So, this is beating a dead horse, but idk, I felt like writing this. But given America is falling into a state of fascism, I did want to give my analysis of how we got here, and whose fault it is. From a left wing perspective, mind you. obviously, the real culprit is donald trump and the republican party, but given it was the left's job to you know, stop this before it got this bad, I did want to discuss who is to blame, since liberals, leftists, and everyone in between (myself included) love to point fingers, and I've been criticized as contributing to the problem before by democratic loyalists as well. So honestly, I kind of wanted to discuss this.
Now, there are two election cycles I want to focus on, 2016 and 2024. I view these election cycles a bit differently, but also see common threads between both.
2016
So....the 2016 election cycle is where this started. We were coming off of 8 years of Obama, and people were unhappy with the status quo. We just listened to Barack Obama and republicans argue over who creates jobs better for the past 8 years, and honestly, by this point, I stopped caring. If you want my honest opinion, democrats, because redistributing income to the bottom leads to a larger multiplier effect, while the wealthy hoarding it doesnt really create jobs, it makes rich people richer (trickle down is a scam). Still, I would say that by this point, I was kind of tired of hearing about "job creation" and believed we needed some level of income and wealth redistribution. As I see it, the economy is gonna economy, but what matters is government policy to make peoples' lives better. The right is the party of markets and doing nothing which doesnt work, and the left is historically the party of improving the lives of people through government action. We can argue government under democratic leadership is inefficient, but that's why I sought new and bold solutions to economic problems. Because the status quo wasn't working, and we needed a change from the status quo.
And what did the democrats propose? The status quo. In 2016, we had two paths: the firebrand progressive policies and ethos of Bernie Sanders, who condemned the millionaires and billionaires and called for large scale government action to fix the policies of the day, or the same meek and timid liberal positions that the democrats have embraced since 1992, embodied by Hillary Clinton.
And the democrats clearly went with Clinton. I get it, Clinton was the default option, but it wasn't like the dems made it a fair fight between her and Sanders. They clearly had a preference, as did the media, and the organizations that had power lined up behind Clinton. Meanwhile, progressives realizing that "hey what we're doing isn't working" went with Sanders. And then when the clash happened, there was bad blood between the two factions. I personally was turned off by Clinton and ended up voting third party, which got the ire of the democrats, claiming I had to 'vote blue no matter who" and that it was "my fault" if Trump won. I insisted at the time, and still to this day, that it isn't voters who are responsible for democrats winning, it's democrats responsible for turning out voters.
And, that's the thing. Despite whatever legitimate warnings Clinton had about Trump and the GOP, the dems misread the room. The democrats went all in with identity politics in the primary to undermine sanders, which pissed off straight white male progressive voters. I mean, these guys arent traditional conservative demographics, but because of the failures of the GOP, they were looking to join up with the democratic party and infuse new energy into it. But we just weren't welcome. We were told we were too college educated and too interested in books and theory. That we were racist and sexist. That we were privileged and that our concerns didn't matter. SJWs antagonized us, and despite them being an irrelevant faction through most of the obama era, they just had a habit of alienating people and pissing them off. I saw a convo today about when did the democrats lose gamers. While some would say gaming was always somewhat right wing coded, the real answer: gamergate. Ya know, that time around 2014 when all hell broke loose because some lady slept with a reviewer for good game reviews and the next thing we know SJWs are invading our spaces and telling us how we should behave? Yeah, then. And gaming become harder right than it ever was since then. Because the reaction that those guys had to that stuff pissed them off and drove them there. You can say that's "reactionary", but hey, you piss people off, and they're not gonna support you.
And that's what happened on the whole. Today, we wonder how the dems lost a generation of young white men. It's not really surprising. Treat them like the enemy and guess what, they'll become the enemy. Many of them arent even uniformly left wing. Despite their reactionary social views, a lot of young white men, even trumpers, have opinions i can sometimes sympathize with. They feel the same despair I do about the economy and one of them I talk to even asked lately "what's the point in wage slaving if you cant even afford a house?" Really. People look at the modern economy and just feel despair. They want change. They're chomping at the bit for it. And while a lot of them are becoming increasingly brainwashed against the left, which is their ultimate salvation IMO, the fact is, this happened because the democrats drove these people away.
