-men, and he managed to reverse killer inflation and handle a global pandemic, while fighting against one tyrant. He's not perfect. Nobody is. He is open to criticism over his handling of Palestine and Israel and we sure can criticise his unwillingness to hold Netanyahu as accountable as he wants to handle Putin. But the other guy set up Biden for the last 4 years of bullshit with his utter mismanagement of the country, and plans on making things ten times worse. Biden looked at the polling, at the bullshit settling down on his administration and on him personally, and said he'd step back so Harris could run.
As for why Harris got the nod? There was less than a month until the General Election, virtually all of the Primaries had already been had, and despite all the bullshit being peddled about him, he won the Primary. Harris was on his ticket. They wanted to transition easily into the General without a bajillion crazy little questions about the Biden/Harris campaign, its warchest, and avoid a bloodbath between various Democratic Party factions all screaming for their guy/gal just in time for Trump to trounce the weakened candidate in the general, they leveraged the same process that would have happened had that nutbar that shot at Trump taken a shot at Biden and didn't miss -- the VP becomes POTUS. And this allows Harris to not have to jump through hoops for ballot access nor start from scratch with campaign finances, which unfortunately are STILL important for getting into the White House.
Sadly, the bullshit shifted to Harris and we're back where we were before. Does the hard-left WANT Trump in office, because it sure fucking looks like they do.
Maybe he also realized he was too close to it. All his speeches were in contrast to the other party’s candidate, and I still support that he’s much fitter to lead than the other party’s candidate. But if you step back from just the one on one contest, it’s a completely different story …..
Got proof of this? I mean, only once in my lifetime has a third party cracked 10% of the vote share. Easily 90% of the votes given have gone to a guy or gal with an -R or -D after their name for President.
I didn’t say anything about third party, but you’re right that maybe my attempt at not degenerating into political name calling made it unclear.
To be more blunt:
Biden is clearly more fit to be president than Trump and likely will be until the day he dies, and several weeks later
for myself, I focused on this. In the competition between the two, Biden is clearly the better choice and the most fit to be president.
Historically, sitting presidents have had a strong advantage in an election. Biden is not only a sitting president but has been elected over Trump
This makes Biden a clear choice …. But all the noise about his age did make me sit back and reconsider whether that was true in general or in the context of this competition. If there was not so much on the line and not so much recent toxic history, I would agree that I prefer someone else, someone younger and more energetic. I thought Biden was perfect in the centrist position attempt to bring this country back together, and he did as much as anyone could.
But Harris came out swinging, showing energy, youth, life, and even strayed toward progressive (I don’t know if that’s still true). If I can step back from the competition between two old men, take a larger picture, ignore all the toxic blather, I can see that she is indeed a candidate I would prefer.
The guy’s not dumb, maybe he sees it too. It must have been the toughest part of his term, always battling for reality over toxic stunts, blatant lies so it’s all too easy staying in the trenches, focusing on slugging it out, when he’s the only sane person in the room. Maybe Biden stepped back and said, yeah, I’m tired of this and there actually are other choices.
Fair point. I did misread 'one on one' to mean Democrat vs Republican with 'stepping back' to mean viewing Third Parties.
I totally agree with your reasoning, as it was my reasoning. The guy is old, not a debate. He's a gaffe machine, too. Some people pushed the meme he was losing a step, but while I saw him as old, I didn't see him as washed up or senile. The guy just doesn't know how to NOT put his foot in his mouth (I share a lot in common with him on that regard!!!), and there were an awful lot of bad-faith actors saying that he wasn't just old, but senile as well. They're still around, saying he's too old and senile to run the show now, and he should resign.
I think how Harris is being treated by various people on and offline should be a key indicator that Biden's resignation wasn't the end of the bullshit factories. They each have their own desires for their choice of President, and they can't even agree with each other who that choice is. Some will scream for Sanders. Others will scream for Stein. Some particularly pigeon-holed ones will argue for Fruit, despite her being mathematically eliminated from 270 before the first vote is cast. And lets get real. There are all to many of them who will tell you "IMMA FOR JILL" or some other tiny Third Party candidate while actually wanting Trump. Some think that a Trump presidency will lead them to the Progressive Promised Land. Others...are here to ensure we're so busy infighting that we can't put a unified resistance up, so they can get the Handmaiden's Tale they desparately want.
If Biden gave up because America is dumb, I don't blame him. In 2016, I tried hard to get out and get to Canada or New Zealand. But now Canada and New Zealand are overrun or about to be overrun by dumb people too. :|
No, the hard left doesn't want Trump. Drag is hard left and wants Kamala in office. lemmy.ml users aren't hard left, they're leninists, which is moderate left. About the same amount of left as social democrats.
Calling Leninism "moderate left" is like calling Project 2025 "moderate right".
Drag apologises. Drag will follow your advice and call Leninism far right.
Leninists are not hard left wing. And fascist / project 2025 are not hard right wing. The thing to understand with authoritarians. Is that they are only hard authoritarian. Nothing more nothing less. Anything outside of that can be changed at a snap of the fingers.
Need proof? Look at any government based around the concepts of marxist Leninism. Brutally socially oppressive. Creating heavily stratified classes and an inescapable Nation. Things pretty much counter to every actual left-wing ideology. Or look at any Western capitalist nation. Every single one currently fending off populist fascists. Who want to oppress minority groups and use the government to rigidly stratify Society under the boot of an inescapable nation. Pretty much counter to all the talk of Liberty and freedom of right wing ideologies . All because their actual hard right liberal governments refuse to compromise and Budge left in any fashion to address the needs of the people.
