"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, Thälmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. Thälmann famously said that ‘some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest’ of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called ‘social fascists.’
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitler’s orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."
Plus we keep using this outdated first-past-the-post voting system in the 21st century.
Yup. We need ranked choice/instant runoff voting first.
Approval Voting is even better.
Literally any voting system other than the one we use is an improvement.
Yeah, ranked choice already seems to have a lot of momentum, and would fix a lot. That counts more than theoretical perfection that may not even exist in the real world.
I think people just want the emotional satisfaction of submitting a vote that says “this is my preferred person”
I second Approval Voting. STAR as well, but perhaps slightly less intuitive.
That’s why one should always vote for Democrats who support voting system reform.
Are we talking about the same Democrats that sued to keep ranked choice boating off the DC ballot this year? or the Democrats that chose to keep ranked choice voting that had already been passed by voters off the Alexandria VA ballot?
I interpreted it as “vote only for those democrats who support voting reform,” but it could also be sarcasm.
Do those sound like Democrats who support voting system reform?
We need the presidency first. We need a majority in both houses first. We need a supermajority in the senate first. We need a 2/3 majority in the senate first. We need to completely overhaul the voting system first.
There’s always something we need to do first. It’s right there on the timetable. Timetable subject to change. Offer void in red states.
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What’s your plan to change the system?
Different user, but still have an idea.
Take over the DNC with actual leftists that will implement better voting systems, starting at the lower levels with grassroots campaigns, and slowly work our way up.
We desperately need more real third-party participation in politics, but voting for third parties in presidential elections doesn’t make that happen—the US voting system isn’t a business that adapts its products to meet consumer demand.
Yup. We need ranked choice balloting first.
in presidential elections
Or in House of Representative, or Senate. The real power is in Congress.
Local elections is where most of the current people in power got started. Anyone voting for third party in the presidential race missed the boat.
Vote progressives into local offices so they can get experience to work in state offices so they can get experience to work in Congress so they can get experience to be a good presidential candidate. Also to fill offices at every level with progressives.
And it’s a hell of a lot easier to reform voting there too.
That… is the exact opposite of what the article is arguing. If one side of the political spectrum (inevitably right-wing) unites, they immediately run over the side that is split up into different fragments that are arguing over just how much of a school lunch should be subsidized by the government.
And we have seen this in the modern day as well. A couple months back basically the entire Left/Center-Left of France had to unite to try and prevent fascists from taking power and… it is unclear if they actually succeeded.
Its fun to parrot the exact same text every single time a topic comes up. But shit like this is a lot more important than meming about Subway and it is well worth understanding what efforts do and don’t address and think through those problems. Otherwise we just leave ourselves more and more vulnerable to hate.
The point though is that ranked choice allows you all the benefits of 3rd parties without the downsides.
One can just as easily argue that that is the point of primaries in the US and other countries. You get a wide range of left and right leaning candidates and you downselect based on who the majority wants as well as general election theory to handle moderates.
And… the end result is that people get incredibly pissy when their candidate doesn’t win and disenfranchise themselves. Theoretically, a very strict ranked choice model that requires ALL candidates to be ranked could help with that but you still get into the realm of “protest votes”. See: People who refused to vote for Biden because he had shit stances on genocide and who would have given trump, who is openly genocidal, the win.
The reality is that we need to actually educate people on how governments work to undo decades of “haw haw, douche or a turd sandwich” levels of narrative. But we also need the politicians to actually unite against common threats. The fascists already understand that. But the Left continues to infight at every opportunity.
voting for third parties in presidential elections doesn’t make that happen
In a winner-take-all system, the marginal votes on the winning and losing side don’t matter. Third parties are an extrapolation of this principle. But when you’re voting in a state that is 60/40 for a given party, any individual vote for a given party is equally meaningful.
The only real benefit to valuing a Big Two party over a Third Party is if you’re in a swing state, where the odds of your vote being the tipping point are reasonably high. And even then, the powers invested in the partisan state secretary and county election’s commissioner offices render that decision relatively meaningless.
People losing their shit at Ralph Nader and Pat Buchanan in 2000 seem to have completely overlooked the impact of the mass voter disenfranchisement under Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris, the Butterfly Ballot design that confused voters into voting Buchanan over Gore, as well as the transformative impact of the Brooks Brother’s Riot and the subsequent SCOTUS decision to halt the vote count in Dem leaning districts.
At some level, Americans must stop treating their elections process as free and fair, and then deflecting blame of defeat onto anyone who doesn’t vote for your favorite candidate.
Tbf, it very much appears similar to battered partner syndrome. It’s going to be painful either way, but if I stay blah blah blah.
Don’t feed up on the propaganda all it takes is a bunch of celebrities endorsing third parties and then they become popular enough to make a change. The moment the red and blue start to lose votes and their grip on power they have to go in damage control mode and change their politics to please people and get votes back.