And in 2016, they drove me away too. And before people jump on me, there are a few things I want to point out in this extended analysis of who is at fault. In 2016, it was hard to know trump would be this big of a threat. It is easy to be hyperbolic in politics. Previously we had 8 years of "OMG OBAMA IS A COMMUNIST." And I ate that crap up until I realized he was so moderate that conservative me was agreeing with him over my own party at the time. And as far Trump's pathological behavior, well, it seemed to be an act at the time, and even my parents were thinking that. I knew trump wasn't gonna be the answer to our problems, and while dems scream that a vote not for them is a vote for trump, no i didn't vote for trump. I remained neutral and refused to back either faction because they both sucked. Should I have voted democrat? Well, part of the reason I write this is because I have to wonder, would it have made a difference? Could we have avoided this outcome if I had? Obviously, my own vote means nothing, as there were tens of thousands of us that threw the election, it wasn't just one single person, but say it could have made a difference. Could we have simply avoided the trump era by not voting for him?
Well, at the time, I feared that a third term of the democrats would ruin them and rejuvenate the GOP anyway. And I think it would have. By 2020, the dem approval rating would be....as low as it is now, if not lower, allowing for the GOP to come in and actually win over people. I dont know what a 2020 GOP would look like, whether it would be Trump, or something more moderate, or something worse in this scenario. All I know is that it would enable the GOP to get back into office and mess things up anyway. I do have a sense of fatalism. And if anything, I thought if the dems lost in 2016, then they could learn from that, come back in 2020, and do things RIGHT. I also knew that America could withstand 4 years of trump. As it turned out, he really WAS a mental case and the worst case scenario of dems' hyperbolic rhetoric, but despite that, American contained him. Defectors like John McCain held the line in the first 2 years, stopping the overthrow of Obamacare. Retaking the house in 2018 isolated him and stopped his worst impulses. He had generals and advisers around him who were able to blunt his worst impulses. And even his Jan 6th insurrection was stopped by all the right people in all the right places.
But, there were two factors I didn't account for: 1) the stupidity of the american people and 2) the refusal of the democrats to learn any lessons. On the first, i figured if trump got in, they would have buyers remorse and turn on him. And you know what? I do have family members who voted for him in 2016 who no longer support him. Once they saw what a nutcase he was they were out. And it looked like going into 2020, the polling data showed that Biden would win in a landslide. As boring and mediocre as Biden was, he seemed to be winning by a landslide. Until election night, when much like in 2016 and 2024, Trump overperformed and I was sweating bullets wondering if biden would actually win. He did, but man, I wasn't sure there for a while. And that was scary. That should've been a lay up, but people actually LIKED the guy. So that was miscalculation 1. Giving the American people too much credit and assuming they would be more rational than they were. Miscalculation 2 was on the democrats learning from 2016.
Here's the thing. I am an ex republican. I came to the democratic party as a new voter for them in 2012, and wasnt as acquainted with their intermal politics. So I approached democratic politics like a republican did. Ie, vote for values, and when you got some "DINO" (aka RINO on the GOP side) who doesnt support the stuff you do, you vote them out and replace them. I mean, i approached the democrats "what's the matter with kansas" style, when in reality, we were dealing with "listen liberal." The democratic culture is different on the left. While on the right, the party feared the voters and moved right to meet their increasingly batcrap insane views, on the left, the party bullied the voters into submission. And instead of learning from 2016, they turned around, blamed the voters for not voting hard enough for them, and started leaning into stuff like james comey and russia russia russia. As such, by 2020, they learned nothing, repeated the clinton strategy with Biden, and won the election.
And I think winning in 2020 went to their head. They felt vindicated like they didnt have to appeal to progressives, and that they could just continue going on forever. Meanwhile I knew that Biden was gonna be highly unpopular since he wasnt gonna do much and the dems were setting themselves up for failure in 2024. And ESPECIALLY after 2020, I kind of knew the dems were in trouble. Because they BARELY beat trump despite all that happened.
So...really, coming back to the question of who is to blame....well...let's face it. It's the dems. The dems were the ones that alienated core demographic groups that during the Obama era were leaning toward them, and decided to pursue new groups that never worked out for them. And even if the dems won in 2016, I do think the same downward spiral was inevitable. Because they simply didn't have what the people wanted that would've allowed them to win. You can blame voters, but honestly, if you kinda piss off millions of voters and make them abandon you where they either dont turn out, vote third party, or go trump, that's a you problem, and even my own behavior is a symptom of this bad strategy.
Should the voters be blamed at all? Honestly, not at this stage, no. I can see why some would vote for trump, and I can see why some wouldnt vote at all or go third party. The larger failure here is the dems throwing away what should have been an easy to win election. Really, the dems went into 2016 with a clear statistical advantage, and the GOP was DOA until trump came along. It really took the strength of trump being a populist unlike every other republican running, versus clinton being such a horrid and tone deaf candidate, to truly throw the race to republican here. In a sense, the democrats created a monster here, when they should've slayed it.
