#populist rhetoric

[dead-salmon]

-> tags are not from prev, i found them in the notes

i usually don't add onto posts like this responding to tags, but like, how do you miss the point that badly

the point of this isn’t even parasocial relationships, it's people going "ohh new candidate who didn't badly mess up yet so i can definitely 100% support her!" that's not parasocial, that's naive, it's being politically uneducated. they didn't see their saviour or best friend in harris, they saw a viable option to support based in 0 information. now there's information that she's just as awful, end of story. sure, some definitely were on the parasocial level, but that's a smaller number, and not the focus of the post. the post disproves the rhetoric that harris is a better candidate than biden

also i don't know how you didn't figure this out, but you do vote that politician if you vote for the democrats. if harris is the head of the party and gets made presidential candidate then guess what, it means she represents the partys current values.

said values align very well with what harris put out here. said values recently have been presented in supporting genocides and not listening to their voters moreso than before (biden resigning is not the dems listening to their voters, it's him having become just a literal embarassment for the party and a 100% sure election loss). if the possible presidential candidate of the party behaves like this, calls peaceful protests by jews unpatriotic and antisemitic, then she represents her party. if they after this statement make her the candudate, then they alogn themselves with these views.

also nice populist rhetoric you got going there! "vote harris bc trump is worse!" first of all, you send your beautiful lovely blue party a big signal with this: they can put out whatever candidate they like, disregard their voters opinions and wishes, and support as much evil as they like. as long as they're slightly lesser evil than the republicans, they'll get elected. that's a surefire way to make your party listen to what you want them to do, great way to make them represent your values.

if harris gets elected, that won't just stop trump. what, you think project 2025 will just go up in the air and disappear? no, they'll simply put a 9 instead of a 5 and the plan is back on. trump will be the candidate again, or perhaps someone just like him.

don't get me wrong, i get that it's scary. he's planning on becomkng a dictator, he's rndangering queer youth, people of colour, women's rights. i get it, it's scary. but repeating populist mantras, supporting a party that does evil too is not a long tearm solution. it's not even a short term solution. all you end up doing is making people outside of the us get massacred so that you can possibly avoid that fate.

i'll be real, the democrats need to change their structure. they need to listen to their voters, put out candidates that are actually up for debate to be elected. and chances are high that they will lose this election (and that's completely their fault), chances are they'll refuse to learn from it. however if they win this election, it'll just cause an even bigger disaster for the next election. it will not save anyone outside of the usa, it's not a viable solution for the usa.

bpth candidates are horrid, but neither are electable. and be aware, if you do decide to elect one of the two anyways, i can't stop you even if i wanted to, the blood of the people from congo, palestine, sudan, etc. is on your hands too. because you decided your life matters more than theirs. and while wanting personal safety is a human instinct, you will still have indirectly supported this gemocide with that

Harris is now condemning the 'unpatriotic" protests against Netanyahu

[highlights-of-the-lowlife]

i desperately need people to understand how fascism started because i am seeing many on the left gleefully walk assbackwards into goosestepping.

fascism did not start out as a far right ideology even though that is the endpoint. in order to gain power, there was a deliberate false synthesis of left and right populist ideals in order to gain a wide base from people upset with the political status quo. this is why the nazis were called national socialists. because they stole rhetoric and language from socialist movements and twisted them to their own ends.

this is why average people supported the nazis. not because they were stupid or incredibly bigoted but because the nazi party promised we will provide just as soon as we deal with the Bad People. however once nazi control was assured, the entire left wing of the party were purged. Gregor Strasser who was the leader of the left wing was assassinated in the night of the long knives.

his whole political ideology was nazism but anti capitalist. pro trade union, anti banker, pro wealth redistrubution, pro socialised housing and medicine. all of which ended in them being slughtered when they were no longer necessary. these people existed and were the useful idiots that aided in hitler taking full power.

you need to pay attention to who is saying what and why. easy answers, scapegoating, portraying whoever the outgroup of the moment as being behind every ill in the world, surface level anticapitalism and anticolonialism, reactionary leanings in problem solving. anything to get you to point at a group and declare them they enemy.

this is why you need to learn history, pay attention to the sources you get your information from and what narrative they are trying to weave out of the situation.

[god-offical]

I see a lot of people throw around the term fascist on this website, but I’ve never seen a definition for it, so I’m going to provide one.

The definition of fascism, if you look it up in a dictionary, should sound something like this:

a populist political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and race above the individual, that is associated with an autocratic government

Source: Merriam-Webster

This definition of fascism notably includes both Nazism and Classical Fascism (Italian Fascism) but leaves out other Fascist movements, namely Brazilian Integralism and Falangism.

So to really understand Fascism, you must first understand the “arms” of what makes up a fascist government or movement.

