this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2025
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144
Authoritarian Blitz: The Republican Party’s attempts to suspend the rule of law can only be stopped if Democratic leaders show the moral clarity and political courage of a normal party of opposition. (www.nybooks.com)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
23 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Unfortunately, your typical Democratic official—whether it’s Biden or Schumer or Jeffries or House Oversight Committee ranking member Gerry Connolly or the recently elected DNC chair Ken Martin—didn’t get into politics to defeat the Republican Party, to zealously advance the interests of ordinary people, or to protect democracy. They didn’t rise within the party ranks because of their talent for public service. In a functioning democracy, that wouldn’t matter as much. Nobody really cares if a politician’s inner life is absorbed in personal ambition. But at this moment of national and planetary emergency, pathological careerism is unacceptable. People should either step up or, if they don’t fancy the fray, follow the example of Senator Gary Peters, who recently announced, like a normal person in his late sixties, that he’ll retire in 2026.

The sorry truth is that without enormous pressure from the party base, a significant number of senators and representatives won’t have it in them to oppose Trump. We, the concerned citizens, will have to force them to do their duty. We’ll also have to march, sooner rather than later. But that’s a separate topic. For now, these are our guys. We go with what we’ve got. And let’s not forget: Republicans can’t govern, they’re unpopular, and they’re led by the most idiotic president in living memory. They are beatable.

Archived at https://archive.is/xbQp6

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 day ago (2 children)

The extraordinary cowardice of this party should be highlighted in the context of the persistent and belligerent calls to carry water for this party, or else, over the previous 25 years of politics.

They sacrificed freedom of speech on college campuses to lose an election on behalf of a genocidal ethnostate and the "good" billionaires. If you were (and many of you were) telling people that they "had to support Democrats, or else", the current state of the nation is a direct result of your actions. Democrats have put most of their effort into creating a narrative landscape within which they escape accountability. Its a magical world where the leaders of the Democratic party are persistently and perpetually without agency; a party which can make nothing happen, but to whom which everything happens to: A party and a leadership which has never themselves fail, and is only failed.

The state of this shit parade is 100% on the shoulders of Democrats and their Aquarian cowards and sycophants who belligerently asked a nation to support a genocide instead of demanding the Democratic candidate actually adopt an electable position. Who asked a generation to give up on climate change to get, as long as the parliamentarian approves, a half of a half of a half of what was discussed. Who silenced and rejected the involvement of the youth in the participatory process of Democracy.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I’m going to preface this by saying that I agree with you, the democrats will never be the opposition that we need them to be and we need a true left (hell, even liberal at this point) party in this country to see real positive change. I actually put my money where my mouth is and changed party affiliation to independent after the election.

That having been said, I believe in harm reduction and there was only one other viable candidate who could have stopped Trump from coming into power. In the context of the 2024 election and the first past the post electoral system that we live under, what else should we have done?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's not harm reduction if it results in the worse outcome.

The answer if what to do was to, was to stop focusing the criticism on those who said a genocide is a bridge to far, and our that ire into the Democratic party, demanding they shift their position.

The answer was to listen, and support and acknowledge the importance of people saying, As early as March of 2024, that Biden wasn't going to win and we needed something more than a sham primary.

The answer was, when Kamala got the nomination, to create enough of an uproar regarding their dismissal of the Gazan delegates at the convention that they would know and understand that it was a significant problem.

What was being engaged in was not harm reduction when it directly contributed to the worst possible outcome. The silencing of dissent. The being told to shut the fuck up and cute blue no matter who by Blue MAGA: it was all over this place under the pretense of harm reduction; and it was the very thing that lost them the election.

They threw this election and abandoned their base for the "harm reduction" if the lessor evil, as if Republicans voters were going to vote for Diet Evil when they had full strength evil at home.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

I think you’re a little confused. The harm reduction I’m referring to is making sure the next president of the United States doesn’t want to turn Gaza into a luxury resort, roll out the red carpet for Russia and return our country to the dark ages.

It doesn’t matter how corrupt and useless the DNC is if our country is taken over by fascists. Absolutely you fight and tell Kamala exactly where to shove it but on Election Day either you vote or you shut the fuck up.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago

+1

you still have to use a corrupt system to your advantage when you can, if that is the system within which you are confined. non-participation and protest votes only dilute the power of a united people.

I can't help my brothers and sisters get free, if I'm also in shackles.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)

100%?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

100%

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Thanks, Obama.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 21 hours ago

Sadly I agree with the trumpers on that - neoliberal politicians are grifters, they aren't trying to improve the lot of the common human as they should. It's all shady deals, corruption, self interest etc. Where the MAGA crowd have it wrong is that they think trump and his cronies are any better - they're far worse. They can't be trusted with anything, not only because they're completely immoral grifters but because they're incompetent, only good at manipulating people. They're the liars who faked their qualifications to get the job and they're in charge of things which are extremely important for the wellbeing of the population of the world and moving parts of a vastly huge and complicated system.

It's not going to end well.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

In other words, we're fucked. They don't want to be an opposition party. It annoys them when anybody asks them to be one.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago

Because they're not really in opposition. They may not like the means, but they are fine with the eventual end results.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

That's the biggest "if" ever. They've had since November to formulate a strategy, but so far mostly isolated bits of opposition from the usual folks.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Spoiler AlertThey Won't

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

This feels like an argument someone would make in the Galactic Senate about how to oppose Palpatine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 22 hours ago

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Stop expecting your "leaders" to die for you. When Trump lost the election his followers over-ran the capital and went to jail for him. When Pelosi opposed Republicans, a Republican went and smashed her husband's face with a hammer.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

We protested against police brutality in 2020 and lots of Dems couldn't throw us to the wolves fast enough. Lots of those protesters got their own faces smashed in by cops' batons and rubber bullets in 2020, and Democratic party leadership turned around and argued for giving cops more funding.

I'm sorry for what happened to Pelosi's husband, it wasn't right and he didn't deserve it, but we're all living in the violent and scary world the bipartisanship of moderates like Pelosi has built. Being a better opposition party mean fewer of our people's faces getting smashed, whether they're the wealthy spouses of lawmakers or random political activists.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago

His followers did that - after being led by their leaders into doing so. It was the leaders that made it all possible. The only reason several dozen Republican Congress members aren't rotting in jail right now is because Biden is a coward and a traitor to the Republic.