not voting for trump but low key hope biden doesnt win so the material conditions of a failing America will be on full display
not voting for trump but low key hope biden doesnt win so the material conditions of a failing America will be on full display
I get this, but I find it hard to write off the material improvements social democrats bring. Take universal healthcare -- if Bernie won and pushed that through, that would be an enormous, immediate benefit for at least tens of millions of people (if not more). It would also further the argument that similar non-capitalist projects can and do work. In short, there's a ton of good that can be done through social democracy, and I struggle to call anything that does that much good a betrayal of left values. Look at how the standard of living for ordinary Bolivians rose under Morales -- how can that possibly be a betrayal?
My post is in support of people like Morales as he's an actual democratic socialist, which I don't believe is a betrayal of left wing values. I think you misread that part. Oviously material improvements are desirable and should be fought for tooth and nail, but they in no way should be the end goal of an anti capitalist movement. The thing is Bernie did not win at the end of the day and achieve any of those material improvements because he compromised too much with the capitalist class. This is the fatal flaw with social democrats imo, they have a limited usefulness and once it's done they comprise with the capitalist class, as social democrats themselves do not want to overthrow capitalism. Hope that clears things up.
Yeah, I did. Thanks.
I don't think this is an accurate reading of why Bernie lost. The #1 reason he lost is that centrist Democrats kneecapped him on the eve of Super Tuesday. Obama called everyone but Biden and Warren and got them to drop out, anointing Biden as the One True Bernie Alternative, and leaving Warren to pull away some of the people who never like any of the centrist options. I don't see how this has anything to do with compromising with the capitalist class.
Well, of course it shouldn't be the end goal. But given that a substantial portion of people in the US unironically believe universal healthcare will be worse than the four pests campaign it's kind of necessary to demonstrate that they've been misled. Then we could possibly go further on the reformist route if we succeed. Who knows, maybe it'll work differently on the imperial core, and work better than last time due to better organizing tools and knowing what happened last time. If it doesn't pan out, it should still radicalize some people. Worked on me.
Showing people that they're being lied to when people tell them that any improvement in working class conditions will cause the downfall of society is extremely useful or arguably outright necessary when a third to a half of the country is balls deep in right wing propaganda.
Yeah that's the usefulness of SocDems, anything further than that and they always crumble as they themselves don't want to overthrow capitalism. Look at how nice Bernie was to the democrats during the whole campaign and how it backfired.
I still think he could have done much better if he didn't tolerate the bullshit bad faith arguments against M4A. "But people like their private insurance!" Not they fucking don't, or maybe they have Stockholm syndrome. "How will we pay for it lol" with taxes dumbass, the plan literally costs less than current total healthcare spending with a generous amount of benefits even by the standards of a civilized country, and also accounting for increased consumption. No need to be nice when you can justifiably call the candidate a liar.
Exactly, but he didn't do that. He also should've quoted the Nelson Mandela "Thier enemies are not our enemies" speech when attacked on Cuba.
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