He’s right. In a declining capitalist state like the current US, workers want change. In the absence of a genuine working class party that correctly blames capitalism and the capitalist class for a revolution, you get a “radical” capitalist-funded party that at least points the blame at someone — marginalized people.
The dems only offer to preserve the status quo, and no one fucking wants the status quo.
Get organized. Liberal democracies in the imperial core historically always slide to fascism.
While it’s good to hear him say it now, I’m very annoyed that he didn’t attempt to hold Dem feet to the fire while they were in an election, and could have potentially extracted concessions. AFAIK he’s also still not calling the Palestinian genocide a genocide.
This is not to take away from the message that the democratic party must be destroyed and replaced with a working class (IE: Communist) party, which is correct, but merely to point out that Bernie himself cannot be trusted to lead it.
Brother is hurtling towards 90. I wouldn’t trust him to lead a drum circle.
…this is the crux of it: bernie’s time was eight years ago, and even though i absolutely respect his lucid resolve, the movement needs fresh figureheads to sustain its momentum…
It’s worth noting that “fascism” specifically is a eurocentric — or even more specifically a 20th century-centric — ideology. You could argue the US has always been “fascist”, just that the fascism has been focused on people outside it — the countries it constantly wages wars on. Still a good way to describe the direction declining capitalist states are headed to, I guess.
You could argue the US has always been “fascist”, just that the fascism has been focused on people outside it
Hitler was inspired on how to treat the Jews, Romani, disabled, and queers, based on how we treated Native Americans and Black Americans. He saw the country doing so well in the world stage excluding millions from the same status and privilege as the normalized default, and thought it would work for Germany and Europe, by force.
America was founded by rich white oligarchs, it was never going to support anything good without a lot of people letting go unless they died.
EDIT: Sorry if you get double pinged, server had a hiccup as I was posting.
Fascism is Capitalism in decay, the violent immune system employed by the Capitalist class. A great work on fascism is Blackshirts and Reds. I can provide a longer Marxism intro reading list if you’d like, but Blackshirts is a great start.
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Even here in Europe where there are genuine left wing parties, where there’s proportional representation, where we have mistly functional education, labour class people are voting for folks who blame poor people and immigrants for everything that goes wrong. I think part of the blame is with tabloid style media and social media magnifying formerly fringe opinion. Just saying that having a real alternative for the populist right, might not be enough.
Any example at hand of these liberal democracies that hystorically always slide to fascism? What does imperial core mean?
Primarily referring to Germany and Italy’s descent into fascism, and we’re currently seeing this happen in France, and now in the US. These countries only see a shift to the left with an external force, like Scandinavian states giving concessions to the working class when the nearby USSR posed the threat of a good example — and by extension, the threat of a working class revolution; of course, these concessions are gradually being taken away now.
Imperial core countries refers to colonizer countries that now control financial institutions like the IMF and World Bank, and depend on the continued exploitation of former colonies.
I specify liberal democracies in imperial core countries because we have seen limited successes for the left outside it. Like Allende coming to power in Chile (before being overthrown in a US-backed coup 2 years later), or now Lula and Claudia coming to power in Brazil and Mexico.
Sorry, I’m italian. We’ve been fascists forever. The partito comunista italiano that wrote after ww2 the antifascist Italian constitution, with other parties obviously, had to allow the birth of movimento sociale Italiano: too many fascists, impossible to manage the situation, they had to organize. Although there are signs of significative active civil resistance, the matter it’s that Italian people are fascist. Full stop. Also Italy has never been a liberal democracy, nor a fully free democracy, with usa helping terrorism (mainly, you guessed it, the far right one) during the 70s for example, and heavily meddling in our politics, at least until Enrico berlinguer was alive. I mean. We got the pope, for 2000 years, approx. You’re invited to live in a country whose parliament sends laws to Vaticano, before discussing them; just in case, you know, they have a say.
Finally, being one of the few leftists left (I liked the pun) in Europe, I’m just waiting for putin to die, he’ll have to, because I have no other choice than waiting. I just hope that USA won’t wage the nth war in between, as they already helped the xenophobic nationalist far right Europeans movements a bit too much, in recent years.
