I’m not going to say most Democrats aren’t capitalists and in corporations’ pockets. But one party got ACA passed and tried to get some student loan forgiveness passed. Along with a whole number of different laws passed for worker protections and similar over the last few years.
On the other hand, Republicans have Trump who tried to pass Schedule F for government workers which would have taken us back to the spoils system where Presidents hand out government appointments, jobs and ambassadorships as rewards for loyalty. FYI we got rid of this system after it directly caused President Garfield’s assassination.That’s just one of many anti-worker, anti-poor, and anti-people reforms the last Republican president tried to accomplish. We don’t even need to touch the entire Republican party’s fascination with stripped rights away from women and trans people.
Either guy will send the bomb but one guy will reform elections and taxes so that your opinion matters perpetually for every guy after. I feel like that’s worth not saying they’re literally the same.
Also, Obama actually ended a lot of conflicts and shielded a lot of the middle east against violence, even if Biden added shit to the bed filled with Trump’s shit.
The post is about the core policies of both parties being to shit all over the worker while enriching the capitalist class. It’s important to weigh the bad things that Republicans do against the good things that the Democrats don’t do. Why has the federal minimum wage not increased from 7.25/h since the year 2009 despite Democratic legislative majorities? Why did the DNC prop up Hillary, quite possibly the most unelectable candidate in American history, When Bernie had such obvious grassroots support? What have the Democrats done to stop massive hedge funds like BlackRock from buying up all the single family homes so they can rent them to workers essentially creating a slave state? Oh great the average worker is never going to be able to afford their own home in their lifetime but at least our Democratic overlords are making sure employers can’t be racist and students who made bad financial decisions are getting bailed out. Speaking of being bailed out, Democrats certainly didn’t stop the bank bailout of 2008. Guess the party of the people thinks they should pay for the mistakes of the 1%.
Both sides completely throw the worker under the bus.
In 2003 I was working as a Master Control Operator for a local television station. This was complicated work and legalese work. We had to legally sign off on what commercials were being aired, while also doing the job of actually airing them on time, and recording shows from satellite so we could air them. We had to sign off on this legally to prove to the companies that had paid for the ads that they were running when and how long they were supposed to. I literally answered to the FCC and could be fined massive amounts and/or jailed if I screwed up too badly.
I was being paid the Federal Minimum of $5.15 an hour at the time. It hasn’t gotten better. Even complex technical work has been completely devalued.
You’re right. accounting for inflation 5.15 in 2003 would be worth 8.45 in 2023 dollars. That’s a 16.5% loss of purchasing power. That’s before you account for the soaring mortgage/rent rates. But young people are just lazy these days…
It gets “better.” Back then, MCO’s were only expected to do Master Control for one television station, because that’s all the technology could handle at the time. Each local station had their own Master Control division.
All those got chopped up with technology around the time they switched from analog broadcasting to digital broadcasting. Now an MCO handles up to 15 stations at one time. Half the local stations lost their Master Control offices, and soon, their local news with it.
For example, the station I used to work at no longer functionally exists. They only exist as one reporter and one production assistant in a tiny block inside of a strip mall. They do “cut-ins” for the “local news” that airs from their “sister station” over 200 miles and over 3 hour drive away. Screams “local” to me. What a joke.
So now MCO’s can get paid minimum wage with 15x the labor to do!
The ACA fails to provide healthcare access to the most vulnerable and disenfranchised groups. It’s an epic failure and capitist nightmare.
Biden didn’t attempt to forgive student loan debt. If you dig just a bit, you’ll find it was all theater. He even worsened the situation for many. The only people he’s helped are select groups of the “right” people.
He has also expanded the reach of ICE, continued Trump’s wall, and expressed support for the genocidal state of Israel.
I’m not saying Republicans aren’t worse, but it’s foolish to try to silence leftists and progressives when we point out how deeply problematic all of this is.
The ACA was not what Democrats were looking to pass originally. It was a compromise reached with idiot republicans (who mostly wanted no reform at all) in the context of an absolutely massive propaganda and lobbying effort from insurance and pharmaceutical companies.
The ACA could have been potentially a great law, despite being based on RomneyCare… until Joe Lieberman stripped out the Public Option that would have slowly undermined the corporate insurance industry by being cheaper, and was meant to be a path to Universal Healthcare.
Fucking Blue Dog Democrats, they may as well be Republicans.
biden was blocked from doing anything on sweeping blanket forgiveness of loan debt by the supreme court but that hasn’t stopped him from forgiving thousands of dollars of it
The Republican plan Obama chose because they wouldn’t vote against their own plan?
