Wow. The number of negative comments here surprises me. There actually has been a concerted effort of both parties for decades to embrace Wall Street and neoliberalism. Bernie Sanders was blocked from running for President by the Democratic Party. He could have won against Trump in 2016 if the Democratic Party hadn’t betrayed what many Democrats and Independents were saying was the popular trend. Hillary Clinton was a neoliberal. Her mentor was Henry Kissinger - a war criminal. Obama was a believer in the Chicago School of Economics - the home of Milton Friedman’s philosophy that was embraced by Reagan and began destroying everything that FDR had enacted.
We must tell the truth about the Democratic Party if real change is ever going to happen - and this author is speaking factual truth about what the majority of elected Democrats allowed to happen that harmed democracy. Even if most elected Democrats didn’t actually “want” democracy’s take-down to happen - they didn’t actively stop it from happening. As has been said - “Democrats bring a soup ladle to a knife fight”. Major opportunities to counter fascism’s rise have been met by Democrats holding a soup ladle.
Two points here: (1) the growth of the rightwing shout-o-sphere through radio (Rush Limbaugh etc.) then through Fox News and social media (with algorithms that favor the most incendiary content) is being totally overlooked here, even though it helps create the impression that the Dems have just been standing still or "bringing a soup ladle to a gun fight." Lies have been overwhelming the truth for a long time now, which is always going to hurt the side that actually believes in and fights for democracy. (2) Whatever you believe about Bernie Sanders vs. Hillary Clinton, this equating neoliberalism with a take-down of democracy is just on the face of it, ridiculous. Hillary Clinton and centrist Dems were not in the business of taking down democracy. Fight neoliberalism for all you're worth but don't say that makes Dems equal to Repubs, who are right now propping up a dictator.
I agree with you, neoliberalism is not good for democracy. I disagree that 90s and 2000s embrace of neoliberalism makes Democrats equal to Republicans. This is a really dangerous viewpoint. It will make apathetic voters even more apathetic in 2026. "Both parties are EXACTLY the same - so why should I vote?" Spreading this idea will definitely help lead us to tyranny.
We have already arrived at tyranny, and Democrats as well as Republicans are funded by the same donors.
Neither party cares about us any more.
It's sad that you defend the Democrats. They don't deserve your loyalty.
Moreover, we aren't going to vote our way out of this. We would be better off if everyone boycotted the polls, because that would expose the scam that they are. The only thing that voting does is to tell the establishment that you are still mesmerized by their message.
Agree with most of that, like "can't vote our way out of this", the worthlessness of the DP, etc. True enough.
BUT. No, we had not arrived at tyranny yet... until Trump 2.0. It really is a different ballgame now, and a LOT worse. As much as we rightfully hate the DP, it is no longer possible to say "both parties are the same", because they are not. The current admin is rabidly fascist and destructive, in a way that we've never seen before in history I believe.
That too, is my fundamental problem with this argument. Yes, Dems have supported much the same thing as Republicans. The difference is that while Dems tried to counter neoliberalism and nihilism, the right just wants to take it all down with nothing to replace it. They don’t care who gets hurt in the interim. In fact they don’t really care about anyone. Biden was the closest thing we had to reversing things but met resistance from everywhere. Sis it cost? Sure. But he tried to give Americans back some of their agency. Repubs? No fucking way!
I think the point the author was making was not that Democrats were actively trying to destroy democracy, like Trump and his GOP sycophants are, but that their basic agreement with the principles of neoliberalism and “free trade” as the US defined it are what got us into the position we are in now, by hollowing out our middle class. Not that there is no difference, but that there is enough similarity in each party’s core values that Democrats have not been offering an alternative akin to FDR’s New Deal since LBJ was POTUS. Biden took steps to move in that direction again, but now DJT is trying to illegally take all Biden’s efforts away.
They are on the same team and have always had the same plans. The democrats are the ones that introduced neoliberalism with Carter. Then they put neoliberalism on steroids, with Clinton. To top it off, Biden was arguably the worst of all them. This has always been a class war. The American public has always voted against their own best interests!
Honestly, I have started to believe that FDR introduced neoliberalism through the FHA. Building up people’s willingness to acquire debt to the private sector. Building people’s connection to the markets. And of course building racist segregation.
100% I agree! People need to reread original post ...& stop now & then to reflect for 1-2mins; take a deep breath, then read some more. ("Lather, rinse, repeat.")
There's a lot to take in from that article & the brain needs brief, silent breaks in order to sort, digest & "file" the info, in way you can recall the items easily! If ya' read in "defensive mode", it's like shutting the door & trying to hear from outside. Not much really gets thru that way.
I also to encourage everyone to read your comments, observations too. Very well stated points to think about & maybe more. And your conclusion that we have to do this ourselves is spot-on! IF WE start, maybe our leaders will follow? That's often the way it happens when all is said & done. Some of our leaders have gotten used to having EZ life and cushy jobs with benefits we can only dream of! Too cushy, for ppl only there 9 mos of the year. (With more recesses than a 1st grader!) I'm lucky ~ my Representative WORKS when he's home on recess. That's when he meets with us about issues we need assist with & ongoing things in Congress. ((🗣️ Shout out to Rep. Mark DeSaulnier [D•CA] ~ We appreciate U! ☀️))
SCOTUS too, works 9 mos, then they're off for 3mos. solid vacay. Alas, seems they're a little too "chummy" with ppl they shouldn't share vacays with, accept gifts from, if cases are coming B4 The Court!
Only if We The People KEEP speaking out & being seen exercising our right to protest... organizing "Buy Nothing!" days... & There's some talk of possible "strike days" where no one goes to work; but we don't want people to be fired cuz' of doing it, right?!
Change comes from the ground up!! Newsmedia & politicians tend to ignore it/us at 1st ~ they wait to see if people keep it up & if #s grow!
1st "HANDS OFF!" protest day seems went well, esp for 1st time out! (Peaceful out here, in the Burbs of CA)
I like having that common theme..."Hands Off!" Many things to choose from that go with "Hands Off" theme! ....& different areas of Country, State, have their own issues of importance! 🗣️ Speak out!
Let those in power know that we aren't happy with what we see...& don't see! Need to have a couple more of those "Hands Off" protests as weather gets nicer & people are out & about to see it, join us! (IMHO)
Any electeds that show NO interest in our concerns, may need to be replaced with less-jaded ones that have enthusiasm, good ideas & a moral compass that works!?
I strongly feel that we need to have a viable 3rd Party, to break things up in Congress & at State level too! We have too much OG & they hate changes -- need fresh energy & ideas!! Plus, a 3rd Party would thwart the 2-Party, party line votes & stagnancy that often are status quo now.
None of this will change if we wait for those too comfy in Office to do something! We see that in their collective silence right now - where only certain people speak up for us, but so few that we can probably name them all!
The hardest thing to change is what MOST needs to change! Private donor money (unlimited) has corrupted our politics & elections to where regular voters hardly matter!? When a guy can spend 200+ million dollars to get someone elected & is then given free access to all of our personal info & gov't computer codes... When they're put in charge of dismantling & defunding our gov't agencies - no oversight & accountability... THAT'S a BIG PROBLEM!
DOGE is NOT just rooting out fraud & waste & reporting it to Congress! Not at all! Why aren't those we elected to Congress doing anything about this stuff? Just acting like it's normal, or not their job?!
DOGE (that I call douche) has way too much info they have no right to (on us) ...& They're tech goons who now have the coding from gov't computers! Who's to say they won't abuse that? They can rewrite computer coding to do anything they want & we won't even know!! They can use our personal info they now have to do BAD things! THEN WHAT?!? This is just a VERY BAD idea! Nothing good will come from this... & While it's going on, the guy supposedly in charge, is GOLFING again, not even IN Washington DC!! Certainly NOT keeping an eye on things!
Yeah, we sure do need changes! Fast! And we have to use our voices, protest & "make a fuss" cuz' changes come from the bottom up. If we can build on this & not let people get complacent we may have a chance to "stop this bus from going over the cliff". Maybe. I hope & pray we can save it ourselves & leaders will join us... to a point. They sure like all that private money making them rich! But, cross that bridge when we get there. Build 1st!
Let's stick together as Americans who love their Country & Freedom, & aren't willing to give it up w/o a fight!🥹
Not only do we need a new party, we need to “86” the 2 existing parties. They work for themselves and billionaires, not the common American. However, if Citizens (Billionaires) United is not torn asunder, nothing we do will make a difference.
Do you think we have a chance at overturning Citizens United? That was done under Obama's watch. I've been a democrat all my adult life. but I see the forest for the trees. I've said "The only difference between Democrats and Republicans is that a Democrat will take you out to dinner before they fuck you." Anyone who is not speaking out and mobilizing a call to action is complicit.
We have ZERO chance of overturning Citizens (Billionaires) United as our government currently exists. The corrupt Supremes will make sure of that.
But, until we do manage to overturn one of the worst fucking rulings to ever come out of the Supreme’s fascist court, our government will remain a snakepit of venom and despair.
The billionaires want the poor, the infirm, the foreign, to DIE. This is the “degrowth by distress” process they have signed up for.
As citizens we must build a better informed electorate. This post is a significant beginning. We must reclaim We The People and we must be the messengers and we must go searching for our leaders, not our “leaders” searching for us. Get rid of the Rupert Murdoch’s in the world who clearly know the power of brainwashing and sanewashing.
Nah, I call BS on this. The whole point of Dems is to maintain a democracy regardless. The entire admin. of 47 is comprised of wht supremists/wht nationalists, far rt. extreme Xstian nationalists & Neo reactionists. They all have some commonalities for the end goal they are trying to achieve (such as dismantling the entire system & putting those like them in their place, getting rid of the universities, all things “woke”, immigrants, LGBTQ+, etc.) This is what is binding them to stick together in a grp. effort to make this once in a lifetime chance for them happen. Heritage Foundation has had this goal since it was founded in the 70’s! I highly doubt that any Dems want a monarchy w/no real laws or regulations on anything & womens rights taken away, etc.
If I knew this was coming in the 1980s, watched it grow in the 90s, saw it explode with Bush & Cheney and finally melt down with Trump, how is it the Democratic Party never did? Did they stand against trickle down economics, deregulation, gutting the Glass-Steagel Act? Did they vote against Citizens United, the Iraq War, and all the other right-wing crap we’ve been fed? No! They went along with all of it. They were bullied into submission way before Trump got here!
‘If I knew … how is it the Democratic Party never did’
Arguably, the Democratic Party is the oldest, continuously functioning political party on Earth.
