#democratic party capitulation

[o-the-mts]

Sanders instead offered an alternative path for the Biden administration. “The fact of the matter is that this bill is totally unnecessary. The President has the authority and the ability to eliminate the debt ceiling today by invoking the 14th Amendment,” Sanders said. “I look forward to the day when he exercises this authority and puts an end, once and for all, to the outrageous actions of the extreme right-wing to hold our entire economy hostage in order to get what they want.” Sanders’s statement was refreshing—not just for its refusal to cave to the hostage situation that Republicans built but for its clarity in reiterating that while the latest episode of D.C. melodrama plays out, indeed, the health of the planet as we know it is “literally at stake.”

Bernie Sanders Says He Cannot “in Good Conscience” Vote for Debt Ceiling Bill | The New Republic

[shellem15]

Harm reduction voting does not work. You are not entitled to peoples' votes just because you're "not as bad as the other guy". You need to give them something to vote for.

This is how you bleed 14 million voters. These people didn't vote for Trump (who also lost voters). They just didn't vote. Because they had nothing to vote FOR.

[yellobb]

Tomorrow is going to be hell dude. I’m going to be unhealthy about watching news coverage on the election results, praying that the dem’s right wing campaign lately won’t snatch defeat from the jaws of victory

[charlesoberonn]

They also voted to block to student debt relief, cut tax breaks and subsidies for renewable energy, added work requirements for financial assistance, take back COVID relief money from states, and boost fossil fuel production.

And a very insidious cap on government spending that only grows 1% every year (less than the rate of inflation). Meaning that every year would necessarily require even more cuts.

The worst part is that they made it all a condition for the federal government to pay its debt. Their plan being that if Biden doesn't capitulate to their demands, the US government goes into default, which would cause a global financial crisis.

Oh, and don't think that the 4 Republicans who voted Nay are reasonable. They're voted against it because this bill didn't go far enough for them.

The good news is that the Democrats control the Senate and White House, so this bill won't get enacted.

TL;DR: House Republicans passed an extorsion bill that threatens to blow up the world economy if Biden doesn't capitulate to their demands to hurt poor Americans and make climate change worse.

Abolish the Republican Party!

[tododeku-or-bust]

It's just crazy to me how people are threatening Palestinian American voters and other Pro-Palestine voters of color bc like... Y'all actually need us to maintain your own rights and the flip is terrifying bc it's not usually like this. Because if Kamala doesn't capitulate she's gonna lose 😐🤷🏾‍♀️

Older, center white women sold out one of their own, Hillary, to vote Trump bc their whiteness meant more than their womanhood. Y'all think the white center isn't going to do the very same thing over a Black woman in office? The same Black women y'all choose to demean? So that "ol reliable" bloc they're doing all this pandering to now has a rift, whether y'all believe it or not.

But then she also refuses to listen to a growing portion of her party, the left that contains many youth of color (two demographics that the Democrats often pull with ease). That group, despite fearmongering, is not going to vote Trump. And unless y'all are about to actually start convincing your racist aunties and uncles the way y'all dog us, the reality is that we're the group out of the two that she could actually retain if she TRIED to choose human decency.

And it doesn't look like she's trying, so.

[faelapis]

this sucks. but please don't just blame voters. especially not minority groups who "didn't vote hard enough" or whatever. they're going to suffer through this, same as you. so please, blame the people in power. the campaign was bad.

the liz cheney strategy was always, always complete wishcasting. centrist dems WANT the electorate to be all moderate republican suburbanites who make 200k a year. that has never been reality.

everything else can be discussed. but, it needs to be said that the "moderate republican" strategy was awful. dems valued war-loving neocons with 13% approval rating over winning. they valued protecting joe biden's feelings above winning. they valued love for israel above winning. they valued shifting right above winning.

there was never, ever data to suggest liz cheney neocon shit swayed anyone in a positive direction. never. that was just what dems wanted to happen, because they are neocons. all data showed that harris breaking from biden on gaza would've helped. all data showed she should have promised bigger economic change. but dems valued their own ideological right-wing shift above winning.