The liberals fucking won that election and it was the liberal Hindenburg appointing Hitler to the Chancellorship that facilitated his rise to power, not anything the KPD did. This is disgusting historical revisionism that a search engine could dispel in 5 seconds, but you choose to warp history to make it look like Hitler actually won the election and make the liberals who enabled him seem blameless. It is, in effect, apologia for Nazi collaborators. Exactly appropriate for someone shilling for Dems while they gleefully subsidize genocide.
there sure seems to be a lot of Nazi apologia coming out of .world recently. wonder why that is 🤔
I’ve seen a lot more come out of lemmy.ml.
Especially the Russian and Chinese kind, they apologise for all kinds of atrocities those fascist states make. Even apologise illegal invasions of sovereign nations.
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No way it’s something connected to America, one of the most direct inspirations for the Nazis. No, the reason there’s this Nazi apologia must be the sissy pee.
Gleefully?
No you’re right they’re super sad about funding the genocide
I feel like we need something like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact that is aiming to eliminate the electoral college, but for Ranked Choice.
Passing this federally is too hard. We need do to this state by state.
Until I can vote for a third party with RCV, then I might as well be saying that I have zero preference about the GOP and DNC options on the table.
Alaska does it (assuming they won’t repeal it in nov). Oregon is going to try and do it, if it hopefully passes. If we get two states proving it works and isn’t a problem, that momentum can snowball.
Please help support the RCV effort in Oregon if you can. https://www.oregonrcv.org/
I heard this a couple of days ago, and the more I’m looking into it, the more I find the green party a joke at best.
Alaska has a number of things. A population of conservationists amoung the general population who are likely disaffected. An environment that is being exploited harder than most states. Now ranked choice voting. Most people would see them as the environmentalist party. How much good could they do towards that cause if they got into that state legislature? What if they could take the congress seat or a senator? If they took the electoral votes it would be harder since the ranked choice only seems to be for the states choice, but they could prove they could win at some level. How many candidates are they running in Alaska? One, jill stein. How much effort are they putting in there for her? I can’t tell. The main criticism of them does not exist there, but they aren’t even trying. They can accomplish many of there goals there more easily than anywhere else. It’s the perfect storm for them. Pathetic.
I wish it were different, but the Green Party sucks in the two countries I’ve lived in. I want to vote for environmentalists, but they seem to be Russian shills in the US, and they’ve had literal stasi members in Germany, where they were so opposed to nuclear, that the country still uses mostly coal.
Rightwing Dems that get to the primary off corporate donors in the primary will never let RCC take over
The only reason they win in generals is the only other option is Republicans.
To fix anything on the federal level we need the Dem party onboard and all on the same page, then heavy majorities, then fix the system
I’d argue that you don’t need it in every state. You just need it in enough states to make a 3rd party candidate viable.
Look up the Moral Majority. They wrested control of the GOP from Nelson Rockefeller et al by showing up at every local Republican function with enough votes to make sure they got heard. They started out putting their sheriffs and county clerks on the ballots.
Dems are not letting that happen.
Problem is that RCV will only have a chance in deep blue states, and all it would accomplish is reducing the blue representation in congress.
To put it bluntly, all it would accomplish is more in fighting and contributing to the reputation that Dems are ineffective. Except, it would be the “blue aligned coalition” instead of “Dems”
The only real path to making this change is to give Dems a super majority so they can amend the constitution.
And, well, the minority of Red voters have a majority of power thanks to the electoral college, so a super majority is absolutely impossible for the foreseeable future.
Edit - it’d also cause disruptions in States that don’t adopt RCV, as “progressives” protest vote 3rd party and sandbag the Dems
Blaming progressives for not aligning with centrists instead of blaming centrists for siding with Nazis to lock out progressives is a weird take.
That’s historical revisionism. They would have easily created a coalition government to oppose Hitler, but without the support of the communist party, the conservative block ultimately held onto control, and Hitler was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg.
You’re disingenuously conflating the conservatives that ceded power to the Nazi party (that had only taken about 30% of the vote) with the center left that reached out to the communists in an attempt to stop them. A decision by the head of the communist party that directly led to the murder of millions of people, including himself.
We are talking about a parliamentary system. The communists could have formed a coalition government that had a majority, but they refused. Without their support, no party won a majority or were able to form a majority coalition government, and the Nazis were able to take control from the conservatives in power (or more accurately, they gave it to them freely).
I’m not a historian, so someone correct me if I’m wrong.
That comment was not referring to literal nazis. They were talking about the American right wing.
Ok. Then I was explaining why it’s not a “weird take.” Because, you know… History.
It may not have been a weird take in the early 20th century. It’s a weird take now.
It’s literally an equivalent scenario.
