The US desperately needs a political party that will stand up for workers, average people, and the planet -- and confront Trump's pro-corporate agenda.
I agree with everything you say. We had a chance in 2015 and 2020 to elect Bernie Sanders, but the corporate wing of the Democratic Party quickly did everything they could to eliminate him. What a mistake! Think what that party would look like now after 8 years of a President Sanders! I grieve for what could have been but am on board with your thoughts for a brighter future.
While I am more culturally conservative than most leftists I could have lived with old pre sold out Bernie who said open borders are a "Koch brother plan," and who opposed gun con control as he represented a rural state where that isn't popular.
I am literally the opposite of a neo-con socially conservative but anti capitalist and anti-war. Any new coalition needs to figure out how to plug people like me in, as there are literally millions of us in rural areas. If you don't, then don't be surprised if we find Steve Bannon's brand of rural anti-corporate populism more appealing than snooty professional managerial class driven woke urabanite elitism.
I have been having the same thoughts. We currently have choices between far right fascists and center right. There is no progressive party. It may take a few years of MAGA destruction of our democracy and the economy before people are ready to support it, but a new party could be the answer. It is unfortunate that nobody better than Williamson, Stein, and RFK Jr was stepping up. West is the only one you mentioned that I could consider supporting.
Because Democrats are constantly pandering to and moving further to the right while blocking any and all movement back towards the left. (The Ratchet Effect) They always preferred to lose to Republicans if they can’t get a corporate friendly Dem over the line, instead of winning with a leftist like Bernie Sanders. That’s how I knew Democrats were fascists too, I watched as they coordinated to stealthily crush any and every leftist run because it was such a threat to their way of doing business… they unconvincingly feigned being horrified by Republicans winning but, they know as long as the two parties have a stranglehold on this country it will be business as usual and they can all keep lining their pockets without offering the working class anything. They prefer to lose to Republicans because it’s good for fundraising and the game remains the same.
It's not shocking at all, the "progressive left" explicitly told white rural Christians and straight men who act like men we aren't welcome in new America, you told us to fuck off first, and guess what we got to fucking off and abandoned you.
There are plenty of Christians who believe that all people are created equal and that working class people deserve a living wage and who don’t think they have to “act like men”—so if you don’t know that and are pulling back into your mental shell, it’s just as well. Donziger is right on in this essay.
What exactly does "created equal," even mean? Should we all have the right to vote and equal standing before the law? Of course, without that we cease to be America, are we all equal in motivation and capabilities? Surely you can see that's not the case? And no I am not talking about race based discrimination, or letting people starve. In fact it's your side who wants to tip the scales on a racial basis in hiring and admission to colleges which is a gross violation of MLK's dream.
Are you incapable of defending your positions using evidence and reason? One of the most infuriating things about the new woke progressives is the idea anyone who questions your presumptions is acting in bad faith. Until you get over that and engage in authentic dialog with your interlocutors you will be taking a much needed cultural timeout.
And I say that as someone open to old left ideas, like advocating for working people, with material class analysis, opposing wars, and advocating to protect wilderness areas. But to the extent you double down on vacuous woke identity politics is the extent ordinary people are going to increasingly tune you out.
Mr. Raven: you jump to conclusions, which I find to be very interesting given your responses to me, especially in regarding me as particularly "woke" and therefore merely complaining about your position. So let me respond to you as you have suggested and with a few questions of my own.
First, yes, every citizen--born here or born elsewhere to American parent(s) has the right to vote, whether that person is male or female who has maintained that gender identity or has decided to change it. Because some citizens do. I have friends and relatives and acquaintances who have, and they are proud to have voted. Why does that make me "woke"?
Surely I see that everyone having their votes counted is not the case in all elections, and now that smoke has cleared and the University of Florida has released its statistics about who voted and who did not vote, we can see that a good number of people eligible to vote did not. No reasons given of course, but the number of people who did not vote far exceeded the number of people who voted for either President Trump or for former vice-president Harris. And why is that? Do they not believe in voting? Have they decided that how they voted is of no relevance? "Are we all equal in motivation and capabilities," as you ask, and then say it's not the case.
