I’m not in the US, but it seems to me that the Republicans keep breaking norms and procedures, including politicising impeachment and ignoring illegal, immoral and plain bad conduct.
They also seem to be fine with not applying the same standard across the isle.
On the other hand, either Democrats follow new precedent, with even more devolving, or they keep the old decorum and get their asses kicked by Republican foul play.
What ways out of this spiral are there?
I’m sure the French were asking this exact question in 1788.
Grass-roots local freaking organization. People keep waiting for someone to save them not realizing: they’re someone. Get involved with whatever local org is trying to improve people’s lives. Address the problems that the right wing is lying about solving. Support whatever local candidate aligns with that view or hell become that candidate. Then get more people on board. We all love Bernie right? Well that’s what Bernie has been preaching for decades. And the results for his state have been great.
The extreme right flourishes because the establishment (left and right) has for decades ignored real people’s issues. You hears those interviews with Trump voters? They’re not talking about wanting to reinstate the Third Reich, they’re complaining about their real life hardships being ignored by politicians. And yeah Trump is obviously lying but desperate people will believe a lie if no one else is providing a better alternative.
You’re not wrong, but I don’t see the relevance to the topic? Unless this is part of the public revolt?
Organising to protect immigrants in your area is admirable, but how do you get rid of the necessity to do that? You’ll have to replace the politicians, no?
And you’ll probably need to be revolution sized and well organised to be able to do that when they ignore any procedure or deal that doesn’t benefit them in the specific moment.
Politicians decide things, but to actually make stuff happen, the government needs to collect taxes to pay for services that are then provided to the public. I think the idea here is to take out the middleman. You won’t solve the problem country wide, but you’ll help some people, and that’s still worth it. Work together without like-minded people locally, be an inspiration, and show that it works. I’ve only been very briefly part of an activist group (specialized in food saving), so probably best to look elsewhere for good advice on how to do this well.
I believe this is the right video. It should go a long way to answering your question.
Top down organization of political parties like the Democrats in the US is relatively new. Last 50+ years or so, and antidemocratic. Look to when the Democratic party was much better for the average man. And one of the differences you’ll see was it was much more bottom up. Local organization and community building is vital. Not just for left anarchist/libertarians like myself. But to any common man looking for a political party to represent them. Leaving leadership to their own devices is how leadership became so out of touch.
Iirc, Reagan was the first to strongarm a party line and establish the strategy of voting for power over anything which has proven very effective, with courts, gerrymandering, and stalled electoral reforms very helpful to form this current opportunity.
But with the current system where it is, I have trouble seeing any such grass roots being able to accomplish much until they gain a majority enough, for long enough to re-establish the checks & balances. Electoral voting and the two party system makes it incredibly hard for a new party to establish, and even then they will get bogged down in the same malintent behaviour exhibited now. At least enough to appear powerless, ineffectual or otherwise not making change enough to keep taking seats, like the Democrats of the last few cycles.
Do you envision some kind of path short of a revolution to throw out the current politicians?
We don’t need a new party though. And no one should be arguing for one. As it would be ineffectual until we change the system as you said. What we need is local and Community leadership for the Democratic Party. What we need is to not leave the leadership decisions up to those in Washington.
Yes top down leadership can be very effective. But not in the long term. Otherwise the Soviet Union would still exist. Otherwise our parties would still represent us. If we want a party to start representing us again. We need to stop making it them and us. And just make it us. And the only way to do that is to stop relying on someone to lead nationally. Start leading locally. With the national parties only duties to coordinate between new York Democrats, Florida Democrats, Missouri Democrats, and California Democrats. And we get there by community action.
Am I understanding you correctly that you’re advocating for grassroots campaigning for the Democrats?
As in: drumming up public support to vote in a Democrat majority, presumably in the hopes of creating a long term Democrat rule where they could address the checks & balances, the skewed system, the dysfunctional ethics and decorum situation, etc.?
That would indeed be a path forward, but I’m worried that the Republicans would counter campaign very hard, and as proved aren’t hesitant to use any trick they can to not give up power.
It’s what historically worked, but is it still feasible?
Not for national Democrats. State and local Democrats. In a red state like mine. The state apparatus is practically non existent. Republicans run unopposed almost as often as they run against a non Republican. Which includes non Democrats.
Small towns and hamlets organizing as for instance in my case, Missouri Democrats. Run by locals, for locals. Who don’t prostrate themselves at the foot of the National Party as a simple reaction. That would go against the national party when it serves their interests.
Yes the fascists have spent decades putting out antidemocrat propaganda. But when it’s Dave from a few blocks over running. Not some faceless person largely supported by groups outside the state. That sort of propaganda tends to fall flat when they can’t "other” you.
Do this in enough towns and possibly get one of the smaller cities. All of a sudden, the state arm of the National Party might hold less influence than you do. It would be rather easy to force them into irrelevance with something like that. Which is what needs to be done.
It is 100% feasible. When you have a connection to a group to a party. One that’s local and accountable to you. They can try to spread whatever lies they want about it. The people who deal with them will know the truth. Propaganda really only works, and works best about groups you have no real contact with or understanding of. It’s how and why Communists and Jews were targeted in 1930s Germany. They were harmless minorities. But most people didn’t have any stake in defending them or knowing them. So they were easy targets. It’s why the fascist today are targeting trans people and immigrants. A lot of people don’t knowingly have contact of any note with these groups. So they don’t know that the fascists are lying and misrepresenting things. Granted with basic critical thinking skills they should know. But critical thinking skills are not something we value in America unfortunately. Not that we are alone.