It knew. The top leadership most assuredly knew. It was very aware of the danger. It understood and to this hour it well knows that as the GOP leads the charge against civil rights and liberties, that its own unique contribution to this imperial program is to contain, misdirect, blunt, divide, isolate, cripple, contradict and in any other means needed and/or available to NULLIFY the rising worker revolution against war, tyranny, oppression and fascism.
The Democratic Party embodies and expresses the tendency of counterrevolutionary reaction.
Robert, as much as the Democrats despise the GOP, they are terrified of the working class. They are terrified of being found out. They are terrified of the well deserved justice they know the global proletariat will bring upon them.
Revolution or counterrevolution — that is the issue. wsws.org
Maybe. But I doubt they “despise” the GOP. They seem to think they can just wait them out until the next election. You’re right about them being terrified of the working class. Ever since they’ve had to grovel for dark money they’ve become Republican “lite!”
This should go in an article, and I may yet do that.
Here’s the thing Robert …
The Capitalist system of social organization consists of three social classes.
The bourgeois [Ownership class] is 1% of the population. These people own factories, fields, forests, mines, corporations of technology, energy, communication, logistics, etc. That’s how they make their wealth. The GOP is the party of the top 1%.
The petit bourgeois [Banking/Finance class] is the Next 9% after the top 1%. These people make their wealth from returns on investments, stocks, bonds, sell-offs, buybacks, quantitative easing, speculation, etc. This is the Democratic Party tendency.
The proletariat [working class] is the 90%. They neither own companies nor have discretionary capital to invest. They appear in the workplace daily to sell their ability to work on what terms Capitalists may allow. Proletarians live hand to mouth and they have no party.
All Marxist analysis flows from the fact of three social classes, not two. The material interests of all three classes is diametrically opposed to those of the other two classes. This causes irresolvable antagonisms and class struggles, each against the other two.
Very critical points on ‘ruling class’ identity.
Neither the top 1% nor the Next 9% can rule alone. The 9% [the Clintons, Obamas, etc.], live very comfortably; they are solidly upper-middle class. But they have nowhere near the wealth and social prestige to rule alone.
The top 1% on the other hand has immense wealth and prestige rivaling royalty. But as a class, the bourgeois is razor thin. It simply hasn’t the people needed to rule. Without the petit bourgeois, the top 1% would be swept away literally overnight.
If either is to ‘rule,’ there must be an alliance between them. But it isn’t easy since their interests are contradictory. Each craves what the other has. The result is an alliance of necessary but mutual hostility. The 1% and Next 9% together ARE the ruling class.
The hostility seen on every issue is based on contradictory class interests. When the 1% denounced Democrats for ‘leftist extremism, that is a demand for ceding more to the 1%.
This explains why policies are continuous even if admin’s change. It also explains why the 90% has no political representation. Elections are an ‘in-house contest’ between these two classes, these two ruling class factions, to decide who gets the lion share of the spoils, which the proletarian class creates.
That hostility between the two social classes has broken into the open reveals the extent to which the alliance and the institutions of governance have eroded.
It matters that the petit bourgeois, Democratic Party of the Next 9% is a minor party. The two great social classes are the bourgeois and the proletariat. The petit bourgeois Democratic tendency has sometimes adopted from the proletarian tendency, and other times from the bourgeois tendency,
However the wealth of the Next 9% after the top 1% is dependent on the bourgeoisie. When you see Democrats offering meek, tepid, cuckold-ish replies to bourgeois malfeasance, that’s why.
The two bourgeois parties try feverishly to hide these realities from the public. When the GOP chides Democrats as ‘socialists’ that attempts conveys to the 90% that ‘this is your so-called ‘socialism,’ while the Democrats try to cling to power by thwarting the rise of genuine socialism.
I mostly agree with, other than a few particulars & wish I had time now to discuss, but my cats are ganging up on me & the raccoons outside are impatient little guys! Husband be getting grumpy soon. I hope we can take this up again soon, as knowing to whom we protest, how they think & how to get thru to them, matters! No matter their grouping, our sheer numbers (when big enuff) make them take notice that there's a rising swell of "the masses" & they'd be wise not to ignore us!😏
The dems are quite possibly, more responsible for where we are than the republicans. I credit you for realizing the dems aren’t going to save us, but you’ve yet to realize, they’ve never cared about the common people. It’s a lie, and they are just as corrupt and evil as the republicans. The two parties always have one goal, divide and conquer. As long as you vote for one side or the other, you’re doing what they want. The democrats aren’t good guys who get bullied. They are possibly more evil than the republicans. Get past the propaganda and see the whole truth!
‘They don’t despise them. They are on the same team! You’re wrong about trying to differentiate the two … They are the same and owned by the same people!’
Our society thinks in ‘either/or’ terms. That’s the easiest way to shut down someone [I hasten to add, ‘that’s not what you did here at all;’ and I’m quite certain we agree] is to think in ‘either/or’ terms. That thinking is used so discussion can be ended quickly!
But it is also possible to think in terms of ‘this/but also,’ or ‘this/but at the same time.’ We have the ‘but the flip side of the coin is.’
This gives better, more nuanced analyses.
‘Differences’ do exist. But be it corporate tax cuts or small business deductions—they are NOTHING to working people. But I learn about them so that when raised, I’m ready to hammer such claims. I want to know both party positions better than their supporters.
I want to know what counter-claims are coming when I speak. But I’m not preparing yet another betrayal of working people.
Where you say ‘team,’ I speak of a mutually necessary yet hostile alliance. Your term stresses the ‘bipartisan gang-up’ effect. My term, ‘‘alliance,’ stresses the necessity of bipartisanship to rule at all. This matters because it shows the 90% its strategy.
Since neither can rule without what the other provides—we break the alliance.
Mind, it is not enough to break. There must be structure to replace the old. The policies needed, I believe, are found here:
You say in your longer post that Democrats are ‘quite possibly’ more responsible for where we are than the republicans. I don’t entertain that as a ‘possibility;’ I regard it as an objectively established fact. The long and short of it is—ONLY the anti-democratic complicity of the horribly misnamed Democratic Party has allowed the rise of the fascistic right. The DNC did this, and none of this will be forgotten. Democratic Party acquiescence to authoritarianism will be revisited and an answer will be given.
I have to agree. Pretty pathetic excuse for "opposition party". There ARE a handful or 2 of exceptions, but it does seem that the Party itself & OG just keep their collective head down, with re-election & staying in power their main goal. Disappointing! 🇺🇲Unless & until we have a viable 3rd (maybe even 4th?) Party to "mix things up a bit", this is all we have.
In order to bring in a 3rd Party, we'd have to REMOVE ALL private money from our elections so they could compete with the bought & paid-for ones we already have. Other (mostly European I think) democracies have done that already. Removed donor $$ & have more than just 2 Parties. They quickly realized that democracy & private donor $$ is NOT compatible! We can easily see the corruption & greed that private donor money has wrought. 🇺🇲Whether or not we bring in a 3rd Party to break-up the stalemate/paralysis that's afflicted Congress for too long, WE STILL NEED TO REMOVE PRIVATE DONOR MONEY FROM OUR POLITICS/ELECTIONS!!!🇺🇲
Of course, Congress won't pass such a law ~ they're the ones who benefit from all that money lavishly given to their campaign & PACS, that somehow makes its way into their overstuffed pockets!😡
And, "forget it" being done by Exec Order under this Prez!! He's barely 3mos into his term & has used 100 EOs to RULE AS A DICTATOR!🤬 He can't read or understand the big words in an EO, but sure can scrawl his name across 'em to get whatever he wants! (Why do we pay for a Congress?) He does everything same way as any dictator. (...& nobody stops him?!? Really?!)
IF...IF..we come out of this with a democracy still intact, we must scrutinize🧐 & elect someone that has sworn to do those things by EO, immediately upon taking Office!! Those who've gotten so fat off that hog will object, fight dirty & more, against us. But, 1st let us see IF we still have democracy!! That is NOT the plan of "the Project", nor the MAGA/GOP!🤨
Should we survive this dictator & his henchmen + have any fair elections, we MUST make these things happen ASAP!! Until then, we still have work to do! Using our only power - our huge #s - we must protest, speak up & not give up! It seems that leaders come about AFTER "the people" make it impossible not to! (Huh! - curious, that.)
It's easier for our Sens & Reps to stand up & fight for us if they can say they're hearing from ALOT of constituents about something. We gotta' make some noise... multiple times, but PLEASE, keep it peaceful! Tomorrow, Sat, 4-19-25 we're protesting again to say,
"Hands Off Our_____!"
Please find a local 1 & Join Us for couple hours! Signs are good - pick your topic - but a sign isn't necessary. JUST COME!! 😉Meet your neighbors. Make new friends.🥹Stand up & be counted!✌️
Bye for now...animals are hungry & I got a sign to make B4 Noon tomorrow.🌞
Go to the head of the class. Democrats haven’t had a real leader since LBJ. . yes, that’s an arguable point but at least he knew how to arm twist and put up a street fight when needed. Every Democratic president since has rolled over, Clinton, Obama, even Joe only went half way even after the SC gave him a mandate to clean house during his last 100 days or so. The Democratic Party lost it’s shit when a real Democrat, a real Liberal showed up in the person of Bernie Sanders and they sandbagged him.
Much of what is said in this piece is true and because it’s true it’s hard to swallow, hard to accept. NAFTA raped the working class and CU put a knife in the back of Representative Democracy which is now effectively dead. The America most of us grew up in, those born between 1940 and 1990 is gone and it’s not coming back thanks mainly to Republican obsession with power and control and Democratic Party aligning with the financial and intellectual elites while hiding behind the smoke screen of “regulation” of Corporate America for “our” betterment, or “protection” as it were. This is what an angry, ignorant and misinformed does, it elects authoritarian leaders to “fix it”. Unfortunately for America the authoritarians elected are complete amateurs, a reflection of electorates own ignorance. The wheel of history is turning and not in a positive way. Bucks up.
In short, eliminate any hint of mass, proletarian class struggle, and base the appeal on identity politics to the benefit of a thin sliver of privileged people with 6-digit salaries per annum.
That is not the program of the 90%, and insistence to the contrary can only demonstrate the point.
Conclusion: Workers everywhere must conduct their own struggle through independent action arising from new organizations led by workers themselves.
Working class struggle looks like this SEP 2025 New Year Statement.
Ask yourself what the Democratic Party has published that looks like this in the last half century.
How can you live in reality and think this statement is true. You’re willingly ignorant and a useful idiot. The government loves people like you, very easily manipulated!!