And so here comes the second point I wish to make. Are you suggesting that any citizen's motivations and capabilities should be used to decide who gets to vote? I agree that not all of us have the same motivations or capabilities, but who, to be blunt, gives a damn about that. Gender discrimination aside, "all men (and women and gays and cross gender and lesbians and racists and murderers and pederasts)are created equal." as the male-dominated founders said in the Declaration of Independence. But that was the Declaration. It was not the Constitution.
Point three: Martin Luther King Jr's Dream: It is also clear that in the past election a number of voters have been disenfranchised or had their votes questioned and not counted, and surprise surprise, particularly in the swing state of Georgia, many of them were (ahem) people of color and most probably members of churches or other belief institutions. But that of course is "race-based discrimination," which you don't want to consider, although I question why you don't, since so many of the discriminatory actions have been made by people who, excuse me for being so woke, are "white" and most usually men, like me and you. So what was he after? Justice for everyone, including, I might say, Vietnamese who were being killed by our military; black people who had been lynched and burned and killed by white people in the past and who now wanted the right to vote.
Do you truly think that people with non-white skin in this country are given a fair shake in the economic structure of this country? Do you truly think that they are no longer discriminated against? Further, do you truly think that discrimination doesn't exist for most people who have found themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder, no matter the color of their skin? MLK was for justice for everyone. Everyone in the whole world. I read his speeches every year and I know what he was looking for.
So I hope this response opens up a dialogue with you. I know a few people who I regarded as liberal who have become more conservative over time, but I also know many who have become more humanitarian and more committed to it, like me, who question how this voting system has been corrupted by racist who have hid their racism, by religious people who disregard the first amendment to the constitution and who want the government to pass laws "respecting an establishment of THEIR religion."
Finally, a personal question: why is it you have chosen to blog using a pseudonym? Just asking.
The Dems are not actually Center right. When you fund and arm genocide, fund war for profit, imprison journalists and civil rights organisations like the Uhuhu 3, and send police to arrest students for protesting genocide….that’s actually fascism.
Don’t wait for mystical symbols or hand waves. That’s actually fascism.
And until people start voting for the Green Party of others on the ballot and stop pretending that they can only make one of two fascist choices, well it’s going to continue like this.
It's worse than fascism, a certain mid century Austrian painter wasn't exactly a fan of the people currently bombing hospitals and strafing lines of deliberately starved people with machine gun fire.
No, but his minions did starve children in concentration camps like Gaza and line them up and shoot them into mass graves—again like Gaza. I am strongly pro-Palestinian. I have been for decades, since I began to learn the real history and to read Palestinian writers. But I am no antisemite. The Holocaust may have been exaggerated. But it was real. There is no possible apology for it, any more than there is for the crimes Israel is committing in Palestine.
There were forced labor camps for absolute certain, and I don’t support that. The evidence of the extermination of millions of Jews though is negative. And in fact even mainstream historians keep revising the numbers down.
The trouble with third party voting without electoral reform including ranked choice voting is that it has virtually zero chance of succeeding in national elections. For local and down-ballot elections it is worthwhile.
It’s not “third party” voting. Even such a framing reverts to determinism that there can only be two choices.
You can have many choices. First you need to vote out the crooks, step by step. Just like the kooks on the right wing voted IN the tea party and MAGA step by step.
No it’s not done in 5 mins. But if you want them on the ballot then you need to keep increasing their share of the vote, you need to write them in, to get past barriers. At all levels, from city to country, to state and federal. You must demonstrate that the views that these votes stand for have a real impact on electoral college and can swing elections. This is investment.
Nothing in life is instant. Only Americans believe that everything in live is ordered instantly like a meal delivered to your front door in 39 mins. This is real life. You want to build a new house - you need to plan long term and invest and build it. There are no short cuts.
Other democrats would have LOVED to step up but did not because they knew they’d be crushed by the Democratic establishment — as Dean Phillips was — and by the corporate media. They were all biding their time until 2028.
Have you heard of Claudia De La Cruz? She was also running, and she’s good. Josie Hawkins was, too. It’s extraordinary how our media combine to silence true socialists.