The arms that I was taught are as follows:

1. Corporatism - the belief that class conflict is unnecessary and the various social classes must cooperate and do their job. Please note that it is used in other contexts, and Fascism usually adds on the caveat that the classes cooperate with the good of the state

2. Militarism - Fascist movement traditionally merge state & military, which goes with corporatism to militarize society into strict and rigid social hierarchies. This also has the added effect of making Fascist nations more belligerent but also more unstable, as a fascist military when overstepping its duties often contradicts official government policy (for an example, look up the Marco Polo bridge incident)

3. Hatred of intellectualism - fascist movements dislike intellectualism, as freedom of thought can contradict what they believe to be the one truth. This is an important time to tell you that Fascism is a reactionary movement. Fascists do not like change, and dream of an imagined past ideal society.

4. Violent rhetoric against communism - Fascist movements arose in Europe as a result of the ascendancy of the USSR. Many prominent fascists used the fear of communism to cement their power and initiate purges. Fascists dislike communism because communism advocates for abolition of class structure and social equality, neither of which fit with the nationalist & hierarchical view of Fascists.

5. Ultra-nationalism & supremacy of the state - these two go hand in hand, as Fascists believe their nation to be above all else, superior and unbeatable in every way to every other country in the world. The state is the supreme power in fascist nations, and compliance is not expected as much demanded from all citizens. This often ties into racist views of fascists, who believe their race, similar to their nation, to be superior to all else. It is important to note that some fascist movements were not as extreme in the race department, as Integralism advocated for people of all races co-existing, so long as they were subservient to the states will, and Falangism believed that all Hispanic peoples (Spaniards, non-Brazilian South Americans, Latinos, Mexicans, and Philipinos) were all part of the super race, and should interbreed to create superhumans.

6. One leader - fascist movements have one person who is viewed as supreme & infallible, who wields autocratic authority over every aspect of the state and is treated as though they are the nation in many cases.

7. Feeling of national humiliation - fascist movements often espouse that their country has been slighted or humiliated by their allies or rivals in the past, and that the only way to make up for this stain on national honor is to expel those who humiliated the country (often ethnic minorities) and create a homogeneous and pure society

8. Mass media & propaganda - Fascism uses false statements and misinformation as propaganda to cement their authority and make their influence complete.

So with all of that in mind here are some prominent fascist governments both in history and modern day:

1. Italian fascism, aka classical fascism was started by Benito Mussolini and was the offical ideology of Italy until the end of WWII. Corporatism was the biggest tenant of this branch, along with a strong feeling of national betrayal by the allies in WWI.

2. Nazism, a movement that existed after WWI was taken up by Austrian politician Adolf Hitler, who led Germany until his death in 1945. Nazism called for racial purity, and used anti-Semitic & slavophobic rhetoric, all of which eventually led to the invasion of Poland (a Slavic country with a large Jewish population) and the start of WWII

3. Francoism / Falangism were competing Spanish ultranationalist ideologies following the conclusion of the Spanish civil war. Dictators Franz Franco won out and his ideology would rule Spain until the 1970s. The linguistic discrimination used by Francoism laid the groundwork for the modern Catalan & Basque independence movements

4. The Japanese military ruled Japan in a military dictatorship during WWII, and used fascist rhetoric and tactics, coupled with Japanese society being already arranged in a way to facilitate this, and supreme loyalty to the Emperor. The movement died out after WWII and the US occupation of Japan, as the Japanese military was formally disbanded and downsized immensely

5. Yes by my definition, Trumpism is a fascist movement. Please note that Trump is not a Nazi, he is a fascist and more specifically a Trumpist.

6. There were many smaller and less significant fascist countries during WWII and after, but I don’t know enough about none of them to say definitively if they were / are

[nourasbasha]

🚨 Announcement 🚨

460 nautical miles left to Gaza

One month after the attack on the Vicdan Ship, the Madleen Ship set sail on the 15th anniversary of the Mavi Marmara Massacre.

Although there are only 12 people on board, the ship carries the conscience of millions.

So far, 10 UN rapporteurs have prepared reports to ensure the safe passage of the Vicdan Ship.

Right now, the Madleen Ship is being discussed in the parliaments of Ireland, Spain, and many other European countries.

It has become a spark to break the blockade on Gaza and to pave the way for humanitarian aid.

At this very moment, people from 37 countries are preparing to head to the borders of Gaza. The World Conscience, which has been suppressed for nearly two years in the face of a genocide unfolding before its eyes, is no longer satisfied with populist rhetoric — they demand physical, concrete action.

Zionism’s perception agents are not sitting idly by — they are exerting pressure behind the scenes to keep the Madleen Ship out of mainstream media coverage.

Now, despite all the pressure, we must make the Madleen Ship even more visible.