You're both right about this, but we can blame the Dems for pretty consistently rolling over on their backs over the last forty five years and letting Republicans steamroll right over them time and again.
They just don't really stand for anything beyond getting re-elected. That means getting big campaign donations from Wall St. and capitulating to the right in exchange. Maybe now they'll get the hint and return to the party of the working class a la FDR.
BS. They stand for people and rights, and acceptance. It amazes me that so many can indict the Dems and not put it squarely where it belongs. Go back in history and look at how the GOP has acted over history since becoming the GOP. White Supremacy, exclusion, class warfare, anti-worker, money, money , money, limited oversight. This goes back to the time of Dixiecrats.
Yes, but the Dems lost their way when Reagan got elected. The so called "Reagan Revolution" shifted the whole country (stupidly) to the right. A majority of Americans drank the "trickle down" Kool-Aid and the Democratic party was at a loss as to how to deal with it. So it responded by also shifting right. That's what the "new kind of Democrat" meant when Clinton won.
And what did Clinton do? "Welfare as we know it is >over<!". So much for standing for people and rights. Democrats have bent over backwards to appear reasonable and "bipartisan", while the GOP was lobbing explosives hidden in their mudballs.
...and B4 they were GOP they were the Whigs...a Party so bad they had to cease to exist. But, members just regrouped (as slimy things often do) & gave themselves a new name. Same slimy stuff tho, it seems.
"Scum always rises to the top of a stagnant pond."
We need to remove the private donor money from politics /elections & make serving in Congress a PUBLIC SERVICE job again, not a way to get rich & obtain/retain power...which can swell the heads of some people.
‘Took a long time for Republicans wealthy and Christian nationalists to set this up…’
Thereby indicating that this glorious, Democratic Party had every opportunity in which to establish a permanent education campaign, to re-engage those at risk of absorption into our distinctively US fascistic movement, to establish venues through which to promote civic understanding, and to tool and prepare the public to resist this rising tendency. Every opportunity.
Indeed, I have questions on that as well! Actually, it infuriates me that SOME (I don't think all, but at least SOME) had to know about the rising wht. nationalist movement cloaked in a priest's robe! The fact that they didn't speak out is inexcusable! I don't necessarily believe they were "in on something" when it comes to that, but I tend to think that they felt that if they were to publicly denounce conservatives, it would make them look really bad to the public & cost them votes. The "avg. Amer. person" out there is somewhat unaware of the topic of underground movements like wht. nationalists, or don't take it very seriously because they think it's a super sm. % of the population & it would stay that way. Others think it's crazy-talk to even imagine people would be that extreme to take radical actions (not as much now, but in the 80's/90's). For ex. if I were to tell my mother about this in the 80's, she'd prob. laugh & think I've been watching too many movies, etc. & shrug me off. Because the far. rt. hides behind Christianity, to denounce them makes it looks like you are slamming the religion & making wild accusations about it (which they know, & is why they use religion as a shield). I highly doubt Dems would even dare to touch that, because the blowback would be lethal to their party. I think the only reason a few are hinting at it now, or being more vocal like Jasmine Crockett is because the general public is becoming aware of it. It's slightly safer to bring it up now. The far. rt. will still deny it of course! Still, someone should have done something as a warning. Maybe word it differently? It's BS that a lot of people are just finding out now. I despise politics & never followed it much my whole life until the last few yrs. I had never even heard of Heritage Foundation, etc., & I'm not the only one. For months I brought them up on Instagram, etc. & tons of people insisted they didn't exist & were a lie made up by the Dems to bash Reps pre-election. Same for Proj. 2025. They have a website, yet nobody wanted to believe it was true! I tend to think a lot of people are in shock still & are having a hard time realizing what's going on.
I think your key phrase is "I despise politics & never followed it much" which means that you left politics to take care of itself. This, I think, is the mistake many Americans made and they are now reaping the results.
For every privilege one enjoys, there is also a duty. For the privilege of living in a democracy, there is a duty of civic engagement.
This is the mistake you and many others made. You want to live in a democracy but you're not willing to do the hard and dirty work of civic engagement, or "following politics."
Well, FYI when I wasn’t interested in politics, I was a TEENAGER IN HIGH SCHOOL & then college, so as a teen, it’s not something we normally are concerned about & most are living w/their parents w/no bills. My concern was studying & getting good grades & that is what my parents wanted me to do & pressed me on. Neither of my parents discussed politics w/me or each other (that I ever saw). Maybe they did it in private, but I was not taught about it or pressed to learn or be concerned about it. In this current time, I would think it might be discussed more in the home? I don’t know-I cannot speak for other parents. I understand what you are getting at, but it’s a bit off base because I wasn’t even a legal adult & that was decades ago-way before the internet, social media & cell phones existed. Maybe instead of trying to shame people when you don’t know their story or background, you should be supportive of whatever effort they are doing NOW. Considering that what is happening now is what The Heritage Foundation has planned to do since 1973, I’m not so sure that me knowing about politics as a teen would have stopped the current situation.
Gosh, that's funny. I remember Adlai Stephenson running against Dwight Eisenhower for the presidency in 1952 and I was 6 years old at the time.
I was interested in politics when I was in high school because those were the days of Avalon, when JFK was president. I was 17 and in high school when he was shot. I was 21 when I went to San Francisco and dropped out and protested against the Vietnam War.
I guess it's just where you choose to put your energy.
I suggest the concern here is that the petit-bourgeoisie Next 9% Party after the Top 1% resents loss of that support.
I suggest that the Democratic Party of the Next 9% has no conception of the depth of disgust or the extent to which they are despised.
Further, I have no doubt whatsoever that if lead Democrats DID grant this, they would IMMEDIATELY side openly with Republican Top 1% leaders in order to crush the rising worker rebellion.
Both parties must be dissolved, their assets and membership lists seized, their leaders seized and put on trial for crimes against humanity, crimes of war against peace, crimes against the people who constitute the United States, and for genocide.
Party members must, for the rest of the natural lives, be precluded from civic participation.
Unfortunately, our system runs now on legalized corruption. Dems can’t run campaigns without the billionaire donors. This is the poison.
I see this in my volunteer development/fundraising work too. Organizations that rely on public donations must cater to the very wealthy if they want significant money. There is no way to compete otherwise.
We badly need campaign finance reform. And its shocking to me that the big money is not trying to perpetuate the system that created it, getting behind Democrats opposing Trump. I guess promises of tax cuts and shrunken government outweigh the overturning of Constitutional government somehow
Exactly. We desperately need campaign finance reform. The problem is, only congress can do it, but nobody in either chamber, on either side of the aisle, wants to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
Yes they can! But it's going to take everyone who believes in the Constitution and Democracy to help them. Call Representatives on both sides. Mass mail postcards to the Office of the President, Supreme Court and every member of Congress. Let's load up those bags and boxes with facts. If you can buy a subscription in here or make a donation you can mail a Postcard!
Democrats could reject donations from wealthy donors but I’m pretty sure they would fail even more miserably than they do today.
Republicans have big donors dropping hundreds of millions on their campaigns and are in competition with Democrats. This is mostly done via PACs and outside control of politicians regardless.
This buys media coverage and influence that moves elections.
I wish it were not so and don’t have any good answers on this. But identifying the poison is the first step in treating it, seems to me.
A party must serve its constituents. The DP constituency is the 6-digit salary union bosses. They not only sell out the working class, but they work tirelessly to oppose and repress those whose dues money pays union salaries.
The DP is equally reactionary, corrupt and beyond all redemption as their GOP counterparts.
No worker has anything invested in the DO or its orbiting satellite organizations, and only the completely confused, disoriented and demoralized will pretend otherwise.
There is NO WAY FORWARD that does not include a final and irrevocable break with the sworn enemies of the working class called the Democratic Party.
Actually, democrats can’t. As I noted, the Democratic Party is a petit bourgeois tendency. As such, its interests are diametrically opposed to the [big] bourgeois AND the proletarian class alike. This is inescapable.
MOREOVER, no class conscious worker will trust the democrats or the Democratic Party to pursue its interests. That won’t happen.
‘Reformism’ is a proven failure. The whole working class — the 90% — stands to make an irresolvable break with the Democratic Party.
Yeah, no. I believe a lot of things. That dems in politics are millionaires and know they can ride this nonsense out probably. They lack a sense of urgency about Trump and Musk. I'd sooner believe they just don't know what to do, then they are somehow complicit. Way to take away all hope author of this piece. Way to go.
Thanks for reading the piece, Linda. There is still hope. I'd reckon there will always be hope. But I think the next two years will be our best moment to demand change. I've got a lot of pieces coming out on this substack and the podcast. I hope you'll follow along. I'll be getting to the "how do we fix it part" eventually.
No it doesn't. Silence is a Strong Man/Woman standing against the infallacies of our Democracy. Silent Listeners accomplish more than any yelling and screaming man/woman. Al Green was told not to stand by the Democratic Party. If you didn't watch the shit show on Tuesday, you should pull it up on YouTube. I truly believe unlike this Author the Democrats are gathering every lie Man baby has said. You could tell he was angry that they sat in Silence. He was angry they were not cheering for him. He was angry because he knows he was spewing bloated lie after lie and he knows they knew it. He was angry because he wants everyone to bow down to him and they quietly refused. I have to have hope that a day of reward is coming for the USA. When one of our Allies, Trudeau tells Americans Man baby is dangerous, it should be heard!
Thank you for the clarity. The democrats are the victims, along with the American people, of the most successful conspiracy of all time. Since 1895, conservatives and libertarians have, through the media, universities and later think tanks, spread a philosophy of capitalism good, govt bad, free market good, regulation bad and the trifecta of capitalism = freedom = Christianity. And it worked. Reagan was their best attempt until Trump came along and now that America is doomed where are the democrats, other than a couple of outspoken young black women. They are sitting and politely clapping while Trump lies consistently. The democrats are partly responsible for this mess and they will not be the solution.
Third party, but voting alone was never going to save us from the oligarchy. It’s going to take an effort from the people in actively fighting the rich. No partisan politics and recognizing it’s a class war!
mad at the truth? the truth is divugers law means third parties wo implosion of another big oarty to replace it impossible; the solution is there in your face but you deny the truth because it doesnt fit your accelerationist fascism enabling agenda bye bye
The worst thing the apathy of our country has ever done is to let the anti trust laws of T. Roosevelt go dormant and forget that the Justice Department has an actual mandate to break up corporations that get too big. If Trump thinks he’s the coming of the 2nd McKinley, who will be our Teddy Roosevelt? (It certainly won’t be tRumps VP)
“Democrats *worship* the market as much as Republicans do.”