If left leaning people want to actually take over the mantle of leadership, you need to get over vague collegiate blather about transphobia, racism, sexism, ableism, etc, and come up with concrete realizable policy plans that will make lives of ordinary working people concretely better. Reviving Unions would be a good start, and backing off on gun grabbing and woke identity politics that do not appeal to average suburban and rural people would be another good start. Like it or not there are a lot of "Archie Bunkers," out there and those people used to be Union supporting Democrats. The "progressives" explicitly told those people they aren't welcome for speech crimes, and then you act all shocked they became Republicans?
I agree the Democrats need to do a better job of articulating and selling demand-side policies that actually help workers and families, and show stronger support for unions, but that should not come at the cost of abandoning support for LGBTQ people, other minorities, women, restricting assault weapons, and strengthening background checks for firearms. The right demonizes “woke” but it is actually just recognizing the reality of past slavery, the roots of systemic racism, genocide, and other unsavory history that we should learn from rather than hiding.
Here’s the thing buddy, ordinary working class people don’t want genital mutilation of children and gun grabbing. When you promote that agenda you are part of the problem. People like you caused me to become a right winger after 20 years or being a lefty peace and environmental activist.
There is a window of opportunity in which Biden could do what’s right and pardon you, Julian Assange and Leonard Peltier for crimes for which you were not guilty. It’s important for you to resume your work, it’s essential that Leonard should be allowed a short time of freedom after 50 years of imprisonment. The cases brought against all three of you were vindictive, I despair of seeing justice done once Trump takes office
Admittedly a small sampling, the few commenters here so far highlight not only the challenges awaiting a party attempting to rally the working class, but also the unmistakable collective stupidity of the American voter. I have NEVER been more proud of not participating in the electoral process. Until the day a class-conscious bus driver, baker or butcher rises from the political ashes to lead us out of the political wilderness, workers will inevitably continue our prostrated dependence on the professional managerial class and/or millionaire/billionaires to sell off our bodies and souls to the system demanding them in exchange for the meager scraps offered in return. As a hospice nurse, I’ve had more than one encounter with patients and families telling me the candidate they’re waiting to throw their support behind is the individual basing their entire campaign on eradicating insurance companies. The days of half-measures are over. The ONLY candidate I’m even remotely interested in any longer is the individual willing to die for the folks he/she desires to lead..
the Democrats succeeded, you are not giving them proper credit. Look we have had over a year of full scale GENOCIDE. Biden offered everything needed with no redlines, none. Again and yet again he pledged all this country has to arm Israel's forces and protect them as the killing proceeded including blocking all calls at the UN for a ceasefire. Full success!
Thankfully the American people said NO loudly and hopefully all the rest of those in the pay of AIPAC undermining our democracy to support Israel will eventually be OUT as well.
I am astonished, after a year of horror, of Biden's nonstop support of KILLING, now that regime has been thrown OUT and instead of PLANNING how we can END the genocide we hear all this clammering and fear mongering about the dangers of Trump.... does the literate class actually LOOK before they speak? NO. Fear is the latest way to govern so if you lose you just generate FEAR OF THE OTHER as in trump-derangement-syndrome........
as Sy Hersch said, Trump is "a circuit breaker" so if that is the best we can do, lets get to work making change, NOW. The genocide HAS TO STOP, let us stop it.
Hey Steven. Sorry for your incarceration. Good piece. However, Bernie WAS cheated, and Trump did not stage a coup, that was a CIA fomented entrapment "coup". Im surprised you are a little off. A little Trump derangement syndrome exists in you possibly? With respect.
1. Project 2025 is not a Trump plan, in fact Trump himself specifically disavowed it.
2. While I am not a climate change denier we need a soft landing that works for rural people as well as urban people. Where I live in northern Michigan for example an electric car isn't viable. Charging stations in my area are very spread out the nearest one to me is almost 50 miles away and in a direction I don't go very often. Further EVs have poor range in the winter that is made worse by the fact that to heat the car up you have to run an electric heater off the batteries. And no you can't just ask the 1/3rd or so of Americans who are rural to simply pack up and leave against their will. Forced transfer is genocide under international law. So what are you going to do about the transportation needs of rural folks in a post fossil fuel economy? Reminder too that rural people provide your food, and raw materials for paper, and other things urban people need, and many of us sick of being treated like an internal colony to urban centers. It's this attitude in fact that drives rural voters into the hands of Trump and the GOP.