Fascism is the dictionary definition of far-right politics. You'd be hard pressed to name a similarly prominent political ideology that is even father to the right than fascism. Likewise, Leninism's revolutionary ideals place the ideology in the far left, despite its implementations not achieving those ideals. An ideology being authoritarian doesn't make it moderate on the left-right scale. Instead, the more authoritarian governments tend to be hard left/right instead of moderate left/right.
I have to disagree about right-wing ideology being about "liberty and freedom". That's the realm of libertarianism, not right-wing politics. Libertarians in the U.S. tend to be right-wing, but libertarianism and right-wing politics are distinct ideologies. Right-wing politics emphasize traditional values, nationalism, and hierarchial social structures.
And? Wikipedia isn't a source. Even the Nazis implemented the sorts of policies many socialists. Myself included support. They just excluded everyone that wasn't part of their ubermensch. Which leftist/socialists wouldn't. The sorts of things plenty of far right economic-liberals are actively trying to dismantle completely in the US.
Before we go any further, let's attempt to not talk past each other. If you are using a political spectrum with a single axis. I am not. Honestly, I'm not even sure 2 axis can accurately represented the political spectrum. But it is far better than kindergarten terms of left and right. But let's assume a basic two axis plot. That's very common all over the internet. Where left is socialism right as capitalism is authoritarian and down is libertarian. The more authoritarian you are. The less Concepts like left and right matter to you. You are focused only on power. Thus the further authoritarian you go live More Everything converges to a single point. Where policy is whatever it takes for you to hold power. Which is why I point out to you that they aren't significantly left or right. They are authoritarian.
I think the other issue is that you are taking people at their word. But not paying attention to what they do. The words of a politician are worthless. The words of a shyster grifter trying to push a dogmatic ideological framework on you are somehow worth less. If you take Trump at his word. He's the best guy you'll ever meet. A real stand-up guy. I think you and I both know you would be a fool to do that. Just like capitalism talks about all this Pie in the Sky bullshit that doesn't happen. Leninism does the exact same. To a worse extent even.
And finally everyone claims their ideology is about freedom and liberty. The catch is it's only for their in-group. For those on the right it's freedom and liberty for those with the resources to engage with the economy. On the left it's freedom and liberty for society. The catch is where they fall along the authoritarian libertarian Spectrum. Anarchists, libertarians, and communists being extremely left and explicitly including absolutely everyone. Big L Libertarians/economics liberals are extreme right wing crazy capitalist. Pushing capitalism into places it just doesn't even make sense. Because it's what they do. Liberal Democrats are much more libertarian than conservative republicans. Big L Libertarians are somewhere in between the two of them. But they are all far right. And have a much narrower inclusion for "society". If you dare criticize or insult the Vanguard party or fascist leadership. They will outright kill you or in prison you. Kicking you clear out of society.
Need I remind you this year China sentenced someone to a year imprisonment for wearing a mother fucking shirt. Not going to lie economic liberals like Republicans and Democrats are pretty fucked up. But you don't see people being jailed for wearing let's go Brandon t-shirts. And there's no equivalent on the Democrat side to even cite. Though I'm sure Republicans who Trend fascist would love to jail someone for wearing anything that insulted Republicans or Trump. Thank God they don't have the power to yet.
You're calling fascists "moderate right" and liberal democrats "far-right" because Nazis did some things that you agree with? What exactly did the Nazis do that makes you think fascism is more moderate on the left-right axis than liberal democracy? It looks like you're either completely ignoring the social policies of fascism, or your understanding of the terms "moderate right" and "far-right" is way out of line with how most people understand them.
I'll take Wikipedia over a Lemmy comment with no sources that is arguing that fascism is more moderate than it actually is. The Wikipedia articles I linked to are cited, and the citations look very credible to me.
(I'm fully aware of the two-axis political model you mentioned, which is why I distinguished libertarianism from right-wing politics even though libertarians in the U.S. tend to be right-wing.)
No. Ideologically authoritarians aren't left or right in any meaningful sense. Let alone moderate. it's got nothing to do with me. Everything to do with basic facts and their actions. You're thinking of someone else who implied they were "moderate"
Down votes from buthurt Leninists and politically naive westerners isn't anything to value. But anyhow I tried sincerely to engage with you and have an honest discussion. And you just weren't having it. So you have fun believing stuff just because it's popular or that it's what someone told you. Don't bother thinking for yourself it's too much trouble.
Obviously, I am thinking for myself by rejecting your argument that fascism is "not hard right wing". And you still haven't provided any sources for your argument. It's clear to me that fascism is both far-right and authoritarian, and being authoritarian doesn't prevent fascism from being far-right.
Relative to what, Maoists? Ultraleftists? Leftcoms?
Anarchists.
Is Anarchism when one supports the US government?
No. Anarchism is when you try to prevent the US government from getting even worse. Leninism is when you stick your head in the sand and pretend you can ignore the flaws in the electoral system and the sacrifices demanded of us.
I'm not sure drag knows what anarchy is...
By enthusiastically supporting neoliberal genocidaires in bourgeois elections.