Oh and Biden is the reason we can’t discharge student debt in bankruptcy. He personally helped pass that bill. So happy he tried and failed to undo his own mess. (Which was a half ass plan anyway instead of just making student loans discharchable in bankruptcy again.)
And your alternative for this next election cycle is what exactly? Be crystal clear. What is the realistic outcome of not supporting Biden over any Republican? How would Trump or Nikki Hailey as president be better for the left than Biden?
Feelings about the past are important, but strategies for the future matter more. Biden has done shitty things, but the best Republican would be orders of magnitude worse. We can’t expect bad people to get what they deserve because it usually isn’t possible. The only achievable justice is the mitigation of future injustice. Cosmic punishment can only be delivered by a god, and attempts to enforce it will often lead us astray.
I don’t know why people always assume correctly critiquing democrats for being failures to the left and to workers means they think we would vote for an actual fascist.
Leftist equivocation is more than a simple “critique.” It distorts reality to paint a hopeless picture that encourages apathy and people who unironically choose to not vote for the lesser evil. It brings this both sides bullshit into the realm of acceptable conversation when it really shouldn’t be.
It’s like when Nazis talk about Soros controlling the world and promoting “globalism.” There are valid criticisms that must be made about billionaires like Soros and their promotion of global capitalism, but that isn’t what Nazis mean when they fear monger about them. They single out Soros because he’s Jewish, say he controls the world because of cabal conspiracy theories, and don’t give a fuck about fixing capitalist exploitation. You don’t let the Nazi stay once they become identifiable; you kick them out and avoid feeding their arguments.
Just like how many conservatives that complain about Soros are unaware of the Nazi dogwhistles, many Leftists who equivocate the parties don’t recognize the accelerationist underpinnings. Your critique of Biden isn’t the problem. Unintentionally feeding apathy and accelerationism is where you fuck up. Bring up those critiques in a post that doesn’t promote apathy. A generic “Democrats suck” post would be better than this meme.
I’m sorry. I wasn’t explicit or careful enough in my wording. To clarify, you aren’t the one equivocating, the op of this meme is. The only mistake you made is supporting his argument unintentionally. You’re right about Biden, but context matters.
The internet sucks, and people automatically interpret a critique of a critique as defense of the original point. I do it to others even though I get caught up in the same trap all the time. I feel your pain.
Keeping you placated with those less than bare minimum gestures which, while helpful on a superficial level to some, don't actually change anything fundamental in the grand scheme of things, is exactly how liberals enable fascism.
Equating left and right wings as "both sides" is bullshit, but liberals aren't on the left, therefore pointing out that democrats and republicans serve the same system and people isn't "both sides" at all, it's a statement of demonstrable fact, however uncomfortable that might be - both parties exist to keep those with power and money with power and money, for that to happen, they have to keep you (never mind those exploited overseas, out of sight out of mind) poor and powerless.
For anyone willing to challenge their bias and comfort:
Do you ever think we ended up with Trump as POTUS because nothing was ever done about idiot Bush and his literal war crimes?
To some of us, Democrats are enablers of the fascism of Republicans.
Why? Because of shit like not being willing to prosecute former Presidents for war crimes.
Our country not having the balls to send Bush and Cheney to the fucking Hague is part and parcel to why they won’t do anything about Trumps unhinged criminal conspiracies.
The entire Democratic party folded over for Bush and Cheney, and people cooed like it was cute when Michelle Obama and Bush shared a piece of candy. Fucking sickening shit.
Just wait until they do the same media rehabilitation tour for Trump.
When politicians are left to their own devices then there is no accountability. Voting doesn’t hold them accountable but it does mitigate the damage. If you want accountability, then you organize and shut shit down.
Agreed, but let’s be real, the actual torture signed off by the Bush administration was on another level of absolute cruelty.
I’d like to see them all tried for it. Obama didn’t just let Bush off the hook, he took the worst excesses of his administration and codified and legalized them.
I mean, do you remember when Torture Black Site Head of Operations Gina Haspel got made the head of the CIA and the media made a big stink about how it was “feminist progress?”
Yeah, because feminism is 100% when we have more women in charge of torture facilities!
Neither party wants to prosecute war crimes because both are guilty of them. Military spending and diplomacy are completely unchanged in the case of either party being in power.
Useful idiots. They'll celebrate getting one over on the 'shitlibs' if Trump gets into office, because all they care about is having a Great Satan to oppose without having to worry about thinking too much. Who cares about many minorities will die in the process?
