"Progressives" use political change like priests use Heaven
She is unbelievably shit at politics lol
Makes sense she's basically besties with Lindsay Ellis who spent the run up to the 2020 election crying over Shaun tweets that Biden was bad lol
Find it baffling these people can apply so much critical thought to media but then just go "goodies have to beat baddies" when it comes to politics.
Ya know... if that what she had started doing, I could respect that.
Instead there was one "vote blue no matter who" with a side of "harm reduction" and then just checked out to make a video about why Marie Antoinett was the REAL victim or something.
“goodies have to beat baddies” when it comes to politics.
literally the same level of nuance that goes into china discussions on this or when any butthurt euroshit gets offended when someone says any other country in the west is just if not more capitalist and bigoted as America.
really good sign that your party can hold the presidency for 9 of the last 13 years and still be powerless to do anything lmao
13 years
what an arbitrary time frame. They’ve also held control in Congress for 3 of those random 13 years.
Prezzie gets to pick supreme Court justices and generally, who controls Congress doesn't matter for that. Only Obama has rolled over to give away a pick in living memory.
13 years ago is referring to when Bush left office, which would otherwise mean including 8 years of a Republican president. The 13 years highlights the longest period of Democratic presidents within most Hexbear users' adult lives.
During those 13 years, in 9 years of Democratic presidents they have chosen 2 justices and the single-term Republican chose 3.
Though I would actually include Bush's 8 because his election was stolen. This would remind everyone how much individualist electoralism is a slot machine that constantly threatens to divert your potential for organizing into a false sense of potential impact (like a certain left-punching breadtuber) - whereas much larger forces are actually at play and you're not gonna do shit about them on your own. Some people will even buy into the game so hard that they feel the need to guilt/attack comrades disillusioned with this particularly ridiculous bourgeois democratic expectation (like a certain left-punching breadtuber).
who controls Congress doesn’t matter for that. Only Obama has rolled over to give away a pick in living memory.
i mean it does, though….
It matters when Obama is the president and has never mattered otherwise
Amazing and very realistic strategy for keeping your basic rights: just have one party never lose!
Well, she can feel like a good person taking people's money and telling them to vote and campaign on behalf of a former segregationist and pro-lifer.
Liberals like this spend their whole lives losing politically because the free market allows them to still leech and grift off empire in some way. They do not care so long as they get their tenure, or their house, or their fancy regional district manager promotion. It's pure self-interest and a complete lack of faith in anything else.
Why did the 2016 election have decades-long consequences but the 2020 election didn't? :thinkin-lenin:
Perhaps the separations of power was really meant to separate the workers from power? :thinkin-lenin:
Separations of power were meant to make the feds beholden to Congress above all, with Congress designed to distribute power based on the interests of the economic elites between states. The Senate was given the most power, by far, and would only be elected by states, while eligibility to vote was restricted to land-owning white men, and practically, those who had the means to take time away to vote as well (and run for office).
Also, the judicial branch's power was stolen bureaucratically and is barely specified in the Constitution. So neat that far-reaching policy is dictated based on an electoralist slot machine that was given power based on a bureaucratic gotcha question in a system that was supposedly meant to adapt itself to the needs of the times.
This reminds me of something I read last week, let me see if I can find it.
Edit: found it.
“ In a fucked up way, separation of powers is a really fascinating staple of "liberal theory".
“So why couldn't the President order an eviction moratorium?"
"Oh because Congress has that power, not the President"
"Oh okay, so why couldn't Congress?"
"Well they could, but there wasn't enough support"
"Oh why wasn't there enough support?"
"Well because most of the elections are a guaranteed win for the incumbent so they don't really care"
"So why can't Biden pull a 'Justice Roberts has made his decision, now let him enforce it' move?"
"Well that would just be wrong"
There was even a Federalist Paper about this! I forget which one bc those numbers always confuse the fuck out of me but James Madison explains that the separation of powers are essential for protecting property rights because of exactly this - it sets up contingencies for Capital in case Labor were to somehow gain control of either the executive, the legislature, or both.”
“James Madison under the pseudonym "Publius" wrote Federalist No. 10 - arguably this one is the most important one; think of it as the liberal version of The Manifesto, because he lays out the entire point of everything liberals do and say when he says this:
The second expedient is as impracticable as the first would be unwise. As long as the reason of man continues fallible, and he is at liberty to exercise it, different opinions will be formed.