Even a single dot as a comment matters — engage, share, and spread the word around you 🤲

From Mavi Marmara to Vicdan,

From Madleen to Handala,

From Resistance to Victory ✊

#AllEyesOnMadleen #AllEyesOnDeck

[dead-salmon]

once again proving that "harris is fighting for a ceasefire and will change the israel politics once she's in office if we demand it hard enough" is bullshit

Democratic VP candidate officially calls for the, and I quote, "expansion of Israel"

[visenyaism]

really what the wizard of oz is about is a plucky young sjw new deal democrat and her pet dog (useless VP nominee) getting even the brainless (reactionary southerners) heartless (yankee political machinists) and cowardly (white collar liberal bourgeois) (new deal coalition) to work together to defeat wizard jennings bryan who is trying to crucify oz on a cross of gold (yellow brick) who commands them to defeat the wicked witch of the west (industrialist union-busters) and her flying monkeys (thats evolution.) Before it is of course ultimately revealed that the Glinda the good witch (wilsonian liberalism) and wizard jennings bryan are of course charlatans with no electoral power beyond populist rhetoric. And what does Dorothy do? Click her ruby (red for the blood of the working man) heels together three times and realize that the power (expansion of executive authority) was in her purview (supply-side economics) all along. and then of course she gets home and reports her father to the proper authorities for planting an extra acre of wheat.

[diagnosisdivine]

I’m not versed in politics, in fact quite the opposite. I’m just someone trying to make sense of what’s going on in the world, and especially what’s happening in Palestine and Israel right now. But the more I follow the discourse, especially online, the more I feel something’s off. There seems to be a deep fracture within the pro-Palestinian movement itself.

On one side, there’s a lot of leftist (often academic rhetoric) about settler colonialism, class struggle, the state as an instrument of oppression, and the need for global revolution. In these spaces, Palestine often isn’t discussed as a real place with diverse people, it becomes more like a symbolic battlefield for ideological purity. Every analysis feels like it’s filtered through the lens of some larger theory.

On the other side, there’s a more populist wave of support driven by the horrific images and stories coming out of Gaza. These people are reacting from a place of raw emotion. But sometimes I get the feeling they’re unaware, or maybe even uninterested, in the larger historical context - or in what’s happening across the fence in Israel. In some of these conversations, Israeli civilians are simply erased, or cast as indistinguishable from their government.

And the result? The actual conflict, the impossible, human mess at the heart of it, is getting lost. And worse, the actual people caught in the middle, Palestinians and Israelis alike, are being reduced to ideological tools or emotional triggers. Their suffering gets flattened into either theory or outrage, depending on the speaker.

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe this is just how large movements operate. But it feels like both sides are so locked into their narratives that there’s no room left for ambiguity, or complexity, or empathy on either side of the fence. No space to ask: What happens next? What kind of future do the people living there actually want? What does peace even mean now?

Supporting human rights is the baseline of moral decency. But I also think we need to ask: are we supporting a people, or are we using them to support an idea?

[qqueenofhades]

Hello, qqueenofhades!

I just want to say, that ever since I discovered you in the week following Biden stepping down, you've actually made me not dread talking about politics. I look forward to your thoughts on what's going on, and I want to thank you for that.

I would love to know: What do you think of the apparent exhaustion from Republicans/MAGA about Trump? People leaving his rallies (and that's not even covering how few are even coming at all or his supposedly needing to pay people to come), and the slew of formers we see at the DNC openly talking about their change in sides. Do you have any ideas about what might be causing this shift? Was it Harris? Was it Jan. 6th? Was it one singular reason, or multiple at once?

Hope you're having a good day.

I think it's a lot of reasons. First, as I said earlier, the whole theme of the DNC is about reclaiming the USA FREEDOM message from the Republicans, who have had a monopoly on it for the past three decades at least and used it to justify even more antidemocratic fascist militant theocratic hard-right turns. The scenes of joyful people talking rousingly about hope, compassion, morning in America, and breaking out into regular USA! USA! chants appeals a lot to the average American, who doesn't want to hear constant violent and negative bile from the Orange Felonious Traitor, because that is literally the only thing he has to offer and it's getting openly more deranged and dangerous every day. The whole Tough Talking Populist Outsider shtick worked in 2016, when Trump didn't have four years of incompetent chaos as the actual president and was just a theoretical concept who a lot of people thought would "smarten up" and take it seriously if he actually won. Likewise, the backlash of white grievance against Obama and the complacency that Trump didn't actually stand a chance was able to be leveraged against the decades of smears that the GOP had already leveled on HRC. Of course, Trump lost the popular vote by 3 million-plus, but the Electoral College did what it's designed to do and he snuck in anyway. But it wasn't a rousing landslide or a thumping victory.