Leninism does not ignore the flaws of bourgeois electoralism. Lenin wrote a whole book called "Left Communism: an Infantile Disorder" which is precisely about people refusing to participate in the existing political system.
It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:
“. . . All reversion to parliamentary forms of struggle, which have become historically and politically obsolete, must be emphatically rejected. . . .”
This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?
Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics.
:::
However, what he argued for was not entryism into liberal parties, but rather using the elections to build a Marxist party that could control it's message and use the opportunity to organize and build power outside of the electoral structure.
Lenin didn't live in America. If you try to use Russian electoral tactics in America, you'll fail. It's like trying to send the fleet to broadside Houston. Adapt your strategies to the terrain. You can't just pretend that the USA is Russia.
Does drag think that Russia under the Tsar was more democratic than the US today?
In any case, my position on voting third party is not because of what Lenin wrote, I merely wanted to clarify that Lenin's stance was not consistent with how drag characterized Leninism. I'm voting third party based on my own assessment of the situation, and I was a third party voter before ever encountering Lenin.
Drag thinks the precise opposite. That the parties Lenin discussed weren't electoral parties. The meaning of the word party back then isn't the same as now. Nowadays parties compete in electoralism. Organisations like Extinction Rebellion or the Proud Boys, which operate outside the electoral system, are not what we would call parties today. And yet Lenin's "parties" are more similar to XR than to the Greens. Drag thinks you've been misled by a bad translation from the English of a century ago to the English of today.
Drag 100% agrees with the strategy of creating socialist organisations outside of the government. Creating socialist organisations inside the government is more complicated. It's good in most places, but not in America. And it isn't what Lenin told you to do.
We Bolsheviks participated in the most counterrevolutionary parliaments, and experience has shown that this participation was not only useful but indispensable to the party of the revolutionary proletariat, after the first bourgeois revolution in Russia (1905), so as to pave the way for the second bourgeois revolution (February 1917), and then for the socialist revolution (October 1917).
:::spoiler More
Third, the “Left” Communists have a great deal to say in praise of us Bolsheviks. One sometimes feels like telling them to praise us less and to try to get a better knowledge of the Bolsheviks’ tactics. We took part in the elections to the Constituent Assembly, the Russian bourgeois parliament in September–November 1917. Were our tactics correct or not? If not, then this should be clearly stated and proved, for it is necessary in evolving the correct tactics for international communism. If they were correct, then certain conclusions must be drawn. Of course, there can be no question of placing conditions in Russia on a par with conditions in Western Europe. But as regards the particular question of the meaning of the concept that “parliamentarianism has become politically obsolete”, due account should be taken of our experience, for unless concrete experience is taken into account such concepts very easily turn into empty phrases. In September–November 1917, did we, the Russian Bolsheviks, not have more right than any Western Communists to consider that parliamentarianism was politically obsolete in Russia? Of course we did, for the point is not whether bourgeois parliaments have existed for a long time or a short time, but how far the masses of the working people are prepared (ideologically, politically and practically) to accept the Soviet system and to dissolve the bourgeois-democratic parliament (or allow it to be dissolved). It is an absolutely incontestable and fully established historical fact that, in September–November 1917, the urban working class and the soldiers and peasants of Russia were, because of a number of special conditions, exceptionally well prepared to accept the Soviet system and to disband the most democratic of bourgeois parliaments. Nevertheless, the Bolsheviks did not boycott the Constituent Assembly, but took part in the elections both before and after the proletariat conquered political power. That these elections yielded exceedingly valuable (and to the proletariat, highly useful) political results has, I make bold to hope, been proved by me in the above-mentioned article, which analyses in detail the returns of the elections to the Constituent Assembly in Russia.
The conclusion which follows from this is absolutely incontrovertible: it has been proved that, far from causing harm to the revolutionary proletariat, participation in a bourgeois-democratic parliament, even a few weeks before the victory of a Soviet republic and even after such a victory, actually helps that proletariat to prove to the backward masses why such parliaments deserve to be done away with; it facilitates their successful dissolution, and helps to make bourgeois parliamentarianism “politically obsolete”. To ignore this experience, while at the same time claiming affiliation to the Communist International, which must work out its tactics internationally (not as narrow or exclusively national tactics, but as international tactics), means committing a gross error and actually abandoning internationalism in deed, while recognising it in word.
:::
Does drag have any basis for what drag just claimed, that the parties Lenin discussed were not parties that participated in electoral processes? Or did drag just make it up, in direct contradiction to what Lenin actually said, which I already cited to drag?
Drag thinks he's still got the same legislation skills as always, it's just the campaigning skills that went because his speech disorder from childhood came back. So they picked someone without dementia to do the campaigning, and he'll be out of office before the dementia hits his prefrontal cortex like it has with Trump. It's a sensible decision.
You seem to have a better window inside Biden than I do
You Lemmy.ml people asked Biden to step down because he's old. What did you expect? He stepped down because he's old just like you wanted, and even endorsed a candidate who doesn't have any dementia at all. Who did you expect him to endorse, Mao's zombie?
His age was a known issue 4 years ago, it would have been extra democratic if he had stepped down before the primaries so we could really vote on a candidate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u585Lq47Gmg
No, my entire point is that it is not hindsight, as we knew it 4 years ago.