Note I am not a Trump voter, I didn't vote at all a I couldn't stomach either electable candidate, I have voted for Greens in the past, but honestly it's just a futile gesture, the Green culture is just too wacky for ordinary Americans outside of college town enclaves. I would like to see a practical plan that tackles banker usury and corporate dominance while also allowing rural people to preserve their own unique culture and not just be assimilated into some "progressive" globalist BORG.
I'm so sick of all of this wailing and gnashing of teeth over Project 2025. It's a Heritage Foundation wish list, that's all, and a previous Heritage Foundation wish became Obamacare, so don't even tell me that Democrats are always on the opposite side.
And describing 1/6/2021 as an "insurrection!" Like a bunch of gun nuts showed up at the Capitol to overthrow the government but forgot their guns for some mysterious and unmentionable reason. It's always been an absurd allegation, every bit as absurd as Russiagate's existence or Hunter Biden's laptop's non-existence, and it weakens your overall argument.
Trump did not stage a coup against the government. Jan6 was a protest by guys in pajamas with undercover Feds creating chaos. Learn about the Shay’s Rebellion.
This is what happens when you ignore what millions of ordinary people have been saying for much of the last decade.
This is what happens when instead of addressing their concerns you jam even more mass immigration, broken borders, social disorder, woke policies, gender madness, soft-on-crime policies, high taxes, regulation, and cultural chaos down their throats.
This is what happens when instead of treating your fellow citizens with respect you choose to berate them, once again, like you did in 2016, as “Nazis”, “fascists”, “MAGA extremists”, “insurrectionists”, “garbage”, and more.
This is what happens when the only people who refuse to acknowledge that most voters do not want to live in a world with open borders, mass migration, soft-on-crime policies, high taxes, restrictions on free speech, forever wars, and the sexualisation of our children happen to be the very people who control our institutions.
This is what happens when you allow our public, taxpayer-funded institutions, from universities to schools, to be hijacked and taken over by radical ideologues who use their power to impose a stifling, unscientific, and deeply divisive woke agenda on everybody else, including our families and children..."
Perhaps you should take your spiel over to Matt Goodwin's site. Speaking for myself, I don't view the loss of my rights and protections in law and policy based on my sex class as a "phony cultural issue." And I don't view the lifelong medicalization of children when they can't possibly consent in any meaningful way as trivial. And I'm done with the intellectual posers and misogynists who do.
It is such a horrifying realization that Dems are just another neoliberal party. The other side to the same coin of the Republicans, which they get away with by having “social justice” rhetoric. In a way, they are worse than Republicans because you don't see them coming, they are constantly posturing and have a lot of the media helping them.
I would really like your expkanations Steven on how Bernie was "all but cheated" and how Trump "staged a coup". Im a layperson and feel I see clearer than you on this. A discussion would be very appreciated
“… My guess is that it could not create one to lift working people while also appeasing the corporate donors who now dominate the party...”
It’s worth reflecting that the “corporate donors” aka the oligarchy, that funds the Dems…..benefits from Project 2025.
They fund the Dens to block alternatives. The Dems is a terminally infested corps therefore. A zombie.
For the working class the only salvation is to build something from the ground up.
In this respect every single vote that the ceiling glass gave to the Dems rather than the Green Party, was a wasted one. Because it takes a decade to build this alternative and involves election losses that build ballot presence.
DNC is a well organized criminal organization and one of the two wings of the single US War party,
I agree with everything you say. We had a chance in 2015 and 2020 to elect Bernie Sanders, but the corporate wing of the Democratic Party quickly did everything they could to eliminate him. What a mistake! Think what that party would look like now after 8 years of a President Sanders! I grieve for what could have been but am on board with your thoughts for a brighter future.
Yes. Imagine the Democratic Party without the corporate wing that suppressed Sanders. That's all it would have taken to have not ended up here.
While I am more culturally conservative than most leftists I could have lived with old pre sold out Bernie who said open borders are a "Koch brother plan," and who opposed gun con control as he represented a rural state where that isn't popular.