As such, a lot of Reagan Republicans are now turning to the Democrats as the actual pro-USA party, because Trump trash-talks America, calls it a shithole third-world country, bellows about WWIII and the Great Depression, cozies up to foreign dictators, etc etc. Reagan also pitched the sunny message of America as the shining moral hero of the world (he in fact used the Make America Great Again slogan that Trump repurposed), and that likewise resonated with people after the chaos and unrest of the 1970s. Now, we all know that I hate Reagan's ass and I hope he's burning in hell for so many reasons, but his message was effective because it gave people a soaring rhetorical vision to believe in (even while he was often stripping away their economic prosperity in particular behind the scenes, all together now, FUCK REAGAN). But the Republicans who joined the 1980s party are now seeing Republicanism become a tawdry cult centered on, as Geoff Duncan (GOP former Lt. Gov. of Georgia) put it yesterday, the worship of a felonious thug. Trump is wildly anti-America; he only uses it as a vehicle to get what he wants, because Donald Trump is all that Donald Trump cares about. Yes, there are still plenty of brainwashed cultists in numbers great enough to make this election far, far closer than it should ever be in any sane universe, but increasingly even his own cultists don't want to hear it anymore. They keep leaving before the event is over and he's drawing far smaller crowd sizes than in 2016, which as we know is pretty much all he cares about. He has a desperate need for attention and approval to feed his damaged narcissistic-sociopath dementia-riddled brain, and he's just not getting it, while the very real prospect looms that if he loses this election (and it looks more and more like he will) he will go to jail for the rest of his life. Terrifying.

That's why we have the unprecedented spectacle of lifelong Republicans and former Trump voters flocking to Harris in large numbers. We've had Republican speakers at the DNC every night, and they keep playing video montages of former Trump voters disavowing him or explaining that they won't vote for him. If you consider what propelled Trump in 2016 -- conservative white grievance against a black guy named Barack Obama -- the willingness to unhesitatingly embrace a black/mixed-race WOMAN named Kamala Harris is incredible. Many of them were already planning to vote for Biden before he dropped out, but it was no certain thing that they would move from being willing to vote for an establishment old white guy to also being willing to vote for a woman and a person of color. The fact that we've had so many high-profile affinity group Zoom events for Harris, including from truly unbelievable quarters (Republicans for Harris, Mormons for Harris, EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANS for Harris), shows that there is a country-wide exhaustion with Trump's poisonous selfish grievance performances, where he's willing to do anything to anyone and turn the USA into a fascist dictatorship if it will exempt him, personally, from the consequences of his odious actions. That is not a message that any sane person can support, and more and more, they don't. As I have said before, that is why fascist movements always sow the seeds of their own destruction. They work for a while, but eventually they're boring, they're mean, they're exhausting, and they offer nothing for anyone but being angry all the time at everyone. Most humans don't like that, and eventually, they drift away.

I also think that part of the reason Kamala absolutely nailed it with Tim Walz as VP is because Walz is the literal anti-MAGA in every way. We have seen a lot of similar straight white military-vet football-coach-type Middle America older men drift into MAGA grievance politics because it offers a home for guys like them and feeds on fear of the future and fear of the other. They feel like they're being heard and understood, even if they aren't, and they vote Republican because they've grown up with Republicans being the pro-America party (however defined). But because Walz is a straight white married military-vet football-coach guy who actually models a joyful and compassionate masculinity, an openly emotional and supportive masculinity, who talks movingly about his love for his wife and children, who is a hunter and gun owner who nonetheless loves kids more than guns, who has taken his small-town rural-America values and become an effective and genuinely progressive politician focused on making ordinary people's lives better, he offers a total antidote to MAGAism. He shows that it is possible to be a traditionally manly American straight white guy who is not a gibbering conspiracy theory-addled shitbag dedicated to trampling on everyone else out of reactionary fear. He shows those guys that they can embrace the diverse future and not have to fear it, and he gives them a permission structure to vote for Democrats because it's the right thing to do AND feel that the Democrats are now the real pro-America party.

Basically, right now, Walz is the most popular member on either ticket, and he's crushing Vance into oblivion (there's something like a 27-point difference in their favorable/unfavorable spreads) because Vance is a horrible robotic hateful gremlin and Walz is an authentic and genuine person who a lot of traditionally Republican-affiliated men (and women!) can identify with. He's also the guy who came up with the devastating "weird" attack line that the GOP can do nothing with except splutter and whine, like playground bullies, that no YOU'RE THE WEIRD ONE. He models that it's actually normal to want your leaders to be compassionate human beings who want to use power to make your lives better, and not hateful fascist alt-righters dedicated to making you also hate everyone and be steeped in doom and gloom. That is why people responded so well to Obama in 2008 after the turmoil of the Bush Jr. years, and why this feels even more monumental than Obama. We won't know until the votes are counted, but this giant tsunami just rose out of nowhere when Harris took over, and it's speeding forward in a really incredible way. We've got to do the work and we've got to vote, but if we do, we could absolutely pulverize Trump and MAGA to smithereens in a way that means it wouldn't be able to come back for a good long while, and oh, what a glorious day that would be. So yes.

