The Democrats must become an anti-establishment party | Robert Reich
The Democrats must become an anti-establishment party | Robert Reich
The lesson of this election is that Democrats must attack inequality – and not cede working-class voters to Trump
You're viewing part of a thread.
They didn't do everything they could to stop Trump, Democrats showed there was one step further they could take: have everyone drop out and endorse a single candidate. Republicans also didn't rig any of their primaries, and I'm pretty fucking sure Democrats did n Iowa (and as someone from Iowa I'm still mad about how they basically just sacrificed our state)
You talk a lot of shit. Did you even volunteer for Harris? Do any canvasing? Door knocking? Phonebanking? How much did you donate? My guess: you did literally nothing.
I've given thousands of hours of my life to politics and activism throughout my life, and intend to continue to. I don't have to justify any of it to your brain rot.
Maybe that's true!
Out of all the people that voted for Harris, how many of them do you think actually volunteered any time at all to her campaign? I'd guess it wasn't even 0.1%.
What you're accusing the US left of, of being armchair whiners, applies to nearly all USAmericans. People in this country believe politics is just complaining and voting every couple years, and this is true of Democrats and Republicans and Independents. The actual political engagement in the US is extremely low and it's a serious problem.
I'll choose to believe you, but you should realize you're a rarity in the US. Half of us don't even vote!
I agree, voting is the bare minimum, if people are so frustrated, it should drive them to action. Democracy is an imperfect system, but it only truly works if people are actively engaged with it. If we don't start taking it seriously, we certainly won't have it much longer, if not Trump someone after him will strip it from us.
At the end of the day, I don't really care as much about the rift in the Dem party, as much as I care about the inaction on the left. If the left truly engaged with the process, in whatever way they choose, the path will open up for at least some reconciliation in both directions. The real problem is the inaction on the left, imo. The fatalism and despair that leads to lethargy. We need true activism beyond just protesting, such as citizen lobbying, getting involved in local community, joining affinity groups that have legislative goals, etc. All of that stuff forces the party to take notice, and it works. I've been involved in many things in my life that resulted in passed left wing legislation, it starts with people choosing to try to make a difference.
Okay, so let's look at the genocide in Gaza.
What could the left have done, more than they already had? There was the whole uncommitted movement of direct involvement in the primary process to make our voices heard, people demanded to speak to nominees and presented petitions and went to the media etc etc. That wasn't fatalism, people did everything they could imagine and I don't appreciate you shitting on them for it.
But what did the Party do in response?
They didn't allow a single Palestinian-American to speak at the DNC!
So tell me, since you're so good at politics and so incredibly motivated and smart, can you think of anything that they could have done to force the Democratic Party to adopt a resolution banning arms sales to Israel? Because I can't.
There are all sorts of things that could have been done, but I'm not sure whether it would have moved the needle enough. You can't just show up in the bottom of the 9th and say. "I've rarely hit for your team, but if you don't do what I say I won't hit a home run for you." That's one of the things I've been trying to communicate, all be it grumpily.
The left needs to integrate themselves into the party and into activism permanently. Yes we will be working with people with whom we profoundly disagree on some issues. But we will also agree on many things, and that will create progress. That progress will leave room for negotiation and firm resolution. When you're already sitting at the table and already part of the team, then you have the power to make change. Especially because the left is large enough and passionate enough to completely overrun the party like the Trumpists did with the right. Instead the left repeatedly does the one thing that will always result in nothing, they refuse to participate.
Its not really about just voting. Though when 10 million people stay home just because they don't like the top of the ticket, it's definitely silly. Those down ballot races are filled with progressives and further left candidates that the left could actually be supporting.
They see abstention and protest as action. Protesting and refusing to participate is cathartic, but it has little to no impact on policy. We need to actually get organized and flex our power... Even if it is somewhat adjacent to the party, if millions of far left Americans truly organize and show they can work as a team, the Dems will be forced to bend towards us. The Dems consistently work with organized people. People that are organized are massive blocks of power with the ability to truly mobilize, It's why the Dems have often been so integrated into labor unions.
I also think the issue with Israel includes hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign pressure against anyone who "falls out of line" from Christian and Jewish political action groups that support Israel. There needs to be far more organizing on the left to counteract that, we've done maybe 15% of what needs to be done if we really want to tip that scale. I have no faith in the left to really do that work. So people won't do the work, and won't vote... But won't see how they are a part of the problem.
You have a lot of faith in voting.
So, what's your plan now that we might not have real elections ever again?
I'm not a fortuneteller, depending on the route things take I'll join whatever group(s) are fighting to save democracy and go from there. But aside from that I'll focus on organizing for small wins, multi use zoning, local transit, shared use trails, etc. Things that improve the lives around you lead to positive impacts politically. I'm most interested in just moving forward in the ways that I can. No one needs to take a large bite, just getting involved leads to positive impacts. People who get involved also don't tend to feel so helpless when they see how possible it is to get bills passed and good projects funded, that usually leads to a positive outcome. If things go to shit anyway, at least I'll have done something and tried.
I'm sure I'll really appreciate the new shared use trail in my community after they take away my hormones.
You realize some of us are going to die, right? I'm trying to be patient here, but you don't seem to realize the stakes. People need to take large bites or we aren't going to make it. Doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff is not a political action plan. This is going to take a political organization bigger than each of us individually, something that can do more than pass a local sales tax for road repairs or a new community pool. It's not enough to have done something and tried. We have to win.
And that's not going to be Democrats. They are tied to the sinking ship of elections, and they will keep wasting their time in them long after Republicans have rigged everything and made winning impossible. Sure, you can get some small wins that way, like shared trails, but the big stuff? Like my access to healthcare? That's off limits. Republicans will kill me if I play by the rules of the game.
We have a couple months to prepare. That's it. After that? Anything can happen.
I think you've misread me. It's not like I'm oblivious to the danger we all face, that's exactly why the inaction of the left makes me irritated. I also admittedly led with a softer touch in regards to organizing in my last comment because I had no idea if going overboard would just shutdown the conversation. While I live a fairly heteronormative life, I'm queer, so is my wife, and so are a large chunk of the people I surround myself with. I brought up zoning and infrastructure because I have a lot of knowledge when it comes to those topics so my effort isn't wasted. Densifying is an environmental imperative. The spread out nature of our infrastructure is the single greatest threat to human survival because the vast majority of our fossil fuels goes to supporting it.
There is a reason I said I'm not a fortuneteller, we really don't know how far Trump and Co will take it, and we will all have to be open to pivoting depending on what he does. The single greatest thing people can do is get involved in literally anything. Because once people understand how to navigate activism and politics, it becomes that much easier to pivot when things get bad. Many people on the left have to still take the first step, literally just getting off the couch and used to organizing. I've been encouraging that on lemmy and reddit specifically because people need to start somewhere. It's been my experience that the people most angry on here, the people that refused to vote, etc, are also the people that never get involved in real activism past protests. I really just want people to engage, now, while there is still time...