It’s still a stupid view based on frustration with the establishment rather than reality. Emotions being valid doesn’t make a falsehood more correct. Republicans have never been worse and Democrats are better than they’ve been in decades.
The only coherent argument behind not voting for Biden is accelerationism. It’s a morally bankrupt strategy that’s unlikely to work, but at least it’s a long term plan that thinks beyond cutting off your nose to spite your face.
no, my criticism is with the architect of the crime bill and the usa patriot act. my criticism is with a self-proclaimed zionist. my problem is with the head of a corrupt political party. my criticisim is with biden.
The hidden part of this argument is that either Trump isn’t significantly worse than Biden, or that you don’t need to vote for the lesser of two evils in the presidential election. You can’t divorce voting for Biden from the context of Republican fascists who are openly Nazis. It’s the same shit Israel does with the October 7th massacre: focusing only on the terribleness of the attack and downplaying the decades of oppression that allowed it to happen. It’s frustrating as fuck to hear that willful ignorance of the uncomfortable reality, either from Judeo-fascists about their genocide or so called leftists about political apathy.
Voting for a tiny party can work in systems with proportional representation, but that system doesn’t even exist for our legislature. The presidency fundamentally can’t have proportional representation, as we elect for a single position. Even if we added ranked choice, it will always come down to two dominant choices. That’s the trade off of directly electing our head of state.
You have valid frustration, but don’t have solid reasoning. Punishing Biden will make things much worse for everyone. Just like I can’t punish apathetic nematodes like you for the injustice they cause, you can’t punish Biden for his bad behavior. There is only making things better. Righting the past is impossible.
Utilitarianism and consequentialism. It used to be a given amongst socialists, but not anymore I guess. You are obligated to perform the action that ensures the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Voting for the lesser evil is exactly that. An imperfect action, but a necessary one.
Honestly, socialists should always vote unless they have a specific strategy in not voting. Maybe they’re boycotting a rigged election to diminish its ability to justify the government. Maybe it’s because a specific deal with a party was broken and they’re following through on a promise. With those examples, not voting is combined with a specific action to weaken the government. There’s careful thought and the efftect of the boycott is maximized. This isn’t the case right now. The only proposed strategy is accelerationism.
I guess I assumed you had reasoning along these lines to justify your apathy. You probably didn’t even think that deeply about it. Malding about Biden takes too much brain power apparently.
Lol. Leftist is when no vote. Leftism is when political irrelevance. If you’re not engaging in the state’s political system and not preparing for violence, you’re mostly just larping.
A smart leftist would hedge their bets and use electoral politics to garner popularity, organize workers movements, and train in self defense, using all those avenues for power in whatever way works best given the context. The anti voting attitude hasn’t worked at growing leftism for decades, while Bernie Sanders and DSA sponsored candidates have boosted the left more anything.
Organizations aren’t enough. Fascists only speak violence, so leftists stand no chance against the state. Fascists don’t even stand a chance if they lose enough internal support. The state’s systems must be engaged with because it has a strong monopoly on violence. No amount of workers unions can oppose an army. Your own logic doesn’t even support your approach.
Growing power is necessary to change the world. Might does not make right, but might is necessary to succeed. Viewing liberal democracy as insufficient isn’t the same as it being inherently immoral to use. Your leftist credibility isn’t worth shit when you have no power to back it.
I don’t care about making Dems look bad. They’re evil in their own way. I care about pretending Republicans are comparably evil. Republicans are on a completely different level. They’re orders of magnitude worse. Fascists are much worse than liberals, not because liberals aren’t evil, but because fascists are indescribably more evil.
How is accelerationism a “long term plan that thinks beyond cutting off your nose to spite your face”? There’s no long term plan at all, it’s simply a false hope that people will rise up when things get shitty enough, and from those ashes some kind of utopia will sprout. That’s not a plan at all, that’s just a dream.
It’s a shitty strategy that’s divorced from reality, but it does recognize the outcome of not electing Biden. Ignorant leftists on here purposefully ignore the results of their decision so they can feel justified. They want Biden to get what he deserves, but ignore the results of their actions.
It’s ironic, because socialism is often associated with utilitarianism and consequentialism, yet these keyboard socialists valorize ignoring consequences.
This meme is like farting and wafting it in the democrats general direction. Every one up in arms have gotten way too sensitive. Rightfully so when fascists are at the door but I’m telling you this meme is throwing a single feather at a woman wearing a pussy hat.