we can talk about voters as well. yes, men suck. they don't care about women, minorities, lgbt+ people. but i will never let the democratic party establishment live this down. they're the ones who ran this campaign.

they're going to find ways to blame the left. they always do. they're going to say that they were too woke, they didn't hate trans people enough, latino men are too misogynistic, etc. those are takes i've already started to see. and they're going to try to use all of that to shift even further right.

our job now is to not let them. never let them live this down. never let the democratic party run another center-right, warmonger, pro genocide, anti peace, anti immigration, neocon campaign again. ever. it normalizes republican positions as the "correct" ones. it gives voters a permission structure to see trumpism as "normal." ffs, kamala harris said the border wall was a "good idea."

that is not "bipartisanship." this is capitulation to fascism.

finally, please take care of yourself. i know emotions are high. i know shit sucks, i know nothing good will come from this. but you are one person. you, alone, could not stop this. you need to do everything you can to protect yourself. please stay safe. try to find a community that is accepting and loves you. we must never give up.

organize. protest. keep fighting. and take care.

[read-marx-and-lenin]

just an FYI, if you're the type who has donated to Dem fundraisers before: don't do that.

do not reward the Dems for running a shit campaign and losing hard when Trump didn't even get more votes than he did in 2020. blame the Dems appropriately and let them know that they will not be rewarded for their incompetence. they will be pushing fundraisers heavily for the next four years, they will be fearmongering about everything Trump and the Republicans do, and they will be desperately trying to divert and co-opt every single left-wing grassroots organization into vehicles for a party that had been capitulating to right-wing demands and right-wing narratives and abandoning the very people that the Republicans will scapegoat and vilify and terrorize. we shouldn't let them do this to us.

the Democrats don't care about us, they just want our money and our vote and they don't want to have to do anything to earn either, because actually capitulating to our demands hurts their standing with the corporate donors who they actually do care about. our time, our efforts, and our money should go to actual working class organizations that are run by the people, for the people. the time has been long overdue for the left to abandon the Democratic party, and there is no better time than the present.

[opencommunion]

"While largely toothless as a democratic body—shorn of true legislative capacities and having never developed a genuine transnational dynamic—the European Parliament is nonetheless an important bellwether to track the continent’s political winds. As the results of the parliament’s June 6-9 elections confirm, those winds are blowing in a bleakly reactionary direction.

... There are two principal causes for this. First, the fact that for many decades now European national governments and federal European institutions have legitimized — through emergency measures, moral panics and murderous border policies that have led to thousands of migrant deaths in the Mediterranean — the far Right’s defining claim that migration threatens the material and cultural survival of white European civilization. The far Right’s obsessive talk of borders and births, and its promotion of the myth of the Great Replacement, were enabled by the EU’s political center. Governments across the continent advanced anti-migrant policies on the grounds that stricter regulations would sap the foundations of extremism. But it turns out voters often prefer the original brand, choosing bellicose nativism over technocratic repression when it comes to the ​'migration crisis.'

The second engine of Europe’s turn towards authoritarianism is the EU’s promotion of fiscal austerity policies that have particularly impacted Southern Europe and Ireland, but which have led to welfare state retrenchment across the board. Beyond eroding livelihoods and exacerbating inequality, austerity also led to the rise of multiple movements to reclaim national sovereignty, almost all of which (after the punishment and capitulation of Syriza’s left-wing government in Greece) are now monopolized by reactionaries. While all of Europe’s far-right parties have played on this supposedly populist register, none have challenged the hegemony of markets and the rating agencies that dictate cuts to social programs. ... The real social malaise that plagues so much of Europe — overburdened and privatized healthcare, labor precarity, anemic social security, accelerating climate-related emergencies — is projected onto the far Right’s favorite scapegoats: primarily migrants, but also ​'gender ideology' and its alleged assault on the family as Europe’s moral and material core."