I am literally the opposite of a neo-con socially conservative but anti capitalist and anti-war. Any new coalition needs to figure out how to plug people like me in, as there are literally millions of us in rural areas. If you don't, then don't be surprised if we find Steve Bannon's brand of rural anti-corporate populism more appealing than snooty professional managerial class driven woke urabanite elitism.
I have been having the same thoughts. We currently have choices between far right fascists and center right. There is no progressive party. It may take a few years of MAGA destruction of our democracy and the economy before people are ready to support it, but a new party could be the answer. It is unfortunate that nobody better than Williamson, Stein, and RFK Jr was stepping up. West is the only one you mentioned that I could consider supporting.
Thanks for this. It's shocking how entire paradigm of our political system has shifted to the right over the last several years.
Because Democrats are constantly pandering to and moving further to the right while blocking any and all movement back towards the left. (The Ratchet Effect) They always preferred to lose to Republicans if they can’t get a corporate friendly Dem over the line, instead of winning with a leftist like Bernie Sanders. That’s how I knew Democrats were fascists too, I watched as they coordinated to stealthily crush any and every leftist run because it was such a threat to their way of doing business… they unconvincingly feigned being horrified by Republicans winning but, they know as long as the two parties have a stranglehold on this country it will be business as usual and they can all keep lining their pockets without offering the working class anything. They prefer to lose to Republicans because it’s good for fundraising and the game remains the same.
It's not shocking at all, the "progressive left" explicitly told white rural Christians and straight men who act like men we aren't welcome in new America, you told us to fuck off first, and guess what we got to fucking off and abandoned you.
There are plenty of Christians who believe that all people are created equal and that working class people deserve a living wage and who don’t think they have to “act like men”—so if you don’t know that and are pulling back into your mental shell, it’s just as well. Donziger is right on in this essay.
What exactly does "created equal," even mean? Should we all have the right to vote and equal standing before the law? Of course, without that we cease to be America, are we all equal in motivation and capabilities? Surely you can see that's not the case? And no I am not talking about race based discrimination, or letting people starve. In fact it's your side who wants to tip the scales on a racial basis in hiring and admission to colleges which is a gross violation of MLK's dream.
Then why are you here? Trolling?
Are you incapable of defending your positions using evidence and reason? One of the most infuriating things about the new woke progressives is the idea anyone who questions your presumptions is acting in bad faith. Until you get over that and engage in authentic dialog with your interlocutors you will be taking a much needed cultural timeout.
And I say that as someone open to old left ideas, like advocating for working people, with material class analysis, opposing wars, and advocating to protect wilderness areas. But to the extent you double down on vacuous woke identity politics is the extent ordinary people are going to increasingly tune you out.
Mr. Raven: you jump to conclusions, which I find to be very interesting given your responses to me, especially in regarding me as particularly "woke" and therefore merely complaining about your position. So let me respond to you as you have suggested and with a few questions of my own.
First, yes, every citizen--born here or born elsewhere to American parent(s) has the right to vote, whether that person is male or female who has maintained that gender identity or has decided to change it. Because some citizens do. I have friends and relatives and acquaintances who have, and they are proud to have voted. Why does that make me "woke"?
Surely I see that everyone having their votes counted is not the case in all elections, and now that smoke has cleared and the University of Florida has released its statistics about who voted and who did not vote, we can see that a good number of people eligible to vote did not. No reasons given of course, but the number of people who did not vote far exceeded the number of people who voted for either President Trump or for former vice-president Harris. And why is that? Do they not believe in voting? Have they decided that how they voted is of no relevance? "Are we all equal in motivation and capabilities," as you ask, and then say it's not the case.
And so here comes the second point I wish to make. Are you suggesting that any citizen's motivations and capabilities should be used to decide who gets to vote? I agree that not all of us have the same motivations or capabilities, but who, to be blunt, gives a damn about that. Gender discrimination aside, "all men (and women and gays and cross gender and lesbians and racists and murderers and pederasts)are created equal." as the male-dominated founders said in the Declaration of Independence. But that was the Declaration. It was not the Constitution.