Ah, of course. America’s communist party should be trying to form a coalition government in Parliament this year. Literally equivalent.
Essentially, yes. Bernie Sanders caucuses with the DNC.
No, at no point did the Centre try to form a coalition with the KPD, but were turned down. In the Weimar system, it is the Chancellor that is in charge of forming coalitions, so even if the KPD, SPD, and Centre had enough seats to form a majority (which they didn’t), they couldn’t just form a coalition. This is why Franz Von Papen was appointed by Hindenburg, since he was expected to be able to convince the Centre party and Nazis to form a coalition with the conservatives and monarchists. And why when that failed and there was a failure to form a ruling coalition that Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor to create a Nazi lead coalition.
Huh. Thanks for the correction. Sounds like Hindenburg sold Germany out big time.
Hitler didn’t win because he beat Hindenburg after Thälmann split the vote. He lost to Hindenburg, the center-right candidate endorsed by the social democrats, then won anyway because Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor.
The social democrats were the ones who refused to back Thälmann, the only anti-Hitler candidate in the race. And the same way that the communists called them “social fascists,” the social democrats used similar rhetoric, frequently saying that the communists were no different from the Nazis, that there was no difference between the far left and the far right.
But also, we don’t have to keep rehashing 100 year old grudges from another continent.
That was going back much further. The Communists had tried to overthrow the Weimar Republic in the Hamburg Uprising a decade earlier. So the social democrats, who were a key supporter and really the creators of the Republic, saw them as an enemy. Thälmann was especially outspoken against the social democrats. Hence they saw supporting Thälmann as supporting an enemy of the Weimar Republic.
However Jill Stein and co policies are mostly about as radical as the German social democrats back then. All of it could be done by reforming the US political system. At least near term.Also the German communists were much better organized then the US left. They were sitting in most parliaments of German states and cities. The US Green Party has no officeholders on a federal or even state level right now. Of the 8 state level officeholders they did have only 3 have run on a Green Party ticket, the rest was elected Democrat and switched to the Greens. That has to be changed first, before running for president. Seriously if you can not take state seats, then you can not win the presidency.
The background for the KDP’s uprisings is WWI. The war was incredibly destructive and pointless for every country in Europe. Before the war, the Second International (of which the SDP was a founding member) put out a manifesto with unanimous support that said:
In case war should break out anyway it is their duty to intervene in favor of its speedy termination and with all their powers to utilize the economic and political crisis created by the war to arouse the people and thereby to hasten the downfall of capitalist class rule.
However, once the war actually started, the SDP (along with many other social democratic parties in Europe) suddenly found all sorts of reasons to rally around the flag and support it unconditionally. The British socialists would point to problems in Germany under the Kaiser, the German socialists would point to problems with Russia under the Tsar, and each side would talk about how it’s not that they support the war, it’s just that they don’t want to lose. And so there was a failure across Europe (except in Russia, of course) to create domestic pressure to put an end to the war, and result was that it raged on until it had claimed 20 million lives.
It was only at the end of the war, when it was clear that Germany was going to lose regardless, that a revolution occurred, initially supported by both the SDP and the communists, which is what brought an end to the German Empire. During that uprising, the SDP and communists split over the direction of the country, and the SDP won and sent in the Freikorps to exterminate communist leadership. So when you talk about Thälmann trying to overthrow the government, I think it’s important to put that in the context that the government in question had come to power only 4 years prior by overthrowing the government - and that government would go on to last only 15 years in total before the Nazis were able to seize power through it. All of which is to say, it was a chaotic period, and there were reasons for the KDP to resent the SPD as well.
The tendency to force history into boxes defined by modern day politics loses a lot of that nuance. In contemporary American politics, there is no Second International. There is no Great War. There is no Sparticist Uprising. It’s bad enough when contemporary politics outside of the US are forced into the boxes defined by American politics, we don’t need to extend that throughout history.
The Nazis had also tried to overthrow the government once by that point, so making a coalition that included the Nazis is no less backing “an enemy of the Weimar Republic”. The difference is, of course, that one is an enemy to capitalism and the other is an enemy of communism. It’s no wonder that liberals would choose the latter.
Hitler and Thälmann lost to the center right Hindenburg who was backed by the social democrats. Hindenburg was already president since 1925, so he was seen as no direct threat to democracy. Then Germany had parliamentary elections in July 1932. Those had a Nazi + Communist majority, so they repeated the election in November as they did not have a majority to form a government as both the Communist and the Nazis were against democracy. That however although slightly better did not solve that problem. So Hindenburg used decrees to work with the Nazis so they could form a government.
So if the Communists and social democrats would have worked together and elected a left president. That might have been somebody from the social democrats or indeed Thälmann, then a minority centrist or left wing or a majority centrist and communist government would have been possible. The Communists however never tried to work with the democratic forces. The Nazis actually did exactly that, which they were able to use to gain total power.
