Trump’s narrative, despite being just a makeover of the political establishment, is that he’s anti-establishment. Democrats are just nakedly the political establishment with clown makeup pretending to be “progressive”. Trump’s message resonated with his audience, the Democrats’ message didn’t. Both of them are genocidal maniacs that are using nuclear weapons to hold the entire world hostage. Let’s keep our eyes on the target here.
He isn’t anti-establishment though, except that he’s more concerned with self aggrandizement than practical policy. Democrats are establishment that occasionally align with voter needs, Trump is 100% aligned with his own needs, which occasionally defy the establishment when there’s a conflict with his interests.
Again, this comes down to messaging, i.e. rhetoric. Not in content, but in vibes. The Democrats need to pay more attention to vibes, rhetoric, than content. You’re just repeating what I said with different words.
He’s not, but that’s his brand. And one of the few things he’s good at is selling his brand.
What you’ve got is a bunch of people fed up with the system in some pretty fundamental ways, many of which don’t even know how to voice their problems accurately. One side sells itself as anti-establishment (even though it’s not) and the other side is nakedly as establishment as can be (to the point that they’ll ratfuck primaries against anyone who rocks the boat even a little) but is very vocally progressive when they don’t have to actually do anything about it or when doing so won’t rock the boat even a little.
So you’re content with democrats just lying to get elected instead of making material changes in their policy that make people want to vote for them? You want them to be the better option than Republicans… by acting like Republicans, with the exact same policy, but it’s a woman or a POC doing the policy??
with the exact same policy, but it’s a woman or a POC doing the policy
That’s just objectively false. No, their policy isn’t good enough, but to pretend that it’s exactly the same is disingenuous.
The Democrats are always going to be controlled opposition, I just care about them beating MAGA long enough to develop an alternative that can actually replace them. I don’t vote for representation, the ones who represent me don’t have enough support to win yet. I’m voting for the easier-to-defeat enemy.
I don’t vote for representation, the ones who represent me don’t have enough support to win yet.
This is so self defeating. If every person that said this just voted their beliefs instead of spreading this ideology like a cancer, if the Democrats even have a party left after that, you would be able to use your bloc to pressure them into being everything you say they are.
They said the same shit when Bernie ran in the primaries “oh, he’s too old, he’s not electable!!” until they realized that Bernie was too popular and just rat fucked the primary instead. He wasn’t even running on the date of the primary and he still got half the votes that Biden did!!
You realize there are republicans that think this way too? It doesn’t only benefit democrats. Not all Republicans are fully behind Trump, but they’ll be damned if they vote for a democrat.
Parties win when people vote for them. That includes you. Stop spreading this self defeating, voter shaming ideology just to fucking lose elections because the democratic platform is hollow ineffective bullshit that the dems served up knowing you’ll fucking vote for it anyways.
If every person that said this just voted their beliefs instead of spreading this ideology like a cancer
So if every person just spontaneously decided to ignore history, human nature, and the mechanics of a first past the post election system, and each of their beliefs aligned perfectly to rally behind the same candidate? That stresses even the wildest suspension of disbelief.
if the Democrats even have a party left after that, you would be able to use your bloc to pressure them into being everything you say they are.
What exactly do I say they are?
And when has that ever happened? You can’t get a roomful of Leftists to agree on what the Left is, much less a national population of Leftists to agree on a specific course of action.
Not all Republicans are fully behind Trump, but they’ll be damned if they vote for a democrat.
And that’s why your course of action can’t work. The right wing is authoritarian, they unify behind a figurehead. Every Leftist voting their beliefs leads to dozens of uncoordinated splinter groups, too busy in-fighting to unify behind anyone who could defeat the lockstep of right wing voters. They don’t spend time fantasizing about impossible hypotheticals, they learn the mechanics of the game and play to win. They make concessions, choose a horse that can win, and unify.
Leftists are a minority. They don’t have to be, if they could focus on winning rhetoric to pull voters instead of hoping everyone just spontaneously agrees with them, but they’re too busy criticizing the ones who try to develop winning strategies because they fail all the Leftist purity tests. Republicans win because they vote for candidates they disagree with, because splitting the vote loses FPTP elections.
