ToastedPlanet

what I want is for him and the rest of the Democrats, not just the handful of firebrands, to collectively represent our pain. If they can’t say the quiet part out loud because of “decorum,” then they are failures as leaders.

Thank you for speaking to this. That hits the nail on the head. It speaks to the general callousness of the Democrats as they cling to norms.

The way Harris told us to keep fighting, look over there at the stars, and then fucked off on vacation. And the way Biden was all to happy to meet with Trump like he was any other president elect.

Maybe they think this is their way to prove Trump wrong, that our elections are free and fair. It's like they care more about meeting the bar Trump sets for them than they care about the American people. Maybe it's their privilege. I'm guessing they'll be singing a different tune when Trump has them in court.

TLDR I think personally I am still in the wait and defend myself camp. That seems to be a more useful strategy. It seems like labeling the Democrats as complicit goes against that. If the Democrats are complicit does that mean we would support them, Biden specifically, in a civil war? That's not a rhetorical question by the way.

Can someone or a political party for that matter be said to be complicit through incompetence? The Democrats are definitely incompetent. Their reaching for moderate Republicans strategy is a useless failure that isolated their progressives base.

Biden, the Democratic consultants, and the Democrats in general seem more comparable to British PM Neville Chamberlain or German President Paul von Hindenburg than a Nazi collaborator like French civil servant Maurice Papon. Chamberlain and Hindenburg thought they could curb Hitler's worst impulses and policies. They were wrong where as Papon actively helped Hitler.

We can't live in a house made of good intentions. But is it useful to raise incompetence to the level of collaborator(which If I'm not mistaken is what complicity implies)?

At the risk of getting my ego involved, I'll use myself as an example. I spent my time trying to get a Biden-Harris ticket and then a Harris-Walz ticket election win this cycle. My incompetence is different than the democrats, but it is incompetence none the less. Am I complicit in my own destruction since despite my best intentions and efforts the fascists took power? I did everything I knew how to do given the time and resources I had at my disposal.

The Democratic consultants are payed to be incompetent, but I'm not convinced they realize that. Merrick Garland could have moved faster to take punitive action against Trump. Biden could have appointed someone else or when Garland dragged his feet kicked him out and got someone else. Mitch McConnell and senate Republicans seem to think they can curb Trump's worst impulses and policies.

Unlike myself, all of these elected politicians have power. Biden in particular has, in theory, sweeping immunity thanks to the Supreme Court. However, if Biden stopped the peaceful transfer of power and sent Trump to Guantanamo Bay there would be domestic terrorism at best and civil war at worst. Are we saying Biden, at this point, is complicit if he does not do this? Are we saying we would side with Biden in a civil war or in suppressing civil unrest?

To put it bluntly if Biden stopping fascism through executive action is what morality demands of him are we going to be riding with Biden? Because without popular support Biden isn't lasting long with such a move. These are the questions that come to mind when I see the statement the Democrats are complicit. To be clear, the statement in question is not that they should be shamed, Democrats should be shamed, but that they are complicit.

So my non-rhetorical question is, is it useful rhetoric to say the Democrats are complicit in fascism? Are we prepared to argue that Biden should preemptively arrest this incoming administration? If that happened would you report strangers, neighbors, friends, family, and/or a spouse to the FBI if they said they were going to rebel against Biden?

Biden is complicit in genocide. I was still willing to vote for him and told people to vote for him. There were people on lemmy who were not willing to vote for and/or argue for Biden's second term. I'm sure many of those people will agree with your argument that the Democrats are complicit in fascism. I doubt those people would be willing to fight with Biden in a civil war. They seem to want to the US to burn to the ground along with the 340 million people who live here.

I am an American and I would like to see my country and the people who live here survive. Whether we in theory took a proactive approach to stopping fascism or reactive approach to defending against fascism, it seems like a bad time. If Biden cracks down on MAGA and the rightwing infosphere it seems like everyone will turn on him. If Biden doesn't and Trump takes power it seems like everyone will wish Biden had, but it will be too late.

This turned into more of a rant than I meant too, but I think these questions are worth discussing in the time before January 20th, 2025. I see people relying on legal arguments, on youtube, to argue that Trump's second term wont be that bad. I don't want to name names because I respect those people and what they do is critical to counteracting the right-wing infosphere. But, again, they seem to be relying on the idea that the fascists wont be able to enact fascist policies because the law will stop them. Or at least limit the fascists. The law hasn't stopped Trump and MAGA so far. And it seems like with each small step the law will limit the fascists less and less.

People have already had to defend themselves against the fascists in the MAGA movement. More of us are likely going to be put in a similar position. It seems like we're better off defending ourselves after Trump gives the order to send us to the camps. All the evidence from recent conflicts seems to show that the aggressor loses popular support quickly. However it seems like with this peaceful transfer of power next January we are about to test the limits of what popular support can do. Especially if Trump can drone strike the population into submission with immunity. But despite that, that risk seems unlikely, and thus waiting and defending ourselves is the more useful strategy.

