this post was submitted on 11 Feb 2024
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This is not me saying at all that Trump is better than Biden; it's more of an equalization argument that I truthfully can't see a fiscal difference.

It's been well known by people like us that the two bourgeois parties are basically the same, but I never really understood how close they were until the last like, 6 months.

Maybe it's JUST Biden that's super similar. But regardless, I just don't see the difference. He spews nice words about trans rights, workers, all of these good things. But the exact same shit that happened under Trump basically happened under Biden. Funding for genocidal states, proxy war funding, funding police, loss of abortion federal protection, separation of kids and parents at the border, etc.

People keep saying Biden is marginally better, where?

I don't know. I can't bring myself to vote for any of these guys this time around.

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[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

"MUH LESSER EVIL"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Crazy to think this could be the 8th and final year of the Sanders admin. Would democrats be entirely different people if they didn't have to be so invested in the Trump/Biden dichotomy?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

I think about that sometimes too, had the DNC not undemocratically ran Hillary, we'd likely be in a better position than we are now.

Oh well, accelerationist time! Trump go zoooommmmmm

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Interesting to think about if Trump would have been a spent force with a loss in 2016.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

There's no meaningful difference between republicans and democracts because both parties represent the interests of class that holds power in the end. And this isn't just us Marxists saying this, here's what a Princeton study analyzing many decades of US policy concluded:

What do our findings say about democracy in America? They certainly constitute troubling news for advocates of “populistic” democracy, who want governments to respond primarily or exclusively to the policy preferences of their citizens. In the United States, our findings indicate, the majority does not rule—at least not in the causal sense of actually determining policy outcomes. When a majority of citizens disagrees with economic elites or with organized interests, they generally lose. Moreover, because of the strong status quo bias built into the U.S. political system, even when fairly large majorities of Americans favor policy change, they generally do not get it.

US elections are just a circus with the sole aim of making people feel like they're participating in the political process. Republicans are a brand curated to appeal to social conservative people and Democrats are a brand for socially liberal ones. The goal is to get people to get invested in issues that don't threaten capital and to fight over them. As Parenti so aptly puts it in Blackshirts and Reds:

Seizing upon anything but class, leftists today have developed an array of identity groups centering around ethnic, gender, cultural, and life-style issues. These groups treat their respective grievances as something apart from class struggle, and have almost nothing to say about the increasingly harsh politico-economic class injustices perpe­trated against us all. Identity groups tend to emphasize their distinc­tiveness and their separateness from each other, thus fractionalizing the protest movement. To be sure, they have important contributions to make around issues that are particularly salient to them, issues often overlooked by others. But they also should not downplay their common interests, nor overlook the common class enemy they face. The forces that impose class injustice and economic exploitation are the same ones that propagate racism, sexism, militarism, ecological devastation, homophobia, xenophobia, and the like.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I would say its worse than a circus, because with the exception of the time a circus elephant ran through my back yard I can ignore a circus. In the US I cannot ignore an election, no matter how much I tried the news cycle is now built atleast partly around a "big election that will make or break everything" happening soon, either this year or next and if its next we have to start working on it now. It could be just my perseption, but it genuinly seems like the more obvious it is that things are breaking the move the election circus is pushed, as if we have not been playing that way for decades or more

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

It is an obnoxious spectacle to be sure, and I'm subjected to it living outside the US as well. I do imagine sucking up all the air in the room is an intentional feature. The more news coverage focuses on the election the less attention is given to everything else that's going on.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Oh undoubtedly, not only does it take away attention from the bigger issues, but it gives the masses a way to channel their frustration through an acceptable (read will do nothing of note) path, and then they can move on with their day. It also gives them a convenent scape goat, the other half of the uniparty, to blame for everything wrong in the world, without focusing on any real systemic issues.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

They're both dumbasses and sides of the same coin. The difference is who they consider the biggest threat, Democrats think its Russia while Republicans think its China.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

I mean, in that case Republicans are right lol. Long term at least, not in the "they're gonna invadeeee" way. China will just win.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A jury would never convict Trump of keeping classified documents because his fan base is a cult. A jury would never convict Biden of keeping classified documents because he's a kind old man who forgets things sometimes. It's pretty clear who the lesser evil is.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't understand the point you are making

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

A dumb joke about the special counsel report on Biden's handling of classified documents while out of office

We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Is the point of the “lesser evil” part that we can’t tell what you meant?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I hope Trump wins if only because I want to see the liberals suffering and seething. It's hardly adequate karma for the genocide of the Palestinian people but it'll be something and maybe just maybe to someone somewhere it will send the message that supporting an open genocide even in the genocidal settler west is a bit too far. It also wrenches the system back and forth which is good. Forces all those Europeans who've been sobbing about NATO and democracy and liberal values and how evil Putler is to either embrace Trump and look like even worse hypocrites or to distance themselves. It won't be enough to destroy NATO naturally but any tension that can be added is good. Trump doesn't wear the mask of respectability Biden does to the world and that's something too which makes me feel it's slightly more positive if he's president in the long game-plan. Liberals won't be in the streets under 4 more years of Biden, they might be under Trump.