So no, I cannot agree with you. I hope you see i’m disagreeing in a civil manner.
Have a nice day, thank you for your time and kind response.
PS USA crying about Trump? I mean, we had Berlusconi in politics for ~20 years. Been there, done that, ~25 years earlier.
Edit I hope I don’t have to remind anyone that modern dictatorship was born in Italy, under the name of fascism. Yeah, keep hoping
It’s not that liberal democracies always slide, specifically, it’s that Capitalist states always slide, and this is heightened by being in the Global North. Global North countries brutally explioit Global South countries via Imperialism, by relying on vastly under-paid labor and selling it in the Global North for higher prices.
Fascism is Capitalism in decay, the violent immune system employed by the Capitalist class. A great work on fascism is Blackshirts and Reds. I can provide a longer Marxism intro reading list if you’d like, but Blackshirts is a great start.
I also recommend Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, and the famous Yellow Parenti Speech (a small excerpt here.
It’s an interesting ending to an otherwise fine comment. Bernie would slide the US towards liberal democracy, further from fascism
That’s not how Capitalism or fascism works. Capitalism is in constant decay, this decay leads to sharpening contradictions and fascism is deployed to protect Capitalist interests. Bernie would not end Capitalism, he may only slow it’s rate of descent, not stop it or reverse it. A great work on fascism is Blackshirts and Reds. I can provide a longer Marxism intro reading list if you’d like, but Blackshirts is a great start.
I know, no need to worry. My comment didn’t portray Bernie as some anticapitalist Jesus who can single-handedly force a revolution if that needed clarification
Imo, that fact that people voted and vote in the USA doesn’t mean that USA isn’t a fascist country. Just look at how bullishly they waged wars, and made millions of people suffer torture, pain, abandonment. They’re the epitome of “me ne frego!”
Yup, many auth/fash/totalitarian/oligarchies/etc hold elections which don’t matter
Reread your post and then really consider if that rhetoric would get >50% of the vote. It’s just more academic jibberish that falls flat outside coastal cities.
That’s not the message to voters, that’s the message to thinking people who are evaluating the problem. The message to voters is much more simple. Point the finger where the blame lies, and tell the people what you’ll do for them. Of course no serious funding will come your way if you try that though, since the corpos running the country aren’t going to donate to a candidate who seeks to unseat them. There you see is the root of the problem. It’s not a government of the people, by the people, unless you believe that silly lie that corporations are people.
The most relevant paragraph imo
Bernie’s coalition was filled with the exact type of voters who are now flocking to Donald Trump: Working class voters of all races, young people, and, critically, the much-derided bros. The top contributors to Bernie’s campaign often held jobs at places like Amazon and Walmart. The unions loved him. And— never forget — he earned the coveted Joe Rogan endorsement that Trump also received the day before the election this year. It turns out, the Bernie-to-Trump pipeline is real! While that has always been used as an epithet to smear Bernie and his movement, with the implication that social democracy is just a cover for or gateway drug to right wing authoritarianism, the truth is that this pipeline speaks to the power and appeal of Bernie’s vision as an effective antidote to Trumpism. When these voters had a choice between Trump and Bernie, they chose Bernie. For many of them now that the choice is between Trump and the dried out husk of neoliberalism, they’re going Trump.
Yes but then the DNC would not be able to please their donor class. Which is far more important than winning.
No, Democratic Party would throw an election rather than move an inch to the left.
The failure that will forever define Bernie’s political legacy will be not turning the energy that was behind him in 2020 into a more permanent movement. He just gave the phone bank and email lists to the Dems and fell in line.
…the progressive movement held our collective noses and reacted to an existential crisis for the preservation of american democracy in the face of imminent fascism, and the coalition succeeded at that goal for a short while, but only just…
It’s not a failure, he made a choice. In hindsight we see it as the wrong choice, but we don’t know what the alternative is. We will never know if it was right or wrong, failure or success.
Nothing is ever so simple.
It’s a failure unless his goal was for his movement to fizzle out and flounder.
Didn’t be obtuse.
To fix your logic “It would be a failure if his goal was to keep his movement alive at any cost”. That clearly wasn’t his goal.
