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Sanders Slams 'Big Money Interests' and Consultants That Control Democratic Party After Loss to Trump (www.commondreams.org)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/22241305

Jessica Corbett
Nov 06, 2024

"While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change," said the Vermont Independent. "And they're right."

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's not pragmatic to lose, for what it's worth. We know that reform is impossible, and Bernie likely knows too. You're correct that had the Democrats run on a progressive anti-genocide Social Democratic platform, they would have won, but that's not what their donors want and need.

Marxism is vindicated by the passage of time.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Are the donors really going to stick around if the Dems get plastered every election (if there is another one) and never win anything? One of three things will happen, to wit.

nothing changes and the Democratic Party is toothless, useless and abandoned.
The working populace starts a new leftist party and the Democratic Party is dead.
the DNC pushes further left and wins back some votes

I think #3 is the least likely to happen. Although in the near future I think it doesn’t matter at all, because we’ve sunk into the mid to late 1930’s Germany. I hope our allies in Europe is prepared to move forward without our support.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

Their donors keep donating so they stay a right-wing party, they would rather the Dems lose as right wingers than win as more progressive.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

The "reform is impossible" is a self-fulfilling prophesy because it leads leftists to never try to get involved in the party, which means they'll never get a seat at the table, which means they'll never be able to steer the party.

I certainly can't prove that the influence of big money can ever be overcome within the party by grassroots organization, but you also can't prove that it's impossible (you can only prove that it's difficult, which is something I certainly won't dispute).

You certainly can't prove that a true socialist movement will ever gain traction in America. It seems like the general public is so brainwashed they would rather be indentured servants of large corporations than lift a single finger to seize the means of production.

So we're left with two unprovable paths to consider, and here's the thing: the two paths are not mutually exclusive. Leftists can try both at the same time with neither being disruptive to the other. So this is the pragmatism: consider all possibilities and put the eggs into more than one basket.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

Leftists cannot practice Entryism in the Democratic Party, due to its structure. The DNC is a machine used to filter out radicals and protect pro-establishment politicians that secure the funding from donors the DNC needs to exist. It is not a Leftist Party, and cannot be a Leftist Party.

Secondly, the concept of "brainwashing" is flawed. The ideas people find acceptable are determined by their social consciousness, as Capitalism deteriorates and Imperialism begins to crack, workers are increasingly turned towards organization and revolutionary Socialism.

I highly recommend reading Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg, she put to pen why reform is a sisyphean task. Reading theory really needs to be taken more seriously.