As long as the connection subsists between his reason and his self-love, his opinions and his passions will have a reciprocal influence on each other; and the former will be objects to which the latter will attach themselves. The diversity in the faculties of men, from which the rights of property originate, is not less an insuperable obstacle to a uniformity of interests.
The protection of these faculties is the first object of government. From the protection of different and unequal faculties of acquiring property, the possession of different degrees and kinds of property immediately results; and from the influence of these on the sentiments and views of the respective proprietors, ensues a division of the society into different interests and parties.
In plain English - "there's always gonna be rich and poor, our job is to make sure the poor don't get too uppity about it and placate them into not wanting to change it so that we, us with higher faculties, get to stay rich"
Any American high school student will tell you all the shit that's wrong with the government was because the Framers were concerned with "factionalism".
That's correct - but they deliberately teach the wrong meaning of that word; it's an old-timey way of saying class politics (i.e. "factions" of Labor aligning with those who have the same material interests as them rather than siding with Capital), whereas it's taught to mean exclusively racial/ethnic, religious, or regional factionalism - which are secondary to class.
So when applying the liberal logic - separation of powers serves to suppress the class struggle by ensuring Capital always has a card up their sleeve to play, just in case Labor ever did manage to unite beyond those secondary factions into one united political bloc, there's always some lever they can pull to "balance unequal faculties" as J-Mad would put it.
Now if you apply socialist logic - what purpose would separation of powers serve? There's no need to sidestep direct democracy under a Dictatorship of Labor - the point of entirely separate legislature + executive + judiciary in the first place is to ensure the workers don't wield political power. Sure I guess one could argue you could turn these mechanisms around against Capital as they'd become the subject class rather than the ruling class - but all the institutions and power brokering to insulate the bourgeoisie from the proletariat are a result of the fact that you've got 1% of the people in charge of the other 99% - would you need such a convoluted byzantine bureaucracy if you've got 99% of people in charge of the other 1%?
I guess my answer is because a "checks and balances" based system only serves an unrepresentative ruling class. Under a Dictatorship of Labor, you don't need to have contingencies in place to protect Capital. With a proletarian vanguard party in control, you wouldn't want to "protect against factionalism" - you'd want to encourage it, you'd want more direct democracy and less republicanism; more class consciousness and less class apathy, etc.”
You can't even guillotine a whole lot of bastards who have it clearly coming
It’s so brave of Pelosi to pray for a strong christofascist party. It’s so civil of Biden to want to compromise with the christofascists who will use it as a chance to continue their plan of absolutely dooming the rest of us
Mostly yeah. Why be Engels and hang out with cool, debutante commies when you could be a disgusting liberal instead
Why is it that so many socialists come from the middle or upper classes, then?
They seem quite detached from the conditons that would create socialists. Even Engles was a wealthy factory owner.
Very well said! Not only do they have a greater ease of access, they also have lots more time on their hands because they aren't working usually. They can spend the time needed to read more of just about everything.
I'd also say, in my opinion, there are many people who recognize their privilege and becoming or identifying as a socialist can be a roundabout way of feeling like you're actually doing something positive for less well off or fortunate people without really doing anything particularly useful. It can help them rationalize inequality and feel less guilty
I entertain the thought that big sums of money don't find their way into decent people's pockets. How could you or I have the audacity to profit off of war? Not in the sense of having an investment in your 401k without realizing it, but to physically go to the middle east and sell arms to both sides of a conflict. You or I would never play the court system to increase the amount of oil you extract from mother Gaia. Therefore money never finds its way to us.
Natilie is, of course, not that bad. But those are my illustrative examples. For her, I wouldn't even say she lacks empathy. I would be curious to the point of inquiry whether she has a lack of reference for the violence of poverty or the bloodthirsty psychosis of US foreign affairs. For example ask her about how she came to the conclusion that dems are at all the harm reduction party.
you just keep voting blue for 40 more years or so in extremely contested elections until one of these fucking judges die off, i don't see the issue.
Didn't 2 lib judges die of old age while sitting on the bench instead of retiring with some dignity when there was a Dem president ?