Ah yes, sorry for not rebutting... [checks notes] a meme that contrasts a GOP "Kill the poor" with a Democratic "Kill the poor [clean]", feel free to dock me however many points the Debate Club feels fit to.
i have beef with republicans for doing nothing they cry and moan about liberty and freedom, yet EVERYTHING still has red tape ALL OVER IT. And i have beef with dems for trying, but not trying hard enough, and continuing to use a dysfunctional system, that does not work, and will not work. It’s like trying to turn windows into linux, you just cant do it. And even if you could, you shouldn’t.
i have beef with people for engaging in politics when it should be obvious to all of us that the entire point of politics is to keep us distracted from the real problems. And yet here i am, commenting on it.
ITT: “Your reasonable and verifiably accurate criticisms of the Democrats are nice and everything, but I typed ‘both sides’ with alternating caps and lowercase so I win. Go suck trump/Putin’s cock.”
kill the poor vs try not to kill the poor but ultimately end up giving into republican bad faith arguments and compromise away life from some of the poor while making life marginally better for some of the white ones
Haven’t you got the memo? You shouldn’t be criticizing anyone when the alternative is way worse. Don’t you know not being as bad basically makes you perfect?
Not that either is good but I’d rather save kill the other half
Is also true, are you still comfortable?
The point being - why insist on and make excuses for continuing to play within the rules dictated to you by those in charge who will only ever let you choose one of the two options where many poor people die? Why are you people so fucking content with this charade and unwilling to think outside of the box literally designed to oppress you (or your neighbour, which seems acceptable to far too many)???
You (personally, and in general) really need to consider with yourselves why the option of "refuse to accept this bullshit and fight for a system where no poor are required to die" (E: not even for the benefit of society at large, but literally for the benefit of a couple of hundred individuals who wouldn't piss on you if you were on fire) doesn't even cross your mind before you're willing to condemn half of your class to death (as long as it isn't you), while calling those of us who want to eat the rich (kill the few hundred with millions of peoples' blood on their hands who will refuse to give up their ill gotten power and money) "extremists"..
It isn’t about killing the half and it is about saving. Trans people are the target of the GOP right now. Laws are being passed. If Trump or Desantis wins people are going to get lined up.
Let me ask now. Between the Dems and Republicans, in which administration and government control would trans people have a higher chance of survival, being free, allowed to actually transition and express themselves?
It’s common sense if you look at the big picture instead of tunnelvisioning on your own community. “people are going to get lined up.” [Citation Needed]. When you lie about authoritarian violence happening it cheapens the times it actually does happen, and it happens regardless of what party is in power. Your take is seriously “I’m okay with the murderous status quo as long as my half of a percent of the population is allowed to fully express themselves”. You know who can’t even partially express themselves? Dead Palestinians, Dead Ukranians, Dead Russians, Dead Israelis.
“If Trump or Desantis wins people are going to get lined up.” I’m simply asking where this nonsensical fearmongering comes from? Where has either Trump or Desantis publicly stated that their policy in regards to trans people is to have them killed? There is actual violence going on on large scales against much larger groups of people. Direct your feelbads to the issues that are actually major issues. The cost of living in this country more than likely causes more trans suicides than whatever legislation the GOP want to ram through and that issue is something everyone faces and not just a tiny minority.
Oh no, i am right. I don’t need to go proving it to someone who is being bad faith. You don’t think Trump or Desantis is going to kill trans people? Fucking a’. Ignoring the last 2 years and even ignoring my Project 2025 comment.
Yeah I’m the fool cuz I won’t eat up your baseless unsubstantiated claim of violence. Show me where it happened. I want to know where you’re getting this victimization thing from. If you want to make an assertion then back it up. I read the wiki for Project 2025. I don’t support it. That doesn’t change the fact that Discrimination =/= Violence. Trans ppl aren’t out there dying left and right cuz they didn’t get a job at fuckin Chick Fil A.
Lmao. What ignorant dribble. Next you’re going to tell me Trump and Desantis aren’t fascists and ignore all the anti trans bills and talking points the last few years.
It’s from tankies that want to feel better about not voting. They don’t take any actions, so they lower the bar and drag what little everyone else does through the mud.
Let’s get these tankies out of here. Their account is also a day old. I noticed the last month the rest of lemmy has had some pretty shit takes as well.
We have the blue tie rights, and the red tie jihadists running the Nazi playbook.
There is no center, there is no left, and there is no one immune to the feudal corruption of the billionaire oligarchy. You already own nothing. We are already serfs. A two party system is not a true democracy. Still, the theocracy must die.
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