The Democratic Party is essentially the opposition party to MAGA.
They’re the opposition party to their own left flank. They don’t oppose MAGA.
Comment on Corporate media, owned by billionaires, refuse to recognize the wave of democratic socialism
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 day ago
The DSA is a big tent within a big tent. The Democratic Party is essentially the opposition party to MAGA. If you’re against Trump then the Democratic Party is the only option you have.
That said, some of its platform ideas like universal healthcare and restoring consumer protections (so we control for things like crypto scams and surveillance pricing) are pretty popular. Abortion access enjoys a popularity of about 60%.
I don’t know the number of people who want a higher minimum wage, but it’s above majority, especially since the affordability crisis, and doubly so now that SNAP and Medicaid have been slashed.
Republican scaremongers call anything they don’t like communism or jihad because they only deal in blood libel and buzzwords. See They’re eating the dogs.
Also, evidently, bike lanes are woke and DEI.
Centrist Democrat scaremongers like to bring up the more left-leaning (actually left-leaning) platform issues like abolish the prisons and abolish the police.
These are serious issues, but even the DSA doesn’t pretend it will be easy to sell that to the general public. Before ICE we knew that police have become a nationwide problem, and the presence of law enforcement is more likely to turn a non-violent situation violent than it is de-escalate it. The John Oliver segment on Killology sheds light on the issue. Right now, that’s just been buried by the actions of ICE.
And we know that state and federal prisons have been squalid and inhumane for a long time, not improved at all since the rise of the prison industrial complex during the Reagan administration. Private prisons are even worse, and we’re now seeing the extreme version of that in immigrant detention centers by GEO Group and Core Civic.
But again, these are extreme issues and the Republicans are more likely to end birthright citizenship and women’s suffrage sooner than DSAs are going to make inroads in abolishing prisons and law enforcement.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
Copernican@lemmy.world 23 hours ago
How do you recognize the “big tent” leanings of the DSA when the Red Star Caucus seems to only grow with more influence and actively promote cutting ties with the democratic party. redstarcaucus.org/platform/
Red Star will Make DSA a political home for people radicalized by both the Trump administration and the failures of the Democratic Party, Solidify our position as a site of struggle for trans and immigrant communities under attack, Forge closer ties with abolitionist and anti-imperialist groups in the vanguard of the working class, Build an independent electoral base in the working class, Cut ties with the Democratic Party, and End empty endorsements that trail “left-wing” candidates.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
Cutting ties with the Democratic party would be folly. After the Whigs perished and the Democratic Republicans split, we’ve not seen a third party overtake the principles, and that includes Teddy Roosevelt’s Bull Moose Progressives. That includes Ross Perot’s independent run, which was pretty darned convincing.
But as Alexandria Occasio Cortez observed, the Democratic party is struggling to raise the minimum wage. Long-term goals like abolishing prisons or abolishing the Senate are not likely to come up in the foreseeable future, even if they are able to secure the House, Senate, Presidency and SCOTUS. Heck, implementation of universal healthcare (which is popular throughout the US) is going to be a process that will take many years, even if it doesn’t get sabotaged by Republicans the way the ACA did.
Also, centrist Democrats have some extreme ideas. They generally want to do the things that serve their lobbyist masters, so maximizing intellectual property law, overregulating social media so that newer, smaller platforms can’t compete with the big ones in place, blocking kids from accessing the internet, deregulating landlords and so on.
And then there’s the stuff that the Republican party is actively working to do, like securing a permanent Republican majority across federal branches of government, hobbling elections, stripping non-whites of rights, stripping women of rights, making Protestant Evangelical Christianity a national religion, replacing income tax with tariffs and so on.
So no, I wouldn’t be too worried about the Red Star Caucus becoming too powerful and dominating US politics. And if, by some time-travel meddling, it did, it couldn’t possibly be worse than the mess we’re in right now.
Copernican@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
People believe in universal healthcare, but it’s pretty much 50/50 split if that means single payer or blend of private and public options or subsidies. pewresearch.org/…/most-americans-say-government-h…
Personally I’m for single payer, but I recognize that’s not a popular opinion and only represents the opinion of 30% of the USA.
This is why I find it hard to believe DSA is big tent. They have very specific ideas that they misrepresent their minority as a majority popular opinion (like single payer), and seem to have purity tests within their ranks. I don’t see big tent when I look at the DSA. There’s individuals within the group I like, but I’m realizing those are more exceptions. The Bernie Sanders era is gone, and I’m not sure where to find that kind of progressive political platform these days.
GoofSchmoofer@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I’m all for these changes - my fear is that a large population will want it all NOW! and if there isn’t significant change in 2 years then it must not work.
uriel238@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 hours ago
I’m afraid of this too. Biden was able to manage our economy’s recovery for COVID-19 better than any other industrialized nation in the world, and Americans voted him out based (allegedly) on the price of eggs and racism.
I no longer trust the US constituency to vote sensibly or responsibly. I don’t know, however, if they are just daft and vote on vibes, or if they’ve been effectively manipulated by the massive oligarch-sponsored far-right propaganda machine that dominates social media and television viewership. It could be a combination of both, but it doesn’t matter. Either way, it looks like the US is fucked, since we have no short-term countermeasure for either.
And to be fair, our ultra-wealthy are vastly rich, more so than the plutocracy has ever been in history. What they’re doing now to the US, they’ll be able to do to the rest of the developed world. And it’s already been softened up by decades of neoliberal policy.
There are clear signs that the mainline democratic party (the centrists or establishment Democrats) are captured and are a controlled opposition. Most recently Hakeem Jeffries in an interview threw progressives and DSA under a bus, implying that they are not welcome in the Democratic party because their platform is too extreme. And he counts as Democratic party leadership.
Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world 14 hours ago
I’m afraid of this too. Biden was able to manage our economy’s recovery for COVID-19 better than any other industrialized nation in the world
As long as you’re a billionaire, sure.
Triasha@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Our society needs radical solutions to serious problems. I would focus on things like wealth taxes, Healthcare, and climate action, but I’m willing to risk breaking a few eggs to elect someone that wants to make an omlette.