I mean, yeah, this guy is wrong for thinking Trump will keep us out of wars, and the idea that you would vote for someone you think it like Hitler to stop new wars is both contradictory and morally reprehensible. But I’ve heard this take before (well, except the Hitler part, that’s bat-shit insane) and it might be worth reflecting why a lot of the electorate no longer sees the Democratic party as the anti-war party. That’s a big shift that’s occurred in my lifetime, and it’s worth examining.
it might be worth reflecting why a lot of the electorate no longer sees the Democratic party as the anti-war party
The only reflection I am able to accomplish is to look at the GOP and say “Worse, tho”.
If you aren’t voting for the lesser evil, I have to assume you hate America and want it to fail. And that’s worse than genocide.
The only reflection I am able to accomplish is to look at the GOP and say “Worse, tho”.
OK, but so far, that hasn’t been a very effective electoral strategy. I think we should try something else.
It doesn’t need to be effective, because the pendulum of politics always swings back in the end. Trump will become the next scapegoat of American politics just like he was back in 2018 and then 2020. If the economy tops itself (as is increasingly likely), they’ll be facing even bigger headwinds. Even if it doesn’t, inflation and sky high rents aren’t going away. Consumer debt isn’t getting any lighter. The Trump Admin isn’t going to be nice to people.
That’s the electoral strategy at the end of the day. Just to keep being the Other Option and wait for people to come around. Wait as long as it takes. Maybe it’ll take twenty years, like in Arizona. Maybe forty years, like in Georgia. Maybe it’ll be over 60, like in Utah. Doesn’t matter. Just keep squatting on the Other Option until the day comes.
It seems like having policies that make people want to vote for Democrats would deliver more immediate and lasting results than allowing American conditions to continue deteriorating and hoping our opponents receive the blame.
First off, that’s a ridiculous assumption. Not everyone subscribes to your ideology of lesser evilism, and the vast majority of people who correctly reject that ideology are not accelerationists.
But secondly, just curious, if I was a German citizen who hated Nazi Germany and wanted it to fail, would that make me worse than the Nazis? The Nazis were just doing genocide, after all, but I committed what is apparently a far worse sin in your eyes, of insufficient patriotism.
Not everyone subscribes to your ideology of lesser evilism
If they don’t subscribe to my ideology, they must be a greater evil.
if I was a German citizen who hated Nazi Germany and wanted it to fail, would that make me worse than the Nazis?
It would make you a Communist Fifth Columnist Jew-Loving Traitor and earn you a ticket straight to the camps.
The Nazis would absolutely say you were worse than them.
The Nazis would say it, sure. Would you agree with them? Because it sort of sounds like you’d agree with them.
It’s because they aren’t. Clinton and Gore were 100% interventionist, and had no issues with preemptive war, some accused Clinton of starting a war to boost his popularity. Kerry was anti war historically, but pragmatic on Iraq, Hillary again with Bill not at all anti war–>
Hillary again with Bill not at all anti war–>
Directly responsible for escalation in Libya, as Sec State, and the deaths of tens of thousands as a result.
Being “pragmatic on Iraq” turned off a lot of the left. Ralph Nader’s running mate, Peter Camejo, remarked at the time “Kerry isn’t Bush Lite. He’s Bush Smart! We do not need a smarter Bush!” Apparently the electorate agreed, because W. Bush went on to win a second term.
Obama’s military adittude was ‘‘a Democrat can’t say no to the military’’ and allowed whatever the joint chiefs wanted, which is never going to be anti war. And Biden was the same. Harris clearly not anti war either. Trump says he is, and that’s more anti war than any Dem in my lifetime. Can he effectively govern for war reduction? No. He’s an idiot, and liar. But he’s selling it.
But I’ve heard this take before (well, except the Hitler part, that’s bat-shit insane) and it might be worth reflecting why a lot of the electorate no longer sees the Democratic party as the anti-war party. That’s a big shift that’s occurred in my lifetime, and it’s worth examining.
