So, there's a bit of controversy within the online left post election. Cenk Uygur has kinda been making controversial statements saying stuff like "MAGA is not my mortal enemy, the establishment is" and stuff like that. And uh, I feel like I should weigh in on this.
For me, the right is the big enemy. They are the big bad, and my ideology is a foil to the right. However, it should be noted that I came into my current views during the 2012 election. The right at that time was Mitt Romney and fiscal conservatives, particularly the tea party types.
Given we are undergoing a realignment and the battle lines are getting...blurry though, I KIND of understand where Cenk is coming from, even though he's getting crap from centrist democrats about it.
The fact is, the centrist democrats since 2016 have been trying to play paddycakes with Mitt Romney republicans, and their brand of politics has been triangulating to the center and catering to those guys, almost renovating their image in the light of MAGA.
At the same time, the republicans have become more economically populist, at least on the surface. I remember thinking in 2016 MAGA was actually an improvement for the republicans, because it was ever so slightly left of the fiscally conservative types. And since then we've been realigning, the democrats have been trying to become more centrist and have actually been extremely hostile to progressives in the party, and to be fair, a lot of progressives are starting to HATE the democratic party. Some of them hate the democratic establishment so much that they're starting to play footsie with MAGA. We saw this with Jimmy Dore, and now TYT is showing signs of this. People are even accusing Bernie Sanders of doing this, although I think Bernie is doing something a bit different than the other guys.
Do I agree with the left trying to play footsie with MAGA? NO! HELL NO! I mean, let's face it, MAGA are basically fascist lite. They are populist, but they're only so on the surface. Donald Trump's upcoming administration is gonna be full of billionaires. They're gonna push trickle down economics. They're gonna try to gut safety nets in the name of "government efficiency". They're gonna try to turn America even more into a laissez faire gilded age hellhole. They're NOT good guys, and I actually do have to condemn Cenk for trying to play footsie with them. So they wanna audit the pentagon, SO WHAT?! That doesnt mean crap. So you found some weird fringe issue that ended up being a broken clock moment for the two of you. That doesnt make you friends. Trump and MAGA is just reaganism with nationalist, protectionist characteristics. And even if they're just ever so slightly better on economics than the romney types, they're far more radical on the social issues, and they still front the tea party's bullcrap. And even worse, being fascist lite, I can honestly say that they are a threat to democracy.
Now, what's Bernie doing with them? Well, he's basically doing this political game where he's like "oh hey, youre saying you're wanting to push forward my priority X, I'll work with you on that." It doesnt mean that he will agree with them on everything. He used similar language at the democratic convention signalling he would work with harris on such priorities too. Bernie is ultimately an independent, and he will work with anyone who will advance his priorities. That's also how I am. The problem is the republicans are mostly fundamentally opposed to 95% of what I'm for, whereas democrats I can at least get partial progress on SOME stuff SOME of the time.
Now, the democrats. The democrats tend to get pissy when progressives like me, like Bernie, like Cenk, aren't all loyal to them. And I'll say it, it's because they're ALSO right wing. The democratic party's only claim to any support at all is "we're less bad than the republicans" and they obnoxiously push this as if this earns them a medal. Congrats on not being complete ghouls on every issue. it doesn't mean we like you. If anything, many of us hate the democratic party too. Because the democratic party does this thing where they'll just be ever so slightly less bad than the republicans and then try to strongarm us into supporting them. No, democrats, you suck too. And even more so, in some ways, yeah, some of us on the left hate you more than the republicans. At least with the republicans, we KNOW they're the bad guy. We know that they're the ones who oppose us. They tend to stab us from the front. They tell us they're doing it. We know it's coming. And in some ways we sometimes can build a form of begrudging respect for them because at least they're honest. The democrats? THey stab us in the back. They pretend to be our friend and then basically use weaponized incompetence while leveraging their "lesser evil" position to bully us into line.
This election, the democrats screwed anyone who ran against Biden in the primaries. They pushed south carolina first so they could do their 'OMG TEH BLACK VOTE" thing knowing that the state is full of old boomer conservatives with low standards who will overwhelmingly vote for the nominee. And then they suppressed any and all coverage of alternatives like RFK, Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson, and Cenk Uygur. And note how half of those guys are the ones playing footsie with republicans now. Yeah, it's in part because they got screwed by the establishment and hate them with a burning passion. RFK is now in Trump's administration doing his stupid anti vax BS, and Cenk Uygur is now signalling his enemy isn't MAGA but the establishment.
They also try to screw third party candidates running against them and use lawfare to try to keep them off of ballots and stuff. And when republicans come to defend them because they cynically want the left wing vote split, they go SEE? THEY WANT THE GOP TO WIN!