[vague-humanoid]

DR Congo Protests Throw a Wrench in the Western-Backed War of Pillage

On The Freedom Side LIVE, Thursday, 1/30  at 3pm ET/12pm PT, hosts Rania Khalek and Eugene Puryear are joined by special guests:

Kambale Musavuli from the Center for Research on the Congo joins the show to discuss the rapidly escalating conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo as fighting between the Rwandan backed-M23 rebel group and the Congolese army (FARDC) intensifies in the major city of Goma. Musavuli will discuss the latest updates as well the protests that erupted across the country at US & EU embassies over the West’s complicity in the brutal proxy war for the DR Congo’s vast mineral wealth.

Abubaker Abed, Palestinian journalist and commentator in Gaza, joins the show to discuss Palestinians’ historic return to their devastated homes in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday after over a year of genocidal war. Reporting firsthand, Abed will explain how this historic mass return marks a powerful act of Palestinian resistance and is seen as a significant step toward reclaiming all occupied territories.

Vijay Prashad, Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute, joins the show to unpack a critical question: As Donald Trump’s return to the White House emboldens far-right movements across the North Atlantic, do these forces actually challenge neoliberalism—or are they merely its latest iteration? Prashad will argue that the far right, despite its populist rhetoric, remains tied to the neoliberal economic and security policies they claim to oppose.

Hala Jaber Leb, award-winning Beirut-based journalist, joins the show to discuss Israel's violation of its ceasefire agreement with Hezbollah. Israel continues to bomb southern Lebanon and refuses to withdraw their forces despite the 60-day ceasefire deadline. Thousands of Lebanese residents have been returning to their homes in the South in defiance of Israel’s occupation.

Doug Henwood, economic journalist and host of the podcast Behind the News, joins the show to discuss how Trump has stacked his administration with crypto entrepreneurs, launched his second cryptocurrency, and pledged to make the US the “crypto capital of the planet.” Henwood will explain the danger of Trump’s actions and the increasing threat of expanded US government involvement in crypto, an industry rife with risks and scams.

Zoe Alexandra, Editor of Peoples Dispatch, joins the show to discuss how Colombian President Gustavo Petro stood up to Trump over the inhumane treatment of Colombian migrants deported from the US. Alexandra will explain the tense diplomatic impasse between Washington and Bogotá and discuss how progressive governments in Latin America are fighting for the respect and dignity of migrants amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.

[dasha-aibo]

I am not happy that Trump won. Not that I would prefer Kamala very much, but as a filthy Russian living in Europe, my main priority right now is Ukraine and I do believe Trump's victory lowers Ukraine's chances.

I do believe both would ultimately be unable to unfuck the American economy in one term. And I do believe Trump will worsen LGBT rights. Though I'm open to be surprised.

Ultimately, America will survive another Trump term. Even American democracy will. It's a shame, but it's not the end of the world.

My main prediction is that Trump will dial down the populist rhetoric now that he's in the office again. But we shall see.

[maxdibert]

It shouldn’t surprise me that the Arcane fandom has a hefty dose of internalized misogyny, but honestly, it’s exhausting to constantly see how female characters are judged, condemned, and demonized for the simple "sin" of being complex, layered, and morally questionable, while the fandom favorite is a drug lord who used a populist, nationalist rhetoric to justify child exploitation and drug trafficking that poisoned the very people he claimed to defend. Yes, I’m talking about Silco. The same Silco who threw a little girl in prison and took her younger sister, making her believe her older sister didn’t care about her anymore. The same Silco who projected his traumas onto a kid and manipulated her into being his weapon. The same Silco who posed as the "people’s champion" while being one of the main reasons the people were dying in the first place.

And don’t get me wrong—I love Silco. He’s a fantastic villain, and his relationship with Jinx is as fascinating as it is deeply uncomfortable at times. But it feels incredibly cynical to see people excuse all the atrocities he committed, or at least try to understand them, while they spent all of season one attacking characters like Mel for being ambitious and power-hungry, doing morally questionable things. Sorry, but none of Mel’s actions in season one even come close to Silco’s level of ethical depravity with the whole shimmer situation, yet Mel got dragged.

Vi—perhaps the series’ ultimate punching bag of suffering—who lost her parents, stepped up to take care of her sister, carried the responsibility of being the eldest (as tasked by Vander to protect the group), lost her "siblings" and "father" in one night, got wrongfully imprisoned as a kid, spent years in jail for nothing, only to come out and see that her sister had turned into a monster and that the man responsible for their adoptive father’s death was now the kingpin of the Undercity—was treated like absolute crap by the fandom. Why? Because she didn’t understand or accept that her younger sister was suddenly cool with a man who was poisoning the city? The same man who killed their father figure? I remember people calling Silco the "Father of the Year" and Vi the "Worst Sister of the Decade," and I was genuinely floored. Like, as a meme, sure, it’s funny. But as an actual take? The level of cognitive dissonance is wild.

