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  • My take is both yes and no.

    The ‘yes’ part is democrats alienating their working class base, refusing to take fascism seriously, and playing into Trump’s martyrdom

    The ‘no’ part is that fascists outnumber non-fascists in the US. It’s a settler-colonial nation. Democrats could stand for something but that ‘something’ is too unpopular no matter how correct it is.

  • Of course not. They did everything in their power to stop his rise.

    They didn't promote his 2016 primary run because they thought it would make the election a shoo-in for Hillary if he won the nomination.

    They didn't ratfuck the only candidate who paid even lip-service to addressing the economic contradictions inherent to capitalism which immiserate the populace. They didn't choose to run a corporate-owned, deeply unpopular warmonger instead. They ran a strong candidate who was universally beloved by Americans, someone who is so radiant and pure of heart that she is light itself.

    They didn't play into every provocation from Trump to act as part of his PR machine a la the Streisand effect.

    They didn't bungle governance for 4 years so badly that people were eager for a change.

    They didn't handle Covid worse than Trump and get far more people killed and disabled by it with their grand reopening.

    They didn't doggedly commit to genocide even knowing it would cost them votes in key battleground states.

    The Democrats did nothing to help Trump rise to power and did everything they could to stop his rise, but Trump was too much of a political mastermind and he was willing to break rules to win. He's only won because he lies and cheats, which the Democrats never do.

    Frankly, it is concerning and problematic of you to even ask that question because everyone knows the answer is obviously "No". Would you ask other questions where the answer is obviously no, such as "Does a bear not shit in the woods?", "Did NATO expansion trigger Putin's invasion of Ukraine?", "should the US stop funding and arming Israel?"

    I'm getting really strong Russian bot vibes from this poster. Mods, where are you? Why haven't you banned this propagandist yet?

    Just you wait, "/u/Dirt_Owl", if that's your real name -- or should I say грязная сова -- I've summoned the mods and they'll soon deport you back to RuZZia.

  • Obama roasting Trump at the House Correspondents video is supposedly what convinced him to run in the first place and he never would have gotten traction in the election if Hillary hadn't leaned into the Pied Piper strategy.

    • what convinced him to run

      Naw, Trump had run for president before in 2000 as part of the Reform Party, but didn't make it past the primary. He'd talked about being president as far back as 1988. He told some press in 2004 he'd run, but decided against it because he thought Gore and Bush would beat him in either primary.

    • What's the pied piper strategy?

      Also is your profile picture a bobbit worm? (Based)

      • Hillary's campaign favored Trump as their opponent, and did what they could to elevate him above his competitors in the Republican Primary (though Hillary's campaign is by no means solely responsible for his triumph over such formidable personalities as... Jeb "Please Clap" Bush, Little Marco, and Ted Cruz). They believed Trump was off the deep end, would carry the Republican Party off the deep end, and lead to an easy victory. Donald Trump did carry the Republican Party off the deep end, but this (famously) did not result in Hillary Clinton being elected President.

        The "Pied Piper" is the titular character of an old folk tale in which, after being refused payment for enchanting the plague rats and leading them out of the city, the piper enchants the children and makes them disappear as well.

        The Pied Piper thing is a red herring IMO. It demonstrates how cynical the Democratic Party is, but it is not the reason they lost, and not worth dwelling on too much. It is a drop in the bucket next to the torrent of grievances people feel towards the leadership of this country, and how the "Left" (Democrats) insists everything is fine and that "the long arc of history bends towards justice" while doing absolutely fuck-all, while the Right correctly points out that everything is going to SHIT, but directs that justifiable anger at the inept liberal institutions and the most powerless people on Earth instead of the motherfuckers who are seeing meteoric increases in wealth as the bridges collapse and the stores run out of toilet paper.

        The Democrats ARE responsible for the rise of Trump, but it is a much bigger picture than some internal campaign memos circulating in 2016. It is their whole character as an organization to scold anybody who suggests a better future is possible. They have an unmaskable contempt for their voters, who owe them everything and deserve nothing in return. They insist on leaving people no choice between "keep things exactly the same," and "burn it all down," while building towards the most advanced police surveillance state in the world, ensuring the only people left around to "burn it down" are the cold blooded fascists because any other threat to the status quo is in prison.

      • Hillary Clinton's campaign identified Trump as their preferred opponent, they felt very confident they'd beat him. They literally funded his campaign so he'd win the primary (but it allowed him to get a lot of media attention).

      • This is the worm that is coiled around the base of my brain stem.

  • The USA has a one-party system with the typical extravagance of having two of them. It's not about which half of the political front of the bourgeoisie is to blame for x and y, it's capital doing its things and crumbling under its own contradictions

  • Beyond the direct contributions such as the pied piper stuff it's important to understand the actual political landscape.

    The reality is that Democrats do not provide an alternative. Democrats have consistently been behind the biggest pushes to "depoliticize" (in reality de-democratize) issues and shroud them in technocracy. Obama is directly responsible for so much of this such as:

    • mechanizing imperialism via drone warfare
    • mechanizing deportations
    • creating the new era surveillance capitalism where the dynamic between entities such as Google and the government isn't based in annoying money losing legalistic demands, but a customer / vendor relationship

    On these alone the power of the President has been expanded greatly to cater to right wing political governance. These are really "core" tactics and functions that present the fact that there is no alternative.

    We had 4 years of Biden as the 'alternative' and what happened?:

    • They adopted Trumps immigration policy
    • They bragged about how well they deported people
    • They backed a genocide
    • CHIPS / sanctions based economic warfare (compared to tariff based)
    • Promised cash that they then didn't give out

    Democrats aren't even "anti-corruption", they couldn't get STOCK Act with teeth, and their biggest stars are all guilty of insider trading. The country is too stupid to understand it, but they're not even trying anymore such as when Hochul said "I talked to some guy at a diner and that's why we must stop congestion pricing". She literally did the "Everyone at the Barbershop is talking about Warren" as an excuse for rich people whispering in her ear.

