We legitimately have not had a single political party or individual that hasn’t had their main goal be adventurism or personal profit.
This strikes me as overly-pessimistic speculation. We can't really know the personal goals of politicians (and those goals aren't as relevant as what said politicians do, anyway), and there's a bunch of evidence to the contrary (e.g., candidates not taking corporate donations).
There are local politicians who aren't reactionary and aren't imperialistic in any meaningful sense (they have about as much influence over U.S. foreign policy as you or me). Among national politicians, it turns into a conversation about what's "imperialistic" vs. a bad foreign policy opinion here or there, but you can certainly find politicians who are far better on foreign policy than the vast majority of Democrats.
My overall point is that we can either dismiss these people (who are at least trying something to make things better) over policy differences that rarely have any material impact, or we can push them on those policy differences while otherwise supporting the things they do that we all agree are good. I don't see the left accomplishing much with the first approach.
I think we have to keep shooting our shots, with the understanding that every opportunity we have to change things for the better isn't going to pan out. But some will, and if we keep moving people left and making gains here and there we can increase the odds of any given opportunity being successful.
It's far from ideal (especially given how pressing climate change and a dozen other enormous problems are), but it has a chance to work long term. And we have to try something.
deleted by creator
This strikes me as overly-pessimistic speculation. We can't really know the personal goals of politicians (and those goals aren't as relevant as what said politicians do, anyway), and there's a bunch of evidence to the contrary (e.g., candidates not taking corporate donations).
deleted by creator
There are local politicians who aren't reactionary and aren't imperialistic in any meaningful sense (they have about as much influence over U.S. foreign policy as you or me). Among national politicians, it turns into a conversation about what's "imperialistic" vs. a bad foreign policy opinion here or there, but you can certainly find politicians who are far better on foreign policy than the vast majority of Democrats.
My overall point is that we can either dismiss these people (who are at least trying something to make things better) over policy differences that rarely have any material impact, or we can push them on those policy differences while otherwise supporting the things they do that we all agree are good. I don't see the left accomplishing much with the first approach.
deleted by creator
I think we have to keep shooting our shots, with the understanding that every opportunity we have to change things for the better isn't going to pan out. But some will, and if we keep moving people left and making gains here and there we can increase the odds of any given opportunity being successful.
It's far from ideal (especially given how pressing climate change and a dozen other enormous problems are), but it has a chance to work long term. And we have to try something.