Last week's Democratic National Committee meeting illustrated a party trying to stay focused on economic issues while grappling with strong, changing opinions on Israel.
I think it’s important to remember that the Democrats are not a single unified party, it’s a coalition of two. One that has strong convictions, and well reasoned and popular plans for correcting the course of country, but an inability to raise the funds to support a coherent organization or run a campaign, and a second party that has no coherent values or convictions and importantly, no functional plan to govern, but significant funding from corporate owners and the resources to manage a large, national scale organization. This is how you end up with a party with AOC and Bernie at one end and John Fetterman and Andrew Cuomo at the other end. A tent that big doesn’t have an ideology, a consistent platform, or any positive mandate. But also neither party is viable on its own because of the structure of the US electoral system.
From one angle it is certainly true that the DNC is parasitic on the popular movements of the day. From another angle, it can look like the progressive movements are parasitic on the structural and financial machine of the democratic party. In both cases though if you zoom out far enough, it becomes apparant that both of those are true, and more, but also that it’s ultimately a dysfunctional symbiosis of convenience to survive in a system that is structurally incapable of producing a result that disadvantages the capital owner class. You can’t actually use the US political system as it stands to correct its current failures. It’s designed to fall apart if you try.
Yeah I don’t agree with that characterization what-so-ever and its one that seems completely oblivious to the actually politics and processes which have manifested in the modern Democratic party, outside of, and I agree with, that the party is multiple ideologies in a trenchcoat.
but an inability to raise the funds to support a coherent organization or run a campaign,
I mean this is just not fucking true. Just straight made up wholecloth.
but significant funding from corporate owners and the resources to manage a large, national scale organization.
What you think parties just drop in from the sky?
But also neither party is viable on its own because of the structure of the US electoral system.
Also, objectively not true. Mandami was opposed by both the DNC and the RNC.
but an inability to raise the funds to support a coherent organization or run a campaign,
You kiss your mother with that mouth? I said national scale You can do it on a mayoral scale, even a city the size of New York but the closest anyone ever came to pulling it off at a national scale was Bernie and he still couldn’t fund a full war chest at a time with much better financial conditions for small donors.
More importantly, I kiss your mother with this mouth; but generally I’m not here to placate your sensibilities. You being utterly oblivious to reality is a you problem and if you want to tone police, go back to reddit.
Bernie and he still couldn’t fund a full war chest at a time with much better financial conditions for small donors
Are you an idiot? Like an actual “has paperwork about the matter” idiot?
Bernie didn’t lose because of fundraising. And every campaign since Bernies 2016 has practically carbon copied their approach to fundraising because what Bernie did was so preposterously effective. They redefined what is possible in politics because their approaches were so effective. Like you could not possibly have picked a worse example than Bernie for that point.
Second, and this is implicit in your statement, is the also wrong premise that more fundraising == more viable candidate. This is also not true. Yes modern political campaigns are more expensive but most raising != most likely to win candidate.
I didn’t say more money always wins, there’s plenty of evidence of that, but money is fundamental in the US to building the communications apparatus to be heard over the unhinged rants being amplified by the corporate class. You want to be heard over the fire hose of bullshit, you need full-time dedicated staff and they need to eat. The game is rigged in favour of the corrupt, even you can’t deny that one, and with the wild imbalance of current wealth inequality in the US the progressive left is not well positioned to break the siege. There are regional bastions that can hold the line like Minnesota, New York, and Seattle but it’s not enough to actually win given the way the US electoral system is structured to favour dollars over people.
You want my honest take? It’s going to take a decade of community organizing, union organizing, and a whole lot more blood, sweat and tears to break through the point where the progressive left is able to drop the center-right DNC and stand on their own against the plutocrats trying to break people’s spirits. Can it be done? Yes. Are we there yet? I don’t think we are, not in most of the country. It’s a much longer road than I think a lot of people appreciate. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth walking, but it’s going to take a lot longer to right this ship than a few years, and we need people with the commitment to do the ground work, to build community groups, to organize in places that no progressive has ever stood a chance before.