Point should be obvious.
both the Communist and the Nazis were against democracy
This is ridiculous, the Communists opposed the Weimar Republic, but they absolutely supported democracy. In their view, in fact, they supported a much more authentic form of democracy by extricating private interests from the process.
Hindenburg used decrees to work with the Nazis so they could form a government.
We keep glossing over this “liberals siding with Nazis” thing
The Communists however never tried to work with the democratic forces.
I really think the word you’re looking for here is “liberal”
Point should be obvious.
You’re making significant assumptions, such as any of the liberals actually being willing to work the with the Communists, which would be a hell of a change for the SPD after that business with the Freikorps. Otherwise, the argument is just “join the SPD” and assume that they can bring their voters with them while completely abandoning their revolutionary project and putting themselves under the discipline of a liberal party. I feel that this is something of a muddy issue that you’re interpreting in a convenient way.
“Aren’t you as well?” Fair question, and there’s a lot about this situation that I can’t speak to, but what I said before I am completely sure holds, which is that Hitler gained power, on the most proximate level, because of liberal collaborators.
The SPD initially prefered to work with further left forces. They worked together on the Reich Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils however the SPD wanted a parliamentary democracy and the USPD wanted a council republic, so when they realized the most of the councils were not in fact communist and actually supported the SPD, that caused uprisings against the interim SPD lead government, which the USPD left. The USPD was also unwilling to work with the SPD in the national assembly, which was the parliament they set up and they were sitting in. Intresstingly the Weimar constituion has a few points which could have been easily turned to accomadate workers councils. Hence the more centrist forces worked with them and the consitution was born.
I really think the word you’re looking for here is “liberal”
No it is democratic, which the KPD at this point was no longer. They were working on setting up a Stalinist dictatorship and no longer a council democracy.
You’re making significant assumptions, such as any of the liberals actually being willing to work the with the Communists,
I am looking at what we might want to learn from what happened back for the US election and other struggles against the far right. So pointing out that this was an option is imho extremely important. Obviously they did not do it, but that does not mean it is impossible to do it at least partly today, with different left wing groups considering different centrist groups not radical enough.
No it is democratic, which the KPD at this point was no longer. They were working on setting up a Stalinist dictatorship and no longer a council democracy.
I was going to let it go, but this really bugs me. What are you even talking about here?
This is what I am talking about, especially the second half of the article:
https://jacobin.com/2016/08/ernst-thalmann-east-germany-stalin-nazis
I’m not voting for Harris. I’m voting against Trump via Harris.
I’m voting FOR Harris in the same way I was previously voting FOR Biden. Biden/Harris & Harris/Walz support policies that most closely match those policies I support.
If Trump died tomorrow I still wouldn’t support Vance or any other Republican because they support policies that I am strongly opposed to.
I would like to have more options, but realistically those are my choices.
I don’t have to agree with Harris/Walz on 100% if issues. I’m allowed to criticize them. But at the end of the day I’m voting FOR something and not just against the worst possible choice.
Given that she has the same stance on Gaza / Palestine as Biden, I vote against the orange bad rather than for her.
I agree that is a fucking terrible stance. It’s fair to criticize them both for that stance and, especially after the election, we should all push them hard to change their stance.
It is absolutely shitty that they won’t charge until after the election (if ever). Yes. Is it fair? No. Is it likely the only chance? Yes.
Single issue voters are hilarious. That’s how we got here.
My comment said that I’m voting against my conscience wrt Palestine, so your comment doesn’t really make sense.
I’m voting for Harris i like the money for middle class people thing
There currently is no middle class. There’s people that think they are still middle class, but they are struggling just as much as they poor.
I hope you never suffer an illness or injury that suddenly thrusts you into the group of working poor, living out of the car, couch surfing or sleeping rough.
American mercenary healthcare is the primary reason I abandoned my green card efforts. It just wasn’t worth the risk that a car accident could render me homeless.
The average American tax payer individuals who make less than a certain amount get nothing in return. If we got services instead of global war, I believe very few would have an issue with taxes.
And they have no clue how close to reality that is for all of them.
We know. I have plenty of my own cognitive dissonance to sort.
i hope so too yes :c
By the math, just the economic policy changes will give the non-rich a bit of a boost.
Same!
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“I am single issue” - at least you are under no illusion about it.
ok but you are voting republican
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but you are though
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yeah just don’t kid yourself
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This is silly in our current voting system. Not voting in this election is equivalent to voting for Trump.
People on the right (e.g. evangelicals) often see voting as their responsibility and will vote for whomever they see as the lesser of two evils. Those of us on the left get too bourgeois about our candidates. Our failure to vote keeps moving the window right!
There’s a lot you can say about how broken US electoralism is, but using this as an example is just not accurate.
