You don’t need to be downtrodden to feel like a party is failing you. Considering life is getting harder for so many lower and middle class people, a lot of people are feeling worse than they did 10-15 years ago. This is where people have been failed by both parties.

I mentioned that there are people who are feeling like they are losing their position in society. Some people are simply bigoted and are upset at seeing minorities get visibility, some are upset that christianity is less prevalent among Americans. I don’t think either of these reasons is valid, though, fuck the old hierarchies.

The issues faced by Americans in the rural south are completely different than the ones faced by Americans on the east or west coasts. We basically live in separate worlds. Republicans failed them, but to think the democrats didn’t is silly. For example, a lot of people live in rural areas, where the police would take an hour to get there if someone was being attacked by someone or some animal. Guns are a bit more necessary in places like this than they are in a big city.

Granted, I think the media’s lies is the biggest cause of the populism. And holy shit does right wing media spew lies at an incredible rate.

That’s true. I was just trying to explain my view of the US system.

Broadly speaking, do think that if a country has two dominant neoliberal parties, like the US, this will inevitably happen.

In a two party system, populist movements grow when the opposition party is failing (or is perceived as failing) people. Alternatively, both parties can fail the people before one becomes populist.

The two party system has failed Americans. But now that the republicans have created a populist movement, the failure of democrats to properly serve many people causes them to be pulled by populism. It doesn’t help that the culture war lets absolue horseshit issues fly by without actual basis in reality, since that fuels the fire without actually having to do the hard discussions about policy.

The MAGA movement is a “third way” that formed because the paths forward shown by both democrats and republicans seemed to lead to nowhere for many people.

I don’t think this is a cancer, I think this is a horrendous feature of the design of a representative democracy under capitalism (at least, in the American sense)

Capitalism will crush people while trying to wring every bit of profit out of them, and in a capitalist democracy, the state supports capitalism.

Representative democracy leads to unaccountable representatives. They still need to get re-elected if they want to (or they could just serve capital and dip), but with all the dogmatism caused by political parties, the hierarchy of the parties protecting the politician, and the benefits of having corporate sugar daddies, especially media corporations, they can get away with enriching themselves at the expense of Americans, while still having decent odds at reelection.

Further, people in power, for whatever reason gave this tendency to build their power, usually at the expense of those without it. The state gives itself new powers and new toys at the expense of everyone else. Fear of terrorism gave us some of the most draconian laws on the books, such as the patriot act, which has not been repealed whenever there has been an opportunity to. The police got afraid of the people, and bought themselves guns, counterinsurgency training and tools from a foreign apartheid state, armored cars, and raises. The supreme court went from writing itself into existence to giving the president near legal immunity, rolling out the red carpet for the authoritarian state to become an even more authoritarian state.

When you mix these tendencies together, its no wonder why this state has failed. And while it hasn’t failed everyone, the nature of capitalism leads to a pretty large exploited class ripe for exploitation. And this populist movement is ready to take advantage of that, between those primed by culture war drivel, economic suffering, or seeing their demographic and/or class lose power in some way.

This populism isn’t a cancer on an ailing democracy.

It is a symptom of a failing democracy, unable to sustain itself from the structure of itself.

Bringing up imperialism is a good call, you’re absolutely right. Although I left it out in my comment, the techniques used abroad always come back home on Foucault’s imperial boomerang.

The technology we use on our borders will be used to oppress activists and protesters in the city. The techniques used to stomp on indigenous people abroad will stomp on our queers and PoC back at home. Old military equipment will be sold to the military we turn on our civilians: cops.

I’m very concerned. The US has been increasingly authoritarian for a long time. But I really hate how people are only seeing “oh shit that’s authoritarian now”

I mean, let’s be real, we live in a fucking authoritarian police state, and this isn’t something that suddenly happened with Trump or the SCOTUS, they are just showing some of the terminal symptoms. Our police force is above the law, mass surveillance is normal, corporate surveillance is a profitable business that doesn’t shirk from getting profit from the Govt, and our democratic system is feeling pretty autocratic.