Precisely. It was acceptable when firms like McKinsey and Bain came in and laid off private-sector workers without government safeguards. Why should governance be any different if it’s held to the same standard? That’s the norm they’ve allowed to crystallize as a result of neglect.
It’s actually the reason for the decline of ‘democracies’ all over the world: not a problem of democracy at all, but of its outsourced privatised replacement… which has been dancing down the aisle hand in hand with the rich (both companies and individuals) who have been pretty much let off paying tax. Even though everything they have, everything they do, rests firmly on the back of the society they don’t want to contribute to. Indeed, they use more of the resources than anyone else - more of the roads, the airports, the education systems that provide their surgeons and their engineers and their plumbers and their lawyers and their policemen and the armies that help them hold on to it all…
The unholy myth of the ‘self-made man’.
But I will admit it that the US does seem to have bred a particularly virulent form of this. In Europe and Australia we fortunately still see taxes as a mutual benefit society that allows us to have the things we could NEVER afford otherwise, and so we generally object only to the rich not paying their share. But when a few of us were talking recently to some countrymen who have now spent a couple of decades in the US working as surgeons, we were all shocked by their belief that paying taxes was “taking away their hard-earned money.” And they were equally shocked when we asked them what they would buy with the tax cuts they wanted - a hospital? Or a road? Or perhaps a school? A university?
It seems to me that only thing that trickles down from neoliberalism is not riches, but a grandiose sense of entitlement. It’s all been sustained by the utterly profligate use of fossil-fuel energy, but sooner or later the bubble will burst.
Oddly, as we know from innumerable studies worldwide, people are actually happier with rather less “stuff”, and rather more society! With volunteering and working with others, rather than locking themselves away and watching Fox News. So: what is it that scares us so much about jabbing a stake through the heart of the vampire? I’ve seen that vampire rise, and suck all the joy out of everything. I’m hoping I will see it die again… (and I DO NOT want a long life! 😹)
Instead of attacking the one decent party we have, why don’t you make some constructive recommendations of what we can do to stop this fascist coup? We’re waiting!
I’m getting there but part of the journey is me making a case that there is no longer “one decent party”. Big pice coming Monday. Then more after that. I’m setting the stage for where we are now before I get into the how we get out.
Democrats have as much to gain as Republicans do. Haven't you noticed several Dem governor's already changing their stance. Polis in Colorado and Newsom in California. They want the same thing Republicans want just want to do it a nicer way.
I simply refuse to believe this nonsense. And this is from someone who has been the boots on the ground in my county. The biggest problem with democrats is they still want to play nice, they still believe in fairness and equality.
They’ve taken the bait numerous times by trying to champion and protect ALL people.
And by doing so, they were painted by the degenerate and intentional brush of being involved and complicit in perverse acts—children going to school and getting sex change operations, men (transgender) competing in women’s sports, maimed their competition. These things were far fetched and farcical to begin with. But did them dems point that out? No….they took the mantle of defense, instead of truth.
Do you think Biden played nice, being responsible for over 2 million deaths, because he was a piece of shit warmonger, juts like Clinton and Obama. People refuse to look at things objectively, because they don’t want to realize they were wrong. It’s better to admit you were wrong than continue to be wrong. If you can’t see it’s a class war then it’s hopeless
The US is 100% responsible for Ukraine and Palestine. Israel is an extension of the US and Ukraine is a proxy. Both wars are funded by the US government, with our tax money. Wake up to reality! If you don’t know the killing that went on under Clinton’s and Obama’s watch, then you’re willfully ignorant.
Biden was reversing the trends you talked about. The CHIPS Act was bringing back manufacturing and investment. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act was addressing our long neglected infrastructure and also bringing broadband Internet services to neglected communities. Investments were going to a lot of Red states and to poor areas to try to level the playing field. These laws supported a lot of construction and manufacturing jobs. The Inflation Reduction Act addressed climate change and was supposed to speed up the transition to cleaner energy. This supported clean energy jobs.
His administration focused on lowering unfair banking and credit card fees and concert ticket fees and forcing airlines to refund flights instead of just using credits. They made efforts at breaking up monopolies. They funded the IRS, so it could modernize and had the resources to answer phone calls, update computer systems, and to go after the rich people with complicated tax filings and fancy lawyers. Biden wanted to raise taxes on the wealthy. He got the Department of Education to actually forgive student loans for people who had completed service programs that were supposed to forgive their loans, but couldn't get past red tape for it to happen. He made sure that people who had been dupped by places like Trump University got their loans forgiven. He tried to do more for people who had been talked into the wrong types of loans or who had already paid many times the amounts they had borrowed, but still had huge student loan bills.
Biden tried to return us to a time before Reagan when the government was seen as a way to provide a basic social safety net and to provide a level playing field where government regulations protected citizens from unscrupulous businesses.
We had a growing economy, falling inflation, and low unemployment. We had the strongest economy of the G7. And Biden had strengthened our international relationships and had fought hard to support Ukraine. Here we are, less than two months later, and Trump has made us an international pariah as he cozies up to Putin and other dictators, starts trade wars with our allies, and bullies Zelenzkyy, so he has an excuse to stop sending said to Ukraine. Musk halted USAID payments and tore up the agency, devastating our soft power, sentencing thousands to death, endangering our health and safety, and harming our farmers who provide the food relief and research programs working on crop varieties and planting techniques that could help farmers in poor countries. Trump pulled us out of WHO, making us less safe, and scientists across the government were told to halt communications with foreign colleagues and the media. Science across the government and in universities has been impacted by Musk's chainsaw activities. Unqualified quacks have been installed in cabinet positions. Investigations of Musk's companies has disappeared and his companies keep getting new contracts though. The thousands of government employees that are being fired are a massive brain drain- experience and expertise down the drain. Part of this is to remove regulations on and accountability from rich business owners. Trump wants to sell our national forests to logging, mining, and fossil fuel companies. Musk wants to sell off government buildings. Trump will make deals with private prisons to build and operate facilities to hold migrants. Trump is selling $1-5 million meals with himself at Mar-a-Lago. He did a pump and dump of cryptocurrency last week. Investigations of rich people keep ending and convicts keep being pardoned. The country is for sale. And King Donnie wants his word to be law.
Ukraine is filled with neo-Nazis and along with NATO, are the instigators and bad actors in the war. Even the propaganda rag, The New York Times has admitted this now. Our supposed good economy was only good for the rich, making money off an inflated Wall Street bubble. Regular citizens have only seen their purchasing power go down. These talking points have largely been debunked. Biden is a neocon war hawk, and a neoliberal capitalist. These are the truths. Biden was one of the worst presidents of my lifetime. All the things Trump is doing, was the natural progression of what Biden did.
You believe Biden was good? You’re brainwashed. The dems looted our tax money, while he was in office. He was a warmonger, neoliberal, elitist, responsible for over 2 million deaths.
Yeah but no! What a bunch of garbage 🗑️ this article is! What this asshole fails to mention is that our government ( Congress ) is so divided and spilt down the middle that nothing can get done because the democrats haven’t had enough votes to push through much of anything. They and Biden did get an infrastructure bill passed and that was omit because 13 republicans helped.
This is largely true. Democrats were lost after the "Reagan Revolution".
Part of the problem was the success of the Reagan campaign's propaganda. They cleverly lied and used "dog whistles" to stoke division, and it worked.
Part of the problem was that Democratic politicians really stood for nothing other than their own re-elections. Democrats used to stand for the working class, but after Reagan out fund-raised them with connections to Big Pollution (AKA, fossil fuels), Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, etc., the Democrats had nowhere to turn for funding. And so they turned to Wall St., which in turn expected - and demanded - a payoff. Bye bye working class.
And so here we are today. Republicans have been using the McCarthy/Nixon/Reagan/Bush I/Bush II playbook of lying, cheating and stealing for decades now. Re-using the same dog whistles and lies, and pushing ever closer to exactly this sort of thing. America was primed for the big takeover. All it took was one cult leader to come along and dispense with the dog whistles, and the coup is complete.
Meanwhile, Democrats responded with a resounding whimper, tucking their tails between their legs and rolling over on their backs.
Much ink has been spilled, and bits streamed, talking about >what< we need to do - but nobody seems to be able to answer the question "how?". That's the real problem. Not just what needs to be done, but how to go about it. Where's our FDR?
Wow. The number of negative comments here surprises me. There actually has been a concerted effort of both parties for decades to embrace Wall Street and neoliberalism. Bernie Sanders was blocked from running for President by the Democratic Party. He could have won against Trump in 2016 if the Democratic Party hadn’t betrayed what many Democrats and Independents were saying was the popular trend. Hillary Clinton was a neoliberal. Her mentor was Henry Kissinger - a war criminal. Obama was a believer in the Chicago School of Economics - the home of Milton Friedman’s philosophy that was embraced by Reagan and began destroying everything that FDR had enacted.
We must tell the truth about the Democratic Party if real change is ever going to happen - and this author is speaking factual truth about what the majority of elected Democrats allowed to happen that harmed democracy. Even if most elected Democrats didn’t actually “want” democracy’s take-down to happen - they didn’t actively stop it from happening. As has been said - “Democrats bring a soup ladle to a knife fight”. Major opportunities to counter fascism’s rise have been met by Democrats holding a soup ladle.
Please consider what this author is saying.
Two points here: (1) the growth of the rightwing shout-o-sphere through radio (Rush Limbaugh etc.) then through Fox News and social media (with algorithms that favor the most incendiary content) is being totally overlooked here, even though it helps create the impression that the Dems have just been standing still or "bringing a soup ladle to a gun fight." Lies have been overwhelming the truth for a long time now, which is always going to hurt the side that actually believes in and fights for democracy. (2) Whatever you believe about Bernie Sanders vs. Hillary Clinton, this equating neoliberalism with a take-down of democracy is just on the face of it, ridiculous. Hillary Clinton and centrist Dems were not in the business of taking down democracy. Fight neoliberalism for all you're worth but don't say that makes Dems equal to Repubs, who are right now propping up a dictator.
Neoliberalism is an economic enemy of democracy. You have certainly swallowed the Democrats' Koolaid.
I agree with you, neoliberalism is not good for democracy. I disagree that 90s and 2000s embrace of neoliberalism makes Democrats equal to Republicans. This is a really dangerous viewpoint. It will make apathetic voters even more apathetic in 2026. "Both parties are EXACTLY the same - so why should I vote?" Spreading this idea will definitely help lead us to tyranny.
We have already arrived at tyranny, and Democrats as well as Republicans are funded by the same donors.