When the Left votes their beliefs, the right sweeps them every time. The Democrats don’t cave to pressure to move their platform to the fractured left, they go hunting for “moderates”. This is how we get Democrats catering to Cheney. Leftist appeal to ideological purity.
Parties win when enough people vote for them. You can’t beat propaganda with purity. You beat propaganda with propaganda.
They are not easier to defeat or someone would have done it in the last 40 years. They are sloppy and old but don’t think that it makes them any easier especially when they aim to represent the Status Quo.
I am not repeating what you said, we have fundamentally different understandings of this system. Trump and Biden are both puppets of an imperial machine. You are trying to play strategist for the Democrats, my interest is in ending the machine. You are under the illusion that Trump emerged out of left field and is operating of his own accord, I am aware that he’s just a slight rebranding of establishment policy made to look like some kind of wildcard.
Your understanding of my point is incorrect. I am under no such illusion. Your interest in “ending the machine” lacks praxis to accomplish that goal. My interest is in Democratic strategy only insofar that it is a stopgap solution to that very same goal. I have no interest in equivocating liberals and fascists. Certainly, the one begets the other, in the same way a tiger cub will become an adult tiger, but I am more confident in our ability to overcome a cub than an adult tiger.
I seek Democratic victory only insofar that I do not see a mature threat to the establishment, and I seek an establishment party which is easier to subvert in the meantime, while meaningful praxis matures. Slow descent into fascism is preferable to accelerated descent into fascism, because I do not believe that accelerationism is in the interest of the people. The risk of enduring fascism is too high.
Now kiss. We’re all on the same side here. Left infighting is what has doomed us all. Yes Trump is a disgusting capitalist bigot piece of shit, but that’s what the American people want. They may be too fucking dumb but they want the system to change and Trump is offering to flip the whole table.
Stop fucking fighting and let’s figure out what to do.
Once again, focus on rhetoric. The people want a compelling narrative. All the policy in the world means nothing if the people aren’t buying. The people are dumb, they want entertaining stories. Give them what they want, instead of convincing them they should want something else.
No, not really. That carries an incredible amount of personal risk. As bad as things are, they’re nowhere near get-shot-in-the-street-by-the-military-fighting-for-liberty bad yet.
The democrats and their stupid supporters suck all the air out of the room and frustrate real leftist change. They waste everyone’s time and energy on electoralism only to back stab their supporters. Fuck them. Let’s kill the democrat party once and for all they deserve to no longer be a political party after this election loss. They lost on purpose in service to capital. Liberals can’t get that through their thick fucking heads.
DEMOCRATS WOULD RATHER LOSE TO FASCISTS THAN APPEASE THE LEFT.
Repeat that a million times until it sinks through. They are a waste of time.
Let’s kill the democrat party once and for all they deserve to no longer be a political party
Maybe we should focus on killing the MAGA party first tho. What possible benefit is there in going from “bad party vs worse party” to “worse party vs countless splintered leftist factions”? Your order of operations is all wrong, if we’re going to kill a party, let’s focus on the actively fascist one first.
You don’t topple electoralism overnight, we need a functional alternative first. Otherwise you’re just handing control over to the fascists. Uncoordinated discontent isn’t going to cut it. We need actual organization with an actual plan of action. The time and energy “wasted” on electoralism is miniscule, there’s plenty available to back alternatives once a workable alternative is actually presented. Present it.
The fascist one is popular. You’re not going to kill it when the country was founded on the prototypes to fascism.
What’s needed is a real alternative that is the opposite of fascism and not just fascism lite. Why vote for the fascism lite party when you can just have the real thing?
Again, the fascism lite party would rather lose to the full blown fascists than cede any power to the left. the fascism lite party needs to be fully replaced by an anti fascist one if we’re gonna play electoralism.
The fascist one is popular. You’re not going to kill it when the country was founded on the prototypes to fascism.
So your response to a popular fascist party is to… destroy the only party with enough popularity to slow it down? Bold strategy, Cotton.
What’s needed is a real alternative that is the opposite of fascism and not just fascism lite.
Fully agreed, but maybe let’s build that before getting rid of the lite version. I’d rather fight a bear with a shotgun than a stick, but I’m not going to throw away my stick in the hope that I’ll just stumble upon a shotgun before the bear kills me. I’m swinging that stick with everything I’ve got up until the exact moment I have something better to replace it.