The oppressive arms of the next authoritarian on the throne of the oval office have been set up over many decades, accelerating recently. But now that the throne has been polished, people are starting to notice.

This system is fucked.

edit: autocorrect fucked me

Difficult when they’re [Libertarians R Us] on every corner.

I totally understand if you don’t want to give any information related to where you could be located, but can you actually provide an example? I’m genuinely curious because other than the christian book stores I’ve been to in the midwest and deep south, when visiting family or on vacation, I’ve never actually seen a conservative bookstore, much less a libertarian one, granted that was a joke. I mean, other than leftist shops, I usually see neoliberal “4 hour workweek” drivel, but beyond that I’ve rarely come across libertarian books except for Rand’s or the collective works of Adam Smith, who was more of a Liberal. Nothing like “For a New Liberty” by Rothbard.

And Chompsky [sic] was the fucking “Vote Joe Biden for harm reduction” guy. Not exactly a revolutionary.

I mean, I don’t disagree that he is too liberal, and less revolutionary that I’d like, I mentioned him because of the relevance of “On Palestine,” and the fact he and Graeber are influential to me in how I got to Anarchism.

I have a hard time finding a B&N still open. Nevermind the boutique leftist libraries.

I have the opposite experience, but I guess that’s just geographic positioning.

I physically can’t find them under the waterfall of Ayn Rand, Murray Rothbard, and Peter Theil books crowding out the shelf space in my local book store.

*You should stop shopping at Libertarians R Us *

I don’t need to look hard to find books by Anarchists. Most of Graeber’s work is very easy to find, and with the genocide in Palestine going on, you might be able to find a book called On Palestine by Ilan Pappe and Noam Chomsky, the latter being an anarchist.

I found both of those books, and more, at my local big box store. I can find plenty at other smaller book stores, especially co-ops or left wing shops.

This is the Anarchism At Home.

No, it is not. I have never met a single "an"cap in the real world, yet I’ve stumbled across quite a few anarchists throughout my time on this planet. Fuck, I used to be a far-right wing libertarian, and even in those spaces I did not see one “anarcho”-capitalist.

You are just wrong, but the special type where you double down, and just dig deeper and deeper trying to back your point, and end up being even more spectacularly wrong.

Look, just because you say “no, this completely different right wing philosophy that stands opposed to the basic foundational principles of this left wing philosophy are same” doesn’t make it true.

If you want to apply this logic, couldn’t I say that “anarcho”-capitalists are just liberals? Going back to that page I quoted in my previous comment, Rothbard, an “anarcho”-capitalist, says:

Other words, such as “liberal,” had been originally identified with laissez-faire libertarians, but had been captured by left-wing statists, forcing us in the 1940s to call ourselves rather feebly “true” or “classical” liberals.

Clearly, this man is a liberal.

If you want 19th century European anarchism, you’re going to need a boat and a time machine.

Do I? While I’d love to meet some figures like Emma Goldman, DeCleyre, Parsons, Kropotkin, and so-on, that seems a bit over the top considering I just need to go to my community centers and say “Hello” to the wonderful men, women, and enbies who are stocking the community fridges, stand in solidarity with other activists doing antifascist, unhoused, or queer liberation activism, or volunteer my time at any other mutual aid org.

If you think it just existed in the 19th century, you are plain wrong, considering it has continued to exist throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. For example, there is the anarchist free territories in Ukraine in the early 1900s, or the Soviets before the Bolsheviks seized power, or the anarchist uprisings in Patagonia, or anarchist Manchuria, or the Spanish civil war, or the Zapatistas, or The Queer Insurrection and Liberation Army and the IRPGF. These events cover various points in the 1900s and 2000s.

If you think it only existed in Europe, then I regret to inform you about the aforementioned Patagonians, Manchurians, Mayans, Syrians, and others. The US had it’s first red scare surrounding Anarchism in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Some famous American anarchists include Emma Goldman, Voltarine DeCleyre, Alexander Berkman, Lucy Parsons, David Graeber, and others.