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Hitler wasn’t elected by people, he lost to Hindenburg in 1932 and was appointed Chancellor later.
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The Nazis who appointed him Chancellor had the majority, meaning more than every other party combined. Meaning third parties didn’t syphon the Hitler vote
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Hindenburg didn’t want to appoint him, but meetings with industrialists made him change his mind
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Hindenburg then gave Hitler more powers after the Heischtag fire.
If anything, it’s an example of what happens when you reach over the aisle and compromise with nazis.
Number 2 is wrong. The nazis never had a majority, only a plurality. If the other parties, the social democrats, the communist party, and the Centre party had banded together instead of fighting amongst themselves, he wouldn’t have been made Chancellor.
No, that still incorrect. First, KPD, SPD and Centre did not have an outright majority together. Second, it is the Chancellor that is in charge of forming coalitions, they can’t just form a coalition if they had an outright majority anyway in the Weimar system and at no point did Centre try to form a coalition and was turned down by the KPD. The entire point of Hindenburg appointing Franz Von Papen was that he thought that he could convince both the Nazis and Centre to form a coalition with the conservative and monarchist parties. And the reason later to appoint Hitler as chancellor was to form a Nazi led coalition.
Banded together and all refused to have a Nazi Chancellor? They could have done that, this just happened in France but this time the left had a majority. Centrists are more likely to join the Nazis than the communists though
I’m gonna assume you’re still talking about the Nazis since that was your original comment so let’s look at the reichstag breakdown of the election prior to Hitler being appointed Chancellor.
The Social Democrats won 121 seats in November 1932, the communists won 100 seats. The Social Democrats were socialists and the communists were communists. The nazis had 196 seats in the 1932 election. So if the socialists and communists had combined they would have had 221 seats which is more than 196. And those were leftist parties who were bickering. So if the leftists had combined they would have kept Hitler from being chancellor when he was appointed that in January 1933. But what about the centre party? Well, they had 70 seats and had a significant wing that was left and wanted to work with the social democrats. Now if we are conservative about it and say just 25 of those 70 were leftists, that would bring the 221 up to 246. And if the other 45 went to the nazis, which all of them never would because it was a big tent with diverse view points, that would have brought a nazi coalition to 241. So not as big of a majority but still a majority for leftists.
So yes, again, if the socialists, communists, and leftist wing of the centre party had combined their powers and hadn’t been bickering, hitler wouldn’t have been chancellor.
Basic source for the election results of November 1932. There’s more pages for the parties and stuff on there so go ahead and poke around.
The Social Democrats won 121 seats in November 1932, the communists won 100 seats. The Social Democrats were socialists and the communists were communists. The nazis had 196 seats in the 1932 election. So if the socialists and communists had combined they would have had 221 seats which is more than 196. And those were leftist parties who were bickering.
The problem here isn’t “leftist parties bickering”, it is self-evidently “the SPD aligning themselves with liberalism and fascism”. It’s not like the KPD refused to form a majority with other parties.
As an aside, “socialist” and “communist” are generally interchangeable terms and the SPD were neither by conventional definitions, but were instead (being very charitable to them) what we would call DemSocs.
The real lesson, I think, is that fascists take power when the mechanisms of liberal democracy crumble away.
I have great reason for concern on this in modern times, even if the details are different.
The only part that is wrong is that Nazis did not have an overall majority, it was because of Hindenburg, monarchists, conservatives, and right-wing liberals deciding to side with the Nazis.
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Do not forget that in '32 the SPD backed Hindenburg… who then nominated Hitler as chancellor.
Thälmann was foolish, but even if he didn’t run, Hitler would still get into power. If the far right is strong enough, mere electoralism will not stop them. Fighting them must happen on the street level.
Genuine question - at what point?
You do it early (now), and you push swing voters away and hurt your cause.
You do it after they have power, and you’ve manufactured the pretext for your extermination.
Do it very early before they’ve metastasized. Do it after they have power too. The pretext already exists, they campaigned on it. Being a partisan is now literally a fight for your life.
We could avoid this with ranked choice voting.
Yes, but you’re going to need to find a way to think beyond that, because both parties understand that it’s in their interests to oppose rcv, so “vote democrat until we get rcv” effectively means “vote democrat forever”.
Fundamentally, there is a limit to the extent that a capitalist democracy will tolerate actual democratic power, because eclipsing the power of capitalists obviously means threatening their position. They will not sit idly by and allow their power to be voted away.
Oh, you mean like these two Democratic reps and the one Democratic Senator who just introduced a bill to do ranked choice voting for all 2028 congressional races? https://rankthevote.us/raskin-beyer-welch-bill-would-bring-ranked-choice-voting-to-congressional-elections/
There’s no need to be so smarmy. Anyway, the individuals may behave in aberrant ways (or perhaps as a red herring, up to your interpretation), but the Democratic Party will reject it just as the Republicans will. I’m talking about classes and political parties, not every person as an individual.