And now, in this season, of course, the hate is all directed at Caitlyn. Why? Because instead of being the idealistic nepo baby who dreams of coexistence like in season one, she’s dealing with severe PTSD after being kidnapped and witnessing a missile nearly obliterate her mother. And people just can’t seem to grasp that. They can understand a man going from revolutionary to drug lord, using the idea of freedom and the people’s anger to expand his shady business and exploit children, but they can’t understand a young woman becoming incredibly violent out of a thirst for revenge.

What these reactions tell me is that men can be the absolute worst scum narrative writing has ever birthed, and it’s fine because everyone will bend over backwards to understand their motivations or at least where they’re coming from. But if we’re talking about women who aren’t compliant, who overreact, who struggle to manage their emotions or trauma, or who don’t behave the way women are "supposed" to behave, there’s no room for understanding. No excuses, no empathy. They’re just bitches, villains, or—like people are now saying about Caitlyn—"fascists."

Look, the fact that people are calling Caitlyn a fascist while never using that term for Silco—who was literally a despot—isn’t just cognitive dissonance; it’s hypocrisy at its finest.

[thebreakfastgenie]

This might be a bit spicy a take but the way leftists talk about populism being an amazing thing or whatever annoys me because like… populism is just low level demagoguery I won’t lie. Or at least, demagoguery is the natural conclusion of populism if taken to its furthest extent.

I think populism is woven into American culture. It's all through our national mythology. "We the people" are rallying words for Americans. The problem is and always has been defining who the "common people" are. Most people think of themselves as belonging to that group and so define it as "people like me" which often has poor results for obvious reasons, especially in a country with very little class consciousness. This relates to a lot of things but I want to point out race specifically because it's been so integral since the beginning. A lot of populist narratives inherently define the common people as white. We have a cultural image of a "real American." Why is someone from the heartland (it goes so deep!! the fact that it's even called that!) more American than someone from New York City? A lot of Americans put people outside the "common people" category based on things like education or identities they view as cosmopolitan. Millionaires and billionaires can make aesthetic choices that will code them as less elite than a New Yorker with a masters degree. Populism just seems to be a losing philosophy for the left. The right makes it work. Look how rampant anti-intellectualism is.

Even when people do view the ultrawealthy as out of touch, a lot of it is more motivated by jealousy than justice. People responded to Bernie Sanders' rhetoric, but I think a significant number of them were, consciously or not, thinking "it's not fair that these people are rich and I'm not." I think a lot of Americans believe if you could stop a few people from hoarding wealth, everyone could be rich. Not just comfortable and cared for, but rich. We're a nation of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. The myth of the American Dream comes back to haunt us once again. To Bernie's credit I think he knew that and was hoping he could persuade these people but it didn't work (and he should have given up after 2016 imo) and I don't think the people on the left who came after him are as aware as he is.

It's always funny to me when leftists point to the popularity of hating on big corporations. Everyone hates big corporations as a concept, but the feelings behind it can be very different. A lot of people fantasize about being business owners. A lot of hate for corporations comes from smaller business owners who are protecting their business interests. This is not exactly Marxist in nature. This is another reason the conflation of "big corporations" with "capitalism" is a problem! Lots of people hate big corporations and love capitalism. They also hate vague images of guys in suits sitting around boardrooms. They absolutely love the services big corporations provide and sometimes identify with the corporations themselves! People love Walmart, they love Amazon, but they hate "big corporations."

[genderkoolaid]

Hi. People listen to you more than they'll listen to me, so I hope it's okay to ask, but could you help share whatever mess is currently happening with the german elections & trump celebrating the nazi uprising. No one is talking about it and it's driving me insane.