Because they’re idiots?
Every major war started in my lifetime (including the “war on drugs”) was started by Republicans.
The Democratic party is the party of complacency, I’ll grant them that, and we were in wars for several administrations that Republicans started. So it’s hard for their donkey brains to remember when and why the wars started and when they ended. A lot of people think that Obama was in office when 9/11 happened. The country is full of idiots.
Saying they’re the party of complacency isn’t really accurate. Obama may not have started any new wars (although there’s an argument to be made that his operations in Somalia represented a new, unsanctioned war front), but he didn’t get us out of Afghanistan, kept joint military operations going in Iraq, and created a massive, unaccountable robot assassination program that killed thousands of people, including U.S. citizens. That’s wasn’t an act of complacency, it was expansion.
To me, the difference in Democrats’ and Republicans’ positions on military use can be best summerize by how Obama and Trump reported drone deaths. Obama reclassified every adult male in a target zone as an enemy combatant so that he could artificially lower the number of civilian casualties. Trump just stopped reporting the numbers. One is obviously better than the other, but I wouldn’t call either anti-war.
But let’s say you’re right; the Democrats are mostly anti-war, but they’re too complacent with the status quo, and Trump voters are all idiots who can’t tell the difference. What are we gonna do about it? 51% of the electorate went to Trump. Are the Democrats going to stand up to the military industrial complex to make their anti-war stance so clear even an idiot could see it? Or are they just gonna lose forever?
The democrats are not anti war.
Yeah, that’s certainly how I feel.
But let’s say you’re right; the Democrats are mostly anti-war, but they’re too complacent with the status quo, and Trump voters are all idiots who can’t tell the difference. What are we gonna do about it? 51% of the electorate went to Trump. Are the Democrats going to stand up to the military industrial complex to make their anti-war stance so clear even an idiot could see it? Or are they just gonna lose forever?
You’re predicating your false dichotomy on the idea that: (A) the electorate will vote consistently for pacifism and for pacifists, (B) the electorate tracks the policy positions of politicians. Neither of these things are true.
This single issue did not decide this election, and it will not decide future ones (if we even have them) either.
The electorate is vibes based and has been for some time now.
Well, I would disagree with a lot of that. The average voter may not understand policy nuance, but it’s not just vibes based. Trump made a case for being anti-war. He won the first Republican primary in no small part by being the only person on stage to say that the Iraq War was a mistake. He promised to bring the troops home from Afghanistan and then set a withdrawal date (and then changed it several times, and eventually set it to after his term ended so that Biden would get all the bad optics). I think Trump is a manipulative liar, but his supporters have concrete examples of things he’s said and done that make them think he’s anti-war.
The economy was the number one issue for voters, and I don’t think voters’ reaction was vibes based either. Democrats almost always improve working class conditions more than the Republicans, but look at what happened during the Biden administration; inflation went way up, the interest rates went way up, and what the best jobs market for workers in the last 40 years got nuked. People might not understand why that happened, but they know what happened.
From where I’m sitting, the solution is to go so big that voters can’t misinterprete where you stand. Biden and Harris could have gone after the price gouging that was responsible for so much of the inflation during their administration, but instead, it was a footnote on the campaign. They could have come up with some kind of endgame for Ukraine other than, “send them as many weapons as they need indefinitely.” They should have taken a more confrontational stance with Netanyahu, since he was actively sabotaging the peace process while holding out for a Trump administration.
But again, let’s just say I’m entirely wrong: voters are idiots, they understand nothing, and their decisions are based entirely on vibes, not reality. The question remains the same; what do we do? Because right now, the strategy seems to be offering them incremental, technocratic solutions, then insulting them when they don’t understand how they’re better than Republican lies. And it doesn’t seem to be working.
The question remains the same; what do we do? Because right now, the strategy seems to be offering them incremental, technocratic solutions, then insulting them when they don’t understand how they’re better than Republican lies. And it doesn’t seem to be working.