Of course nothing much will change either way. There is no lesser evil, only funny evil pedophile war criminal and not funny evil pedophile war criminal who is hidden by his staff and who make all the decisions for him and give him a veneer of respectability. If you're a Marxist you shouldn't vote for either of them. Vote for a communist on your ballot or do a write-in or don't vote at all for a presidential candidate. Amazingly you can just go and vote on local and state ballot initiatives while not putting anything down on the presidential race.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

to either embrace Trump and look like even worse hypocrites or to distance themselves

Or they could do what they did the last time trump was in office - pretend to distance themselves, while running backroom deals and agreements, further colonising Europe to US capital

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

Well that was happening anyways. The Ukraine situation has assured Europe's hollowing out and subjugation to the US and they did that all to themselves willingly in the open while proclaiming loudly it had to be done for democracy and liberalism and all that. I frankly don't see that trend reversing no matter who is president, just that they might have to seem estranged for a while it might encourage a few more politicians on the edges to grow a stronger backbone as Hungry has demonstrated.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There has been no difference since Carter. Carter was the one who started modern neoliberalism with the idea that inducing a recession would be a good thing to stop run-away inflation, so he worked with the fed to start one.

It went Carter, Reagan, CIA, Clinton. (or, in other words, CIA, CIA, CIA, CIA).

By then, we were cooked, truly no difference in neoliberalism from either party, the cruelty towards the average person domestic and abroad is some sort of special evil.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I don't know much about Carter's administration (Non-US here) can you give me more info on how he started a recession by working with the fed? I know he largely pushed "reaching across the aisle" mentality that is used for excusing all of the US government's actions since, but I don't know much about this recession.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Here it is, straight from 1980, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1980/03/15/carter-unveils-plan-to-fight-inflation/e4ec33d5-0060-4aa7-b7eb-b29770cd0434/

Read the whole thing, it talks about the predicted recession that these "reforms" were intended to bring about.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Do you have a version that isn't paywalled? I can't read that one without giving WatPo money unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Someone I follow(ed) on Mastodon was just trying to shame people who don't vote, because of the idea that "Trump is going to immediately round up all us trans people and throw us in camps if you don't vote Biden!!"

As far as I can tell, the claim seems entirely made up, and it feels almost malicious to be basing that entire decision around the idea that "Trump MIGHT come after ME hypothetically!!" rather than all of the people Biden has already thrown in camps and all of the people in Gaza that Biden has given his unconditional support to genociding

It feels downright selfish to still be pushing that "vote blue no matter who" bullshit for that reason, and they clearly haven't learned shit from 2016 and 2020

They're also still under the impression that people choose not to vote just so that they can "push the Democrats more progressive", when it's basically the opposite, people realize they can't push the Democrats left so they're choosing not to participate in the sham they call a "democracy", but I guess this is one of those people who can only see politics within the confines of the US electoral system

Edit: Not to mention all the other shit people have mentioned as having been actively worse under Biden, it makes it feels especially garbage and selfish that one is still pushing the idea of Biden being a human rights savior

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It's not true. Trump was President for 4 years, that didn't happen. It's histrionics.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Exactly, people still have this cartoonish idea of what a Trump presidency would be like as if we didn't have 4 years of seeing exactly what it would be like

People are like "but maybe he'll be worse this time!", and like that could be true, but that's an entirely different thing than making very specific assumptions about specific actions he's supposedly going to take based on no actual evidence, it's just fearmongering to try to coerce people into reelecting a president who has already been actively materially worse (it's as if everyone's forgotten how much trans rights in the US have already been backsliding under Biden's watch)

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Him proposing to end asylum for migrants is objectively worse than anything Trump did on the border.

He keeps saying there are no conditions on support for Isreal. No lib has been able to explain to me what is way worse than "unlimited unconditional funding"

We are currently drilling more oil than any nation in history anywhere ever.

It's literally just lip service and then when a reporter literally asks "are you planning on doing anything other than having conversations" the press secretary gets pissed

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago (1 children)

No lib has been able to explain to me what is way worse than “unlimited unconditional funding”

Direct involvement perhaps?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 8 months ago

I would love for a lib to suggest to me that's going to happen lol that might be even more disqualifying.

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