If it passes, I’ll eat my hat, but it doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell.
So even when Democrats do the right thing, you don’t give them credit? Got it.
Making a declaration is worthless. This is three people saying that they’d like to do something and they will fail just as these attempts have always failed. I can give them as people some amount of credit for trying to make the world better, but that does not exonerate the system! The system – including the rest of the Democratic Party – will still put their attempt down regardless.
Do you not see the difference here? The fact that people can and do propose to do good things now and again and those attempts are shot down even by the so-called left wing party is not a defense of the republic, but an indictment!
How do you think legislation happens? This isn’t just “three people”, this is a sitting Democratic Senator and two Democratic Reps. All with long histories in the party. Hell, Beyer was Lieutenant Governor of Virginia. These aren’t nobodies.
And they’re not just “saying that they’d like to do something”, this is actual legislation that was submitted in both the House and Senate. These kinds of bills may have to be introduced a number of times before they pass but Dems are the only ones doing the work to at least try and if nothing else keep the issue alive and active as a discussion.
This is how the legislative process works all over the world, and if you can’t or won’t bother to understand that, than I can’t imagine there’s anything else really for us to talk about.
It has very little support, it’s DOA. That’s just what happens. Look at all of Bernie’s failed bills; they just don’t push the needle. You can tell me that at some point in the future the Rapture will definitely happen, the righteous will be saved and the sinners will be cast into perdition and so on, but I don’t see any reason to believe it considering the history of the Democrats for the last 40 years and their incredible ability to pretend to want good things while either conspiring with open rightists or making limp gestures like this.
You will not see the Democratic Party vote its own power away, it just won’t happen.
This guy performs material analysis.
Or will they? You see, this is what I don’t understand about MAGA congressmen. If they make Donald Trump their dictator, they are abdicating their own power and giving it to him. How is this in their best interests?
Well, two things:
One, that is a very alarmist view of Trump. He liked slinging around executive orders, but he had neither the ambition nor the audacity to be a Hitler. It simply isn’t realistic to think he’ll execute his second term by toppling the Republic, he doesn’t have visions like that, even if many people have visions like that for him (including Mike Lindel, somewhat hilariously, with his apparent attempt to get Trump to do a false flag and establish emergency powers).
Second, look at history. Inevitably, some people who release leopards do get their faces eaten, but becoming an executor of a fascist regime isn’t a loss of power, it’s a change in title at worst and, if anything, something of an increase in power. Imagining Trump becomes a fascist autocrat, that doesn’t actually mean that his whim is enough to unilaterally move things however he likes, and that is true of every leader in history. The reason for this is that his power, his authority, doesn’t come from himself, it comes from the class (or classes, historically) that support him, so he needs to make sure to keep them on his side or they will absolutely just kill and replace him. The petty Congressmen that support him know this, and are fine with working in a paradigm where they benefit from his support and are left with a broad range of things that he views as acceptable (since Trump won’t try to micromanage the whole country) in which to exert their personal agendas as they see fit.
But again, Fuhrer Trump is a fantasy. Maybe Tom Cotton poses such a threat, but Trump does not.
Does this all make sense?
Ummm there definitely is evidence against you. First in our current system the president needs Congress to get things done, but we’ve seen the plans for Project 2025 to get around a lot of this.
Second, we’ve seen with the freedom caucus that a small group of congressmen can wield a lot of power.
Third, I think we definitely can expect a very different Trump in a second term versus his first term and he definitely HAS expressed an interest in this with all of his dictation envy too become Fuhrer and worse there is a large portion of the population that is content to be rolled under a Trump dictatorship.
If any of this is true, it should lead to less power for congressmen.
First in our current system the president needs Congress to get things done
There is quite a lot that the President can do independently using Executive Orders. Even tasks that, on paper, require congressional approval can be subverted, and you can look at the US’s record of entering undeclared wars as evidence of that.
Beyond that, see what I already said about how there’s no such thing as an autocrat.
Second, we’ve seen with the freedom caucus that a small group of congressmen can wield a lot of power
These are people who would do the best in an imaginary Fuhrer Trump political machine. Think of it like getting promoted to a bigger, more powerful Freedom Caucus.
Third, I think we definitely can expect a very different Trump in a second term versus his first term and he definitely HAS expressed an interest in this with all of his dictation envy too become Fuhrer and worse there is a large portion of the population that is content to be rolled under a Trump dictatorship.
People have been talking about him admiring dictators before he was elected and all throughout his first term. There’s nothing new here, no evidence that suggests something has changed.
I promise you it’s just hysteria. So there’s a chance of something beneficial happening in this conversation, I want you to just take note of this conviction you have that Trump will be Hitler and then, if he is elected, just remember it as he blunders his way through being racist and doing war crimes just the same as he did before with no particular change besides Vance leading a new rhetorical tact.