Democrats def tried to hide his dementia from the public. One of my biggest problems with them. It was only after the debates, when they found out everyone was onto them, that they finally decided to switch him out.
They expected daddy Putin to not send them to the front lines. They were never going to go "oh cool we got what we wanted we'll shut up now" because it was never about Biden's age at all, it's about hurting Democrats. Same thing with Gaza. They don't give a fuck about Palestinians. They just want to hurt Democrats.
Where did you get that fantasy take from? Got anything at all to back that up?
I can tell you how I see it. I have never, and would never vote for any republican. They are not serious people and they are to be countered, ostracized, not associated with, ridiculed. But bad dems threaten everything as well, and also might lead us to being locked in the current bad voting selections pattern we keep being fed by monied interests in our party. The dumbing down and dilluting of the party platform under milktoast idiot centrists like Biden and Harris may also effectively disolve our party. Thats worth fighting. And its worth withholding support as well, if only to try to shake the party back on some sort of track. If you dont see the logic in that, its fine. I dont need your permisison on how I will vote, or what I beleive in. No one does. Do your own thing, but maybe dont namecall people who are probably your allies and just going about it in a different way than you. Theres nothing down that road but an even worse off party than the shitshow we have going right now because of centrist incompetence.
Great post, friend! Glad there are more people standing up to people who try to bully others about how they vote. Stay strong!
Your last 19 posts are about Trump vs Harris, and you are going to say people are bullying people in the comments? You are clearly encouraging it and trying to get people to see things the way you want them to.. bullying others about how they vote one might say?
I don't write the articles, I just post articles I find interesting. I believe people should vote for who they want to vote for. I'm not influencing anyone's vote. The articles I post are readily available on news sites.
That's like saying news channels don't influence anyone's vote by broadcasting what information they choose. It is all influence.
Except the difference is that they produce the pieces. I don't.
In fact, I don't even literally post "the article," I just post a link to the article. It's up to the reader to decide if they want to read it or not.
And of course like I mentioned before, I strongly believe in and support people's right to vote for who they want to.
Thank you!
Instead of “incumbent endorses someone new”, some were hoping for more of a “primary process to select a candidate” type deal, in the American tradition.
Only been a tradition for 50 years. Relatively young compared to the age of many political dealmakers.
You're right, the bar was set so low that only James Cameron could find it, but the Dems did clear the bar. And that's why the lesser fascist will be getting my vote this November.
But we also want the party to be better. Real policies that might just make a difference in our lifetimes, not compromising with the party of greater fascism, and a minor token gesture towards not using taxpayer money to fund genocide, as a treat.
I asked him to step down because for the last 50 years he's been an incredily bad democrat and never did deserve any of our support. His support of the far right murderous fascist zionist splinter group. His consistent racist "gaffes". His lack of support for reproductive rights that he blamed on his catholicism. His stupid lawmaking about the drug wars, 3 strikes, and civil asset forfeiture. His 3 attempts to cut social security. His fascist-light policing viewpoints. His willingness to wade into peoples lives about gay rights when he should have just left everyone the hell alone and shut his piehole. His support and backing of a grifter lobbyist son. His lack of support for ending the filibuster, which just enables the GOP to hold the government hostage every few months. His lack of support for expanding the supreme court. His tired embrace of the worst of the GOP members. His outrageous increasing of police funding in response to Defund&Reallocate. His backstabbing Obama on negotiations he should have kept out of. His consistent lack of support for health care reform and a public option. His utter shafting of Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas confirmation trials, which should have been a layup for anyone competent, which gave us one of the worst Supreme court justices in our countrys history. In the last 50 years look at every wrong turn this country has taken, and You'll find Bidens ugly mug leading the charge. The man is always wrong about nearly everything, and he never misses a chance to make a bad deal or sell out his party. He's an idiot's idiot and he never deserved any of our support and breaks everything he touches, including our party and now the entire western world order.
"Never underestimate Joe Biden's ability to fuck everything up". --Barack Obama
Obama also urged Biden in 2016 and again in 2020 not to run.
Anyone remember this BS from our lord and savior Joe Biden?
https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/biden-debt-ceiling-harry-reid-mitch-mcconnell/
This is the guy we're getting all sentimental about? You really think Joe Biden is the best the dems had to offer? That just tells me that many people dont actually read the news, miss their deceased grandpa and will vote for a huckster on personality vibes alone. Biden was about to lose to Donald Trump. Think about that for a minute. How bad do you have to lose the faith and support of your own party's voters to lose to a man like that. Biden could only have possibly competed against someone as bad as Trump, and Trump could only have competed with someone as bad as Biden.
Drag didn't care how bad Biden is as long as he's not Trump. Drag is glad Kamala is running instead, because she's better than him. But drag would have been happy to elect Wacky Waving Inflatable Arm Flailing Tube Man as president.
You're alright Drag. :-). And thank you for letting me vent so excessively and not calling me on it. I needed that. I'm a lifelong Dem straight ticket voter who cant stand Biden. Or Harris.
And I hate how we are trapped in both parties fielding bad candidates with no end in site anytime soon. Harris will try to run twice and after that they are queuing up bloody-hands mealy-mouthed Blinken.
Drag is trying to avoid venting about Harris until after the election. Preventing the fourth reich is more important than all of drag's concerns about the Harris campaign. Drag doesn't like it, but drag doesn't like protesting under the hot sun or arguing with transphobes either, and drag does those. This is one more sacrifice for the cause.