    Democrats put a friendly capable face on the same kinds of policies that Trump champions. We've also seen that most of the centrist technocrats are more than willing to throw the vulnerable constituencies under the bus and claim that they have the right to adjudicate their lives and views:

    • Biden's comments about how you must vote for him otherwise you're not black
    • Newsom's explicit backpedaling on LGBT+ rights
    • The Party's reported backpedaling on LGBT+ rights
    • Schumer's comments about his job being to keep "the left" pro-Israel.

    One of the most interesting things is DEI itself. Instead of actually pushing for a welfare state, or any kind of material benefits. They created this corpo cultural affect that resulted in makework jobs for the richest BIPOC and GSM people, while ignoring the rest of them because it's "too hard". They created this gigantic target that the right wing can point to and say "look at what they're getting". Ultimately this type ratchet effect is always based on Democrats pretending that politics isn't a resource allocation system and that under capitalism it devolves into a winner talk all strategy that snowballs. Why? Well only because it's an aesthetic foil to the Republicans correct interpretation of the political economy and their political strategy.

    It's a new stanza but a the same rhyme scheme for a lot of the big problem issues, homelessness, free trade, jobs, drug decriminalization, prison/judicial system reform, election reform, etc.

  • If Democrats hadn't cheated in 2016, Bernie would have won in 2016 and 2020.

    If Democrats hadn't cheated in 2020, Bernie would have won in 2020 and 2024.

    Simple as

    • I don't think Bernie would've had two terms, he would've face constant attack from the media and both parties, and literally 0 of his planned "make the boot of capital stomp slightly less hard" strategies would've actually been passed, and the media would be calling him a failure nonstop and saying "this is what happens when you elect a socialist."

  • Im using these quotes to say yes, broadly liberals (democrats) have had a hand in the fascism of the US; of which has always been fascistic, but as the "left wing of fascism" has put on a smiling face to trick us.

    As far as I'm concerned, "liberal" is the most meaningless word in the dictionary. History has shown me that as long as some white middle class people can live high on the hog, take vacations in Europe, send their children to private schools, and reap the benefits of their white skin privileges, then they are "liberals." But when times get hard and money gets tight, they pull of that liberal mask and you're talking to Adolf Hitler. They feel sorry for the so called under privileged just as long as they can maintain their own privileges

    Assata Shakur, 1988 from Assata : An Autobiography

    There's also that Malcom X quote about liberals being the "smiling foxes."

    A quote about George Jackson's politics :

    For Jackson, echoing the prison writings of the Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci (an author whose translated writings were found in Jackson’s cell after his death), fascism referred chiefly to state-led economic development and the incorporation of organized labor.

    In other words, for Jackson, fascism involved not only racist repression but also national development and reform. In this sense, the U.S. of the 1960s-70s was fertile fascist soil indeed. Such an expansive understanding of political domination may complicate and enrich antifascist sentiments percolating today around the defense of existing, often hard-won political liberties. Jackson forces us to rethink the distinctions between conservative and liberal administrations and to confront the legacies of even the New Deal and Great Society within a longer history of capitalism and U.S. imperialism.

  • Yes, obviously. They literally funded his 2016 Republican primary campaign. Joe Biden more or less railroaded through the 2024 election cycle by rejecting any chance of carrying out an open primary.

  • I would say yes. Their continual sabotage of popular policies and candidates while propping up the right has done immeasurable damage to the credibility of the Democratic party.

    Having given ground to the Republican party and still treating them as civilized but misguided allies (Trotting out the Cheneys and politicians like Pelosi saying the US needs a strong Republican party), has left a lot of would-be voters unmotivated and rightfully mistrusting.

    When you don't even pretend to give something to your constituents, it makes sense that someone like Trump would succeed. And the Democratic party continues to play ball with him, further legitimizing the notion that this is any way acceptable.

  • Even if we ignore how badly they fucked up in 2016, the onus is on them in TWICE (?) now having the chance to act as opposition to him and what have they done? Fuck all. The democrats unwillingness to meaningfully combat Trump has just enabled him to get bolder and bolder in his shit.

  • Only in the sense that the point of liberalism is to enable fascist leaders to take power mostly unchallenged once the liberals fail at being secret fascists.

  • Indirectly? Yes. They're responsible for creating and upholding a declining status quo while suppressing all left-wing alternatives and not only allowing the right to run wild but also legitimizing them through concessions and appeasement.

    Directly? Also yes, because they literally promoted Trump thinking he'd be easier to beat and that they could more easily sell themselves as the "lesser evil" and coerce voters into coming out if they were up against him (which they've also done with other far-right candidates).

    Literally any scale, any perspective you want to use, they deserve plenty of blame.

  • I think of Trump more as a product of the system that was inevitable. He took the already existing energy of the people who were disillusioned and crushed by the capitalist system but misguided on the causes and solution. I wouldn't necessarily say it was only that democrats that propagated this system, though they contributed heavily to it.

  • They shoulder a lot of the blame, as long as you don't go so far that you forget the decades of right wing media extremism backed by oil billionaires that also shoulders a lot of the blame.

    The average American's political consciousness only sees two sides: libs with their rainbow imperialism, and chuds with their overt imperialism, and they by and large just side with the one that makes them feel better about themselves.

  • Kind of tangential, but it’s supremely ironic that the reason burgerland Amerikkka sees Trump as ultra competent businessman who’s always on the winning end of the deal is because NBC rehabilitated his image with The Apprentice.

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