2024
So what of 2024? Well, first and foremost, yes, the dems are at fault here. Again, they got arrogant after 2020, believing that biden winning meant they were popular, but then inflation happened and they failed to do much to make americans' lives better, so support for them crumbled. Democrats internally didnt get it. The economy was the best in 50 years by conventional standards. But the problem was that the conventional standards werent working any more. They havent been for some time. What it means for the economy to be good needs to change. Because right now, despite the numbers, people still feel like they werent doing well. Thats what happens when all the wealth continues to go to the top and over half the country is living paycheck to paycheck. And now people were getting nostalgic for the first trump term, when Trump was riding on the coattails of Obama. They dont wanna go to mcdonalds and wonder why they're spending $16 on a burger. Ya know? 2024 is a lot like 2016, just on the other side of the phillips curve. In 2016, it was the lack of jobs and lingering low wages. In 2024, it was high inflation and the feeling like the economy still wasnt good. And again, the young men of today seem to have the same attitude as i do, not understanding what's the point of wage slaving if you dont get anywhere. I got turned off from the concept of work through my own sociological analysis of the economy. And the next generation of young men seem to have a similar core outlook, it just manifests in this alt right perspective instead. Idk how young men of today square "the economy sucks" with "i guess i should vote republican", but i do get it enough where i understand that the solution is definitely not voting for the democrats. I mean, the dems are worthless. They dont offer solutions. Period. And while the republicans also dont offer solutions, i feel like when one fails, most normies just gravitate toward the other one.
Still, I will say this. In 2024, I was more receptive to voting democrats than i was in 2016. Why? because of trump. I KNEW trump was bad news. And whatever he was in term 1, he'd be worse. He was starting to figure out how to break democracy, and I knew if he came back into power, he would have a plan in place. it's like hitler. The beer hall putsch was stopped, but what good is that if we give him the keys to the kingdom directly?
And then there was project 2025. Yeah yeah, i know dems fearmongered about this like crazy, but yeah, it was a real document that outlined their plans and had a crazy vision attached to it. And while trump did his best to distance himself from it on the campaign trail, it was their vision in office, and it's what they're implementing now.
And honestly, I knew this was gonna be bad. So even I was like "yeah, biden sucks, but let's support him anyway." Biden wasnt even all against my goals, even if he was far more icnrementalist than me. I would've partially achieved several of my goals under Biden in theory, but I admit, it was mostly just incremental half measures, and mostly on the lower priorities. Still, I was fair and recognized he was doing some stuff. Was it enough? No. But clearly i couldnt blame him when congress and the courts werent on his side either.
Still, the dems did let their butts hang out in 2024 as well. They did their anti democratic crap in the primary to manufacture consent around Biden. They were hostile toward anyone who called out the obvious. They covered up the fact that he aged so much he was no longer up for the job. And when Harris stepped in, she didn't offer a meaningfully different vision, pushing an "opportunity economy" and circlejerking about hard work while not really offering many policies of value. Again, this brand of centrist democratic policies is the problem. No one actually likes this stuff, but the dems kept pushing it.
Anyway, if I had to blame anyone for 2024, it's once again, primarily the dems. They were hopelessly out of touch with the public and once again them trying to force themselves onto an unwilling public backfired on them. They were out of touch and high on their own supply and in their own reality denying bubble. They built this up around themselves since 2016, and it came back to bite them. They never learned the lessons and repeated the failures.
In this regard, they cant even blame me either. I moderated and supported them, simply because it was the best strategic choice at the time. But despite that, they lost the public as a whole.
Now, what about leftists who did defect? Eh, I can't help but to have a little ire for them honestly. Most of them defected over palestine. To be fair, most of these guys would never vote dem anyway and were looking for an excuse, their ideology was just so radical they could never find common ground with the dems (part of me cant blame them....i'm ideologically kind of like that as well by this point). But at the same time, I feel like the left themselves lost the plot.