No, I won’t be doing a mirror version of this exercise. I’m a communist, so if I’m wrong and he’s a neo-neo-Nazi, I get the wall anyway and it’s no harm done.
This is a great post! Well said!
I appreciate the kind words and am glad to see an open socialist on .world
Thanks! I get a LOT of hate and variations of “U must suck Putin’s cock” type of comments, but hey it’s expected. People are pretty afraid of change and losing their power.
I’m glad you’re here too! We’re all gonna make it, brother.
Ranked choice voting probably leads to two-party domination (see Australia or Malta), and even without that caveat it’s otherwise suboptimal. Score voting is the way to ensure voting for your favourite comes with no strategic tradeoffs.
This might work, but in our current situation I don’t see the outcome as much different than what I’d expect now. MAGA would give Trump the highest score. Dems would give Harris the highest score and the rest would split.
I also don’t agree with the part of the premise that says our system is prone to fraud. Because each district does things differently, it makes it hard to hack. In Miami for instance they had hanging chad, because they used a punch system. Where I live, we fill in a bubble and in some states only mail in ballots are used. The real hacking takes place before the vote, in social media.
First time around Dems would probably vote Dems 99, GOP 0 and leave every other party blank, but over time people would realise that you can ALSO score your actual favourite (think of all the people that would vote Green if it wasn’t a wasted vote) a 99 without hurting the “lesser evil’s” chances. Greens 99, Dems 99 and GOP 0 is just as bad for the GOP as Greens blank, Dems 99 and GOP 0. That’s the magic of score voting. And people who are really apathetic and refuse to vote because they think all parties are bad could still express an opinion akin to Dems 10, GOP 0, rest empty.
GOP 0? Trump barely lost the last election and the Republicans still control one house of Congress.
These are different ways to fill the same ballot! In score voting you give every party a score (in this case from 0 to 99). This was the example of a die-hard Democrat. A more moderate voter might vote something like Dems 50, GOP 60, or Dems 30, GOP 25
in ranked voting there is still the possibility that a fear of a deeper evil driving straight to a bipartisan situation again.
You still have all the same campaigns exacerbating fears with just a different look to the ballot. Ppl could easily fall into the trap of picking their top 1-2 choices based on who they don’t want in power after glued to the screen watching all the drama.
Rcv just seems like the new ev where someone oversells that it fixes all things but hides the cons that we’re all pretty much in the same spot we started.
I agree with this assessment for the most part, but it does seem like the best method for introducing a third party, which the US desperately needs. Do you have a better EV?
introducing a third party, which the US desperately needs.
Very much so.
Sure, but the current duopoly doesn’t really want us to have that.
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I don’t know what that means.
Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932
The mistake Ernst Thälmann made was not throwing his support behind checks notes Paul von Hindenburg, the man who ordered the police massacre of the Spartacus League?
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested.
Who elevated Adolf Hitler to the Chancellorship in 1933?
It’s not old Junkers like von Hindenburg that they’d ally with. It’s other slightly different leftist factions and a few centrists.
The centrists were aligned with Hindenburg. Friekorps were just as avid commie-bashers as any National Socialist.
The main problem Ernst had was affiliating himself with the Russian Revolution and advocating for more of the same in Germany. That made him an enemy of nationalists during a period in which “International Jewery” was the boogie man under everyone’s bed.
The idea that he could just strike up common cause with people who wanted him dead is absurd.
Particularly, there was huge overlap in membership between the Freikorps and the Stürmabteilung. So it is important to note that the Freikorps was a direct precursor to the Nazi brownshirts.
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They’d have thrown their support behind the centrist, Wilhelm Marx, who lost by about 3%
The Catholic Centre Party was in open - often violent - conflict with the largely atheist-leaning German Communists. The German Catholics were terrified of a repeat of the Spanish Civil War, where Spaniards were revolting against a religious dictatorship and burning down churches.
Von Hindenburg, with the help of the governing coalition formed by the Nazis and DNVP
Wilhelm was aligned with the DNVP as far back as 1923. He was the one who pushed through the Enabling Act of 1923, which the Nazis would ruthlessly exploit a decade later, with their help. And he continued to govern in coalition with the DNVP through 1928, when he was dismissed from the Chancellory by…
Von Hindenburg, with the help of the governing coalition formed by the Nazis and DNVP
So, to answer your question
What point are you trying to make?
My point is that blaming Ernest Thälmann for his minority party position in the German government through 1933 when it would make much more sense to finger Alfred Hugenberg and his DNVP, which abandoned Wilhelm in '28 and aligned with
Von Hindenburg, with the help of the governing coalition formed by the Nazis
.
What point are you trying to make?