Point three: Martin Luther King Jr's Dream: It is also clear that in the past election a number of voters have been disenfranchised or had their votes questioned and not counted, and surprise surprise, particularly in the swing state of Georgia, many of them were (ahem) people of color and most probably members of churches or other belief institutions. But that of course is "race-based discrimination," which you don't want to consider, although I question why you don't, since so many of the discriminatory actions have been made by people who, excuse me for being so woke, are "white" and most usually men, like me and you. So what was he after? Justice for everyone, including, I might say, Vietnamese who were being killed by our military; black people who had been lynched and burned and killed by white people in the past and who now wanted the right to vote.
Do you truly think that people with non-white skin in this country are given a fair shake in the economic structure of this country? Do you truly think that they are no longer discriminated against? Further, do you truly think that discrimination doesn't exist for most people who have found themselves at the bottom of the economic ladder, no matter the color of their skin? MLK was for justice for everyone. Everyone in the whole world. I read his speeches every year and I know what he was looking for.
So I hope this response opens up a dialogue with you. I know a few people who I regarded as liberal who have become more conservative over time, but I also know many who have become more humanitarian and more committed to it, like me, who question how this voting system has been corrupted by racist who have hid their racism, by religious people who disregard the first amendment to the constitution and who want the government to pass laws "respecting an establishment of THEIR religion."
Finally, a personal question: why is it you have chosen to blog using a pseudonym? Just asking.
The Dems are not actually Center right. When you fund and arm genocide, fund war for profit, imprison journalists and civil rights organisations like the Uhuhu 3, and send police to arrest students for protesting genocide….that’s actually fascism.
Don’t wait for mystical symbols or hand waves. That’s actually fascism.
And until people start voting for the Green Party of others on the ballot and stop pretending that they can only make one of two fascist choices, well it’s going to continue like this.
It's worse than fascism, a certain mid century Austrian painter wasn't exactly a fan of the people currently bombing hospitals and strafing lines of deliberately starved people with machine gun fire.
So, you are a Hitler apologist? He was not so bad since he never got around to genocide against the Palestinians?
I said, what I said, Hitler never bombed hospitals or used snipers on children unlike the Jews in Israel.
No, but his minions did starve children in concentration camps like Gaza and line them up and shoot them into mass graves—again like Gaza. I am strongly pro-Palestinian. I have been for decades, since I began to learn the real history and to read Palestinian writers. But I am no antisemite. The Holocaust may have been exaggerated. But it was real. There is no possible apology for it, any more than there is for the crimes Israel is committing in Palestine.
There were forced labor camps for absolute certain, and I don’t support that. The evidence of the extermination of millions of Jews though is negative. And in fact even mainstream historians keep revising the numbers down.
The trouble with third party voting without electoral reform including ranked choice voting is that it has virtually zero chance of succeeding in national elections. For local and down-ballot elections it is worthwhile.
It’s not “third party” voting. Even such a framing reverts to determinism that there can only be two choices.
You can have many choices. First you need to vote out the crooks, step by step. Just like the kooks on the right wing voted IN the tea party and MAGA step by step.
No it’s not done in 5 mins. But if you want them on the ballot then you need to keep increasing their share of the vote, you need to write them in, to get past barriers. At all levels, from city to country, to state and federal. You must demonstrate that the views that these votes stand for have a real impact on electoral college and can swing elections. This is investment.
Nothing in life is instant. Only Americans believe that everything in live is ordered instantly like a meal delivered to your front door in 39 mins. This is real life. You want to build a new house - you need to plan long term and invest and build it. There are no short cuts.
Other democrats would have LOVED to step up but did not because they knew they’d be crushed by the Democratic establishment — as Dean Phillips was — and by the corporate media. They were all biding their time until 2028.
Have you heard of Claudia De La Cruz? She was also running, and she’s good. Josie Hawkins was, too. It’s extraordinary how our media combine to silence true socialists.
It’s painful to read this. If no one knew who anyone was and all the candidates were listened to, Marianne would be our president. Look at this to tune you in: https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/a-call-to-our-better-angels-is-being. You don’t get better than that.