I’m not a political consultant, but one of the things – if it were me (which it isn’t) – would be to start talking to people in this country not as if they’re involved people with a lot of knowledge about how anything works, but rather on their (4th grade reading) level, and keep repeating simple messages. At least for your mainline politicians, it’s important to appear somewhat stupid, so that the American voters think you’re one of them.
Bernie was actually very good at this IMO. I’m not sure his policies would’ve ever gotten anywhere – who knows? I would’ve loved to find out – but he was very good at repeating the same shit over and over again and speaking at a stupider level (most likely on purpose, because he’s not a stupid guy).
Yeah, I think that’s absolutely right, and I think that’s why he’s been so effective at winning over people who have gone to Trump. We can argue over whether or not the political class would ever let him have been the nominee, much less allowed hid agenda to pass, but I think his policies are very clear to everyone: higher minimum wages, higher taxes on billionaires, Medicare for everybody. People find that much easier to understand how that will improve their life tomorrow instead of a small business tax credit program.
The small business tax credit program Harris spent so much time talking about seemed like exactly the wrong thing to be talking about to exactly the wrong people.
It would maybe work for people who are fiscally conservative and socially liberal (AKA nobody). Deeply nerd-brained capitalists that think “gee whiz, this market is not competitive, competition could be grown by creating small businesses for the giant corporations to compete with!”…it’s a completely bookish garbage policy competing for ad space in an environment where her opponent was talking about how Harris was for giving transgender, border-crossing, violent criminals “sex changes” for free with “your tax dollars”.
When I saw the “She’s for they/them, not for you” commercials airing on NFL broadcasts this year, I shuddered to myself and I got that bad 2016 feeling all over again.
I think you can’t approch it from a party line issue. People want to see it in fact as action for the candidates, and at least right now Biden dropped the ball on Isreal badly. He should have put harsh levers on Isreal to get them out of Gaza quickly, Ukraine is a more complicated problem, but the US should focus more on ending conflicts quickly rather than let them drag on forever. But that takes real policy and leadership.
Neither war is happening on US soil (or between the US and any country involved) and the US and Israel have had an alliance – which will remained unchanged if not strengthened in the Trump-Vance administration – spanning decades. In addition, Congress allocates funds to send to other countries and the President executes the orders he is given. Biden could’ve vetoed the aid bills I suppose, but there is a good chance that they would’ve overridden his veto. He could’ve impounded the funds, but I’m not really sure how strictly-speaking legal that even is, and Democratic administrations face pressure from both sides to follow norms (i.e. I wouldn’t be surprised if Biden’s own party members would’ve impeached and removed him given just cause for doing so).
But, as per usual, people like yourself expect the impossible (world peace) under Democratic administrations and yet many of them will turn around and think any war that Trump starts is fully justified and support it bigly until the next Democrat (if there is one) gets in there.
In addition, Congress allocates funds to send to other countries and the President executes the orders he is given. Biden could’ve vetoed the aid bills I suppose
Biden literally bypassed congress to send more aid than what they had approved multiple times.
I hate the way liberals just shamelessly lie about this stuff, you don’t even have the excuse of the election anymore.
The article you linked, did you even read it? That is approval of weapons sales, not sending them more money.
Congress allocates funds in our government.
I hate the way liberals just shamelessly lie about this stuff
I hate the way label obsessed “leftists” don’t know basic shit about how the government works, and spend all of their time online talking out of their ass and name-calling.
That is approval of weapons sales, not sending them more money.
And that matters why? We shouldn’t be giving them aid or selling them weapons.
That’s right, just accuse me of lying and post ap news articles that don’t disprove anything I said, and then when it turns out you were wrong…words no longer matter!
Jesus fucking Christ
The only appropriate response
He stole the election.