I’m not going to carry water for the pathetic old guard that are failing to effectively fight the fascist right. Call their bullshit out. But at the end of the day, the left by itself isn’t big enough or strong enough to overcome the oligarch’s propaganda machine. Not yet. Not where they need to be.
I think it’s important to remember that the Democrats are not a single unified party, it’s a coalition of two. One that has strong convictions, and well reasoned and popular plans for correcting the course of country, but an inability to raise the funds to support a coherent organization or run a campaign, and a second party that has no coherent values or convictions and importantly, no functional plan to govern, but significant funding from corporate owners and the resources to manage a large, national scale organization. This is how you end up with a party with AOC and Bernie at one end and John Fetterman and Andrew Cuomo at the other end. A tent that big doesn’t have an ideology, a consistent platform, or any positive mandate. But also neither party is viable on its own because of the structure of the US electoral system.
From one angle it is certainly true that the DNC is parasitic on the popular movements of the day. From another angle, it can look like the progressive movements are parasitic on the structural and financial machine of the democratic party. In both cases though if you zoom out far enough, it becomes apparant that both of those are true, and more, but also that it’s ultimately a dysfunctional symbiosis of convenience to survive in a system that is structurally incapable of producing a result that disadvantages the capital owner class. You can’t actually use the US political system as it stands to correct its current failures. It’s designed to fall apart if you try.
Yeah I don’t agree with that characterization what-so-ever and its one that seems completely oblivious to the actually politics and processes which have manifested in the modern Democratic party, outside of, and I agree with, that the party is multiple ideologies in a trenchcoat.
I mean this is just not fucking true. Just straight made up wholecloth.
What you think parties just drop in from the sky?
Also, objectively not true. Mandami was opposed by both the DNC and the RNC.
Just… also not fucking true.
You should stop just shitting words out your ass.
You kiss your mother with that mouth? I said national scale You can do it on a mayoral scale, even a city the size of New York but the closest anyone ever came to pulling it off at a national scale was Bernie and he still couldn’t fund a full war chest at a time with much better financial conditions for small donors.
More importantly, I kiss your mother with this mouth; but generally I’m not here to placate your sensibilities. You being utterly oblivious to reality is a you problem and if you want to tone police, go back to reddit.
Are you an idiot? Like an actual “has paperwork about the matter” idiot?
Bernie didn’t lose because of fundraising. And every campaign since Bernies 2016 has practically carbon copied their approach to fundraising because what Bernie did was so preposterously effective. They redefined what is possible in politics because their approaches were so effective. Like you could not possibly have picked a worse example than Bernie for that point.
Second, and this is implicit in your statement, is the also wrong premise that more fundraising == more viable candidate. This is also not true. Yes modern political campaigns are more expensive but most raising != most likely to win candidate.
I didn’t say more money always wins, there’s plenty of evidence of that, but money is fundamental in the US to building the communications apparatus to be heard over the unhinged rants being amplified by the corporate class. You want to be heard over the fire hose of bullshit, you need full-time dedicated staff and they need to eat. The game is rigged in favour of the corrupt, even you can’t deny that one, and with the wild imbalance of current wealth inequality in the US the progressive left is not well positioned to break the siege. There are regional bastions that can hold the line like Minnesota, New York, and Seattle but it’s not enough to actually win given the way the US electoral system is structured to favour dollars over people.
You want my honest take? It’s going to take a decade of community organizing, union organizing, and a whole lot more blood, sweat and tears to break through the point where the progressive left is able to drop the center-right DNC and stand on their own against the plutocrats trying to break people’s spirits. Can it be done? Yes. Are we there yet? I don’t think we are, not in most of the country. It’s a much longer road than I think a lot of people appreciate. That doesn’t mean it isn’t worth walking, but it’s going to take a lot longer to right this ship than a few years, and we need people with the commitment to do the ground work, to build community groups, to organize in places that no progressive has ever stood a chance before.
I’m not going to carry water for the pathetic old guard that are failing to effectively fight the fascist right. Call their bullshit out. But at the end of the day, the left by itself isn’t big enough or strong enough to overcome the oligarch’s propaganda machine. Not yet. Not where they need to be.