On the gaza issue, the democrats had a large coalition of voters to bring together. They got jews who are pro israel, muslims who are anti israel. And the palestine movement was just toxic AF. As a former conservative, these guys make me cringe, HARD. Much like with SJWs, they're exactly the wrong kind of leftie. They just go in, screech at people, shame them for not agreeing with them, and end up just alienating people. I mean, at this point, i can't even say im pro israel. Originally after october 7th I was, but then bibi went full eren yeager mode on the palestinians and i kinda soured on him since. Now I see him as a genocidal war monger the same as them. Still, the public wasn't there yet, and honestly, the debate is complicated but these guys were just all FREE PALESTINE FREE PALESTINE WAR CRIMINAL and being obnoxious and self righteous jerks and alienating people. And honestly, the far left was just toxic. And honestly, the idea of going single issue on THAT was stupid. Trump WAS a fascist, he WAS a danger to society, and the left should've seen it by then. And I know uniting with the dems given their...shortcomings is painful, but idk...I really do think this is one situation where they should've swallowed their pride. It was obvious trump 2024 wasnt gonna be trump 2016 again and term 2 was looking to be much more radical than term 1. And Biden wasnt even like TOTALLY misaligned with the left's goals, he was just too moderate and gutless. Like, if you are a more new deal lib type or that kind of socialist where a green new deal is up your alley, biden was at least some of what you wanted. Sure, maybe he was only 15% of the way there, and kind of a joke, but trump is -100%. Not only does he not further those goals but the movements he represents are fundamentally opposed to them.
Idk, I just think that in some ways that the dems' shortcomings shouldve been overlooked a bit. Still, I will say that easily 90% of the blame goes with the party here. While they did struggle to bring together their coalition and there was only so much they could realistically do, the fact is, they got bit in the butt because they never learned from 2016 and lived in their own alternative reality out of touch with the country.
And going forward into 2025, they're STILL doing it. And that's scary. They're often learning the wrong lessons from 2024, and doing the same mistakes and wondering why no one likes them. It's because they suck. We need bold democrats with bold visions. I mean look at zohran mamdani. We need that, but everywhere. We need our bernies, our AOCs, our andrew yangs, etc. I dont even fully agree with the demsocialist movement. I mean i think they're too jobist for my tastes as well. But at least they're proposing change and are getting warm in identifying the problems with america and have made honest attempts to solve them. So...they're the least of the evils.
But yeah, the dems just wont learn en masse. Some of them are slowly learning, like gavin newsom with his on point trumpesque attacks on the republicans, and cory booker with his strom thurmond record breaking filibuster, but the party leadership seems clueless in how to handle the guy. I really fear in 2028 that either we wont have fair elections, or that the dems won't learn a thing and will, at best, barely win, do the same thing, and set us up for further failure in 2032.
And that's the thing that we really need to be talked about. It's been said that the reason people are so comfortable losing american democracy in the first place is because we never really had it. The system is controlled by two corrupt parties. Both do the will of the donor class. And the democrats are the controlled opposition paid to lose. No one likes them, and they will just keep losing to the GOP, who does the actual will of the donors, giving more power to the billionaire class and screwing the rest of us. And yeah, maybe thats why trump won in the first place. People wanted change and trump was the only "change" the donors were willing to accept. They fought the left so hard we couldnt win despite obviously having popular support, and in doing so, showed to us that american democracy was a sham all along. It was always what the wealthy wanted, and the two parties are perfectly content ignoring us. And when the dems were like vote for us or else, it was more "either accept the same crappy status quo or things get worse" and now things are getting worse, and no one cares because they sucked anyway. If anything, some seem happy just to see it all burn down.
We are not in a good place. And the more I analyze the system, the more I'm just going to have to let the voters off the hook here. Yeah, they shouldve been smarter at times, but to be fair, the dems didnt exactly make a good case for themselves, and alienated people en masse. And honestly, it seems like american democracy is just the billionaires paying with plastic army men with the two factions both being controlled by them, and the wealthy getting their interests served regardless of outcome. And as such, the cycle continues. Nothing ever gets better, voter apathy makes it worse, eventually things get pulled back a little by the dems, but then voter apathy strikes again because what the american people actually want isnt being addressed.
It really is the 1930s all over again. It can only end two ways, FDR or hitler, and because the dems refuse to be FDR, we're getting hitler instead this time. This is how the germans lost democracy in the 1930s, and we're repeating the lessons 90 years later. Weak men create hard times, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times.
Except it's not lazy people or whatever that leads to the hard times. It's political corruption and special interests not allowing the system to work properly. Theyre the real weak men who create hard times. Hopefully these hard times create some strong progressive men who can pull us back from the brink, but tbqh, I'm not even sure if this is salvageable. It took WWII to dismantle fascism last time. The times are gonna need to get a whole lot worse if trump's fascism becomes entrenched in the US government. And that's the thing, maybe we're just toast. Maybe they win and it's just over. This is life now. I don't know. I feel awfully defeatist. We havent really fully lost democracy yet. Thankfully our system is more robust than germany's in the 1930s, but it's going that way. And i really dont know if theres any coming back from this or not. I hope there is, but I'm not really sure.
I wish I could be more optimistic but that's where we're at.
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