I’m not even American, so it doesn’t affect me directly, but I am scared to death of a Trump presidency.
I am one of those people here who think that Biden is a far more competent executor of imperialist policies compared to Trump, but what I am even more afraid of is the early death of nascent left wing movements in America.
I am reminded of how the KPD getting its leaders murdered by Freikorps thugs during the Spartacist uprising (mind you, a much stronger party than any leftist movement in America today), and how its continued suppression paved the way to Nazi Germany.
Project 2025 will effectively embolden fascist thugs in America to do the same to the left wing movements, many of which are still in their cradle, and the death of leftist movements in their infancies will inevitably pave the way to a fascist America and undo many of the progress that had been made over decades.
The world cannot afford a fascist America. Imagine Hitler with nukes. The world will have to pay a much, much larger price as a result.
On this reasoning alone, I believe that Trump needs to be stopped at all cost. But many here have disagreed with me, and I need you to persuade me why I shouldn’t be afraid of Project 2025 at all. Even if the chance of that happening is 10%, I’m still not ready to gamble with it.
(I’m not saying we have to support Biden, I believe it is somewhat inevitable, I’m saying that we have to buy ourselves as much time as possible, even if it means strategic voting, to build a resilient leftist movement while delaying the inevitable for as long as we can.)
Project 2025 is just a scary name that liberals made up for what Republicans always plan to do when they get into office
Liberals didn't make it up though? What do you mean https://www.project2025.org/ and the plan is much further than anything I've seen planned in my life of following US politics
Yeah IMO, they ain’t playin’. This is stuff they’ve been working up to for decades, just as packing the courts with conservative judges and overturning Roe v. Wade was.
they did the one thing democrats hate most, planning ahead
This is not even a little true, Republicans named it themselves and it is an extremely stark departure from what any previous president from either party has planned to do once they gain office. There's not really precedent for this going back at least to Reagan.
Cheney and Rumsfeld were doing CoG/Unitary stuff under Bush. It was a thing under Bush that was talked about in the news. It's not unprecedented.
Just to add when have liberals ever claimed Republicans wanted to do this? This is not a typical conservative move:
Slashing funding to state apparatus is the most absolutely typical conservative move possible. It's like the very first chapter in their playbook.
That is true but when has that ever included military or police funding?
No, you're absolutely correct - and it's good. The DHS and FBI should absolutely be dismantled.
I don't disagree with that, but it's not like they would stop with that, if they did they would be doing it so they could empower other types of enforcement
You just answered your own question. They're not going to dismantle it, they're going to make them more friendly the petit bourgeois cooks that make up the anti-globalist faction within Republicans. Which is who Trump appeals to. The FBI and other intelligence agencies are captured by the internationalist capitalists. There's a power dynamic here and inter-class fighting happening. It's not just one faction of wealthy and not pure party politics.
The dismantle talk is different from ours. When we say dismantle/defund, we mean eliminate it. They mean change it to work better for them.
And the DNC would happily create new, worse forms of law enforcement in the sake of bipartisanship. There's no sunlight between them on support for state violence, the difference is that the GOP base feels a (probably temporary) threat from the current apparatus. You won't be convincing me to vote out of concern for saving the current fascistic surveillance state appendages.
I agree with this, I'm not trying to convince anyone to vote and I won't be voting, I just think there might be some merit to the idea that there could be an exceptional level of political repression after the next election, I've stated my reasons for that.
A large part of me feels Trump being elected could be better for the left because of this repression in a way, there is no energy to do anything material at the ground level when democrats are in power, because to the libs they are the 'grown-ups'. I just have a large amount of anxiety and fear for immediate victims of violence when chuds get empowered by elections. But it's not like they'd go away if Trump lost anyway.
Yeah, I get what you mean, but I think the jan 6th stuff is proof enough that the dems won't be protecting anybody or using the powers of the state to go after right wing violence. They've treated the jan 6ers with kid gloves, some lib in florida who just posted about going to the capitol building to protect it from people trying to invade it got as long a sentence if not longer than the people who actually broke into the capitol in DC. Same with those militia weirdos who were plotting to kidnap a governor (well, the ones who weren't FBI agents or informants), or the Bundy weirdos. The democrats are pretty much indistinguishable from the republicans in their legal repression - they're only really interested in punishment for those to their left.