It’s a heavily armed Kurdish cut out that exists primary to fight proxy wars with Turkyie and the remnants of the Iraqi military

No, it is not. One of the most important reasons it exists is because of the Kurdish ethnic cleansing carried out by the Turkish and Iraqi governments, and ISIS. Rojava rose out of the Syrian Civil war, not out some geopolitical fuckery. And while I’d listen to an argument about the civil war rising from geopolitical fuckery, that doesn’t mean Rojava came from that.

It’s not entirely Kurdish, but I’m not surprised it is heavily Kurdish considering the ethnic cleansings that have been taken place over the last hundred years.

And if you think it only fights proxy wars, then why is it only seeming to defend itself when Turkey attacks it time and time again?

It has some excellent press around it, thanks to US/UK media needing a progressive champion in a region where everyone hates us?

So? So what if a new and radical project arising in one of the most inhospitable places on earth gets positive press. Are you saying an autonomous government exists because the US/UK media needs a progressive champion??? Why would this need be there if we have Israel, a country that is commonly shown as a progressive oasis, and “the only democracy in the middle east” even though it’s not, it’s an apartheid state.

But there’s a word for a minority militant left wing proxy force… Tankies.

Since you love to use wacky definitions, go off champ. But that’s not what a tankie is.

First, Tankie originally meant an authoritarian communist that supported sending the tanks into Hungary to violently suppress the Hungarian revolution. Obviously that’s not how it’s used now, but if what you said was an actual definition, then you shouldn’t have said “who will protect us from the Far-Left Authoritarian Tankies?” in the first comment I replied to, since there is not any far left minority left wing proxy force in the US. But it is clear that you don’t care about definitions, or even being consistent with them.

More modernly speaking, Tankies are just authoritarian communists, most often Stalinists. But the important bit is authoritarian communists.

Second, to call the Rojava project full of tankies is an exercise in absurdity. Rojava is a famously anti-authoritarian project. One of their key philosophies is feminism, since they believe that in order to start getting rid of authoritarianism, you’ve got to go at the roots, and liberating women from patriarchal systems of oppression is their place to start. Further, Rojava has famously not been executing ISIS members, since they fundamentally believe people can change. And they do this at great cost to themselves, since they’re stuck maintaining a prison system full of people who would love to kill them for anti-authoritarian philosophical reasons. The craziest part is there is an interview conducted by Robert Evans, where he interviews an ISIS bride who is surprised about the treatment she is getting. An authoritarian government would cut their losses, then cut them down.

unfortunately its been tightly aligned with capitalism over the last half century.

Clearly you know nothing about anarchism. Stop speaking about it like you know what you are talking about.

That’s simply not anarchism. Over the last half century, there has been an effort to co-opt it by the right. Libertarianism is literally a left wing philosophy in most other parts of the world, but some dunce-muppet named Murray Rothbard stole it as his own (p83) and on this page he even admits that it was a word used by anarchists, which he distances himself from. One of the foundational anarchist thinkers, Proudhon, literally says “Property is theft,” a complete rejection of fundamental property rights needed for an “an”cap society.

Stealing words from the lefties isn’t anything new, the Nazi party did with their “National Socialism” (granted there’s some interesting history with it. Even though all of the nominally economically left wing nazis were killed in the night of long knives, they kept the socialist bit). But to say Nazism was ever socialist would be parroting a pathetic right wing talking point that should have died a long time ago.

If you ignore the entirety of anarchist thought, throughout well over 180 years of development and practice, where hundreds of thousands of people fought against authoritarianism, fascism, and capitalism, you could only lie through your teeth when saying shit that wack. Or, you would have to not know anything that you are talking about.

To say that failed “anarcho”-capitalist projects are the fault of anarchism, an ideology that rose in opposition to capitalism is ignorant.

And to consider Milei an anarchist, someone who is weilding the power of the state in service of right wing ultra-neoliberalism, you would have to be insane. If you don’t take my word that as anarchists we hate Milei, how about you check out this Crimethinc. article on Milei covering the topic from the perspective of an argentine anarchist.