If left leaning people want to actually take over the mantle of leadership, you need to get over vague collegiate blather about transphobia, racism, sexism, ableism, etc, and come up with concrete realizable policy plans that will make lives of ordinary working people concretely better. Reviving Unions would be a good start, and backing off on gun grabbing and woke identity politics that do not appeal to average suburban and rural people would be another good start. Like it or not there are a lot of "Archie Bunkers," out there and those people used to be Union supporting Democrats. The "progressives" explicitly told those people they aren't welcome for speech crimes, and then you act all shocked they became Republicans?
Really?
I agree the Democrats need to do a better job of articulating and selling demand-side policies that actually help workers and families, and show stronger support for unions, but that should not come at the cost of abandoning support for LGBTQ people, other minorities, women, restricting assault weapons, and strengthening background checks for firearms. The right demonizes “woke” but it is actually just recognizing the reality of past slavery, the roots of systemic racism, genocide, and other unsavory history that we should learn from rather than hiding.
Howie, not Josie! Stupid autocorrect!
Here’s the thing buddy, ordinary working class people don’t want genital mutilation of children and gun grabbing. When you promote that agenda you are part of the problem. People like you caused me to become a right winger after 20 years or being a lefty peace and environmental activist.
There is a window of opportunity in which Biden could do what’s right and pardon you, Julian Assange and Leonard Peltier for crimes for which you were not guilty. It’s important for you to resume your work, it’s essential that Leonard should be allowed a short time of freedom after 50 years of imprisonment. The cases brought against all three of you were vindictive, I despair of seeing justice done once Trump takes office
Admittedly a small sampling, the few commenters here so far highlight not only the challenges awaiting a party attempting to rally the working class, but also the unmistakable collective stupidity of the American voter. I have NEVER been more proud of not participating in the electoral process. Until the day a class-conscious bus driver, baker or butcher rises from the political ashes to lead us out of the political wilderness, workers will inevitably continue our prostrated dependence on the professional managerial class and/or millionaire/billionaires to sell off our bodies and souls to the system demanding them in exchange for the meager scraps offered in return. As a hospice nurse, I’ve had more than one encounter with patients and families telling me the candidate they’re waiting to throw their support behind is the individual basing their entire campaign on eradicating insurance companies. The days of half-measures are over. The ONLY candidate I’m even remotely interested in any longer is the individual willing to die for the folks he/she desires to lead..
AGREE - The Democratic Party has no vision and the time is ripe for a new, corporate-free, progressive third party! Let’s do it!
I believe that you can't plug a third party into a corrupt system. You have to clean up the system first.
Oh my,
the Democrats succeeded, you are not giving them proper credit. Look we have had over a year of full scale GENOCIDE. Biden offered everything needed with no redlines, none. Again and yet again he pledged all this country has to arm Israel's forces and protect them as the killing proceeded including blocking all calls at the UN for a ceasefire. Full success!
Thankfully the American people said NO loudly and hopefully all the rest of those in the pay of AIPAC undermining our democracy to support Israel will eventually be OUT as well.
I am astonished, after a year of horror, of Biden's nonstop support of KILLING, now that regime has been thrown OUT and instead of PLANNING how we can END the genocide we hear all this clammering and fear mongering about the dangers of Trump.... does the literate class actually LOOK before they speak? NO. Fear is the latest way to govern so if you lose you just generate FEAR OF THE OTHER as in trump-derangement-syndrome........
as Sy Hersch said, Trump is "a circuit breaker" so if that is the best we can do, lets get to work making change, NOW. The genocide HAS TO STOP, let us stop it.
Please read From Dictatorship to Democracy by Dr Gene Sharp
Hey Steven. Sorry for your incarceration. Good piece. However, Bernie WAS cheated, and Trump did not stage a coup, that was a CIA fomented entrapment "coup". Im surprised you are a little off. A little Trump derangement syndrome exists in you possibly? With respect.
A couple of notes/corrections.