“I’m devastated,” said David, 32. “And I’m scared and sad.” Preliminary results suggested that although the conservative CDU/CSU bloc had won the largest share of the vote (29%), likely to be the second force in the parliament was the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which garnered about 20% of the vote. Polls had long predicted this result, said David, who declined to give his surname. But now the question was what exactly it meant for the millions of Germans who were either racialised, like him, or who are migrants. [...] Half of the country’s voters had chosen to cast their ballot for either the CDU/CSU bloc or the AfD, pointed out Gian Mecheril, 32. “That means that the coalition of fascists with the conservative party is possible,” he said. “It’s a danger.” On Sunday night Merz again insisted there was “no question” of entering into coalition with the far-right party. But for the millions of Germans who regard the AfD as an unprecedented threat, that is of little comfort, particularly after a campaign marked by political rhetoric against migrants, while issues such as country’s ailing economy, deteriorating infrastructure or housing crisis were seemingly ignored. “The campaign was just filled with racist diversions from the actual problems we face,” said Flo, 19. “I’m anxious about what comes next.” The result was a divisive election that had helped to legitimise the far right, said Ella, 30. “The CDU’s win comes on the shoulders of the AfD,” she said. “They worked with them, they normalised them.” Tens of thousands sought to fight back in recent weeks, taking to streets across Germany to protest against the far right and the AfD’s co-leader, Alice Weidel, as she backed the mass deportation of migrants and peddled a party whose ranks include members who have played down the horrors of the Holocaust and chapters that have been designated as “rightwing extremist” by security authorities. “I would say the AfD is the ridiculous monster our period needs to have,” said Willi Schultz, 32, in a reference to the oft-cited quote attributed to Antonio Gramsci: “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” He contextualised the AfD support within the wider, global surge of backing for rightwing populists – a link reinforced during the election as Elon Musk used his influence to tout the AfD, describing it as the only party able to “save Germany”.

In a post on social media — written entirely in capital letters — Trump did not mention either Merz or his party by name, referring to “THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY IN GERMANY,” but argued that the country’s swing to the right was part of a political shift that Germany shared with the U.S. “MUCH LIKE THE USA, THE PEOPLE OF GERMANY GOT TIRED OF THE NO COMMON SENSE AGENDA, ESPECIALLY ON ENERGY AND IMMIGRATION, THAT HAS PREVAILED FOR SO MANY YEARS,” Trump wrote. “THIS IS A GREAT DAY FOR GERMANY, AND FOR THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA UNDER THE LEADERSHIP OF A GENTLEMAN NAMED DONALD J. TRUMP. CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL — MANY MORE VICTORIES TO FOLLOW!!!”

[blergityblargh]

Let's set the record straight about the Canadian election

because I've seen a lot of terrible takes and it's starting to bug me.

Myth 1: This was a huge defeat for the Conservatives

The way this is presented is that while Justin Trudeau was Prime Minister, the Conservatives had a 25-point lead over the Liberals. But then Trudeau resigned, Trump started making threats, and the Liberals made a miraculous recovery to win their fourth consecutive term in government.

This is true. But the Conservatives did not do badly by any stretch of the imagination.

In 2015, when Justin Trudeau's Liberals won a majority government, he won 39.5% of the popular vote. When Stephen Harper's Conservatives won a majority in 2011, they had 39.6% of the popular vote.

In this election, the Liberals won 43.7% of the popular vote. Normally that would mean that they won a crushing majority of seats. But they won a minority. The Conservatives got 41.3% of the popular vote, which also would be enough to win a majority in normal times. And they did pick up 24 seats in the election.

The big story isn't that the Conservatives did badly, because they didn't. The big story is that the NDP (the labour/social democrat-ish party) absolutely collapsed in this election, losing seats to both the Liberals and Conservatives. They went from 24 seats to just 7 seats. They lost official party status.

The Liberals rebounded, not because they won Conservative supporters, but because they siphoned support from the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois (the Quebec nationalist party) (who went from 34 to 23 seats).

That's because there were two issues in this election: Donald Trump and the cost of living.

During the last Parliament, the NDP entered into an agreement with Trudeau's minority government to prop them up in return for some very very limited reforms that the Liberals probably would have done anyways. The NDP kept the Liberals in power through the cost of living crisis, through the genocide in Gaza, through the Liberals repeatedly shutting down important strikes (dock workers, rail workers, postal workers). They took on responsibility for a government that was widely unpopular.

Then Trudeau resigned, Mark Carney reversed his most unpopular policies (Carbon tax, Capital gains tax), and Trump instituted tariffs against Canada. The Liberals were able to revamp their image and appeal to people who were scared of Trump, while the NDP bore responsibility for the previous government. And those who were voting based on worries about the cost of living voted Conservative.

The NDP actually lost more seats to the Conservatives than to the Liberals, including the manufacturing regions that have been hit the worst by the trade war. The NDP usually gets a majority of the support from union members and youth, but this time they lost both of those demographics to the Conservatives. Because the Conservatives were the only ones talking about the working class (opportunistically), and the only ones who seemed to be at all anti-establishment (rhetorically).

And this is not going to be a stable government for the Liberals. They're a minority government, those usually last 18-36 months. And come next election, the Conservatives will be well-placed to win.

As a side note, there's a lot of people talking about how Pierre Poilievre (Conservative leader) lost his seat. And yes, it's funny and satisfying. But also it's been way overblown. He's just going to run in a by-election for a safe Conservative seat, it doesn't change anything.

Myth 2: Pierre Poilievre/The Conservatives are fascists

I honestly feel like I'm in the twilight zone with the way some people talk about Poilievre.