[mariacallous]

I would say I wonder when leftists will realize that they fucked up a once-in-a-generation chance twice to shift the Democrats further to the left, but that would require self-reflection on their part.

https://x.com/LittleMammith/status/1834237090910949590

https://x.com/estherzelda0514/status/1834266195954204813

Harris will learn the lessons from Clinton and Biden: she'll continue policies that are popular with normie libs but what incentive does she have to take risks that might alienate her base but are popular with progs? What possible incentive have leftists given her or the party?

I think leftists both overestimate the gap between them and "normie libs/Dems" and overestimate their clout and influence while underestimating how little would be needed to close that gap and yet which they refuse to do.

You've literally had people say "just don't use this phrase" or "talk about [x issue] in this way to have broader appeal" and they act like you're telling them to capitulate to the right.

Although, considering how close many of them are to the right, they already capitulate in other ways.

[all-socialism-is-democratic]

Project 2025 is terrifying. But when the history books talk about this period, they will point to July 1, 2024, as the beginning of the Fascist Era in the United States.

That's the day SCOTUS ruled on the perfectly-named Trump v. United States, in which the Court said the president could not be prosecuted for crimes committed in office.

In the 11 days since, Biden and the Democrats have taken absolutely no action. That's because they are not an antifascist party. They will capitulate and capitulate until fascism is complete.

The media are playing this down as something that only applies to Trump. As something not especially dangerous. As something normal.

Protest, strikes, even "rioting" (a slur for direct action) are not failures of democracy, they are integral to it. The system has failed and will not replace itself. The People still have the power to make real, substantive change and create a society that is not just not-fascist but actively antifascist. And anticolonialist, antiracist, antisexist, genuinely democratic, and free.

Voting for Democrats AT BEST delays the inevitable furthering of fascism for a short while, and AT WORST actually accelerates fascism by empowering capitulators. Want to vote Biden? Fine, waste an hour of your time.

If you want to actually fight fascism, YOU HAVE TO FIGHT.

[o-the-mts]

With Democrats like these who needs Republicans.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

Sorry for throwing this at you but you're the most politically active person I follow so I thought I'd ask you for a second opinion. A few of my friends are getting mad at Harris and Biden for peacefully ceding power to Trump, calling it capitulating to fascists. And while I definitely understand the rage that this is happening, am I wrong in thinking it's kinda ridiculous to expect anything different? Unless some big evidence of election fraud comes out, Trump is currently the rightful President-Elect. I don't see how the Dems could just deny him without just arresting or killing him. If they just drag their feet I feel like the Republican controlled Congress would just step in and force it. So like, even if it was possible to accomplish I feel like it'd destroy the party's reputation at best and completely wreck our democracy in it's own way at worst.

The fact is, peaceful transfer of power is important and needs to be preserved. We do not need a leftist January 6th. We need to reckon with the fact that we lost because not enough people showed up and figure out how to avoid that in future, not search for a reason why we should do an authoritarian takeover of the government but for leftist reasons which makes it okay.

And if principles aren't enough, appeal to pragmatism: anything that the Democrats do to try and reclaim the White House even though they lost what was by all accounts a free and fair election, the Republicans will use as precedent to do the same in the next political cycle. Do not set that precedent.

[poetry-feeling42]

Any liberal who thinks Biden stands a chance this election and demands that anyone who wants peace in this world need to compromise their values and submit to the authority of the Democratic Party has not learned a single thing about the 1968 DNC rebellion.

You cannot win with a pro war candidate, only peace will land you the election. If you spineless liberals don't want to place this election directly into Trump's hands, then you need to demand the Democrats cease the genocide in Gaza, establish a permanent ceasefire, and dismantle Apartheid, and not only run another candidate in place of Genocide Joe, but one who will end the US sanctioned bombings, killings, and countles injustices in Palestine, Sudan, Congo, West Papua, Tigray, Haiti, and so many more countries across the world. Someone who will end the suffering happening here the stolen land of Turtle Island. You need someone who will compromise with the Left, and steer ,1this country away from dictatorial fascism and towards liberation and decolonization of the failed colonial project that is the American Empire.

You can degrade and reprimand us until your tongue falls off, but unless you demand better from your cherished Blue Corporate Puppets©®™, you will not save anyone. Not black people, not brown people, not queer people, and not even your own worthless hide.