Drag thinks if Trump loses badly enough, the GOP could collapse. It could schism and maybe neither side will be able to stand up to the Democrats. When the GOP isn't a threat anymore, we can either vote Greens or split the Democrats in two to make a left party. We can pass electoral college reform and ranked choice voting. We can make a democracy. And we can gather weapons and organise all the while and try to achieve a revolution. But all of that requires Trump to be gone.
We need to help Harris so we can move beyond her. She's a stepping stone on the path to the future. We're gonna stomp on her head and get one step closer to having someone like AOC in the white house.
I wanted him to step down primarily because of his support for genocide. Biden was obviously unfit and unacceptable for a ton of reasons, just because his successor doesn't share one of those problems doesn't make her automatically acceptable. Its arguable that it would better if the president is mentally unfit, if they're pursuing an agenda that is fundamentally wrong.
Do you believe there is a candidate for president who will end the genocide in Palestine? And also end the genocide of Ukrainians in Crimea?
There are third party candidates who support ending the Palestinian genocide by stopping arms shipments, but neither major candidate does.
I have no knowledge regarding a genocide in Crimea or how it could be best addressed, and I believe questioning or examining evidence for any claim of genocide is against .world rules, so I suppose I'll have to give you the benefit of the doubt, but said claim doesn't really factor into my calculations.
I don't consider either question all that relevant.
Anytime someone claims to be American but mentions third party candidate when voting, I highly doubt their citizenship or whether they are fit to vote at all.
A third party candidate hasn’t won the presidency EVER. A vote for 3rd party is not only a wasted vote, but more often than not it siphons enough votes from the majority candidate to allow the minority candidate to win.
Lincoln. Lincoln wasn't on the ballot across the South and won.
"Anytime someone doesn't vote how I want, they shouldn't be able to vote." Damn we're really busting out the "If you don't vote for who I want, you're a communist!" playbook from Fox News?
It doesn't "siphon" votes from the "majority" candidate. You're assuming that the 3rd party voters would vote for the Dem candidate if the 3rd party candidate didn't exist but most likely those people just wouldn't vote at all if that was the case.
I am not fit to vote and neither are you but it doesn't matter because there is no voter fitness test and instituting one would be anti-democratic what are you a republican?
My vote is wasted regardless because I don't live in a swing state. There's a better chance that my vote will help get a third party on the map next time than than that it will affect the outcome. Unless you forsee an outcome where Illinois goes red and that's the pivotal state. That fantasy is far more disconnected from reality than anything I believe or aim to achieve.
You can question my citizenship all you want. I regard the US government with hostility and distrust, and I didn't chose to be born here. I'd rather aim to be a citizen of the world. I watched both parties gleefully participate in the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan while most people didn't give a shit because it was out of sight and out of mind, and it was "ok" because the Democrats were slaughtering people "the right way." I remember when they promised to protect whistleblowers and end mass surveillance and then continued it and they hunted Snowden to the ends of the earth for revealing their crimes. I realized back then that the ideology of lesser evilism was complete bullshit and would keep us trapped with the same policies forever.
Leave then.
no you
Fucking quiet part out loud rofl
It's relevant because those third party candidates are literally, mathematically incapable of reaching 270 electoral votes.
If you vote for one of them, you are not voting. Those two actions will be equivalent this election. And if you don't vote, and Donald Trump wins, you're gonna find out real quick what genocide can look like.
I already know what genocide looks like. Are you denying that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians right now?
As I said in another comment, my vote has no influence over the outcome anyway because I don't live in a swing state, so your argument is moot. Unless you're trying to tell me that Illinois will be the pivotal state that decides the election.
I have no expectations whatsoever that a third party is going to win this election, obviously. But the idea that it's impossible for a third party to win is a self-fulfilling prophesy. Given the absolute necessity of unseating the genocidal bourgeois parties, and the fact that nothing is lost by doing it, I can see no reason whatsoever why I wouldn't vote for a third party over the Democrats.
Why do I even engage. Have fun.
I'm not "pretending not to understand" anything. I understand your position completely, I just disagree with it, and you don't seem capable of comprehending that.
I'm still proudly voting third party though. I'm not going to fall for the Duopoly pressure. People are finally getting sick of both parties. Now they are starting to do something about it.
Who? The few thousand protest voters? They will never win in our electoral college, it's quite literally impossible unless a third party completely takes over one of the two major parties (which is not happening this election, so all these protest voters will just elect Trump by default). It's not pressure, it's common sense.
Even tho most of Lemmy hates third parties, I love your comment. I'm a third party supporter! Thank you!
Fair point!
I'm somewhat baffled by him stepping down from running, but remaining president for the entire year. It seems like whoever is running for president, Kamala should have already taken over. It also feels weird having her just get inserted at the end of the process like that's a normal thing, but I can't really complain as I voted no preference anyways.
Your “baffling” has nothing to do with Biden and everything to do with you…
Once it's the Harris regime responsible for airstriking refugee tents are you going to at least have fun at brunch?
Once you recognize the last century of US foreign policy will you get something else to talk about?
Is this suddenly a new topic for you? Any reason? Why is it that I never heard you during Reagan or gwb’s term? Any reason why this shit was quiet during obama’s two terms and what were you doing during trump’s admin?
You want to make this of all things a make or break for Harris why?