He's just a normal conservative. He's been a parliamentarian his entire adult life. He was a member of Stephen Harper's cabinet. He's an establishment politician who jumped on the right-populist bandwagon at the time of the trucker convoy, and then got a makeover and added a few catchy slogans ("boots not suits" "the have-nots vs. the have-yachts").

Are there extremists who vote Conservative? Yes. But the strategy of the Conservative party when it comes to extreme social conservatives (going back to Harper's day, and Poilievre is a Harper-ite) is to use them for their votes and then tell them to shut up. You see this with Poilievre, that he was winning based on talking about the cost-of-living crisis, so he didn't need to get into culture war stuff, and he avoided it.

And you need to look at who voted Conservative: youth, workers, and immigrants. Poilievre is popular because he (demagogically) talks about the fact that people's lives are getting worse, and everyone is sick of the Liberals.

Myth 3: The Liberals are any better

First of all, let's be really clear about what the Liberals are. They've been in power for most of Canada's history. They're nicknamed "the natural governing pary". They are the preferred party of Canadian capitalism.

They're what in political science is called a "brokerage party". That means that they don't stand for anything ideologically, but operate solely on the basis of what will get them elected. They are not a left party, and have never been a left party.

And the Liberals, being the main party of Canadian capitalism, have presided over some of the worst stuff that Canadian capitalism is responsible for. They were huge supporters of the creation of Israel. They presided over the 60s scoop. Federally, they implemented the worst cuts in Canadian history in the 1990s. Recently, they've shut down every major strike in the past few years. And that's just off the top of my head.

Even under Carney, and he's only been around a couple of months, the Liberals are making massive cuts to Indigenous support programs, and sending weapons to Israel and lying about it.

In this election specifically, Mark Carney and Pierre Poilievre's platforms were *extremely* similar. Before the election even got underway, Carney implemented three of the promises that Poilievre was running on (ending the carbon tax, stopping the capital gains tax, ending federal oversight of development projects). Poilievre accused the Liberals of stealing his platform, even.

Both the Liberals and Conservatives are talking about limiting immigration and sending migrants out of the country, they're both talking about "encouraging investment" (payouts to business), and they're both talking about balancing the budget.

The reason why they're so similar is that in times of economic crisis, the ruling class has less room to manoeuver. Canada is facing a productivity crisis, runaway deficits, and now the trade war. From the point of view of the ruling class, the main task is to balance the budget. That will necessarily mean making cuts to social spending, whether it’s the Liberals or Conservatives in government.

That's the ultimate point of this post: The Liberals and the Conservatives are both our enemies, and both need to be treated as such.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Why, after every electoral loss, is the left always the scapegoat? It’s easier to blame activists for pushing a progressive agenda than confront the real issue: the Democratic Party has long been shaped by far more powerful forces—corporate interests, lobbyists, and consultants—whose influence has neglected the real crises facing everyday Americans. We see this cycle again and again. Contrary to establishment narratives, the Democratic leadership has often resisted advocacy organizations pushing for bold reforms on immigration, Big Tech, climate, debt, healthcare, rent, mass incarceration, Palestinian rights, and for policies like the Build Back Better agenda. This tension isn’t just about differing priorities—it reveals the actual balance of forces in the party. Corporate donors on Wall Street and Silicon Valley pour billions into campaigns, shaping agendas to suit their interests. A consultant class reaps millions from flawed strategies and failed candidates yet continues to fail upward, perpetuating a pattern of mediocrity. They, not progressives, are the roadblock preventing Democrats from becoming a populist force that could disrupt the status quo and win back voters of all stripes. It was these elements within the party that kneecapped the Democrats’ most ambitious efforts to help ordinary Americans. The Biden administration entered with huge plans, notably Build Back Better, which would have delivered immediate relief: expanded child tax credits, free community college, universal child care and pre-K, paid leave, and more. Progressives pushed mightily for Build Back Better to pass. It was centrist obstruction—namely Senators Manchin and Sinema—that blocked those policies. The result was a patchwork of long-term measures like the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal, whose benefits won’t be felt until 2025 at the earliest, if at all. By failing to pass Build Back Better, Democrats lost the chance to deliver easy-to-understand, tangible economic benefits and solidify their image as the party of working people. And it was corporate Democrats—particularly lobbyists like Harris’s brother-in-law, former Uber executive Tony West, and David Plouffe—who held the most sway over Harris’s campaign. They advised her to cozy up to ultra-wealthy celebrities, Liz and Dick Cheney, and Mark Cuban, and avoid populist rhetoric that could have distanced her from the corporate elites who dominate the party. In 2024, the biggest spenders in Democratic Party politics weren’t progressives—it was AIPAC, cryptocurrency PACs, and corporate giants like Uber, all of whom poured millions into Democratic campaigns without regard for public opinion or the will of the people.

18 November 2024