Will you tremble and capitulate to murder and oppression, or will you stand up and fight for the liberation of all people? Will you demand all power to all people? Or will you shrink away and let white supremacy reign free, knowing you'll be spared by your overlords for abandoning your Black brothers and sister, your Native brothers and sisters, your Palestinian brothers and sisters, your Queer brothers, and everyone who has been under attack for too damn long by this cruel empire?

Will you make the right choice?

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dean Obeidallah at The Dean's Report:

We must make our focus keeping the barbarians outside the gate, not figuring out how to lessen the damage once they are on the inside. That was my immediate thought Sunday when I read NY Times in-depth article, “The Resistance to a New Trump Administration Has Already Started.” The piece featured a wide network of Democratic officials, progressive activists and more who are engaged in “extraordinary steps to prepare for a potential second Trump presidency.”  Examples include Democratic Governor Washington State Jay Inslee’s efforts to make the state a safe haven for women seeking reproductive freedom to an organization hiring a new auditor in case a second term Trump directs the Internal Revenue Service to target them. On one hand, I truly applaud these officials and organizations for grasping that Donald Trump back in the White House poses a unique threat to our freedoms and democratic Republic. Far too many don’t understand this threat.

But on the other hand, the only certain way to prevent Trump from using the government to wage a campaign of retribution, ending civil service protections so that only Trump loyalists will be in key positions in the federal government--as well as ushering in a far right wing agenda being peddled by his allies--is to defeat him this November. Again, we must make our focus keeping the barbarians outside the gate, not figuring out how to lessen the damage once they are on the inside. Trump is telling all who will listen his dark goals for a second term—from mass deportations to building in essence concentration camps for migrants to expanding executive power. There’s also Trump’s deeply concerning vow to “liberate” America from those not loyal to him. We first heard this during his 2023 speech at the conservative gathering CPAC where he promised his supporters to be their “retribution.” He then alarmingly  vowed that if elected to target Democrats, “the fake news media,” Republicans in name only, the globalists and others who oppose him, bellowing, “we will liberate America from these villains and scoundrels once and for all.”

He has repeated this pledge to “liberate” our nation from those who oppose him, including at a rally last month in Wisconsin.  When have you ever heard an American political figure speak about “liberating” America from those who politically oppose him or her?! You can’t find it because we never had an aspiring fascist—who has pledged to be a dictator on “day one”— lead one of the two main political parties. To be blunt, the forms of resistance utilized to stymie some of Trump’s agenda in the first term are unlikely to work against this bitter, angry convicted felon who is hellbent on retribution and purging America from those who won’t bend a knee to him.

[...]

From a legislative point of view, If Trump were able to win and his MAGA GOP were able to also take control of the House and Senate, we can expect him deliver for them on a laundry list of right-wing policy dreams from national abortion and birth control bans to further weakening civil rights protections for LGBTQ and Black Americans and worse. This won’t be like Trump’s first term when some Republicans stood up to him to block his radical agenda—with the most famous example being the late Senator John McCain preventing Trump from repealing the Affordable Care Act with his vote.  The Republicans who have dared to stand up to Trump are almost all out of Congress or now capitulated to his undemocratic goals. Of the ten House Republicans who voted in  January 2021 to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 insurrection, only two remain in the House. Senator Mitt Romney--a vocal critics of Trump--will be leaving office  this January. Even GOP Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell who slammed Trump on the Senate floor after the Jan. 6 attack with the words, “There is no question that President Trump is practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of that day,” last week met with Trump and dubbed  it “entirely positive.”

[...] If Trump wins, there are few things that can rein him in. That is why diverting efforts at this point to second term resistance strategies is dangerous given the threat Trump poses. Rather, the top and only priority must be utilizing all resources to defeat him. Nothing else matters.

Dean Obeidallah dropping truth nuggets in his latest Dean's Report post on why defeating fascist felon Donald Trump is imperative to save our nation.

See Also:

CNN: Opinion: Don’t focus on bracing for a Trump win

[mrpagesfrontispiece]

March 23, 1933.

