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- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Donald Trump has said that Palestinians have “no alternative” but to leave Gaza due to the devastation left by Israel’s war on Hamas, in effect endorsing ethnic cleansing of the territory over the opposition of Palestinians and the neighbouring countries.
Speaking as he prepared to host Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Tuesday, Trump repeated the suggestion that Gaza’s population should be relocated to Jordan and Egypt – something both countries have firmly rejected.
Trump claimed Palestinians would “love to leave Gaza”, telling reporters: “I would think that they would be thrilled.”
You can’t make the survival of democracy hinge on everybody having to vote for you because else it would be getting even worse. You actually have to present an option that promises that things get better. Significantly even, since most people in the US are absolutely struggling.
As voters we had the opportunity to prevent fascism for four more years by voting for neoliberals. This would have given progressives and socialists another opportunity to co-opt the Democrat party. The failure of the Democrats to provide a compelling alternative does not mean we should be complicit in our own destruction and allow fascists to murder us.
I’m seeing a lot of voter bashing but the same Democrats in power. I get the criticism against voters. They should have voted neoliberal. But the Democrats set this vote up to fail. They just don’t seem to get any consequences for it.
The consequences are that Democrat politicians live in a fascist dictatorship, are persecuted politically, and remembered for their incompetence. Many of them are rich enough that they will probably not feel the impacts anytime soon, it really depends how serious Trump is on the retribution.
What’s important is to care more about people than punishing the Democrats. If we are lucky enough to have future elections, we need to see the Democratic Party as a tool. edit: typo
There are more than one lesson to learn from an election. People need to learn to vote for the furthest left viable political party that they can. Democrats need to learn to adopt a populists narrative that pushes progressive and socialist ideas. Democrats are unlikely to do this until they are co-opted by progressives and socialists the way Republicans were co-opted by Trump. But delaying fascism as long as possible gives progressives and socialists more time to take control of the Democratic Party.
I think the vast majority of Democrats in House and Senate will bend the knee or just stay silent before facing persecution.
And everybody voting the furthest left viable is a flimsy strategy for fighting fascism. Many people already do that all the time, but you can’t make sure that everybody does. Also, with this there never was a chance to move the party any further left. Every election there was this myth that you have to vote moderate to change the party, but it never happened. Why should it? Moderates can say that the voters have shown they want moderate positions when they win. And when they lose for some reason they go, “Well, if you need them the most the progressives will stab you in the back. Let’s cut them out”. This is what I mean there are no consequences for Democrats, at least for the leadership that’s moderate and neoliberal. They will never move.
Since Trump’s inauguration, the Democrats have been ineffective so far, but they haven’t been silent. We’ll find out soon.
It was the only useful, viable strategy we had.
We can count on people to act in their own self-interest. People can organize online to spread true information. The issue was that people fell for propaganda that convinced them to act against their own interests without them realizing it.
My argument is that voting for neoliberal Democrats will only incrementally shift the party to the left. In order to make the Democrats meaningfully change from a leaning right of center organization to at least a leaning left of center organization they must be co-opted by a progressive or socialist candidate with a populist narrative. This populist narrative would ideally be a progressive and socialist agenda. Like Bernie tried to do twice. In order for someone like Bernie to do this we needed more time before a fascist takeover.
We know this strategy can work because Trump did it to the Republican party. He used a populist narrative of white christian nationalism. However, we are now out of time and relying on the idea that fascist incompetence will give us another chance.
There is no fulcrum on the political spectrum that can force Democrats to change. And if what your argument wants is a reason for Democrats to change that is not consequences but incentives. To be clear, in a democracy the only consequence for losing elections is to lose out on political power. There is no mechanism besides voting to make Democrats agree with one group of constituents. Democrats look at who voted and then chase those votes.
As long as money is in politics the incentives will always be for the Democrats to incrementally change at best. At a pace that is far to slow to fix wealth inequality or climate change. Political power has to be seized when it is up for grabs during primaries in order to see more systemic change. But in order to do that there needed to be future elections which is no longer guaranteed.