Neither party cares about us any more.
It's sad that you defend the Democrats. They don't deserve your loyalty.
Moreover, we aren't going to vote our way out of this. We would be better off if everyone boycotted the polls, because that would expose the scam that they are. The only thing that voting does is to tell the establishment that you are still mesmerized by their message.
Agree with most of that, like "can't vote our way out of this", the worthlessness of the DP, etc. True enough.
BUT. No, we had not arrived at tyranny yet... until Trump 2.0. It really is a different ballgame now, and a LOT worse. As much as we rightfully hate the DP, it is no longer possible to say "both parties are the same", because they are not. The current admin is rabidly fascist and destructive, in a way that we've never seen before in history I believe.
Is this a bot? Who could believe this. 30 minutes of research will show this to be nothing close to true.
That too, is my fundamental problem with this argument. Yes, Dems have supported much the same thing as Republicans. The difference is that while Dems tried to counter neoliberalism and nihilism, the right just wants to take it all down with nothing to replace it. They don’t care who gets hurt in the interim. In fact they don’t really care about anyone. Biden was the closest thing we had to reversing things but met resistance from everywhere. Sis it cost? Sure. But he tried to give Americans back some of their agency. Repubs? No fucking way!
Well stated, Lisa.
I think the point the author was making was not that Democrats were actively trying to destroy democracy, like Trump and his GOP sycophants are, but that their basic agreement with the principles of neoliberalism and “free trade” as the US defined it are what got us into the position we are in now, by hollowing out our middle class. Not that there is no difference, but that there is enough similarity in each party’s core values that Democrats have not been offering an alternative akin to FDR’s New Deal since LBJ was POTUS. Biden took steps to move in that direction again, but now DJT is trying to illegally take all Biden’s efforts away.
You’re wrong.
They are on the same team and have always had the same plans. The democrats are the ones that introduced neoliberalism with Carter. Then they put neoliberalism on steroids, with Clinton. To top it off, Biden was arguably the worst of all them. This has always been a class war. The American public has always voted against their own best interests!
Honestly, I have started to believe that FDR introduced neoliberalism through the FHA. Building up people’s willingness to acquire debt to the private sector. Building people’s connection to the markets. And of course building racist segregation.
You’ve got a point, for sure.
100% I agree! People need to reread original post ...& stop now & then to reflect for 1-2mins; take a deep breath, then read some more. ("Lather, rinse, repeat.")
There's a lot to take in from that article & the brain needs brief, silent breaks in order to sort, digest & "file" the info, in way you can recall the items easily! If ya' read in "defensive mode", it's like shutting the door & trying to hear from outside. Not much really gets thru that way.
I also to encourage everyone to read your comments, observations too. Very well stated points to think about & maybe more. And your conclusion that we have to do this ourselves is spot-on! IF WE start, maybe our leaders will follow? That's often the way it happens when all is said & done. Some of our leaders have gotten used to having EZ life and cushy jobs with benefits we can only dream of! Too cushy, for ppl only there 9 mos of the year. (With more recesses than a 1st grader!) I'm lucky ~ my Representative WORKS when he's home on recess. That's when he meets with us about issues we need assist with & ongoing things in Congress. ((🗣️ Shout out to Rep. Mark DeSaulnier [D•CA] ~ We appreciate U! ☀️))
SCOTUS too, works 9 mos, then they're off for 3mos. solid vacay. Alas, seems they're a little too "chummy" with ppl they shouldn't share vacays with, accept gifts from, if cases are coming B4 The Court!
Only if We The People KEEP speaking out & being seen exercising our right to protest... organizing "Buy Nothing!" days... & There's some talk of possible "strike days" where no one goes to work; but we don't want people to be fired cuz' of doing it, right?!
Change comes from the ground up!! Newsmedia & politicians tend to ignore it/us at 1st ~ they wait to see if people keep it up & if #s grow!
1st "HANDS OFF!" protest day seems went well, esp for 1st time out! (Peaceful out here, in the Burbs of CA)
I like having that common theme..."Hands Off!" Many things to choose from that go with "Hands Off" theme! ....& different areas of Country, State, have their own issues of importance! 🗣️ Speak out!
Let those in power know that we aren't happy with what we see...& don't see! Need to have a couple more of those "Hands Off" protests as weather gets nicer & people are out & about to see it, join us! (IMHO)
Any electeds that show NO interest in our concerns, may need to be replaced with less-jaded ones that have enthusiasm, good ideas & a moral compass that works!?
I strongly feel that we need to have a viable 3rd Party, to break things up in Congress & at State level too! We have too much OG & they hate changes -- need fresh energy & ideas!! Plus, a 3rd Party would thwart the 2-Party, party line votes & stagnancy that often are status quo now.
None of this will change if we wait for those too comfy in Office to do something! We see that in their collective silence right now - where only certain people speak up for us, but so few that we can probably name them all!
The hardest thing to change is what MOST needs to change! Private donor money (unlimited) has corrupted our politics & elections to where regular voters hardly matter!? When a guy can spend 200+ million dollars to get someone elected & is then given free access to all of our personal info & gov't computer codes... When they're put in charge of dismantling & defunding our gov't agencies - no oversight & accountability... THAT'S a BIG PROBLEM!
DOGE is NOT just rooting out fraud & waste & reporting it to Congress! Not at all! Why aren't those we elected to Congress doing anything about this stuff? Just acting like it's normal, or not their job?!
DOGE (that I call douche) has way too much info they have no right to (on us) ...& They're tech goons who now have the coding from gov't computers! Who's to say they won't abuse that? They can rewrite computer coding to do anything they want & we won't even know!! They can use our personal info they now have to do BAD things! THEN WHAT?!? This is just a VERY BAD idea! Nothing good will come from this... & While it's going on, the guy supposedly in charge, is GOLFING again, not even IN Washington DC!! Certainly NOT keeping an eye on things!
Yeah, we sure do need changes! Fast! And we have to use our voices, protest & "make a fuss" cuz' changes come from the bottom up. If we can build on this & not let people get complacent we may have a chance to "stop this bus from going over the cliff". Maybe. I hope & pray we can save it ourselves & leaders will join us... to a point. They sure like all that private money making them rich! But, cross that bridge when we get there. Build 1st!
Let's stick together as Americans who love their Country & Freedom, & aren't willing to give it up w/o a fight!🥹
Hillary had majority of popular vote. It’s the electoral college that screwed her and might have screwed Bernie too!
The Electoral College vote took place AFTER the Clinton campaign had cheated Bernie Sanders out of the nomination.
Your point is a post hoc ergo propter hoc ("that which came after caused that which came before") logical fallacy.
You missed my point
No, I disagreed with your point.
Interesting, others seem to get it
Do you mean "others agree with me"?
Not only do we need a new party, we need to “86” the 2 existing parties. They work for themselves and billionaires, not the common American. However, if Citizens (Billionaires) United is not torn asunder, nothing we do will make a difference.
Do you think we have a chance at overturning Citizens United? That was done under Obama's watch. I've been a democrat all my adult life. but I see the forest for the trees. I've said "The only difference between Democrats and Republicans is that a Democrat will take you out to dinner before they fuck you." Anyone who is not speaking out and mobilizing a call to action is complicit.
We have ZERO chance of overturning Citizens (Billionaires) United as our government currently exists. The corrupt Supremes will make sure of that.
But, until we do manage to overturn one of the worst fucking rulings to ever come out of the Supreme’s fascist court, our government will remain a snakepit of venom and despair.
The billionaires want the poor, the infirm, the foreign, to DIE. This is the “degrowth by distress” process they have signed up for.
As citizens we must build a better informed electorate. This post is a significant beginning. We must reclaim We The People and we must be the messengers and we must go searching for our leaders, not our “leaders” searching for us. Get rid of the Rupert Murdoch’s in the world who clearly know the power of brainwashing and sanewashing.
That's a perfect description. 👌👌👌
Nah, I call BS on this. The whole point of Dems is to maintain a democracy regardless. The entire admin. of 47 is comprised of wht supremists/wht nationalists, far rt. extreme Xstian nationalists & Neo reactionists. They all have some commonalities for the end goal they are trying to achieve (such as dismantling the entire system & putting those like them in their place, getting rid of the universities, all things “woke”, immigrants, LGBTQ+, etc.) This is what is binding them to stick together in a grp. effort to make this once in a lifetime chance for them happen. Heritage Foundation has had this goal since it was founded in the 70’s! I highly doubt that any Dems want a monarchy w/no real laws or regulations on anything & womens rights taken away, etc.
If I knew this was coming in the 1980s, watched it grow in the 90s, saw it explode with Bush & Cheney and finally melt down with Trump, how is it the Democratic Party never did? Did they stand against trickle down economics, deregulation, gutting the Glass-Steagel Act? Did they vote against Citizens United, the Iraq War, and all the other right-wing crap we’ve been fed? No! They went along with all of it. They were bullied into submission way before Trump got here!
‘If I knew … how is it the Democratic Party never did’
Arguably, the Democratic Party is the oldest, continuously functioning political party on Earth.
It knew. The top leadership most assuredly knew. It was very aware of the danger. It understood and to this hour it well knows that as the GOP leads the charge against civil rights and liberties, that its own unique contribution to this imperial program is to contain, misdirect, blunt, divide, isolate, cripple, contradict and in any other means needed and/or available to NULLIFY the rising worker revolution against war, tyranny, oppression and fascism.
The Democratic Party embodies and expresses the tendency of counterrevolutionary reaction.
Robert, as much as the Democrats despise the GOP, they are terrified of the working class. They are terrified of being found out. They are terrified of the well deserved justice they know the global proletariat will bring upon them.
Revolution or counterrevolution — that is the issue. wsws.org
Maybe. But I doubt they “despise” the GOP. They seem to think they can just wait them out until the next election. You’re right about them being terrified of the working class. Ever since they’ve had to grovel for dark money they’ve become Republican “lite!”
They don’t despise them. They are on the same team!
This should go in an article, and I may yet do that.
Here’s the thing Robert …
The Capitalist system of social organization consists of three social classes.
The bourgeois [Ownership class] is 1% of the population. These people own factories, fields, forests, mines, corporations of technology, energy, communication, logistics, etc. That’s how they make their wealth. The GOP is the party of the top 1%.
The petit bourgeois [Banking/Finance class] is the Next 9% after the top 1%. These people make their wealth from returns on investments, stocks, bonds, sell-offs, buybacks, quantitative easing, speculation, etc. This is the Democratic Party tendency.