On that date, Adolf Hitler put the Enabling Act up for a vote before the Reichstag. The passage of this act marked the end of the Weimar Republic, and German democracy as everyone knew it. But there was resistance. Otto Wels, one of the greatest speakers to ever live and Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, stood before his peers in the assembly, many of whom were ready to capitulate to Fascism, and gave the following speech.

Ladies and gentlemen! We Social Democrats agree with the foreign policy demand raised by the Reichskanzler of equal treatment for Germany, all the more emphatically since we have always fundamentally championed it. In this context, I may be permitted the personal remark that I was the first German who stood up to the untruth of Germany’s guilt for the outbreak of the world war before an international forum, at the Bern Conference on February 3, 1919. Never was a principle of our party able to or did in fact prevent us from representing the just demands of the German nation to the other peoples of the world. 

The day before yesterday, as well, the Reichskanzler made a statement in Potsdam to which we subscribe. It says: “From the lunacy of the theory of eternal winners and losers came the madness of reparations and, in their wake, the catastrophe of the world economy.” This statement is true for foreign politics; it is no less true for domestic politics. Here, too, the theory of eternal winners and losers is, as the Reichskanzler says, lunacy. 

But the words of the Reichskanzler remind us of others that were spoken in the National Assembly on July 23, 1919. At that time it was said: “We are defenseless; defenseless but not without honor. To be sure, the enemies are after our honor, there is no doubt. However, that this attempt at defamation will one day redound back upon the instigators, that it is not our honor that is being destroyed by this global catastrophe, that is our belief to the last breath.” 

This appears in a declaration that a social democratic-led government issued at the time in the name of the German people before the whole world, four hours before the truce expired, in order to prevent the enemies from marching further. – That declaration is a valuable supplement to the statement by the Reichskanzler. 

A dictated peace is followed by few blessings, least of all at home. A real national community cannot be based on it. Its first prerequisite is equal law. The government may protect itself against raw excesses of polemics; it may rigorously prevent incitements to acts of violence and acts of violence in and of themselves. This may happen, if it is done toward all sides evenly and impartially, and if one foregoes treating defeated opponents as though they were proscribed. Freedom and life can be taken from us, but not our honor. 

After the persecutions that the Social Democratic Party has suffered recently, no one will reasonably demand or expect that it vote for the Enabling Act proposed here. The elections of March 5 have given the governing parties the majority and thus the possibility of governing in strict adherence to the words and meaning of the constitution. Where such a possibility exists, there is also an obligation to take it. Criticism is salutary and necessary. Never before, since there has been a German Reichstag, has the control of public affairs by the elected representatives of the people been eliminated to such an extent as is happening now, and is supposed to happen even more through the new Enabling Act. Such omnipotence of the government must have all the more serious repercussions inasmuch as the press, too, lacks any freedom of expression.

Ladies and gentlemen! The situation that prevails in Germany today is often described in glaring colors. But as always in such cases, there is no lack of exaggeration. As far as my party is concerned, I declare here: we have neither asked for intervention in Paris, nor moved millions to Prague, nor spread exaggerated news abroad. It would be easier to stand up to such exaggerations if the kind of reporting that separates truth from falsehood were possible at home. It would be even better if we could attest in good conscience that full protection in justice has been restored for all. That, gentlemen, is up to you. 

The gentlemen of the National Socialist party call the movement they have unleashed a national revolution, not a National Socialist one. So far, the relationship of their revolution to socialism has been limited to the attempt to destroy the social democratic movement, which for more than two generations has been the bearer of socialist ideas and will remain so. If the gentlemen of the National Socialist Party wanted to perform socialist acts, they would not need an Enabling Law. They would be assured of an overwhelming majority in this house. Every motion submitted by them in the interest of workers, farmers, white-collar employees, civil servants, or the middle class could expect to be approved, if not unanimously, then certainly with an enormous majority. 