Trump’s narrative, despite being just a makeover of the political establishment, is that he’s anti-establishment. Democrats are just nakedly the political establishment with clown makeup pretending to be “progressive”. Trump’s message resonated with his audience, the Democrats’ message didn’t. Both of them are genocidal maniacs that are using nuclear weapons to hold the entire world hostage. Let’s keep our eyes on the target here.
He isn’t anti-establishment though, except that he’s more concerned with self aggrandizement than practical policy. Democrats are establishment that occasionally align with voter needs, Trump is 100% aligned with his own needs, which occasionally defy the establishment when there’s a conflict with his interests.
Again, this comes down to messaging, i.e. rhetoric. Not in content, but in vibes. The Democrats need to pay more attention to vibes, rhetoric, than content. You’re just repeating what I said with different words.
He’s not, but that’s his brand. And one of the few things he’s good at is selling his brand.
What you’ve got is a bunch of people fed up with the system in some pretty fundamental ways, many of which don’t even know how to voice their problems accurately. One side sells itself as anti-establishment (even though it’s not) and the other side is nakedly as establishment as can be (to the point that they’ll ratfuck primaries against anyone who rocks the boat even a little) but is very vocally progressive when they don’t have to actually do anything about it or when doing so won’t rock the boat even a little.
Correct, because, again, they are better at rhetoric/messaging/branding. Again, that’s what we need to be doing.
So you’re content with democrats just lying to get elected instead of making material changes in their policy that make people want to vote for them? You want them to be the better option than Republicans… by acting like Republicans, with the exact same policy, but it’s a woman or a POC doing the policy??
That’s just objectively false. No, their policy isn’t good enough, but to pretend that it’s exactly the same is disingenuous.
The Democrats are always going to be controlled opposition, I just care about them beating MAGA long enough to develop an alternative that can actually replace them. I don’t vote for representation, the ones who represent me don’t have enough support to win yet. I’m voting for the easier-to-defeat enemy.
This is so self defeating. If every person that said this just voted their beliefs instead of spreading this ideology like a cancer, if the Democrats even have a party left after that, you would be able to use your bloc to pressure them into being everything you say they are.
They said the same shit when Bernie ran in the primaries “oh, he’s too old, he’s not electable!!” until they realized that Bernie was too popular and just rat fucked the primary instead. He wasn’t even running on the date of the primary and he still got half the votes that Biden did!!
You realize there are republicans that think this way too? It doesn’t only benefit democrats. Not all Republicans are fully behind Trump, but they’ll be damned if they vote for a democrat.
Parties win when people vote for them. That includes you. Stop spreading this self defeating, voter shaming ideology just to fucking lose elections because the democratic platform is hollow ineffective bullshit that the dems served up knowing you’ll fucking vote for it anyways.
So if every person just spontaneously decided to ignore history, human nature, and the mechanics of a first past the post election system, and each of their beliefs aligned perfectly to rally behind the same candidate? That stresses even the wildest suspension of disbelief.
What exactly do I say they are?
And when has that ever happened? You can’t get a roomful of Leftists to agree on what the Left is, much less a national population of Leftists to agree on a specific course of action.
And that’s why your course of action can’t work. The right wing is authoritarian, they unify behind a figurehead. Every Leftist voting their beliefs leads to dozens of uncoordinated splinter groups, too busy in-fighting to unify behind anyone who could defeat the lockstep of right wing voters. They don’t spend time fantasizing about impossible hypotheticals, they learn the mechanics of the game and play to win. They make concessions, choose a horse that can win, and unify.
Leftists are a minority. They don’t have to be, if they could focus on winning rhetoric to pull voters instead of hoping everyone just spontaneously agrees with them, but they’re too busy criticizing the ones who try to develop winning strategies because they fail all the Leftist purity tests. Republicans win because they vote for candidates they disagree with, because splitting the vote loses FPTP elections.
When the Left votes their beliefs, the right sweeps them every time. The Democrats don’t cave to pressure to move their platform to the fractured left, they go hunting for “moderates”. This is how we get Democrats catering to Cheney. Leftist appeal to ideological purity.