The proletariat [working class] is the 90%. They neither own companies nor have discretionary capital to invest. They appear in the workplace daily to sell their ability to work on what terms Capitalists may allow. Proletarians live hand to mouth and they have no party.
All Marxist analysis flows from the fact of three social classes, not two. The material interests of all three classes is diametrically opposed to those of the other two classes. This causes irresolvable antagonisms and class struggles, each against the other two.
Very critical points on ‘ruling class’ identity.
Neither the top 1% nor the Next 9% can rule alone. The 9% [the Clintons, Obamas, etc.], live very comfortably; they are solidly upper-middle class. But they have nowhere near the wealth and social prestige to rule alone.
The top 1% on the other hand has immense wealth and prestige rivaling royalty. But as a class, the bourgeois is razor thin. It simply hasn’t the people needed to rule. Without the petit bourgeois, the top 1% would be swept away literally overnight.
If either is to ‘rule,’ there must be an alliance between them. But it isn’t easy since their interests are contradictory. Each craves what the other has. The result is an alliance of necessary but mutual hostility. The 1% and Next 9% together ARE the ruling class.
The hostility seen on every issue is based on contradictory class interests. When the 1% denounced Democrats for ‘leftist extremism, that is a demand for ceding more to the 1%.
This explains why policies are continuous even if admin’s change. It also explains why the 90% has no political representation. Elections are an ‘in-house contest’ between these two classes, these two ruling class factions, to decide who gets the lion share of the spoils, which the proletarian class creates.
That hostility between the two social classes has broken into the open reveals the extent to which the alliance and the institutions of governance have eroded.
It matters that the petit bourgeois, Democratic Party of the Next 9% is a minor party. The two great social classes are the bourgeois and the proletariat. The petit bourgeois Democratic tendency has sometimes adopted from the proletarian tendency, and other times from the bourgeois tendency,
However the wealth of the Next 9% after the top 1% is dependent on the bourgeoisie. When you see Democrats offering meek, tepid, cuckold-ish replies to bourgeois malfeasance, that’s why.
The two bourgeois parties try feverishly to hide these realities from the public. When the GOP chides Democrats as ‘socialists’ that attempts conveys to the 90% that ‘this is your so-called ‘socialism,’ while the Democrats try to cling to power by thwarting the rise of genuine socialism.
You’re wrong about trying to differentiate the two. They are the same and owned by the same people!
I mostly agree with, other than a few particulars & wish I had time now to discuss, but my cats are ganging up on me & the raccoons outside are impatient little guys! Husband be getting grumpy soon. I hope we can take this up again soon, as knowing to whom we protest, how they think & how to get thru to them, matters! No matter their grouping, our sheer numbers (when big enuff) make them take notice that there's a rising swell of "the masses" & they'd be wise not to ignore us!😏
The dems are quite possibly, more responsible for where we are than the republicans. I credit you for realizing the dems aren’t going to save us, but you’ve yet to realize, they’ve never cared about the common people. It’s a lie, and they are just as corrupt and evil as the republicans. The two parties always have one goal, divide and conquer. As long as you vote for one side or the other, you’re doing what they want. The democrats aren’t good guys who get bullied. They are possibly more evil than the republicans. Get past the propaganda and see the whole truth!
CrumpledForeskin:
‘They don’t despise them. They are on the same team! You’re wrong about trying to differentiate the two … They are the same and owned by the same people!’
Our society thinks in ‘either/or’ terms. That’s the easiest way to shut down someone [I hasten to add, ‘that’s not what you did here at all;’ and I’m quite certain we agree] is to think in ‘either/or’ terms. That thinking is used so discussion can be ended quickly!
But it is also possible to think in terms of ‘this/but also,’ or ‘this/but at the same time.’ We have the ‘but the flip side of the coin is.’
This gives better, more nuanced analyses.
‘Differences’ do exist. But be it corporate tax cuts or small business deductions—they are NOTHING to working people. But I learn about them so that when raised, I’m ready to hammer such claims. I want to know both party positions better than their supporters.
I want to know what counter-claims are coming when I speak. But I’m not preparing yet another betrayal of working people.
Where you say ‘team,’ I speak of a mutually necessary yet hostile alliance. Your term stresses the ‘bipartisan gang-up’ effect. My term, ‘‘alliance,’ stresses the necessity of bipartisanship to rule at all. This matters because it shows the 90% its strategy.
Since neither can rule without what the other provides—we break the alliance.
Mind, it is not enough to break. There must be structure to replace the old. The policies needed, I believe, are found here:
https://www.wsws.org/en/special/pages/sep/us/principles.html
You say in your longer post that Democrats are ‘quite possibly’ more responsible for where we are than the republicans. I don’t entertain that as a ‘possibility;’ I regard it as an objectively established fact. The long and short of it is—ONLY the anti-democratic complicity of the horribly misnamed Democratic Party has allowed the rise of the fascistic right. The DNC did this, and none of this will be forgotten. Democratic Party acquiescence to authoritarianism will be revisited and an answer will be given.
Thank-you for engaging.
I have to agree. Pretty pathetic excuse for "opposition party". There ARE a handful or 2 of exceptions, but it does seem that the Party itself & OG just keep their collective head down, with re-election & staying in power their main goal. Disappointing! 🇺🇲Unless & until we have a viable 3rd (maybe even 4th?) Party to "mix things up a bit", this is all we have.
In order to bring in a 3rd Party, we'd have to REMOVE ALL private money from our elections so they could compete with the bought & paid-for ones we already have. Other (mostly European I think) democracies have done that already. Removed donor $$ & have more than just 2 Parties. They quickly realized that democracy & private donor $$ is NOT compatible! We can easily see the corruption & greed that private donor money has wrought. 🇺🇲Whether or not we bring in a 3rd Party to break-up the stalemate/paralysis that's afflicted Congress for too long, WE STILL NEED TO REMOVE PRIVATE DONOR MONEY FROM OUR POLITICS/ELECTIONS!!!🇺🇲
Of course, Congress won't pass such a law ~ they're the ones who benefit from all that money lavishly given to their campaign & PACS, that somehow makes its way into their overstuffed pockets!😡
And, "forget it" being done by Exec Order under this Prez!! He's barely 3mos into his term & has used 100 EOs to RULE AS A DICTATOR!🤬 He can't read or understand the big words in an EO, but sure can scrawl his name across 'em to get whatever he wants! (Why do we pay for a Congress?) He does everything same way as any dictator. (...& nobody stops him?!? Really?!)
IF...IF..we come out of this with a democracy still intact, we must scrutinize🧐 & elect someone that has sworn to do those things by EO, immediately upon taking Office!! Those who've gotten so fat off that hog will object, fight dirty & more, against us. But, 1st let us see IF we still have democracy!! That is NOT the plan of "the Project", nor the MAGA/GOP!🤨
Should we survive this dictator & his henchmen + have any fair elections, we MUST make these things happen ASAP!! Until then, we still have work to do! Using our only power - our huge #s - we must protest, speak up & not give up! It seems that leaders come about AFTER "the people" make it impossible not to! (Huh! - curious, that.)
It's easier for our Sens & Reps to stand up & fight for us if they can say they're hearing from ALOT of constituents about something. We gotta' make some noise... multiple times, but PLEASE, keep it peaceful! Tomorrow, Sat, 4-19-25 we're protesting again to say,
"Hands Off Our_____!"
Please find a local 1 & Join Us for couple hours! Signs are good - pick your topic - but a sign isn't necessary. JUST COME!! 😉Meet your neighbors. Make new friends.🥹Stand up & be counted!✌️
Bye for now...animals are hungry & I got a sign to make B4 Noon tomorrow.🌞
This system is not reformable. It must be replaced.
The guide to how to have a successful revolution is written in the book From Dictatorship to Democracy by Dr Gene Sharp. Please read it.
Go to the head of the class. Democrats haven’t had a real leader since LBJ. . yes, that’s an arguable point but at least he knew how to arm twist and put up a street fight when needed. Every Democratic president since has rolled over, Clinton, Obama, even Joe only went half way even after the SC gave him a mandate to clean house during his last 100 days or so. The Democratic Party lost it’s shit when a real Democrat, a real Liberal showed up in the person of Bernie Sanders and they sandbagged him.
Yes they did. But the long game was better organized and Americans got lazy and complacent about civics and the Constitution.
Americans drank the koolaid that Blacks were their biggest problem!!
Much of what is said in this piece is true and because it’s true it’s hard to swallow, hard to accept. NAFTA raped the working class and CU put a knife in the back of Representative Democracy which is now effectively dead. The America most of us grew up in, those born between 1940 and 1990 is gone and it’s not coming back thanks mainly to Republican obsession with power and control and Democratic Party aligning with the financial and intellectual elites while hiding behind the smoke screen of “regulation” of Corporate America for “our” betterment, or “protection” as it were. This is what an angry, ignorant and misinformed does, it elects authoritarian leaders to “fix it”. Unfortunately for America the authoritarians elected are complete amateurs, a reflection of electorates own ignorance. The wheel of history is turning and not in a positive way. Bucks up.
And the radical right cheat!
If dems believed in democracy, Henry Wallace would have been president instead of Truman, and the Cold War may have never happened.
In short, eliminate any hint of mass, proletarian class struggle, and base the appeal on identity politics to the benefit of a thin sliver of privileged people with 6-digit salaries per annum.
That is not the program of the 90%, and insistence to the contrary can only demonstrate the point.
Conclusion: Workers everywhere must conduct their own struggle through independent action arising from new organizations led by workers themselves.
Working class struggle looks like this SEP 2025 New Year Statement.
Ask yourself what the Democratic Party has published that looks like this in the last half century.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2025/01/03/aqoi-j03.html
How can you live in reality and think this statement is true. You’re willingly ignorant and a useful idiot. The government loves people like you, very easily manipulated!!
block the bluewho
why?
You're both right about this, but we can blame the Dems for pretty consistently rolling over on their backs over the last forty five years and letting Republicans steamroll right over them time and again.
They just don't really stand for anything beyond getting re-elected. That means getting big campaign donations from Wall St. and capitulating to the right in exchange. Maybe now they'll get the hint and return to the party of the working class a la FDR.
The dems were the people that laid all the groundwork for what’s happening now. They are on the same team.
BS. They stand for people and rights, and acceptance. It amazes me that so many can indict the Dems and not put it squarely where it belongs. Go back in history and look at how the GOP has acted over history since becoming the GOP. White Supremacy, exclusion, class warfare, anti-worker, money, money , money, limited oversight. This goes back to the time of Dixiecrats.