Honestly, someone third party friendly, I don't want either party to win mostly. I mean, I wanted the dems this time, but that's mainly because MAGA went literally fascist and because the left...didn't really enthuse me this time and ran weak candidates with weak platforms that didn't resonate. I'm not necessarily a friend to the far left either. I'm kind of in a free for all against all these factions given how unique my worldview and political concerns are. In a way, I'm like Bernie. I'll work with whomever advances my priorities, while condemning those that didn't. I just believed making a deal with the devil (the democrats) this time was worth it given Biden seemed to at least be semi friendly toward us and wasn't completely insane. But let's face it, he always was that "saltine crackers and floater water" president for me, and Harris was like a diet coke to trump's orange flint water. Like, lets face it, 2024 sucked, I didn't like any candidate at the end of the day, and harris was simply a lesser evil, nothing more.
So...yeah. Ultimately, my enemy is the right. But...given both parties are part of "the right" in my eyes, with the GOP being the bad cop and the democrats being the good cop, I can't say I'm necessarily inherently friendly toward either party. But at the same time, most third party candidates are so oddball that i don't like them either.
Let's go back to metric 1 to look at how I viewed the candidates.
Harris had like 60something being meh on economics but at least relatively balanced.
Stein and West were in the 50s, being better on economics, but worse on foreign policy and completely lacking experience.
Trump was like...10. And I felt like I was generous giving him that. I ain't friendly with the GOP at all. I'm colder toward them than democrats. And I'll NEVER outright support them.
At the same time, that doesn't mean I owe the democrats support. And that's what the democrats DESPISE about me. They think by virtue of being a lesser evil I should just mindlessly support them. And I'm sorry, I just won't. They need to at least beat out a third party candidate to get my support. And they need to run against a literal fascist or something to get me to bend my ethics on this. That's why I softballed them so much this time. It doesn't mean I liked them, or support them now. Post election, it should be very obvious I've basically gone full "okay alliance over, DAE remember how much I hate these guys too?" Because I do. I put up with a lot of crap to stop trump this election. And now that we failed, it's like F it, I'm just saying what I think.
I would agree that the establishment is an enemy. But MAGA also is. If anything, MAGA, given how radical it is, is the worse evil here. I ain't their friends. Screw them. And as Kyle Kulinski keeps saying, we should be tripling the 2017 "resistance" to him now that he is as overtly fascist. Instead it seems like the dems are rolling over...again. Ugh.
I get it, he won, we gotta turn over power to him on January 20th. No disputes from me on that one. But honestly, the dems seem to be playing violin on the deck of the titanic as it sinks and the resistance isnt resisting this time.
At the same time, the democrats do seem to be...at least open to the idea that throwing sanders under the bus was the mistake of the century so far for them, and that maybe the democrats would be in a better position had they NOT done that. Im actually surprised how receptive democrats are being to the left at times. I mean sometimes they get crappy and push back, but it's A LOT less than 2016. Maybe this second loss finally broke them and they realize they cant keep doing this. Idk. We'll see where things go.
All I know is in 2028, if we still have elections and trump doesnt destroy democracy, we need a populist fighter who actually pushes for ideas. One thing I will give MAGA credit for, as demagogic as they are, they are channelling some real anger about the economy and the status quo, and I'm starting to think that the GOP didn't win because right wing ideas were popular, but because the public just rejected Biden so firmly. The public seems to clamor for change. There seems to be real anger over the healthcare system for instance. The real problem is no one is channeling their frustrations into actual policy. The right wont because they're fundamentally opposed to that kind of change and the big bad. The democrats are...again, just tons of weaponized incompetence and the party of do nothings. I dont think that the public necessarily rejected Biden for doing too much (SOME did, but they were gonna vote trump anyway), I think the bigger problem is that Biden didn't do enough. And they were just unhappy with the status quo and didn't find harris to be a convincing nominee given she ran in the centrist technocratic direction herself.
So yeah. This was a referendum on the current democratic party, but i dont think it's a repudiation of all liberalism or progressivism. Progressive ideas seem popular. The party just doesnt represent them properly. Because, again, the establishment cares more about monied interests than the people. And that's true of democrats and republicans. People are riding that MAGA wave of throwing a brick through the window like in 2016, but it won't last. Because MAGA has no answers. MAGA will make the situation worse. MAGA got lucky last time. They had an administration where nothing really went wrong until the last year, and they screwed that up massively. The public seems to have already forgotten that, focusing more on the post COVID inflation than anything. They dont seem to realize this moron actually killed hundreds of thousands of people in his incompetence.
So...in the second term, may the voters get what they vote for, and may they hate it as much as I do. Maybe they'll finally learn not to vote for idiots like this. One can hope, right?
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