Parties win when enough people vote for them. You can’t beat propaganda with purity. You beat propaganda with propaganda.
They are not easier to defeat or someone would have done it in the last 40 years. They are sloppy and old but don’t think that it makes them any easier especially when they aim to represent the Status Quo.
Easier than the other. And not quite so hostile to human rights.
The hostility makes them more obvious a target. You need only look around currently to see that.
I am not repeating what you said, we have fundamentally different understandings of this system. Trump and Biden are both puppets of an imperial machine. You are trying to play strategist for the Democrats, my interest is in ending the machine. You are under the illusion that Trump emerged out of left field and is operating of his own accord, I am aware that he’s just a slight rebranding of establishment policy made to look like some kind of wildcard.
Your understanding of my point is incorrect. I am under no such illusion. Your interest in “ending the machine” lacks praxis to accomplish that goal. My interest is in Democratic strategy only insofar that it is a stopgap solution to that very same goal. I have no interest in equivocating liberals and fascists. Certainly, the one begets the other, in the same way a tiger cub will become an adult tiger, but I am more confident in our ability to overcome a cub than an adult tiger.
I seek Democratic victory only insofar that I do not see a mature threat to the establishment, and I seek an establishment party which is easier to subvert in the meantime, while meaningful praxis matures. Slow descent into fascism is preferable to accelerated descent into fascism, because I do not believe that accelerationism is in the interest of the people. The risk of enduring fascism is too high.
Now kiss. We’re all on the same side here. Left infighting is what has doomed us all. Yes Trump is a disgusting capitalist bigot piece of shit, but that’s what the American people want. They may be too fucking dumb but they want the system to change and Trump is offering to flip the whole table.
Stop fucking fighting and let’s figure out what to do.
Once again, focus on rhetoric. The people want a compelling narrative. All the policy in the world means nothing if the people aren’t buying. The people are dumb, they want entertaining stories. Give them what they want, instead of convincing them they should want something else.
Is a fucking fist in the air and the rifle in the other attractive enough yet?
No, not really. That carries an incredible amount of personal risk. As bad as things are, they’re nowhere near get-shot-in-the-street-by-the-military-fighting-for-liberty bad yet.
The democrats and their stupid supporters suck all the air out of the room and frustrate real leftist change. They waste everyone’s time and energy on electoralism only to back stab their supporters. Fuck them. Let’s kill the democrat party once and for all they deserve to no longer be a political party after this election loss. They lost on purpose in service to capital. Liberals can’t get that through their thick fucking heads.
DEMOCRATS WOULD RATHER LOSE TO FASCISTS THAN APPEASE THE LEFT.
Repeat that a million times until it sinks through. They are a waste of time.
Maybe we should focus on killing the MAGA party first tho. What possible benefit is there in going from “bad party vs worse party” to “worse party vs countless splintered leftist factions”? Your order of operations is all wrong, if we’re going to kill a party, let’s focus on the actively fascist one first.
You don’t topple electoralism overnight, we need a functional alternative first. Otherwise you’re just handing control over to the fascists. Uncoordinated discontent isn’t going to cut it. We need actual organization with an actual plan of action. The time and energy “wasted” on electoralism is miniscule, there’s plenty available to back alternatives once a workable alternative is actually presented. Present it.
The fascist one is popular. You’re not going to kill it when the country was founded on the prototypes to fascism.
What’s needed is a real alternative that is the opposite of fascism and not just fascism lite. Why vote for the fascism lite party when you can just have the real thing?
Again, the fascism lite party would rather lose to the full blown fascists than cede any power to the left. the fascism lite party needs to be fully replaced by an anti fascist one if we’re gonna play electoralism.
So your response to a popular fascist party is to… destroy the only party with enough popularity to slow it down? Bold strategy, Cotton.
Fully agreed, but maybe let’s build that before getting rid of the lite version. I’d rather fight a bear with a shotgun than a stick, but I’m not going to throw away my stick in the hope that I’ll just stumble upon a shotgun before the bear kills me. I’m swinging that stick with everything I’ve got up until the exact moment I have something better to replace it.
We need to get one or both of the two major parties to move to the left from their current position.
Neither seems interested.
They won’t, capitalism itself needs to be overthrown. They’re both the party of capitalism.