Muddying the waters. That’s the point these shills are trying to make.
Republicans are not going to suddenly stop being evil, so what’s the solution? Just endlessly comprise and never accomplish anything? Fuck that. I refuse to be held hostage. If Democrats want leftist votes then they have to deliver leftist policies. Otherwise they’re just as responsible
That is what Liberals are perfectly fine with. An infinite state of groveling with people in power and never doing anything else. They are hostile to protesters too and ignore bad actions by Dems. Everything turns into but Trump is worse.
The solution is a Multi-Party system with coalition and then compromise out of a position of power. We need to accept that in almost all societies the real left are a minority. Humans don’t like the socialist ideas even if it benefited then Right now because they dream of escaping poverty and to then be better than others. If we destroyed the class system they’d have no chance to some day be better than other people. I believe this drive to get ahead is part of human nature and only few are able to fight it and think in the benefit of the whole.
So there are 2 options:
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Is a revolution, violent and ends in establishing an authoritarian government forcing your beliefs on the majority of people which kinda goes against my democratic beliefs and the right of freedom
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Go into politics. In europe it would be voting very left and gain enough votes to join a coalition to make the centrists enable more and more socialist policies. This worked very well in some countries like early Germany, netherlands and a big portion of Scandinavian countries. In America basically the only option would be to join the democratic party and advocate socialist policies from within like Bernie sanders is trying for example. Vote more left in the primaries to try and gain influence.
After that when it comes down to voting either of the 2 parties though you probably need to accept the current majority in the democratic party in order to not enable far right.
The time to go more left is between big elections and from within. In big elections like the upcoming its time to set differences aside and unify for the lesser evil.
Never forget that a democracy is a rule of the majority of the population and not a rule of the best policies from your perspective. If you think: Fuck the majority, this is how the country should be run, you are not democratic.
This of course disregards the influence powerful people take in politics which is another topic and way more complicated.
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Every time they run on a left policy, they lose. Every time they enact left legislation, they lose. And you wonder why they don’t run a big left platform? Frankly they do left things in spite of it always costing them.
What the left needs to do is actually show up.
Hillary proves you wrong, though. Awkward!
Hilary who said she would have a map room to flight climate change. That existential issue that the left cares so much about, right? And bam she lost the election.
Exactly. If you’re as interest candidate, or arguably a center-right candidate, saying a few things to try to pretend you’re left wing is not going to get the support that you want. You need to actually change your policy in a major way well in advance.
Pretend? She declared fucking war on climate change. That’s what a map room means, a fucking war on it. But you want to say pretend lol.
And this is the big existential issue, isn’t it? It’s the big issue that all the logical leftists care about, right? It’s the issue of our generation, right?
And the left didn’t show up. She ran on that big important left policy. And. The. Left. Didn’t. Show. Up.
But we can go more! Why was it “only” climate change? For that let’s look at Obama. So Obama enacted the ACA. That’s great, right? The thanks Obama got for that was to lose the House of Representatives for year 3 and 4. And lose the House of reps again for years 5 and 6. And then lose both the House of reps and the Senate for years 7 and 8. He enacted left policy and: The left never shows up. So what did Hillary learn from the last 6 years of Obama? She learned that the left never shows up. And you’re amazed she didn’t ruin a big left platform on every issue? So she ran a mostly center platform to try to get voters, BUT with a big position to left on the map room to climate change. And bam she lost the election.
So what did Biden learn from Hillary? Don’t run a left position on anything, because it’s a sure fire eat to lose. So he ran center. But guess what happened in office? He governed left. He did a lot of left things. And what was his thanks for it? Dismal poll numbers. Aka the left was not going to show up.
Like I said, when the Dems enact left policy, they lose. When they run on left policy, they lose. Because. The. Left. Never. Shows. Up.
Totally fucking agree with this. Well said!
You need ranked voting
Just a note, while ranked voting is much better, the people who are influenced by parties that game the system and a gullible ignorant base usually consolidate themselves into one big party that still does everything to undermine the rest of the coalitions as long as it makes them look bad even if it’s worse off for society as a whole and that like a tumor can keep growing until it goes past the midpoint for toppling the democracy that elected it. It’s part of the solution, but not all of it, societies act like headless chickens when things get bad enough, regardless of who was responsible for them. For example, Brexit.
The only way a third party would be viable in the US is if it grew organically from small, local races that aren’t captured by large donors. A dedicated group of volunteers knocking on doors and spreading a message can have a real effect in those races. Get a few candidates in office and start doing some good, and a party can grow around it. Draw up a blueprint for how you did it, and spread it around to other towns and cities, making allies with other local groups as they spring up.
Is that easy to do? Of course not, but that would be a viable path for the formation of a functioning third party.
The moment it makes waves on even a local level, one or both major parties would begin to invest resources in crushing it wherever it appeared.