I’m not a libertarian communist so my knowledge of this stuff is lacking, but I do know that Rojava, a radically feminist experiment inspired by Bookchin’s later works. It is based in NE Syria has been doing decently well. Especially considering it is under constant attack from the Turkish government, the second largest NATO military. They even managed to push out ISIS, which is an impressive feat for a new government. While they haven’t gotten rid of capitalism, they aren’t fully capitalist.

If you paid attention to the news during the trump years you might know of trump betraying the Kurds, which is usually how the media refered to Rojava.

Edit: fixed typo

libertarian communism, anarchism, etc

famous for their large, robust, and enduring governing institutions.

Do you know what these words mean? It seems like you don’t, and you have resorted to speaking out of your ass.

Anarchism is a political philosophy against all unjust hierarchies, including the state and capitalism. It exists directly in opposition to what you are claiming.

Libertarian communism, even though it has the word that is probably scaring you, is usually pretty anti-government and strives for a minimal state, and self-government. A lot of the more marxist bookchinites I’ve met consider themselves libertarian communists.

Why are you surprised that people are talking about the current news cycle? Is it seriously crazy that people who saw the debate are concerned?

Do you legitimately think that people who have been anti-genocide have suddenly given up their anti-genocide stance to talk about the current news topic?

And is someone who is anti-genocide supposed to be pro-geriatric, and therefore being anti-geriatric is pro genocide? It seems like you are creating a mutually exclusive false dichotomy.

The message you are trying to push only works because you didn’t put anti-genocide on the other computer chip. You made a strawman.

Blaming voters for not voting hard enough in 2016 is pretty asinine.

Hillary had the most popular votes. But she didn’t do a good job campaigning in the states that mattered and banked too hard on the “i’m not trump” factor.

Blaming the voters takes the blame away from the parties that deserve it more, like Clinton, the DNC, etc.

Any anti-authoritarian ideology, especially some of the other far-left ones like libertarian communism, anarchism, etc. It’s not a world with only fascists, tankies, and neoliberals.

I work weekends. My “weekend” starts tomorrow!

My car is probably smaller than the cabin and engine of that truck and I don’t even have a compact car

It does make me a little uncomfortable to see intimate displays of affection in public. It doesn’t matter if it’s straight or gay or whatever.

I have gotten comfortable with the discomfort… it’s not their problem to deal with, it’s mine.

100%

As my views matured, I’ve grown to realize that forcing people to comply with the comfort of people is inherently oppressive, and that when I’m in public, I’m not entitled to complete comfort.

I’m not a big fan of straight people holding hands or kissing in public. Like, i support people doing things like that in the privacy of their home, but they don’t need to force themselves upon is and shove their straightness down our throats. Essentially, I don’t think straight people should be able to openly exist in public, since their existence is forcing it down our throats, so they should just go back into the closet.

:::/s:::

Dominos is outrageously expensive if you don’t shop the deals.

When I was in college, I’d get dominos with my roommates when they had the 20$ special, which would be about 30$ after tip and delivery. The special had 2 medium pizzas, garlic knots, cinnamon twists, and soda.

After I moved back home, I learned my local dominos doesn’t always have that deal. I’d get something similar to what you got and I’d be upset that I got less food for a bit more…

Now what really pisses me off is the high end neopolitan place near me is cheaper on their dinner special days, where you can get 2 personal pizzas that taste so good I’d accept it as proof that god is real for about 25$ including tips and gas money.

I thought about it and realized that you missed the point of what I’m saying.

I’m arguing that the only way you can view them (both biden and FDR) as someone who did more good than harm is if you abstract the harms and goods from the perspective of someone who is not being harmed while being a person who is benefited.

FDR sentenced a single ethnicity to prison for the crime of being japanese. This destroyed generational wealth, and ruined the upward mobility of a generation. It’s easier to say “he did more good than harm” if you are both the one being harmed.

Biden is not just allowing genocide, but funding it, and attacking those who prevent it from continuing. If you are isolated from the suffering he is causing, it’s super easy to say he is doing more good than harm.

Sure, there are parallels that can be drawn, but that’s not what I’m arguing against. To say I’m proving this point would be true, but completely dishonest since it blatantly ignores the argument I made against that point you madr in the edit.