And yet, they first want to eliminate the Reichstag in order to continue their revolution. But the destruction of that which exists does not make a revolution. The people are expecting positive accomplishments. They are waiting for effective measures against the terrible economic misery that exists not only in Germany but in the whole world. We Social Democrats bore the responsibility in the most difficult of times and for that we had stones cast at us. Our accomplishments for the reconstruction of the state and the economy, for the liberation of occupied territories, will stand the test of history. We have established equal justice for all and a social labor law. We have helped to create a Germany in which the path to leadership of the state is open not only to princes and barons, but also to men from the working class. You cannot back away from that without relinquishing your own leader. The attempt to turn back the wheel of history will be futile. We Social Democrats know that one cannot undo the facts of power politics with mere legal protests. We see the power-political fact of your present rule. But the people’s sense of justice is also a political power, and we shall not cease to appeal to this sense of justice. 

The Weimar Constitution is not a socialist constitution. But we stand by the principles enshrined in, the principles of a state based on the rule of law, of equal rights, of social justice. In this historic hour, we German Social Democrats solemnly pledge ourselves to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No Enabling Act gives you the power to destroy ideas that are eternal and indestructible. After all, you yourselves have professed your adherence to Socialism. The Socialist Law has not destroyed social democracy. German social democracy will draw new strength also from the latest persecutions. 

We greet the persecuted and the oppressed. We greet our friends in the Reich. Your steadfastness and loyalty deserve admiration. The courage of your convictions and your unbroken optimism guarantee a brighter future.

These immortal words burned brightly in the minds of all who fought for Democracy in the years that were to come. And another thing; Democracy did come! The Nazis lost! Because, as the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward Justice.” The night is dark, but it is joy which comes in the morning. No power on earth has been able to resist Democracy for long, and no power ever will. Four years of Hell are nothing compared to what we shall feel once the ideals we hold sacred triumph again, and I guarantee you that they shall triumph. If ever you should feel hopeless, remember Otto Wels, and imagine what must have gone through his mind as he watched his nation burn itself to death. But so too remember Otto Wels as the Russians marched into Berlin, as the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy, and take heart knowing that like him you too shall see your country born again, brighter than ever before.

We greet the persecuted and the oppressed. We greet our friends in America. Your steadfastness and loyalty deserve admiration. The courage of your convictions and your unbroken optimism guarantee a brighter future.

[kitty-pelosi]

ok so the rhetoric of the Democratic Party since the Carter administration has been: talk big game, never follow through. there have been a myriad of chances to pass the legislation that the Democratic Party markets itself off of, and yet there is ALWAYS a faction of the party that stops it from happening when the time comes and the chance is there. this has been a material fact for almost 50 years. denying that is ridiculous.

Even Obama. He is the kind of guy who looks and acts like he has a vision, but there never was a vision and nothing came to fruition. his ‘vision’ was a bill that Republicans wrote to undermine an actual universal state healthcare policy, and then that didn’t even happen. his attempt to compromise resulted in a total capitulation of democratic policy to Republican national capitalism.

and then comes Trump. Trump bothers people so much that Democrats see an opportunity to cease even pretending to have a policy they advocate for. the only strategies they begin to discuss are tepid executive actions they know that courts will deny. symbolic gestures which are totally meaningless yet allow them to feel morally superior. this strategy then collapses during Biden’s presidency because black and indigenous people are confronting settler colonialism and genocide.

so the next move is to prop up a black Indian woman who is a disavowed spawn of an activist marxist family. it’s actually hilarious. I feel crazy. and if you mention that they haven’t had a policy for four and a half decades a bunch of liberals come out of the woodwork to call you a fascist for “abetting trump” like I’m going to laugh myself to the moon.

in light of all this context, two things can be true: 100% of the composition of the Democratic Party suffers from absolute stupidity. or, more likely, they know exactly what they are doing and genuinely could not care less if they win or not. because when 100% of your strategy is identifying yourself by not being what your opponent is, you become totally dependent on your opponent and actually defeating them would terminate your ability to maintain the course you’ve set for the past half-century.

their actions and evidence suggests very strongly that they are not engaging with voters in good faith.

so actually, I’ll continue to judge the Democratic Party by the material evidence and not by what the TV says and what I imagine them to be. like somebody with without hay for a brain.