I’m not even American, so it doesn’t affect me directly, but I am scared to death of a Trump presidency.
I am one of those people here who think that Biden is a far more competent executor of imperialist policies compared to Trump, but what I am even more afraid of is the early death of nascent left wing movements in America.
I am reminded of how the KPD getting its leaders murdered by Freikorps thugs during the Spartacist uprising (mind you, a much stronger party than any leftist movement in America today), and how its continued suppression paved the way to Nazi Germany.
Project 2025 will effectively embolden fascist thugs in America to do the same to the left wing movements, many of which are still in their cradle, and the death of leftist movements in their infancies will inevitably pave the way to a fascist America and undo many of the progress that had been made over decades.
The world cannot afford a fascist America. Imagine Hitler with nukes. The world will have to pay a much, much larger price as a result.
On this reasoning alone, I believe that Trump needs to be stopped at all cost. But many here have disagreed with me, and I need you to persuade me why I shouldn’t be afraid of Project 2025 at all. Even if the chance of that happening is 10%, I’m still not ready to gamble with it.
(I’m not saying we have to support Biden, I believe it is somewhat inevitable, I’m saying that we have to buy ourselves as much time as possible, even if it means strategic voting, to build a resilient leftist movement while delaying the inevitable for as long as we can.)
America is already fascist.
Well as a minority living in America I’m more terrified of the dems normalizing genocide, normalizing the repression of activist groups and charging them thru RICO, normalizing anti immigrant sentiment by surpassing Trump’s deportation numbers and making his border laws more repressive
Somehow that shit seems a little more relevant to me than some hypothetical about Republicans fucking up already fucked up courts, taxing poor people more and shuttering an already half shuttered department of education
If Genocide is already normalized wtf do I have to fear anymore? WHY SHOULD I BE SCARED when I’ve already witnessed more death and depravity these last six months than I can handle for a lifetime
Project 2025 will effectively embolden fascist thugs in America to do the same to the left wing movements, many of which are still in their cradle, and the death of leftist movements in their infancies will inevitably pave the way to a fascist America and undo many of the progress that had been made over decades.
Like every major city is like 60% Police Budget and the Democrats just come around and say, how about we make that 70%. Even Dear Lord and Savior Bernie Sanders was like, we NEED TO RAISE PUHLICE SALARIES when he ran for President. Like Biden had a Democrat majority for the first half of Presidency and implemented no measures to protect abortion or Trans people in Red States. Biden came out publicly against stacking the courts to protect policies. Democrats purposely run boring Centrist candidates in Red States that are known losers instead of experimenting. Plus, any veneer is just gone with Biden pushing the genocide in Palestine. Like what is Fascism to you, really. When you’re the target in the country you live in?
Also reads like someone that has never spoken to an indigenous person about how the US is literally just Nazism but much further progressed.
The world cannot afford a fascist America. Imagine Hitler with nukes
we’ve had this since the 50’s? it was not the character of the US regime that stopped the US from using nuclear weapons to enact a genocide, but a credible retaliatory threat from the Soviet Union.
e: we actually have precedent for this, the literal Nazis produced a lot of but did not end up using chemical weapons because the allies also produced a large quantity & kept them in a state of readiness near the front to retaliate.
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I am reminded of how the KPD getting its leaders murdered by Freikorps thugs during the Spartacist uprising
These Freikorps thugs were sent by the SPD. It’s in the interest of both liberals and conservatives to fight leftists, both liberalism and conservatism are rightwing, capitalist, imperialist and deeply chauvinist ideologies, one is just more focussed on hegemonial control and the other more on open violence. You cannot fight for queer liberation, or the rights of any other marginalized group such as America’s black community, immigrants or indigenous peoples, with Bidenite Democrats, the last 4 years with its constant onslaught of anti-queer and especially anti-trans legislation (and also the uninterrupted continuation of an ever brutalizing border regime and the steady increase of police militarization) have proven this. The only Democrat opposition to trans genocide we’ve seen in that timeframe has been on the state level, by individual actors, the Democrats as a federal-level institution are downright scared of being too openly supportive of trans rights, Clinton as a prototypical member of the DNC establishment has more or less stated that she views our rights as a fringe issue that poses a political liability and Biden has only started voicing support for trans people when election season went into full swing.
I’m not telling Americans not to vote for Biden in November, i honestly may do so if i was Amerikan, but i’d probably do so by mail-in ballot from abroad because if i would live in Amerika, my top priority would be to get the fuck out. These are the reasonable options for US trans people, either leaving the country or work on community organizing and prepare for mass civil unrest, because mass civil unrest is the only thing that will stop the clericofascist mob. Biden won’t do that, or he would have put more effort into clamping down on a movement that tried a coup and wanted to murder leading members of his party when he got into office. He’s too comfortable with fascism to actually stop it, and he doesn’t even meaningfully stall it.