Yes, but the Dems lost their way when Reagan got elected. The so called "Reagan Revolution" shifted the whole country (stupidly) to the right. A majority of Americans drank the "trickle down" Kool-Aid and the Democratic party was at a loss as to how to deal with it. So it responded by also shifting right. That's what the "new kind of Democrat" meant when Clinton won.
And what did Clinton do? "Welfare as we know it is >over<!". So much for standing for people and rights. Democrats have bent over backwards to appear reasonable and "bipartisan", while the GOP was lobbing explosives hidden in their mudballs.
They talk a good game but then roll over, they don't really fight back.
And too damn many of them are in bed with the corporate and mega-millionaires against the working class and poor.
I'm not gonna lionize someone like Pelosi for the ACA, when she wouldn't let Medicare For All even be brought up, much less fought for.
...and B4 they were GOP they were the Whigs...a Party so bad they had to cease to exist. But, members just regrouped (as slimy things often do) & gave themselves a new name. Same slimy stuff tho, it seems.
"Scum always rises to the top of a stagnant pond."
That'd be somethin'!
We need to remove the private donor money from politics /elections & make serving in Congress a PUBLIC SERVICE job again, not a way to get rich & obtain/retain power...which can swell the heads of some people.
I’m reading one of my own posts
Ha! The Dems becoming the party of FDR? Not a chance.
‘Took a long time for Republicans wealthy and Christian nationalists to set this up…’
Thereby indicating that this glorious, Democratic Party had every opportunity in which to establish a permanent education campaign, to re-engage those at risk of absorption into our distinctively US fascistic movement, to establish venues through which to promote civic understanding, and to tool and prepare the public to resist this rising tendency. Every opportunity.
Instead, these alleged democracy supporters …?
Indeed, I have questions on that as well! Actually, it infuriates me that SOME (I don't think all, but at least SOME) had to know about the rising wht. nationalist movement cloaked in a priest's robe! The fact that they didn't speak out is inexcusable! I don't necessarily believe they were "in on something" when it comes to that, but I tend to think that they felt that if they were to publicly denounce conservatives, it would make them look really bad to the public & cost them votes. The "avg. Amer. person" out there is somewhat unaware of the topic of underground movements like wht. nationalists, or don't take it very seriously because they think it's a super sm. % of the population & it would stay that way. Others think it's crazy-talk to even imagine people would be that extreme to take radical actions (not as much now, but in the 80's/90's). For ex. if I were to tell my mother about this in the 80's, she'd prob. laugh & think I've been watching too many movies, etc. & shrug me off. Because the far. rt. hides behind Christianity, to denounce them makes it looks like you are slamming the religion & making wild accusations about it (which they know, & is why they use religion as a shield). I highly doubt Dems would even dare to touch that, because the blowback would be lethal to their party. I think the only reason a few are hinting at it now, or being more vocal like Jasmine Crockett is because the general public is becoming aware of it. It's slightly safer to bring it up now. The far. rt. will still deny it of course! Still, someone should have done something as a warning. Maybe word it differently? It's BS that a lot of people are just finding out now. I despise politics & never followed it much my whole life until the last few yrs. I had never even heard of Heritage Foundation, etc., & I'm not the only one. For months I brought them up on Instagram, etc. & tons of people insisted they didn't exist & were a lie made up by the Dems to bash Reps pre-election. Same for Proj. 2025. They have a website, yet nobody wanted to believe it was true! I tend to think a lot of people are in shock still & are having a hard time realizing what's going on.
I think your key phrase is "I despise politics & never followed it much" which means that you left politics to take care of itself. This, I think, is the mistake many Americans made and they are now reaping the results.
For every privilege one enjoys, there is also a duty. For the privilege of living in a democracy, there is a duty of civic engagement.
This is the mistake you and many others made. You want to live in a democracy but you're not willing to do the hard and dirty work of civic engagement, or "following politics."
If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.
Well, FYI when I wasn’t interested in politics, I was a TEENAGER IN HIGH SCHOOL & then college, so as a teen, it’s not something we normally are concerned about & most are living w/their parents w/no bills. My concern was studying & getting good grades & that is what my parents wanted me to do & pressed me on. Neither of my parents discussed politics w/me or each other (that I ever saw). Maybe they did it in private, but I was not taught about it or pressed to learn or be concerned about it. In this current time, I would think it might be discussed more in the home? I don’t know-I cannot speak for other parents. I understand what you are getting at, but it’s a bit off base because I wasn’t even a legal adult & that was decades ago-way before the internet, social media & cell phones existed. Maybe instead of trying to shame people when you don’t know their story or background, you should be supportive of whatever effort they are doing NOW. Considering that what is happening now is what The Heritage Foundation has planned to do since 1973, I’m not so sure that me knowing about politics as a teen would have stopped the current situation.
Gosh, that's funny. I remember Adlai Stephenson running against Dwight Eisenhower for the presidency in 1952 and I was 6 years old at the time.
I was interested in politics when I was in high school because those were the days of Avalon, when JFK was president. I was 17 and in high school when he was shot. I was 21 when I went to San Francisco and dropped out and protested against the Vietnam War.
I guess it's just where you choose to put your energy.
‘…you left politics to take care of itself.’
I suggest the concern here is that the petit-bourgeoisie Next 9% Party after the Top 1% resents loss of that support.
I suggest that the Democratic Party of the Next 9% has no conception of the depth of disgust or the extent to which they are despised.
Further, I have no doubt whatsoever that if lead Democrats DID grant this, they would IMMEDIATELY side openly with Republican Top 1% leaders in order to crush the rising worker rebellion.
Both parties must be dissolved, their assets and membership lists seized, their leaders seized and put on trial for crimes against humanity, crimes of war against peace, crimes against the people who constitute the United States, and for genocide.
Party members must, for the rest of the natural lives, be precluded from civic participation.
WORKERS OF THE WORLD — UNITE!
You have nothing to lose but your chains.
How is that for civic disengagement?
True P2025 started almost 30 years ago by Religious Zealot's who weren't making the money pushing their beliefs on others.
lol!
that's some interesting name you use....LOL
Unfortunately, our system runs now on legalized corruption. Dems can’t run campaigns without the billionaire donors. This is the poison.
I see this in my volunteer development/fundraising work too. Organizations that rely on public donations must cater to the very wealthy if they want significant money. There is no way to compete otherwise.
We badly need campaign finance reform. And its shocking to me that the big money is not trying to perpetuate the system that created it, getting behind Democrats opposing Trump. I guess promises of tax cuts and shrunken government outweigh the overturning of Constitutional government somehow
Exactly. We desperately need campaign finance reform. The problem is, only congress can do it, but nobody in either chamber, on either side of the aisle, wants to kill the goose that laid the golden egg.
Democrats can’t, a common refrain.
But do they step aside? Or, is the strategy to co-opt real opposition when it rises, to return them to power—or failing that, to arrange its defeat?
The Democratic Party is the political tendency of petit bourgeois opportunism.
The Democratic Party is where reform movements go to die.
wsws.org
Yes they can! But it's going to take everyone who believes in the Constitution and Democracy to help them. Call Representatives on both sides. Mass mail postcards to the Office of the President, Supreme Court and every member of Congress. Let's load up those bags and boxes with facts. If you can buy a subscription in here or make a donation you can mail a Postcard!
Democrats could reject donations from wealthy donors but I’m pretty sure they would fail even more miserably than they do today.
Republicans have big donors dropping hundreds of millions on their campaigns and are in competition with Democrats. This is mostly done via PACs and outside control of politicians regardless.
This buys media coverage and influence that moves elections.
I wish it were not so and don’t have any good answers on this. But identifying the poison is the first step in treating it, seems to me.
‘Yes they can…’
Actually, they can’t.
A party must serve its constituents. The DP constituency is the 6-digit salary union bosses. They not only sell out the working class, but they work tirelessly to oppose and repress those whose dues money pays union salaries.
The DP is equally reactionary, corrupt and beyond all redemption as their GOP counterparts.
No worker has anything invested in the DO or its orbiting satellite organizations, and only the completely confused, disoriented and demoralized will pretend otherwise.
There is NO WAY FORWARD that does not include a final and irrevocable break with the sworn enemies of the working class called the Democratic Party.
Actually, democrats can’t. As I noted, the Democratic Party is a petit bourgeois tendency. As such, its interests are diametrically opposed to the [big] bourgeois AND the proletarian class alike. This is inescapable.
MOREOVER, no class conscious worker will trust the democrats or the Democratic Party to pursue its interests. That won’t happen.
‘Reformism’ is a proven failure. The whole working class — the 90% — stands to make an irresolvable break with the Democratic Party.
There is no other way forward.
that is total bullsht and blocked for saying we cant run w ot filth
You’re mad at the truth.
Yeah, no. I believe a lot of things. That dems in politics are millionaires and know they can ride this nonsense out probably. They lack a sense of urgency about Trump and Musk. I'd sooner believe they just don't know what to do, then they are somehow complicit. Way to take away all hope author of this piece. Way to go.
Thanks for reading the piece, Linda. There is still hope. I'd reckon there will always be hope. But I think the next two years will be our best moment to demand change. I've got a lot of pieces coming out on this substack and the podcast. I hope you'll follow along. I'll be getting to the "how do we fix it part" eventually.
They are complicit bro
state of the union shiws they are complicit or must resign
No it doesn't. Silence is a Strong Man/Woman standing against the infallacies of our Democracy. Silent Listeners accomplish more than any yelling and screaming man/woman. Al Green was told not to stand by the Democratic Party. If you didn't watch the shit show on Tuesday, you should pull it up on YouTube. I truly believe unlike this Author the Democrats are gathering every lie Man baby has said. You could tell he was angry that they sat in Silence. He was angry they were not cheering for him. He was angry because he knows he was spewing bloated lie after lie and he knows they knew it. He was angry because he wants everyone to bow down to him and they quietly refused. I have to have hope that a day of reward is coming for the USA. When one of our Allies, Trudeau tells Americans Man baby is dangerous, it should be heard!
Haha. They are actors
None of this “blame the Democrats” crap is helpful. It demoralizes the people we need to be activists and reduces our effectiveness.
This is why we need terms!!!! They come in with $250,000 a yr salary and leave with millions!!!
Thank you for the clarity. The democrats are the victims, along with the American people, of the most successful conspiracy of all time. Since 1895, conservatives and libertarians have, through the media, universities and later think tanks, spread a philosophy of capitalism good, govt bad, free market good, regulation bad and the trifecta of capitalism = freedom = Christianity. And it worked. Reagan was their best attempt until Trump came along and now that America is doomed where are the democrats, other than a couple of outspoken young black women. They are sitting and politely clapping while Trump lies consistently. The democrats are partly responsible for this mess and they will not be the solution.
