Democratic (Party) Direction

Unless and until you can show me someone who lost who otherwise might have won but for self-identifying as a socialist, this is a pointless conversation. Anyone espousing those policies is going to get the label anyway. Democrats have spent too long playing defense against being called the wrong names. It's stupid and cowardly.

called the wrong names by people who won't vote for them, to an audience of people who won't vote for them, mind you

Trump's rhetoric is undeniably fascistic, and the GOP is anti-Democratic enough to both enable him and take advantage of him to advance their own anti-democratic agenda. I'd say alarmism is called for as long as it doesn't cause you to curl up into a ball and do nothing.

xps- yeah i wasn’t saying ‘inclusionary populism’ is a good slogan. im really bad at naming things (hence “flopson”) in general and don’t know have a great sense for what good politics branding is

One of the things I love about the word "socialism" is that it sounds nice and has the word "social" in it. Like it just doesn't sound scary no matter how hard you try to make it sound scary.

imagine if it were "weedism"

I have a better chance of knowing what you stand for if you call yourself a socialist than if you called yourself a Democrat tbh

alarmism is often necessary, but it's a paradox, and it can be a flawed political message. either you're right and the world goes to shit, or the crisis is averted and everybody says "why'd you get so worked up?"

Hoos you know I agree that things are bad and we need to react accordingly but this is not Europe in the 30s. This isn't even America in the 30s.

Do I think we're in the midst of a global downturn with food lines? No. Do I think we're watching global ascendant fascism like we haven't seen in almost a hundred years, and that we're moving closer by the day to unmasked American authoritarian nativism? Yes.

I agree!

but the level of armed conflict isn't even close to what was happening in the 1930s (much less the 20s)

I was gonna say, the entire species is facing total destruction and MAD is not gonna cut it this time. Alarmism is appropriate. xp

I'm not sure that Smucker's arguing that the level of armed conflict is what's comparable. His point is that on which we seem to agree.

in the 30s the choice was between two sides that were p much ready to murder the other wholesale, I don't think we're there yet (at least not on our side, because we're a bunch of rational humanist pussies and they own all the guns)

Not to be overly dramatic, but the last time industrialized nations had such a stark choice was in the 1930s.

yeah, all due respect but that's overly dramatic

― Οὖτις, Thursday, June 28, 2018 3:32 PM (forty-six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this aged well in light of the baltimore newsroom shootings

oh gimme a break

I know you guys have read one or two history books

let's not confuse America's rich tradition of bloodthirsty lone gunmen with America's rich tradition of organized political violence, sometimes these things overlap but they are not interchangable

does Faith of My Fathers by John McCain count?

Have we posted the clip of MSNBC failing to actually describe what AOC is about?

here’s the full clip pic.twitter.com/k983eBhr88

— Connor 🌹 (@alsoconnor) June 28, 2018

Yeah see no it's the climate that concerns me and only a massive restructuring will make a dent xps

no argument there

hrm, Democratic Alarmism, it has a ring to it i admit

Nixonland reminded me how much daily public violence occurred in the US in my childhood

thanks, really, this stuff is scary and def gonna get worse so perspective helps

Nixonland reminded me how much daily public violence occurred in the US in my childhood

an instance when old man "back in MY day!"-ism is actually valuable. Anyone who lived through the 30s + WWII and the late 60s-early 70s would tell you this is nothing compared to the regular incidents of open political violence of those eras. But, y'know, we're def heading in that direction since at least Charlottesville if not earlier.

i'm not THAT old

Do you recommend Nixonland?

I mean one glance at the level of historical violence between organized labor and strikebreakers in the US, or kristallnacht (30k people carted away!) in Germany, or the multiple(!) shootouts between the Panthers and various police departments, or Kent State, or any number of incidents puts the lie to that kind of rhetoric. Don't minimize what's going on today, but don't minimize what happened in the past either.

Nixonland is great.

Democratic (Party) Direction could be doing more political violence, just a thought

seems like it would be good, idk

I need to spend more time working and less time being a nihilist on ilxor but yknow

remember when a bunch of state legislatures tried to pass laws that said it was ok to mow down protestors with your car? That seems like organized political violence to me.

Outlawing abortion would be political violence by other means, also

Perlstein's three books are essential for anyone who wants to participate in this thread.

I've locked it until everyone's read them.

rmde at equating failed bills and anticipated legal rulings with people actually getting gunned down by politically organized and funded forces. I get it, you guys are scared and angry. I don't blame you but come on.

Women will very likely die if Roe v Wade is struck down.

keep diggin

So! Have we settled on a direction?!

left, I think

toppermost of the poppermost

I just want to clarify I have not read John McCain's book that was a joke

I very much enjoyed The Invisible Bridge as an audiobook, probably will do Nixonland in the same fashion.

already posted way too much today so I'll just say I take a wider view of what constitutes political violence than many do, and it includes the adoption of policies that will provably result in death and injury (generally to the marginalized population the right already hates implicitly or explicitly). I don't think that's crazy.

in that case the political violence of the 30s really was exponentially worse than today, cuz abortion was actually illegal (among other things, like lynching)

(er I meant to say "as opposed to other" not "among other" there)

also no Ralph Nader in the '30s, so people died in cars a lot. (eg, Nathanael West)

Who better to comment on AOC’s victory than....the editor of the National Review. Thanks, Atlantic.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/democrats-immigration-midterms/563987/

I thought that was a lot more cogent than any of the mainstream liberal commentary I’ve seen tbh.

Yeah, it seemed good and helpful to me too.