So yes, i’m worried about the trans-exterminationist agenda of the US far right, it’s a main political concern of mine because it directly affects my life even here in Europe that Reaganite nazi orgs like the Heritage Foundation are actively financing and supporting anti-trans activism here. But none of this has gotten better under Biden, and he will not change that, because he needs a continued threat to marginalized people to browbeat them into voting for him. Democrats are not allies. All they have to offer is a false sense of safety, the illusion that you can vote yourself out of the existential threat that Republicans already pose. You can’t. You can try stalling for four more years, sure, but has that stalling actually worked in the last 4? And even if Biden wins the election, will he be able to govern afterwards or will there be another coup attempt that may work better this time?
When you focus on electoralism as the core strategy, you’re playing the wrong game. There is no safe option to vote for trans rights in the US. The American left needs to prepare for worst case scenarios instead of putting its hopes in an eroding system that never was designed to serve their interests in the first place. There needs to be real thought put into all possible outcomes, what to do under another Biden term, what to do when Trump gets elected and what to do when he steals the election, and all of these scenarios are dire for trans people and require strategies that lie outside electoral politics.
I’m not telling Americans not to vote for Biden in November, i honestly may do so if i was Amerikan, but i’d probably do so by mail-in ballot from abroad because if i would live in Amerika, my top priority would be to get the fuck out.
where would you go?
Ireland probably, but it’s a tough call, the situation for trans people isn’t exactly ideal anywhere.
Thailand seems like a decent choice if you can make it there
They were ahead of the curve on trans rights for long before the western libs started pretending to care and their new pro LGBT law is almost as based as Cuba’s
The fact that it’s a tropical paradise with some of the best cuisine in the world is just bonus
I’m not telling Americans not to vote for Biden in November, i honestly may do so if i was Amerikan, but i’d probably do so by mail-in ballot from abroad because if i would live in Amerika, my top priority would be to get the fuck out.
This is absolutely true because of climate change alone, if you’re in any way selfish we must admit we lost, we already lost a long time ago, its only up to how we cope and make things a little bit better. If you can move abroad there are better options and if you absolutely must stay in NA then be concious that the choices you make now are choices you’re going to regreat even 10 years from now not 25 not 50 years like we previously thought back in 2000s. Though I guess nobody realizes its been 25 years already and nothing was done since the early 2000’s climate treaties etc. We are halfway there already. Scary isn’t it?
2023-24 will smash temperature records, it will prove the models are all wrong, nothing will be done and everything happening in Gaza will repeated in the US. People are still traumatized by how the west doesn’t care about COVID anymore too.
Make absolutely no mistake liberals would not cry one bit if government troops start shooting at chuds looking for aid relief after [insert newest unprecedented hurricane/storm here], all it would take is a premise and an excuse. “Oh they were rebelling actualy so its good” and vice versa.
In that context whatever party is at the helm will make little difference 10-15 years from now IMO.
What is to stop them from implementing these plans with Biden in office anyways? He’s proven that he won’t step up to stop right wing legislation anyways. I highly doubt the color of the presidents tie makes much of a difference here.
This.
If dems win the project will still happen but libs will just call you a rpeublican when you ask why they aren’t doing anything.
you should be so scared of project 2025 that you question why the republican’s only mainstream opponents don’t treat them like the terrorists they are, and instead constantly call for bipartisanship and adopt their policies as their own to compete for the title of ‘Most Racist’.
I see so much handwringing about stuff like project 2025 but less than zero pushback. Either they don’t actually believe it’s dangerous or they’re lazy.
Even OP says trump must be stopped at all costs, but the party that is supposed to be doing that, are shutting down any effective protest and siding with the fascists at every turn. What do these people even mean by “any means necessary”?
It reminds me of George Bush’s “project for a new American century”. No pushback, and our lives became worse because of it.
They need to stop Trump by any means necessary.
Except stopping giving bombs to Isreal, or doing anything about workers protections, or doing anything about the environment, or giving people stimulus money, or vocally supporting abortion rights, universal Healthcare, insider trading ban, election finance reform, breaking up monopolies, opposing the police state…
Basically they’re willing to have YOU do whatever is necessary to stop Trump.
Protesting isn’t allowed.
Haranguing them in public isn’t allowed.
General strikes, hell, normal strikes aren’t allowed.
Protest voting in midterms isn’t allowed.
