"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, Thälmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. Thälmann famously said that ‘some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest’ of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called ‘social fascists.’
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitler’s orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."
Republicans are not going to suddenly stop being evil, so what’s the solution? Just endlessly comprise and never accomplish anything? Fuck that. I refuse to be held hostage. If Democrats want leftist votes then they have to deliver leftist policies. Otherwise they’re just as responsible
That is what Liberals are perfectly fine with. An infinite state of groveling with people in power and never doing anything else. They are hostile to protesters too and ignore bad actions by Dems. Everything turns into but Trump is worse.
The solution is a Multi-Party system with coalition and then compromise out of a position of power. We need to accept that in almost all societies the real left are a minority. Humans don’t like the socialist ideas even if it benefited then Right now because they dream of escaping poverty and to then be better than others. If we destroyed the class system they’d have no chance to some day be better than other people. I believe this drive to get ahead is part of human nature and only few are able to fight it and think in the benefit of the whole.
So there are 2 options:
Is a revolution, violent and ends in establishing an authoritarian government forcing your beliefs on the majority of people which kinda goes against my democratic beliefs and the right of freedom
Go into politics. In europe it would be voting very left and gain enough votes to join a coalition to make the centrists enable more and more socialist policies. This worked very well in some countries like early Germany, netherlands and a big portion of Scandinavian countries. In America basically the only option would be to join the democratic party and advocate socialist policies from within like Bernie sanders is trying for example. Vote more left in the primaries to try and gain influence.
After that when it comes down to voting either of the 2 parties though you probably need to accept the current majority in the democratic party in order to not enable far right.
The time to go more left is between big elections and from within. In big elections like the upcoming its time to set differences aside and unify for the lesser evil.
Never forget that a democracy is a rule of the majority of the population and not a rule of the best policies from your perspective. If you think: Fuck the majority, this is how the country should be run, you are not democratic.
This of course disregards the influence powerful people take in politics which is another topic and way more complicated.
Every time they run on a left policy, they lose. Every time they enact left legislation, they lose. And you wonder why they don’t run a big left platform? Frankly they do left things in spite of it always costing them.
What the left needs to do is actually show up.
Hillary proves you wrong, though. Awkward!
Hilary who said she would have a map room to flight climate change. That existential issue that the left cares so much about, right? And bam she lost the election.
Exactly. If you’re as interest candidate, or arguably a center-right candidate, saying a few things to try to pretend you’re left wing is not going to get the support that you want. You need to actually change your policy in a major way well in advance.
Pretend? She declared fucking war on climate change. That’s what a map room means, a fucking war on it. But you want to say pretend lol.
And this is the big existential issue, isn’t it? It’s the big issue that all the logical leftists care about, right? It’s the issue of our generation, right?
And the left didn’t show up. She ran on that big important left policy. And. The. Left. Didn’t. Show. Up.
But we can go more! Why was it “only” climate change? For that let’s look at Obama. So Obama enacted the ACA. That’s great, right? The thanks Obama got for that was to lose the House of Representatives for year 3 and 4. And lose the House of reps again for years 5 and 6. And then lose both the House of reps and the Senate for years 7 and 8. He enacted left policy and: The left never shows up. So what did Hillary learn from the last 6 years of Obama? She learned that the left never shows up. And you’re amazed she didn’t ruin a big left platform on every issue? So she ran a mostly center platform to try to get voters, BUT with a big position to left on the map room to climate change. And bam she lost the election.
So what did Biden learn from Hillary? Don’t run a left position on anything, because it’s a sure fire eat to lose. So he ran center. But guess what happened in office? He governed left. He did a lot of left things. And what was his thanks for it? Dismal poll numbers. Aka the left was not going to show up.
Like I said, when the Dems enact left policy, they lose. When they run on left policy, they lose. Because. The. Left. Never. Shows. Up.
Totally fucking agree with this. Well said!