We all know why.
I'm glad people are interested in what's happening in Gaza. Fucking finally. But I'd prefer actual empathy to this false bullshit being pushed by nefarious (sometimes state) actors to sow doubt among Democratic voters with the clear goal of electing the guy who will let Netanyahu turn it to dust and start WW3.
bruh i'm talking about shit going on right now, and I was out in the streets getting gassed by cops in 2020 what the fuck are you talking about?
There were insane protests against the Iraq war, if you're really that ignorant of them you were probably just doing what you are now, then.
I’m aware of and participated in those protests. The difference was that no one called democrats genocidal when republicans lied their way into a war.
Yet now the democrats are being called genocidal for basically being in power after decades of policy and foreign relations were already set. Very different from lying about yellow cake. It’s almost like there’s a nuance being lost in your bullshit rhetoric.
If you get in power with genocidal policies in place, and do nothing to change them, after running as the people to 'change' things, for 3+ presidential terms, you're going to get tarred with the same brush.
The lying about yellow cake required democrats going along with it. Biden (and many others) voted for the Iraq war on the basis of those lies- I don't think he was swindled, it was a convenient lie to believe if you're a foreign policy hawk.
It takes a lot of time to steer the ship. You’re blaming one party for not instantly correcting the other party’s decade of policy. Maybe blame the voters?
You mention a handful of democrats believing the lies coming from a GOP led White House. That doesn’t impugn the whole party, and you conveniently ignore the source of those lies to attack democrats.
It’s hilarious that the same folks that keep attacking a 2 party system still use it as the basis of their ignorance. As I said before there’s a nuance that gets lost when you spew bullshit.
It's a two party system where both parties have the same genocidal policies around the world, and one of the parties goes "aw shucks, we're so sorry" while the other foams at the mouth.
They're both bad for different reasons, the mad dog is obviously just that, but the person going along with it the whole time pretending to be the reasonable one? That's why they get scorn.
People refuse to even hear criticism of them because 'look how bad the other ones are'
The president/ vice president for the last 12/16 years, is somehow not a fair metric for the party he represents.
He stepped down because he saw that America took his gaffes at the debate more seriously than he thought they should, not because he feels he's not up to the job. Honestly, our way of selecting Presidents sucks. An objective look at this admin versus the last admin would make that decision easy -- Biden has set himself up for success by hiring competent underlings rather than yes-men, and he managed to reverse killer inflation and handle a global pandemic, while fighting against one tyrant. He's not perfect. Nobody is. He is open to criticism over his handling of Palestine and Israel and we sure can criticise his unwillingness to hold Netanyahu as accountable as he wants to handle Putin. But the other guy set up Biden for the last 4 years of bullshit with his utter mismanagement of the country, and plans on making things ten times worse. Biden looked at the polling, at the bullshit settling down on his administration and on him personally, and said he'd step back so Harris could run.
As for why Harris got the nod? There was less than a month until the General Election, virtually all of the Primaries had already been had, and despite all the bullshit being peddled about him, he won the Primary. Harris was on his ticket. They wanted to transition easily into the General without a bajillion crazy little questions about the Biden/Harris campaign, its warchest, and avoid a bloodbath between various Democratic Party factions all screaming for their guy/gal just in time for Trump to trounce the weakened candidate in the general, they leveraged the same process that would have happened had that nutbar that shot at Trump taken a shot at Biden and didn't miss -- the VP becomes POTUS. And this allows Harris to not have to jump through hoops for ballot access nor start from scratch with campaign finances, which unfortunately are STILL important for getting into the White House.
Sadly, the bullshit shifted to Harris and we're back where we were before. Does the hard-left WANT Trump in office, because it sure fucking looks like they do.
Maybe he also realized he was too close to it. All his speeches were in contrast to the other party’s candidate, and I still support that he’s much fitter to lead than the other party’s candidate. But if you step back from just the one on one contest, it’s a completely different story …..
Got proof of this? I mean, only once in my lifetime has a third party cracked 10% of the vote share. Easily 90% of the votes given have gone to a guy or gal with an -R or -D after their name for President.
I didn’t say anything about third party, but you’re right that maybe my attempt at not degenerating into political name calling made it unclear.
To be more blunt:
This makes Biden a clear choice …. But all the noise about his age did make me sit back and reconsider whether that was true in general or in the context of this competition. If there was not so much on the line and not so much recent toxic history, I would agree that I prefer someone else, someone younger and more energetic. I thought Biden was perfect in the centrist position attempt to bring this country back together, and he did as much as anyone could.
But Harris came out swinging, showing energy, youth, life, and even strayed toward progressive (I don’t know if that’s still true). If I can step back from the competition between two old men, take a larger picture, ignore all the toxic blather, I can see that she is indeed a candidate I would prefer.
The guy’s not dumb, maybe he sees it too. It must have been the toughest part of his term, always battling for reality over toxic stunts, blatant lies so it’s all too easy staying in the trenches, focusing on slugging it out, when he’s the only sane person in the room. Maybe Biden stepped back and said, yeah, I’m tired of this and there actually are other choices.
Fair point. I did misread 'one on one' to mean Democrat vs Republican with 'stepping back' to mean viewing Third Parties.