Saying the Democrats are complicit seems to argue against that strategy. Because there doesn't seem to be anything else Biden or the Democrats could do at this point to stop Trump that doesn't involve relying on Presidential immunity. Democrats in Congress would need Republicans to use Section 3 of Amendment 14 to block Trump and there doesn't seem to be any chance of that happening.

It was nuanced and most did not “get it”.

This is less directed at your argument and more at the general usage of nuance that I've seen. Your argument is the most recent example for me anyway. Nuance has been put on a pedestal as this universally good standard. Nuance is only as good as it is useful. For something to be nuanced it needs to get into the weeds of a topic because that level of specificity is essential to or otherwise facilitates a good faith discussion.

This is the word your argument is using.

nuanced

: having nuances : having or characterized by subtle and often appealingly complex qualities, aspects, or distinctions (as in character or tone)

a nuanced performance

Whenever the movie focusses on Van Doren and Goodwin and Stempel, it treats them as nuanced human beings. But other characters in the film … are sketched less fully. — Ken Auletta

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/nuanced

Since I am subscribed to a descriptivist approach to defining words here is the new definition of nuanced as I have seen it used.

nuanced

2 : having a good or correct quality

Nuanced news, everyone! — Professor Farnsworth

People want a populist narrative that promises to deliver meaningful change. Harris refused to do this, in large part because of Democratic consultants. A populist narrative is why Bernie is so popular and why Trump has maintained a base of supporters in the form of the MAGA movement.

There can be more than one lesson to learn from an election cycle. We need to learn all of the lessons. Accelerationism was a problem this election cycle. The right-wing information sphere continues to be a problem in the US.

The Democrats are not blameless either. Democratic consultants ran the Harris campaign into the ground and they are refusing to learn the lessons. As one of the two viable political parties, the Democrats are still our most useful tool out of those two political parties, but we have to recognize that they are neoliberals. edit: clarification

Biden delivered on incremental changes typical of a neoliberal. These accomplishments did not fundamentally change our institutions. We need systemic change to our institutions because the problems with our institutions are systemic in nature. This is progressivism in a nutshell which Biden has wholeheartedly rejected.

The Democrats are not the left. They are a leaning-right of center political party. Their most recent campaign was sunk in large part because of consultants who are payed millions of dollars to ensure the Democratic Party does not stray far from the status quo. They are some of the people who need to learn abandon neoliberalism, but of course they are effectively payed not to.

Even if the Democrats won't listen, the rest of still need to learn the lessons. One of those lessons is learned by an evidence based analysis of what the Democrats delivered actually changed. Over the last four years, the Democrats have changed who is control of our institutions, but they have not fundamentally changed the institutions themselves. In short, we need to acknowledge that the Democrats aren't progressives, but neoliberals. They have been since Bill Clinton.

they leaned super hard into unions

Biden supported unions before and after the railway workers strike, but Biden still felt the need to kill the strike. Supporting unions enough so that they get incrementally better deals is pro-union, but it does not a progressive make. We need radical systemic change to our institutions and Biden is ideologically incapable of delivering on that for the economy, the Ukraine War, Israel's genocide, climate change, or immigration to name a few.

That's what Democrats have been trying to do since Bill Clinton. The Republicans have already been captured by the MAGA movement, where as the Democrats have yet to be captured by a movement. So for progressives and socialists, it should be easier to capture the Democrats.

It's like pokemon. =p

For some people FDR is the closest thing they can imagine to be progressive politics. The progressive-conservative switch in the Republican and Democratic Parties always makes for weird statements. You've got neo-nazis and neo-confederates controlling the Republican Party and Republicans say they are the party of Lincoln.

The accelerationists are predominately privileged white people who see Muslims and immigrants as the cost of doing business. Accelerationists seem to think they can shame everyone else into accepting genocide. No matter how much your argument or theirs tries to twist the truth, refuting these arguments will be trivial.

This election we had a choice between a Democrat who wanted to end the war and a Republican who wanted Israel to finish the job. Choosing the Democrat was the most useful choice to help the Palestinians. The people arguing for things to get worse in the hope they get better by not voting Democrat are making the accelerationist argument. Those positions are in fact one in the same. Your argument is pretending they are different, but is unable to articulate any difference whatsoever.

From the river to the sea. I'm a social democrat.

If you actually cared, accelerationism would bother you because they left the Palestinians out to dry. Trump being president may have killed Palestinian statehood. Israel is talking about annexing the West Bank. These election results have undoubtedly extended the genocide in Gaza for at least the next four years, assuming anyone lives that long. Israel wants to build a greater Israel out of Lebanon too and Trump is going to let them. Accelerationism is useless.

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I'm guessing this guy is just outright lying. These people are desperate to make it seem like they didn't waste $222 million dollars on an issue their voters didn't care about. The number one issue among Republican voters was the economy.