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Wait, they honestly said they'll get rid of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security?
Man, how are people here falling for this shit lmao. In a satire, there's always a wink to the audience that it's just a satire. This is the wink.
Of course, we're going to get rid of the FBI wink. We're also going to get rid of ICE as well wink. And without ICE, I guess we have to tear down the border wall stifle laughter since nobody will man the walls anyways barely concealed laughter.
That doesn't follow logically, they aren't planning on dismantling anything without a replacement
"We going to get rid of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by replacing it with the National Agency of Crimesolving" is also farcical in its own way.
Wouldn’t that mean it’s in the left’s interest to delay as long as possible the Republicans’ chances of getting into office?
That argument is based on two erroneous assumptions.
That the venn diagram of "the left" and "Democratic party policymakers" isn't two circles separated by a gulf traversable in our lifetime only by warp drive.
That there's any real distinction between Republicans with red lawn signs and Republicans with blue lawn signs besides which geopolitical rival they're more terrified by.
Can you make a case that Biden would not just do project 2025 stuff bipartisanly? He ran against Trump's border policy and wall and has now fully adopted Trump's border policy and wall, he ran against Trump's economic war on China and has fully adopted it.
You can't fight off conservative policies by reelecting a conservative politician (Biden).
I agree there is no guarantee, and it’s really just based on the fact that at least the Democrats are not openly calling for the blood of leftists. It’s more about survival mode, and buying as much time as is needed to build a movement that cannot be easily squashed by the establishment. Of course, whether the American left has the capacity to reach that state, is another question of its on.
The American "left", such as it exists, virtually vanishes under blue administrations. This is because most of the American "left" are just "progressive" liberals who are more than happy to completely ignore injustice and right wing policies as long as it's their team doing it. For any left movement to flourish in America would require a Republican administration. Also worth noting that when Republicans call for the blood of leftists, they mean like... Hillary Clinton, or Chuck Schumer, or Barack Obama. They don't even know what leftism is and couldn't find it with a map and both hands.
The people I've seen shot by chuds or hit by a car at protests would disagree. Mainstream Republicans maybe not but they are invigorating their base to do the shit for them, just as every budding fascist movement has. The democrats are essentially the same, especially on the world stage, but I am hesitant to dismiss the threat from Republicans in this aspect because of trauma I've experienced.
I think it's more accurate to say that chuds don't know (or care about) the difference between the demonrats the person you're replying to mentioned and actual leftists.
That's a good point, they might shoot actual communists at times, but they also shoot mail workers for being feds or whatever, most of them think Biden is a far-left radical communist
That is the politicians’ empty rhetoric, yes, but the capitalist class may very well sic cops and brownshirts on us. Bipartisan bills denouncing the horrors of socialism are not for nothing, they’re prep work.
True. Like when Obama called in the national guard to violently repress the Ferguson uprising, and put FBI snipers on the roof during Occupy to assassinate organizers/leaders if things got any more radical.
I used to say the border wall thing too, turns out that's not super right, here's a map:
from here https://www.newsweek.com/border-wall-map-joe-biden-donald-trump-1832649
https://apnews.com/article/border-wall-biden-immigration-texas-rio-grande-147d7ab497e6991e9ea929242f21ceb2
Joe Biden went out of his way to use the executive pen to waive 26 federal laws so that section of wall could be built. He ran against the border wall. I don't really care if he's waiving laws to only build a few miles - it's a complete 180* turn from his campaign and serves absolutely nobody. He's not going to win in Texas, red voters in other states aren't going to change their minds because of it. He's doing it purely because he's a right winger himself and is ideologically closer to Trump than any average blue voter is.
Can you make the case for how the democratic party is systemically delaying the rightward shove this country is experiencing? Key word there being systemically. If you could then yes, voting Democrat would be the right option. But I don't think you or anyone could. The Democrats are not interested in delaying fascism in the US, they're fine with fascism as long as they keep their stock portfolio in tact.