I totally agree with your reasoning, as it was my reasoning. The guy is old, not a debate. He's a gaffe machine, too. Some people pushed the meme he was losing a step, but while I saw him as old, I didn't see him as washed up or senile. The guy just doesn't know how to NOT put his foot in his mouth (I share a lot in common with him on that regard!!!), and there were an awful lot of bad-faith actors saying that he wasn't just old, but senile as well. They're still around, saying he's too old and senile to run the show now, and he should resign.
I think how Harris is being treated by various people on and offline should be a key indicator that Biden's resignation wasn't the end of the bullshit factories. They each have their own desires for their choice of President, and they can't even agree with each other who that choice is. Some will scream for Sanders. Others will scream for Stein. Some particularly pigeon-holed ones will argue for Fruit, despite her being mathematically eliminated from 270 before the first vote is cast. And lets get real. There are all to many of them who will tell you "IMMA FOR JILL" or some other tiny Third Party candidate while actually wanting Trump. Some think that a Trump presidency will lead them to the Progressive Promised Land. Others...are here to ensure we're so busy infighting that we can't put a unified resistance up, so they can get the Handmaiden's Tale they desparately want.
If Biden gave up because America is dumb, I don't blame him. In 2016, I tried hard to get out and get to Canada or New Zealand. But now Canada and New Zealand are overrun or about to be overrun by dumb people too. :|
No, the hard left doesn't want Trump. Drag is hard left and wants Kamala in office. lemmy.ml users aren't hard left, they're leninists, which is moderate left. About the same amount of left as social democrats.
Calling Leninism "moderate left" is like calling Project 2025 "moderate right".
Drag apologises. Drag will follow your advice and call Leninism far right.
Leninists are not hard left wing. And fascist / project 2025 are not hard right wing. The thing to understand with authoritarians. Is that they are only hard authoritarian. Nothing more nothing less. Anything outside of that can be changed at a snap of the fingers.
Need proof? Look at any government based around the concepts of marxist Leninism. Brutally socially oppressive. Creating heavily stratified classes and an inescapable Nation. Things pretty much counter to every actual left-wing ideology. Or look at any Western capitalist nation. Every single one currently fending off populist fascists. Who want to oppress minority groups and use the government to rigidly stratify Society under the boot of an inescapable nation. Pretty much counter to all the talk of Liberty and freedom of right wing ideologies . All because their actual hard right liberal governments refuse to compromise and Budge left in any fashion to address the needs of the people.
Fascism is the dictionary definition of far-right politics. You'd be hard pressed to name a similarly prominent political ideology that is even father to the right than fascism. Likewise, Leninism's revolutionary ideals place the ideology in the far left, despite its implementations not achieving those ideals. An ideology being authoritarian doesn't make it moderate on the left-right scale. Instead, the more authoritarian governments tend to be hard left/right instead of moderate left/right.
I have to disagree about right-wing ideology being about "liberty and freedom". That's the realm of libertarianism, not right-wing politics. Libertarians in the U.S. tend to be right-wing, but libertarianism and right-wing politics are distinct ideologies. Right-wing politics emphasize traditional values, nationalism, and hierarchial social structures.
And? Wikipedia isn't a source. Even the Nazis implemented the sorts of policies many socialists. Myself included support. They just excluded everyone that wasn't part of their ubermensch. Which leftist/socialists wouldn't. The sorts of things plenty of far right economic-liberals are actively trying to dismantle completely in the US.
Before we go any further, let's attempt to not talk past each other. If you are using a political spectrum with a single axis. I am not. Honestly, I'm not even sure 2 axis can accurately represented the political spectrum. But it is far better than kindergarten terms of left and right. But let's assume a basic two axis plot. That's very common all over the internet. Where left is socialism right as capitalism is authoritarian and down is libertarian. The more authoritarian you are. The less Concepts like left and right matter to you. You are focused only on power. Thus the further authoritarian you go live More Everything converges to a single point. Where policy is whatever it takes for you to hold power. Which is why I point out to you that they aren't significantly left or right. They are authoritarian.
I think the other issue is that you are taking people at their word. But not paying attention to what they do. The words of a politician are worthless. The words of a shyster grifter trying to push a dogmatic ideological framework on you are somehow worth less. If you take Trump at his word. He's the best guy you'll ever meet. A real stand-up guy. I think you and I both know you would be a fool to do that. Just like capitalism talks about all this Pie in the Sky bullshit that doesn't happen. Leninism does the exact same. To a worse extent even.
And finally everyone claims their ideology is about freedom and liberty. The catch is it's only for their in-group. For those on the right it's freedom and liberty for those with the resources to engage with the economy. On the left it's freedom and liberty for society. The catch is where they fall along the authoritarian libertarian Spectrum. Anarchists, libertarians, and communists being extremely left and explicitly including absolutely everyone. Big L Libertarians/economics liberals are extreme right wing crazy capitalist. Pushing capitalism into places it just doesn't even make sense. Because it's what they do. Liberal Democrats are much more libertarian than conservative republicans. Big L Libertarians are somewhere in between the two of them. But they are all far right. And have a much narrower inclusion for "society". If you dare criticize or insult the Vanguard party or fascist leadership. They will outright kill you or in prison you. Kicking you clear out of society.