Well, Hitler and the nazis were inspired by the USA…
Reference: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691172422/hitlers-american-model
Right slavery is pretty much ≥ genocide
Jackass and proud of it
“the greatest argument against democracy is a conversation with the average voter”
This is some quote from an ancient Greek right? Socrates, Pericles et cetera?
It’s one of the many often attributed to Winston Churchill, though to my knowledge there’s no actual evidence of him actually saying it and his other writings go against the sentiment. I don’t know who actually did say it first
It was me. Winston and I were tying one on and I said it in passing. He thought it was hilarious.
As others put, no, but it does remind me that Aristotle felt society should only be run by the most intelligent among us, hence the term Aristocracy.
Of course, in practice people make up bullshit rules to determine who is most intelligent and that messes up the whole concept (e.g. Jim Crow tests and such). But it’s a nice fantasy if ever we could pull it off.
If only Aristocracy actually meant society was run by the most intelligent among us. Instead, it means “society is run by me and my buddies.”
Even if it was actually the most intelligent they would still have the power to hurt others for their own gain. In fact I imagine it would be far easier for them to justify to themselves by arguing merit.
The problem is that no government can thrive as a force for good in the face of apathy, maliciousness, or a lack of duty.
Pretty much, yes. Even if you put up requirements on a democracy to require basic civic understanding, you ultimately disenfranchise a group.
Exactly and many people have misguided understanding of duty to country and the benefits that come from it. In rural America you often see people who treat military service as absolutely vital to preservation of freedom, and gun ownership as critical to preventing tyranny, but don’t see that jury duty and consistently participating in the political process with an open mind for all people’s right to live as they feel is right for themselves as the absolute lynchpins of American freedom that they are.
Protecting freedom isn’t glorious, it isn’t exciting. It’s hard mental and emotional labor that requires resisting demagoguery and bigotry even when you’re struggling. It requires understanding that giving the government unchecked power will eventually bite you in the ass, just as surely as refusing to prosecute leaders who commit crimes. It requires paying your damn taxes so the country doesn’t fall into disrepair. It involves paying the prices required of the freedoms you have.
It annoys me how some people refuse to vote lest they be called to jury duty. Motherfucker, trial by a jury of your peers is a magnificent right you hold, and that’s the price of it. Also you hold a portion of a nuclear arsenal and can’t even be bothered to find out that that’s not how the government that holds them works, or to express your will on it regardless.
Churchill, so the story goes. But probably not: https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour/finest-hour-141/red-herrings-famous-quotes-churchill-never-said/
Marx grasped this essence of capitalist democracy splendidly when, in analyzing the experience of the Commune, he said that the oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class shall represent and repress them in parliament!
https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch05.htm
That’s already more than any communist regime allowed, so lesser of two evils and all of that…
Classical technocracy is where it’s at.
Tap for spoiler
/s
Also a great argument for education reform
Leopards ate my face
Same guy? I don’t know where this particular ideologue lives, but it would hardly be the first (second, third, fourth…) time newspapers “accidentally” presented career conservatives as a “randomly selected” voter.
infinite_facepalming_picard.jpeg
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot…I call BS on Wolfson’s reasoning. The bastard is most likely a neo-Nazi shitbag and knew exactly what he wants out Putin’s Sock Puppet.
He’s not wrong. And the Dems agree with him. Trump is relatively isolationist. One of the Dem attacks against him was that Trump would pull out of Ukraine for sure, which is actually a popular position among the vast majority of the electorate. If you’re out of touch because you only tune into what political elites want, then of course you would think that’s a bad thing to say about him.
Trump also seems poised to keep his aggression towards China focused on tariffs. While that’s not good either, Dems also supported some steep tariffs against green tech imports, and an economic war is preferable to the average voter than the hot war the Biden admin was stoking with China.
Trump will definitely be more active militarily against the population here at home. He previously had the military abducting Portland protestors in unmarked vans. But I’d rather prepare to fight here at home than support more active foreign militarism to maintain my own comfort.