Or have I missed the point entirely, and this is not a discussion but some point scoring thing based on digestible one liners.
Bernie didn’t keep his movement alive nor did the Democrats win in 2024. Something clearly was wrong with what he was trying to do.
Most likely the DNC would have sabotaged him like Labour sabotaged Jeremy Corbin
Yeah that’s the subtext of the headline. Or should be if it isn’t the author’s intent. This shouldn’t be understood as an endorsement of social liberalism, but as a denunciation of the system as a way of obtaining good outcomes.
He should found a new party based on his moral and ethical values. First, take over Vermont government, after that let’s see. He’s the only politician I know whou could pull this one in the American scene. He’s already independent and representing much more than Vermont.
I’m down, but he’s just so old. With his only heir apparent being AOC. People don’t like her nearly as much despite basically identical policy proposals. I wonder why?
I’ve said this before but at this point I think our only hope is the destruction of the Republican party so Democrats are the new conservatives. This way a progressive party could arise.
Or get rid of first past the post voting and the electoral college. But that seems harder somehow.
Or, honestly, this is the end and there is no hope left.
This is why he should do it now. It’s his ideas the ones founding the party, not him. This is still one right moment, the Democrats are in crisis and the people opposed to Trump feel strayed. Meanwhile, the Republican party is raving on their victory, but we all know Trump will fuck it up as soon as he is in charge the next year, leaving people disenchanted.
despite basically identical policy proposals
You don’t really have this problem when you vote for political parties instead of presidents.
People don’t like her nearly as much despite basically identical policy proposals. I wonder why?
AOC voted to protect the rail corporations from the union strike.
Yes. in 2016. Not this year, he took too many terrible bargains.
And of course the dems would rather get dissolved in acid then actually run him. They would have ran the ghost of Richard Nixon over him.
Bernie couldn’t win when it was just Democrats deciding amongst themselves.
The Democrats ran Bernie before, during a time that was much more favorable for a progressive candidate. Only then, his name was George McGovern and he got beat like a rented mule.
Progressives need to learn how few people in this country are willing to consider the notion of the possibility of thinking about letting their daughters date a progressive, much less elect one President. It’s not enough to be right, if you’re fucking stupid about the citizens of this country.
Something I’ve realized about the post mortem takes is that peoples opinions on what went wrong is often just the laundry list of things they wanted and didn’t get.
So the candidate wasn’t perfect enough for them and if candidate just did all that well enough for me then it would have been a victory. Easy peasy. Too bad they aren’t the entire electorate.
Seems only natural in an era of heightened partisanship. It’s not even left-right but divisions among factions within. Why is everyone ignoring the strong anti-communist sentiment among Latino populations. If Harris lost that by surprisingly large margins campaigning more center than anything then a proper left candidate would have even worse numbers.
Bernie should be the benevolent dictator of the Democratic party.
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good bit
If this is how he felt the last year, he’s just as culpable as all of the other fucks who stayed home and didn’t vote. Fuck him and his Monday morning quarterbacking.
Bernie is a bastard, but I think it’s backwards thinking to blame voters rather than candidates. In a nominal democracy, it’s the job of the candidates to appeal to people to get votes. If there is any merit to this idea, we must conclude that the failure was the Harris campaign for not generating the confidence needed to vote for her – which is a very expected outcome when you’re running as reactionary a campaign as she did, calling the wall a “good idea” and so on.
Yep. From a systems analyst perspective, if there’s a problem with a couple people, it’s because they’re idiots. If a lot of people are having a problem, it’s a systems issue. In this case, the DNC and their shit messaging.
It’s like they hired an intern to do their marketing. They had a few funny clap backs on socials but they didn’t actually pivot to appeal to their target demographics. Fucking marketing 101.
She was awful in interviews too. The fox interview, even as a supporter of hers, went awful. And then they try to clip it for social media to make it look like she dunked on him over and over.
She didnt answer a single question, showed up late, and left early. I dont understand who that was meant to appeal to?
Agree
The republican party and adjacent is mostly white nationalists, what would make you think that they would switch to voting for a Jewish person? He would have unfortunately lost.
