Spineless, unprincipled, constantly making excuses about why they're not doing anything, unwilling to do literally fucking ANYTHING to help the people they say they represent.
What are the underlying material conditions driving this?
Here in BC, Canada, the "social democratic" NDP government recently got a majority government, which means they can do literally anything they want. Pass any legislation they want. Pass any laws, any taxes, literally whatever the fuck they want.
And what have they done? FUCK ALL. Nothing. Not a single piece of legislation that I can think of. They're taking as long as they possibly can to implement $15 minimum wage, no paid sick days, no card check legislation, fucking NOTHING. Instead of using the pandemic as the obvious reason to pass this legislation they are hiding behind it as their excuse to avoid doing literally anything useful.
This seems to be the case all over the Western world.
WHY?
Lol I'm defensive as fuck when I argue online
Your point about Scandinavia is such an important one, and the saddest part is scandinavians themselves don't understand this at all anymore. Maybe even less than Americans do. That's my general feeling anyway. The class war is ignored and replaced by a bourgeoise political war. TBF It's also possible all the scandinavians I know are reactionaries lol but I have a theory that with decades of social democracy, a sense of nationalist pride develops - we have great healthcare and low poverty without communism or class war, it must be because we're just a great nation! Americans in the media wish they were us, we must be so great! Which obviously completely ignores how we got those things in the first place which was (spoiler alert) CLASS WAR.
But yeah re-reading the comment I responded to - it is explicitly anti-Marxist & anti-materialist and needs more thought.
on Scandinavia, I can only know it through the american lens. and that means I can only know it as a pig. If you're from Scandinavia, or have some connection to it, it is awesome to me that you have this take.
often, the bourgious American take is that they are a racially homogeneous state! that's legit one of the most common takes. from liberal nyt writers to libertarian/conservative types, that's the take!
I'm not going to beat around the bush, I used to be an american chud and for me Scandiniavian racial homogeneity was THE explanation for why Scandiniavia was so well run.
learning about the struggle in scandiniavia, of all the folks who laid their lives on the line, of all the struggles that still exist in politics and mass organiziation today, thats when I started reading Marx.
the selling point of liberal ideology is that 'we are beyond history.' it's a selling point which embraces complacency. we are going to mars, we are creating human computer robots blah blah blah. but we are sending people to mars as indentured servants, and using human computers for the benefit of private enterprises.
class conflict has yet to be overcome, and there will be conflicts after that. nobody alive has gone beyond history. that's the biggest lesson Marx has taught me.