The only thing you can do is
for who they tell you to
The Democrats we’re supposed to believe will stop Republicans: “I will say this—you’ll be shocked, probably—I think the country needs a strong Republican Party”
lathe time: even if Genocide Joe wins the election, the democrats will invite Trump to assume the presidency (or some other office of power like the Parliamentarian) using some kind of domestic unrest or geopolitical event as pretext
first as tragedy and all that
It’s be a good Onion bit maybe, but I think the Democrats will keep milking Trump as the devil incarnate until the end of time. They don’t need him to implement the fascism. They’re more than capable of doing it on their own. In fact, they get far less opposition that way.
oh my god they could vote him in as house speaker
would you rather drink 100% hemlock or 99% hemlock (they will both kill you immediately but the guy serving 99% will pretend to feel bad about it)
It will happen no matter what, one party openly champions it and speaks harshly, the other does so by inaction and once in a while throws some nice words. The US already walked off the cliff so to speak, the lurching feeling of the fall just hasn’t caught up to some yet. There’s so many ways to keep movements down.
Yeah, one party will start the killing now and one will start the killing a little later. Is there not a clear less bad pick?
The issue of seeing these things as static points rather than a process already live, we’re already guaranteed killing, there has been killing, there will be more killing no matter which one, one will just have more open optics and bad aesthetics for libs, the other the illusion of status quo and pretty words to give the pampered an illusion of progress. You could remove all the ‘one party’, even the fried fish sammich fan, but the conditions that created these individuals are still out in the world unsettled, so its like digging a small hole at the beach, it will just immediately fill with more sand.
One party is currently murdering people in droves in Palestine. Nobody with a soul could possibly vote for Joe Biden.
Is there not a clear less bad pick?
nope!
‘Start’ killing whom? Because the Democrats are already killing Palestinians as we speak.
If it isn’t me it might as well not be happening!
Both parties start the killing at the same time, one is just more enthusiastic about it. Bidens border policy is worse than the previous one, he’s put more kids in cages, deported more and given more money to the cops. I struggle to think of a measure where he does less than the previous administration. Pretending like it’s “stagnation or murder” rather than “murder or murder” is folly.
On top of that voting for Biden is once again legitimising the “vote for the lesser evil” ideology that had brought us to this point. Every election the lesser evil takes the position of the evil of the previous election. Now “the lesser evil” is commiting genocide. Voting for Biden legitimises genocide, makes it so that’s no longer a step too far. What do you think the democrats will do, if they get elected on a platform of “we don’t care about genocide”?
this is the 99% hitler vs 100% hitler argument
Obviously when treading in this discussion, it is necessary to genuflect and state that Biden and his entire cabinet would see [redacted] under any ethical system of government
but playing with this logic a little bit, wasn’t 1% of Hitler about a hundred thousand dead? Naturally if I say I have a preference, people will assume that I think that
ing and doing nothing else politically ever is the ideal leftist strategy, but like, if it’s just bubbling in a bubble and then getting back to the orgs, is there a reason that 99% Hitler and 100% Hitler have no meaningful differences, even if that ratio is correct?Well I think if you’re going to engage in this kind of thing, then the comparison can’t be done in a vacuum. What happens if Biden is re-elected? Almost certainly in 2028 a Republican will win. I don’t think Trump will be able or willing to run in 2028, which means it’s probably going to be a Republican other than Trump. So, is it better to vote for 99% Hitler now to prevent 100% Hitler from being elected in 2024, knowing that there’s a very strong chance that in 2028 110% Hitler will be elected? Is it better to have 100% Hitler in 2024, expecting that another 99% Hitler would win in 2028 rather than 110% Hitler?
Beyond that, if you vote for a genocider you’re setting the precedent that the DNC doesn’t need to worry about whether genocide affects elections. The DNC should lose this race based on the genocide they have perpetrated alone.
I sincerely hope it doesn’t turn into one. This is not some stupid outdoor cat debate, but one that concerns the fate of leftism in America. I’m trying to absorb as many viewpoints from the responses as possible to consider my position.
Thank you for this Hexbear to Lemmygrad pipeline post, @[email protected] 😅
What do you mean?
I mean that some struggle sessions are elucidating at just the right inflection point.
So basically, when one has already been feeling like moving over to Grad for a while, that threads like these can help to make clear why exactly one wants to do that? Is that what you’re trying to say?
Yup. This is a dialectical concept that Marx & Engels incorporated into dialectical materialism: Transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa
All change has a quantitative aspect, that is, an aspect of mere increase or decrease which does not alter the nature of that which changes. But quantitative change, increase or decrease, cannot go on indefinitely. At a certain point it always leads to a qualitative change; and at that critical point, the qualitative change takes place relatively suddenly.
Indeed, dialectical materialism is probably the number one best and most important idea I have ever learned in my life.
Project 2025 is just a scary name that liberals made up for what Republicans always plan to do when they get into office
Liberals didn’t make it up though? What do you mean https://www.project2025.org/ and the plan is much further than anything I’ve seen planned in my life of following US politics
Yeah IMO, they ain’t playin’. This is stuff they’ve been working up to for decades, just as packing the courts with conservative judges and overturning Roe v. Wade was.
they did the one thing democrats hate most, planning ahead
Wouldn’t that mean it’s in the left’s interest to delay as long as possible the Republicans’ chances of getting into office?