Need I remind you this year China sentenced someone to a year imprisonment for wearing a mother fucking shirt. Not going to lie economic liberals like Republicans and Democrats are pretty fucked up. But you don't see people being jailed for wearing let's go Brandon t-shirts. And there's no equivalent on the Democrat side to even cite. Though I'm sure Republicans who Trend fascist would love to jail someone for wearing anything that insulted Republicans or Trump. Thank God they don't have the power to yet.
You're calling fascists "moderate right" and liberal democrats "far-right" because Nazis did some things that you agree with? What exactly did the Nazis do that makes you think fascism is more moderate on the left-right axis than liberal democracy? It looks like you're either completely ignoring the social policies of fascism, or your understanding of the terms "moderate right" and "far-right" is way out of line with how most people understand them.
I'll take Wikipedia over a Lemmy comment with no sources that is arguing that fascism is more moderate than it actually is. The Wikipedia articles I linked to are cited, and the citations look very credible to me.
(I'm fully aware of the two-axis political model you mentioned, which is why I distinguished libertarianism from right-wing politics even though libertarians in the U.S. tend to be right-wing.)
No. Ideologically authoritarians aren't left or right in any meaningful sense. Let alone moderate. it's got nothing to do with me. Everything to do with basic facts and their actions. You're thinking of someone else who implied they were "moderate"
Down votes from buthurt Leninists and politically naive westerners isn't anything to value. But anyhow I tried sincerely to engage with you and have an honest discussion. And you just weren't having it. So you have fun believing stuff just because it's popular or that it's what someone told you. Don't bother thinking for yourself it's too much trouble.
Obviously, I am thinking for myself by rejecting your argument that fascism is "not hard right wing". And you still haven't provided any sources for your argument. It's clear to me that fascism is both far-right and authoritarian, and being authoritarian doesn't prevent fascism from being far-right.
Relative to what, Maoists? Ultraleftists? Leftcoms?
Anarchists.
Is Anarchism when one supports the US government?
No. Anarchism is when you try to prevent the US government from getting even worse. Leninism is when you stick your head in the sand and pretend you can ignore the flaws in the electoral system and the sacrifices demanded of us.
I'm not sure drag knows what anarchy is...
By enthusiastically supporting neoliberal genocidaires in bourgeois elections.
Leninism does not ignore the flaws of bourgeois electoralism. Lenin wrote a whole book called "Left Communism: an Infantile Disorder" which is precisely about people refusing to participate in the existing political system.
:::spoiler Theory
Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?
It is with the utmost contempt—and the utmost levity—that the German “Left” Communists reply to this question in the negative. Their arguments? In the passage quoted above we read:
This is said with ridiculous pretentiousness, and is patently wrong. “Reversion” to parliamentarianism, forsooth! Perhaps there is already a Soviet republic in Germany? It does not look like it! How, then, can one speak of “reversion”? Is this not an empty phrase?
Parliamentarianism has become “historically obsolete”. That is true in the propaganda sense. However, everybody knows that this is still a far cry from overcoming it in practice. Capitalism could have been declared—and with full justice—to be “historically obsolete” many decades ago, but that does not at all remove the need for a very long and very persistent struggle on the basis of capitalism. Parliamentarianism is “historically obsolete” from the standpoint of world history, i.e., the era of bourgeois parliamentarianism is over, and the era of the proletarian dictatorship has begun. That is incontestable. But world history is counted in decades. Ten or twenty years earlier or later makes no difference when measured with the yardstick of world history; from the standpoint of world history it is a trifle that cannot be considered even approximately. But for that very reason, it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics.
:::
However, what he argued for was not entryism into liberal parties, but rather using the elections to build a Marxist party that could control it's message and use the opportunity to organize and build power outside of the electoral structure.
Lenin didn't live in America. If you try to use Russian electoral tactics in America, you'll fail. It's like trying to send the fleet to broadside Houston. Adapt your strategies to the terrain. You can't just pretend that the USA is Russia.
Does drag think that Russia under the Tsar was more democratic than the US today?
In any case, my position on voting third party is not because of what Lenin wrote, I merely wanted to clarify that Lenin's stance was not consistent with how drag characterized Leninism. I'm voting third party based on my own assessment of the situation, and I was a third party voter before ever encountering Lenin.
Drag thinks the precise opposite. That the parties Lenin discussed weren't electoral parties. The meaning of the word party back then isn't the same as now. Nowadays parties compete in electoralism. Organisations like Extinction Rebellion or the Proud Boys, which operate outside the electoral system, are not what we would call parties today. And yet Lenin's "parties" are more similar to XR than to the Greens. Drag thinks you've been misled by a bad translation from the English of a century ago to the English of today.
Drag 100% agrees with the strategy of creating socialist organisations outside of the government. Creating socialist organisations inside the government is more complicated. It's good in most places, but not in America. And it isn't what Lenin told you to do.
I don't think drag read what I cited, so I will link it again. Literally the title says, "Should We Participate in Bourgeois Parliaments?" which he answers in the affirmative.
:::spoiler More
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Does drag have any basis for what drag just claimed, that the parties Lenin discussed were not parties that participated in electoral processes? Or did drag just make it up, in direct contradiction to what Lenin actually said, which I already cited to drag?
Drag thinks he's still got the same legislation skills as always, it's just the campaigning skills that went because his speech disorder from childhood came back. So they picked someone without dementia to do the campaigning, and he'll be out of office before the dementia hits his prefrontal cortex like it has with Trump. It's a sensible decision.
You seem to have a better window inside Biden than I do