The most democratic systems are those based on whether someone entering the age of senility wants to keep making the most important country-wide decisions.
If I was lib I still wouldnt vote because even if you just start voting blue no matter who, how do you reconcile it with the Democratic Party's blatant refusal and failure to fight muh "Christofascist" Republicans?
Trump is Hitler so you vote blue, but the Democrats fail to impeach him.
Trump is letting the Virus run rampant so you vote blue, and literally nothing changes.
Trump is putting kids in cages so you vote blue, now there are even MORE kids in cages.
Democrats are going to save voting rights so you vote blue, but they fail to pass the bill in the senate.
Then they refuse the abolish the filibuster which stopped them from passing the bill.
Then they let a crazy religious cult member into the Supreme Court.
Then they shrug when that court basically tosses Roe V. Wade out.
Even if you believe the notion that Republicans are going to establish a nazi Theocracy any minute now, the Democrats are CLEARLY not fighting them.
how do you reconcile it with the Democratic Party’s blatant refusal and failure to fight muh “Christofascist” Republicans?
You simply concede they are working as hard as they can and the only reason its not working is because you didn't :LIB: hard enough.
Obama was trying and failed to put right wing judges on the court his last year. Clinton would have tried to get the same guys or worse.
Clinton would have raised Scalia from death itself to appoint him if she thought it would raise her chances of election.
But I actually did vote blue in 2016 for my mother and Trump was still elected someone help me figure this out
I voted in 2016, too, but whenever I bring that up I get called a liar. There is no pleasing these people.
I point out my vote objectively doesn't matter in the American system. No matter who's elected they don't represent me or my state.
Yeah I just say I'm from California and voting for presidents or senators literally doesn't and hasn't mattered my entire life. Only exception is for governor, which for whatever reason can be a toss up.
See this is why you have to do joke votes.....or vote Hillary but for 2020 like Matt did
Yeah that's a performative waste of time. I might as well say I did vote since it means equally as much as me spending the time it takes to vote making dinner instead.
Oh no shame in just not doing this shit. I halfheartedly tried changing my party affiliation to PSL online and then didnt even both to send in my write-in ballot. My more lib sister was so pissed leading up to the election cause I just shrugged off voting. I went into downtown Pittburgh even, during the pandemic to get photos for my american labor history final about the Railroad strike. Passed lines of people voting, my mother drove me down and had to race back to pick my sister up to take her voting.
So I literally had no excuse not to and just went "nah fuck it, im literally standing in the place where the national guard massacred over 60 of my cities' workers and their families, bayonet charged and killed an infant. I'll walk past those suckers and pay my respect to people who died over 100 years ago here because they understood power and politics far more than those fools. They represent me better than my own vote ever will, just with the blood they split fighting for what I believe in" it honestly felt kinda beautiful, refusing and touring around labor sites
I voted in 2016 on everything but the president. Local stuff is far more impactful for me. I just couldn't force myself to vote dem. In retrospect I should have voted third party just because of how mad libs are about Jill Stein. I don't even like her that much, but libs still loosing their minds over her is a great bit lol
"decades long consequences" There aren't decades left you fucking blind idiot
Liberals literally expect us to keep voting for 40 years while getting nothing as we wait for Kavanaugh and Barret to die. They think there will still be a republic by then.
I don't know if this has become some kind of unpopular opinion here but there will totally be a republic 40 years from now lol empires like that don't fall so fast.
If I'm going to die of societal collapse at young age at least let me see the fucking empire die
USSR fell apart mere years after their retreat from Afghanistan.
Not even the CIA saw that coming.
Collapse can hit hard and it can hit fast.
No, this is a bad comparison. First of all I don't really see what Afghanistan has to do with it, it's not like Afghanistan is some kind of magical jinx. Perestroika was under way long before the withdrawal. But the USSR was a union of disparate nations which had substantial and growing nationalist movements, huge external and internal pressure and a rapidly deteriorating economy to go with it. None of this is the case with the US, people meme a lot but the US is still immensely powerful and the hub of global capitalism. Memes are good but let's not forget that.
You will eat, bye and bye
If you :vote: for the blue guy up high
Work and pray, live on hay
You'll get pie if the blue :vote: is high!
(That's a lie!)
OMG that's an incredible update of preacher and the slave. Has someone done this as a full parody yet?