You’re fully delusional.
How so? What did I write that’s not true?
I’d rather prepare to fight here at home
What? You WANT Americans abducted by the military? There’s a reason that the police and the military are two different groups.
Of course I don’t want it. But I’d rather fight here than export the fight to kill poor people overseas. At least we’re armed to fight back.
You’d rather the military fight Americans than fight non-Americans overseas? What in the hell? You want Americans dead?
I want Americans to see up close what we’ve been putting everyone else through, and to put an end to it.
Not only are we better armed, but they also require our support to fund the military. We can attack them from both angles like no one else can.
I hope you’re joking. That’s a pro-suffering evil attitude.
Walk me through your logic on that. Because it sounds like nonsense.
You are saying you deliberately want to cause harm to people so they’ll learn their lesson. You are acknowledging how awful of a thing it would be to unleash the military on their own people. Yet you still suggest that as a good idea. That’s a dictatorship. You’re rooting for dictatorship. You’re saying it’s okay that they suffer, because in your mind they deserve it.
In this dude’s defense, Trump was the first president to not send troops into a new conflict in my lifetime.
Does everyone forget what was happening before COVID shut everything down? We were on a fast track to war with Iran, Trump had just assassinated one of their top generals.
He is also the only President to release 5,000 terrorists. This is how he brought peace to Afghanistan.
Trump invited the Taliban to Camp David just before the anniversary of 9/11 without involving the Afghan government or America’s international allies.
After the Camp David scheme fell apart, Trump subsequently cut a deal directly with the Taliban that freed 5,000 imprisoned fighters, allowing them to return to the battlefield to regain strength, and put the Taliban in its strongest military position in 20 years.
Trump proceeded with talks despite reliable intelligence that the Taliban did not intend to abide by the deal’s terms, and he even acknowledged that they could “possibly” take over the Afghan government after U.S. withdrawal. New York Times: “Trump’s Deal With the Taliban Draws Fire From His Former Allies”
Trump’s deal made major concessions and left the U.S. with only 2,500 troops in Afghanistan when President Biden took office—the smallest force since 2001.
The deal set timelines for withdrawal and gave permission for the Taliban to attack U.S. troops if the timeline wasn’t met.
Trump left the Biden-Harris administration with zero plans for an orderly withdrawal—only a dangerous, costly mess. Trump even bragged that the Biden-Harris administration “couldn’t stop the process” he started.
Now Afghanistan is fully under the Taliban control who regularly murder women for funzies. Perhaps you could cynically say it was going to happen anyways. We all know the truth though. Trump and his gang of rejects let it happen on their watch.
Imagine having a mind this… Acrobatic
Someone needs to smack this man upside the head and explain to him how dumb this sounds.
I’m beginning to see why he is a former construction worker.
This guy was fired for being obviously mentally unstable.
Oh, far from it. This is very much the norm in any construction sector. Everyone is dumb as absolute fuck.
Historical fact: In the distant past, guys like this belonged to a Union, and the union told them how to vote.
The union was led by ruthless people whose power was entirely dependent on the support of the union.
The union leaders kept their people happy by negotiating better prices for their labor, and the happy people did what the leaders said. Their tribe was the union, and the tribe stuck together.
At some point the owner class realized it was easy to redefine what happiness meant for idiots: Lying. A lot. Tricking absolute idiots is easy, so they started whittling away at unions with promises of prosperity a union leader could never fulfil, until we get to today where unions and union membership is lower than it’s ever been.
And idiots like that still vote for who their handler tells them to, only their handler now has zero investment in keeping them happy. Lying to them is sufficient as long as the rest of the tribe reinforces the lies. The tribe is now everyone too stupid to not vote for Hitler, and the tribe sticks together.
The tribe is now everyone too stupid to not vote for Hitler, and the tribe sticks together.
And the tribe is 70+ million strong. Let’s not forget that.