1. Project 2025 is not a Trump plan, in fact Trump himself specifically disavowed it.
2. While I am not a climate change denier we need a soft landing that works for rural people as well as urban people. Where I live in northern Michigan for example an electric car isn't viable. Charging stations in my area are very spread out the nearest one to me is almost 50 miles away and in a direction I don't go very often. Further EVs have poor range in the winter that is made worse by the fact that to heat the car up you have to run an electric heater off the batteries. And no you can't just ask the 1/3rd or so of Americans who are rural to simply pack up and leave against their will. Forced transfer is genocide under international law. So what are you going to do about the transportation needs of rural folks in a post fossil fuel economy? Reminder too that rural people provide your food, and raw materials for paper, and other things urban people need, and many of us sick of being treated like an internal colony to urban centers. It's this attitude in fact that drives rural voters into the hands of Trump and the GOP.
Note I am not a Trump voter, I didn't vote at all a I couldn't stomach either electable candidate, I have voted for Greens in the past, but honestly it's just a futile gesture, the Green culture is just too wacky for ordinary Americans outside of college town enclaves. I would like to see a practical plan that tackles banker usury and corporate dominance while also allowing rural people to preserve their own unique culture and not just be assimilated into some "progressive" globalist BORG.
I'm so sick of all of this wailing and gnashing of teeth over Project 2025. It's a Heritage Foundation wish list, that's all, and a previous Heritage Foundation wish became Obamacare, so don't even tell me that Democrats are always on the opposite side.
And describing 1/6/2021 as an "insurrection!" Like a bunch of gun nuts showed up at the Capitol to overthrow the government but forgot their guns for some mysterious and unmentionable reason. It's always been an absurd allegation, every bit as absurd as Russiagate's existence or Hunter Biden's laptop's non-existence, and it weakens your overall argument.
You get it, if the left were people like you I'd rejoin, but it isn't so I can't yet.
I don’t blame you.
Then what the fuck was it?
Trump did not stage a coup against the government. Jan6 was a protest by guys in pajamas with undercover Feds creating chaos. Learn about the Shay’s Rebellion.
Yes.
From Matt Goodwin:
"This is what happens.
This is what happens when you ignore what millions of ordinary people have been saying for much of the last decade.
This is what happens when instead of addressing their concerns you jam even more mass immigration, broken borders, social disorder, woke policies, gender madness, soft-on-crime policies, high taxes, regulation, and cultural chaos down their throats.
This is what happens when instead of treating your fellow citizens with respect you choose to berate them, once again, like you did in 2016, as “Nazis”, “fascists”, “MAGA extremists”, “insurrectionists”, “garbage”, and more.
This is what happens when the only people who refuse to acknowledge that most voters do not want to live in a world with open borders, mass migration, soft-on-crime policies, high taxes, restrictions on free speech, forever wars, and the sexualisation of our children happen to be the very people who control our institutions.
This is what happens when you allow our public, taxpayer-funded institutions, from universities to schools, to be hijacked and taken over by radical ideologues who use their power to impose a stifling, unscientific, and deeply divisive woke agenda on everybody else, including our families and children..."
https://substack.com/home/post/p-151259799?source=queue
Perhaps you should take your spiel over to Matt Goodwin's site. Speaking for myself, I don't view the loss of my rights and protections in law and policy based on my sex class as a "phony cultural issue." And I don't view the lifelong medicalization of children when they can't possibly consent in any meaningful way as trivial. And I'm done with the intellectual posers and misogynists who do.
It is such a horrifying realization that Dems are just another neoliberal party. The other side to the same coin of the Republicans, which they get away with by having “social justice” rhetoric. In a way, they are worse than Republicans because you don't see them coming, they are constantly posturing and have a lot of the media helping them.
I would really like your expkanations Steven on how Bernie was "all but cheated" and how Trump "staged a coup". Im a layperson and feel I see clearer than you on this. A discussion would be very appreciated
“… My guess is that it could not create one to lift working people while also appeasing the corporate donors who now dominate the party...”
It’s worth reflecting that the “corporate donors” aka the oligarchy, that funds the Dems…..benefits from Project 2025.
They fund the Dens to block alternatives. The Dems is a terminally infested corps therefore. A zombie.
For the working class the only salvation is to build something from the ground up.
In this respect every single vote that the ceiling glass gave to the Dems rather than the Green Party, was a wasted one. Because it takes a decade to build this alternative and involves election losses that build ballot presence.
Once the tariffs are enacted and inflation increases the shine on the apple will grow dull. Trump voters, will suffer.
This period is the time to organize ourselves.