I agree and it’s what I’m trying to lean into. I’ve been thinking of democracy as a verb or a muscle that has atrophied in me. Corporations certainly aren’t democratic, and most systems we live in nowadays don’t lend themselves towards democratic modes of engagement. My goal is to learn more about unions and look at mutual aid groups and tenant unions and look at examples in American history when people were more civically engaged and try to do more.
The nazis and religious zealots should continue to have their free speech and be able to parade, but they need to be shunned back to the recesses of popularity and life where they were scorned and looked at with disgust and their points were not granted the dignity to be engaged with in ‘debate’. Instead they are now treated as a spectacle and a disbelief that anyone even truly believes those things. They also successfully framed the discussion that they have reason and science on their side, and culturally we all need to understand they are ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag.
Revolution
This is the only way. You don’t defeat fascism peacefully.
Well. You can. But we already passed all the opportunities to do so. Gotta nip it in the bud and we chose not to do so.
you already beat one oppressor, what is one more
One more.
yeah, the amount should be 0. I really hope you succeed though, rest of the world will be fucked if you dont as powerbalance shifts in horrible way.
Thanks. My country beat three oppressors, though; Spain, France and Germany. Although, which European country didn’t deal with the latter?
Elite centrists have dominated the Democratic party since Clinton. They love to take a “responsible” center left position and try to grab centrists. Unions, minorities and people on the left have no recourse but to continue to vote for them because the Republicans were soo much worse.
Trump’s super power has always been his ability to say anything it takes to get votes yet deliver very little. Because of this he can say appealing things to unions and minorities who have been disenfranchised which undermines Democrats.
The generation of boomers who have lead the Democratic Party since Clinton is literally dying out. These next few election cycles are going to be interesting as the next generation of Xers and Millennials have a different opinion of government and are much more militant and vocal.
These next few election cycles
It’s very hopeful to assume there will be another set of elections in 4 years or even midterms in all 50 states. We should be operating as if there won’t be.
As long as people believe Democrats are different from Republicans the spiral will continue.
People believing that they’re the same is the kind of mindset that leads to a Trump victory. Apathy rewards extremists.
The Overton window has shifted so much in 4 years that 2024 democrats were definitely running on 2016 Republican platforms.
I don’t believe apathy is the solution but let’s not kid ourselves, they are effectively the same in regards to the proletariat. They just operate on a 50% societal deterioration as opposed to Republicans 100%
50% is not effectively the same as 100%
Whether Gaza is entirely rubble in 2 years vs 4 years, it’s still rubble.
Whether Billionaires and corporations make 50% extra profits or 100% profits via exploitation of workers, it’s still exploitation.
If on day 1 of a presidency you can effectively have nationwide ICE raids and deportations, the previous administration allowed and helped in that in at least some capacity.
Just wait it out for a few more years and things will settle down. This isn’t anything new… the US has gone through a very similar period of political upheaval and realigning of parties every two or three generations since it was founded. This one isn’t even the worst we’ve had.
Edit: Sorry, I didn’t realize you all are part of the problem.
All federal employees have been reclassified to political employees instead of nonpartisan civil servants, meaning they are closer to at will employees.
This has never happened before.
All federal employees now serve at the will of the party in power. There will be loyalty tests. There will be entire departments defunded and dismantled.
They are reviewing social media posts as we speak to decide who to keep. That’s right, that includes folks at the CDC, FDA, EPA… every paperwork jockey, no matter how minor their position, is now subject to the whims at the party in power in a way they were not before.
All these firings will be contested. They’ll go to the courts. Say… Who owns the courts right now?
You have no idea what is happening. The purges begin 90 days from now.
I was talking with some kids the other month (Berkeley grads, so “kids”=mid 20s), and they really believed this current shit show is no big deal because they were taught about “checks and balances” in HS. It blows my mind that anyone thinks Fuckhead and the current GOP is just a normal swaying of the political pendulum.
As another mid 20s dude this is most likely because they’re at Berkeley. You’ll find a much different answer in some other crowds who don’t have the luxury of being able to be ignorant
I see basically three ways out:
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Democrats/someones sane win overwhelming majority for long enough to harden procedures, cement effective enforcement, and subversion proof the whole system, while not succumbing to their own corruption. Seems incredibly unlikely.
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Autocracy and/or persecution of political rivals, where dissenters “fall out windows” a lot or the legislative body is replaced, until stability reforms and new norms can be reintroduced. Seems most likely currently, and has several contemporary examples.
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Revolt, public and/or military, throwing out all the politicians and imposing exile or lynching of the offending politicians. Seems improbable, and especially to unite enough to throw out all the bad behaviour. Also will lead to a junta, civil strife and/or provisional government which come with their own slew of issues and corruption.
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The Republicans grow a sense of decorum to protect the less privileged party. I can’t imagine this happening without basically a GOP-internal pogrom under a strongman, but Republican conservatism pulls a strongman in the opposite direction. Unless perhaps they’re some kind of upstanding teocrat perhaps?
This is all wild and slightly saddening speculation, please feel free to suggest other paths!
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