These developments would be impossible, but for the persistently feckless opposition of Democrats.
Lol. The dems have done more than their fair share to get us here. It was a team effort
In God The Trusted
They’re all Nazis.
So very true. Since both Republicans and Democrats obviously don’t give a sh¥t about your country, if voting ever happens again, who can you vote for?
Third party, but voting alone was never going to save us from the oligarchy. It’s going to take an effort from the people in actively fighting the rich. No partisan politics and recognizing it’s a class war!
mad at the truth? the truth is divugers law means third parties wo implosion of another big oarty to replace it impossible; the solution is there in your face but you deny the truth because it doesnt fit your accelerationist fascism enabling agenda bye bye
The worst thing the apathy of our country has ever done is to let the anti trust laws of T. Roosevelt go dormant and forget that the Justice Department has an actual mandate to break up corporations that get too big. If Trump thinks he’s the coming of the 2nd McKinley, who will be our Teddy Roosevelt? (It certainly won’t be tRumps VP)
“Democrats *worship* the market as much as Republicans do.”
Precisely. It was acceptable when firms like McKinsey and Bain came in and laid off private-sector workers without government safeguards. Why should governance be any different if it’s held to the same standard? That’s the norm they’ve allowed to crystallize as a result of neglect.
Not just in the US; not just in the US.
It’s actually the reason for the decline of ‘democracies’ all over the world: not a problem of democracy at all, but of its outsourced privatised replacement… which has been dancing down the aisle hand in hand with the rich (both companies and individuals) who have been pretty much let off paying tax. Even though everything they have, everything they do, rests firmly on the back of the society they don’t want to contribute to. Indeed, they use more of the resources than anyone else - more of the roads, the airports, the education systems that provide their surgeons and their engineers and their plumbers and their lawyers and their policemen and the armies that help them hold on to it all…
The unholy myth of the ‘self-made man’.
But I will admit it that the US does seem to have bred a particularly virulent form of this. In Europe and Australia we fortunately still see taxes as a mutual benefit society that allows us to have the things we could NEVER afford otherwise, and so we generally object only to the rich not paying their share. But when a few of us were talking recently to some countrymen who have now spent a couple of decades in the US working as surgeons, we were all shocked by their belief that paying taxes was “taking away their hard-earned money.” And they were equally shocked when we asked them what they would buy with the tax cuts they wanted - a hospital? Or a road? Or perhaps a school? A university?
It seems to me that only thing that trickles down from neoliberalism is not riches, but a grandiose sense of entitlement. It’s all been sustained by the utterly profligate use of fossil-fuel energy, but sooner or later the bubble will burst.
Oddly, as we know from innumerable studies worldwide, people are actually happier with rather less “stuff”, and rather more society! With volunteering and working with others, rather than locking themselves away and watching Fox News. So: what is it that scares us so much about jabbing a stake through the heart of the vampire? I’ve seen that vampire rise, and suck all the joy out of everything. I’m hoping I will see it die again… (and I DO NOT want a long life! 😹)
Instead of attacking the one decent party we have, why don’t you make some constructive recommendations of what we can do to stop this fascist coup? We’re waiting!
I’m getting there but part of the journey is me making a case that there is no longer “one decent party”. Big pice coming Monday. Then more after that. I’m setting the stage for where we are now before I get into the how we get out.
No decent party in this plutocracy
When I was thirteen, I asked my mama, “are we democrats, or are we republicans?”
She thought about it for a hot second and said, “we are Democrats.”
I asked her why? She said, “because democrats are for the working man.”
What happened?
Jimmy Carter won that year..
Clinton era corporatism
Carter happened. He introduced neoliberal capitalism into the government mainstream!
The Dems are very far from perfect, but I don’t think your description explains what is actually happening right now.
well look again
Democrats have as much to gain as Republicans do. Haven't you noticed several Dem governor's already changing their stance. Polis in Colorado and Newsom in California. They want the same thing Republicans want just want to do it a nicer way.
I simply refuse to believe this nonsense. And this is from someone who has been the boots on the ground in my county. The biggest problem with democrats is they still want to play nice, they still believe in fairness and equality.
They’ve taken the bait numerous times by trying to champion and protect ALL people.
And by doing so, they were painted by the degenerate and intentional brush of being involved and complicit in perverse acts—children going to school and getting sex change operations, men (transgender) competing in women’s sports, maimed their competition. These things were far fetched and farcical to begin with. But did them dems point that out? No….they took the mantle of defense, instead of truth.
That is their failure. Too fucking nice.
Do you think Biden played nice, being responsible for over 2 million deaths, because he was a piece of shit warmonger, juts like Clinton and Obama. People refuse to look at things objectively, because they don’t want to realize they were wrong. It’s better to admit you were wrong than continue to be wrong. If you can’t see it’s a class war then it’s hopeless
Are you out of your mind? Really. Biden is NOT responsible for 2 million deaths Biden did NOT start any wars nor is he a “war monger”
Neither did Obama or Clinton.
Why the fuck are you even here? Certainly not to learn anything. You stupid troll. Gtfoh
The US is 100% responsible for Ukraine and Palestine. Israel is an extension of the US and Ukraine is a proxy. Both wars are funded by the US government, with our tax money. Wake up to reality! If you don’t know the killing that went on under Clinton’s and Obama’s watch, then you’re willfully ignorant.
You are a nut case. Putin started the was in Ukraine. Period.
Hamas terrorist started an in invasion in Gaza. Period. Gfy. Don’t bother me again until YOU get educated and untwist your brain. F ewe
Mitch McConnell was spineless and that is the reason nothing was ever done about Trump.
Interesting. I am not sure I totally agree with every point. But I definitely think you have a point. Thank you for this.
Biden was reversing the trends you talked about. The CHIPS Act was bringing back manufacturing and investment. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Act was addressing our long neglected infrastructure and also bringing broadband Internet services to neglected communities. Investments were going to a lot of Red states and to poor areas to try to level the playing field. These laws supported a lot of construction and manufacturing jobs. The Inflation Reduction Act addressed climate change and was supposed to speed up the transition to cleaner energy. This supported clean energy jobs.
His administration focused on lowering unfair banking and credit card fees and concert ticket fees and forcing airlines to refund flights instead of just using credits. They made efforts at breaking up monopolies. They funded the IRS, so it could modernize and had the resources to answer phone calls, update computer systems, and to go after the rich people with complicated tax filings and fancy lawyers. Biden wanted to raise taxes on the wealthy. He got the Department of Education to actually forgive student loans for people who had completed service programs that were supposed to forgive their loans, but couldn't get past red tape for it to happen. He made sure that people who had been dupped by places like Trump University got their loans forgiven. He tried to do more for people who had been talked into the wrong types of loans or who had already paid many times the amounts they had borrowed, but still had huge student loan bills.
Biden tried to return us to a time before Reagan when the government was seen as a way to provide a basic social safety net and to provide a level playing field where government regulations protected citizens from unscrupulous businesses.
We had a growing economy, falling inflation, and low unemployment. We had the strongest economy of the G7. And Biden had strengthened our international relationships and had fought hard to support Ukraine. Here we are, less than two months later, and Trump has made us an international pariah as he cozies up to Putin and other dictators, starts trade wars with our allies, and bullies Zelenzkyy, so he has an excuse to stop sending said to Ukraine. Musk halted USAID payments and tore up the agency, devastating our soft power, sentencing thousands to death, endangering our health and safety, and harming our farmers who provide the food relief and research programs working on crop varieties and planting techniques that could help farmers in poor countries. Trump pulled us out of WHO, making us less safe, and scientists across the government were told to halt communications with foreign colleagues and the media. Science across the government and in universities has been impacted by Musk's chainsaw activities. Unqualified quacks have been installed in cabinet positions. Investigations of Musk's companies has disappeared and his companies keep getting new contracts though. The thousands of government employees that are being fired are a massive brain drain- experience and expertise down the drain. Part of this is to remove regulations on and accountability from rich business owners. Trump wants to sell our national forests to logging, mining, and fossil fuel companies. Musk wants to sell off government buildings. Trump will make deals with private prisons to build and operate facilities to hold migrants. Trump is selling $1-5 million meals with himself at Mar-a-Lago. He did a pump and dump of cryptocurrency last week. Investigations of rich people keep ending and convicts keep being pardoned. The country is for sale. And King Donnie wants his word to be law.
agreed!
Ukraine is filled with neo-Nazis and along with NATO, are the instigators and bad actors in the war. Even the propaganda rag, The New York Times has admitted this now. Our supposed good economy was only good for the rich, making money off an inflated Wall Street bubble. Regular citizens have only seen their purchasing power go down. These talking points have largely been debunked. Biden is a neocon war hawk, and a neoliberal capitalist. These are the truths. Biden was one of the worst presidents of my lifetime. All the things Trump is doing, was the natural progression of what Biden did.
You believe Biden was good? You’re brainwashed. The dems looted our tax money, while he was in office. He was a warmonger, neoliberal, elitist, responsible for over 2 million deaths.
Yeah but no! What a bunch of garbage 🗑️ this article is! What this asshole fails to mention is that our government ( Congress ) is so divided and spilt down the middle that nothing can get done because the democrats haven’t had enough votes to push through much of anything. They and Biden did get an infrastructure bill passed and that was omit because 13 republicans helped.
This is largely true. Democrats were lost after the "Reagan Revolution".
Part of the problem was the success of the Reagan campaign's propaganda. They cleverly lied and used "dog whistles" to stoke division, and it worked.
Part of the problem was that Democratic politicians really stood for nothing other than their own re-elections. Democrats used to stand for the working class, but after Reagan out fund-raised them with connections to Big Pollution (AKA, fossil fuels), Big Agra, Big Pharma, Big Insurance, etc., the Democrats had nowhere to turn for funding. And so they turned to Wall St., which in turn expected - and demanded - a payoff. Bye bye working class.
And so here we are today. Republicans have been using the McCarthy/Nixon/Reagan/Bush I/Bush II playbook of lying, cheating and stealing for decades now. Re-using the same dog whistles and lies, and pushing ever closer to exactly this sort of thing. America was primed for the big takeover. All it took was one cult leader to come along and dispense with the dog whistles, and the coup is complete.
Meanwhile, Democrats responded with a resounding whimper, tucking their tails between their legs and rolling over on their backs.
Much ink has been spilled, and bits streamed, talking about >what< we need to do - but nobody seems to be able to answer the question "how?". That's the real problem. Not just what needs to be done, but how to go about it. Where's our FDR?