Can you make a case that Biden would not just do project 2025 stuff bipartisanly? He ran against Trump’s border policy and wall and has now fully adopted Trump’s border policy and wall, he ran against Trump’s economic war on China and has fully adopted it.
You can’t fight off conservative policies by reelecting a conservative politician (Biden).
I agree there is no guarantee, and it’s really just based on the fact that at least the Democrats are not openly calling for the blood of leftists. It’s more about survival mode, and buying as much time as is needed to build a movement that cannot be easily squashed by the establishment. Of course, whether the American left has the capacity to reach that state, is another question of its on.
The American “left”, such as it exists, virtually vanishes under blue administrations. This is because most of the American “left” are just “progressive” liberals who are more than happy to completely ignore injustice and right wing policies as long as it’s their team doing it. For any left movement to flourish in America would require a Republican administration. Also worth noting that when Republicans call for the blood of leftists, they mean like… Hillary Clinton, or Chuck Schumer, or Barack Obama. They don’t even know what leftism is and couldn’t find it with a map and both hands.
Also worth noting that when Republicans call for the blood of leftists, they mean like… Hillary Clinton, or Chuck Schumer, or Barack Obama.
That is the politicians’ empty rhetoric, yes, but the capitalist class may very well sic cops and brownshirts on us. Bipartisan bills denouncing the horrors of socialism are not for nothing, they’re prep work.
True. Like when Obama called in the national guard to violently repress the Ferguson uprising, and put FBI snipers on the roof during Occupy to assassinate organizers/leaders if things got any more radical.
that when Republicans call for the blood of leftists, they mean like… Hillary Clinton, or Chuck Schumer, or Barack Obama. They don’t even know what leftism is and couldn’t find it with a map and both hands.
The people I’ve seen shot by chuds or hit by a car at protests would disagree. Mainstream Republicans maybe not but they are invigorating their base to do the shit for them, just as every budding fascist movement has. The democrats are essentially the same, especially on the world stage, but I am hesitant to dismiss the threat from Republicans in this aspect because of trauma I’ve experienced.
I think it’s more accurate to say that chuds don’t know (or care about) the difference between the demonrats the person you’re replying to mentioned and actual leftists.
That’s a good point, they might shoot actual communists at times, but they also shoot mail workers for being feds or whatever, most of them think Biden is a far-left radical communist
I used to say the border wall thing too, turns out that’s not super right, here’s a map:
from here https://www.newsweek.com/border-wall-map-joe-biden-donald-trump-1832649
Joe Biden went out of his way to use the executive pen to waive 26 federal laws so that section of wall could be built. He ran against the border wall. I don’t really care if he’s waiving laws to only build a few miles - it’s a complete 180* turn from his campaign and serves absolutely nobody. He’s not going to win in Texas, red voters in other states aren’t going to change their minds because of it. He’s doing it purely because he’s a right winger himself and is ideologically closer to Trump than any average blue voter is.
Can you make the case for how the democratic party is systemically delaying the rightward shove this country is experiencing? Key word there being systemically. If you could then yes, voting Democrat would be the right option. But I don’t think you or anyone could. The Democrats are not interested in delaying fascism in the US, they’re fine with fascism as long as they keep their stock portfolio in tact.
That argument is based on two erroneous assumptions.
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That the venn diagram of “the left” and “Democratic party policymakers” isn’t two circles separated by a gulf traversable in our lifetime only by warp drive.
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That there’s any real distinction between Republicans with red lawn signs and Republicans with blue lawn signs besides which geopolitical rival they’re more terrified by.
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This is not even a little true, Republicans named it themselves and it is an extremely stark departure from what any previous president from either party has planned to do once they gain office. There’s not really precedent for this going back at least to Reagan.
extremely stark departure from what any previous president from either party has planned to do once they gain office
when gog and Magog are at work against your crusade so you can’t let your vice pres puppet master do weird legalese that centers more power under you and more stuff I’m too tired to write aboutCheney and Rumsfeld were doing CoG/Unitary stuff under Bush. It was a thing under Bush that was talked about in the news. It’s not unprecedented.
Just to add when have liberals ever claimed Republicans wanted to do this? This is not a typical conservative move:
The plan proposes slashing U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) funding, dismantling the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security
Slashing funding to state apparatus is the most absolutely typical conservative move possible. It’s like the very first chapter in their playbook.
That is true but when has that ever included military or police funding?
No, you’re absolutely correct - and it’s good. The DHS and FBI should absolutely be dismantled.
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I don’t disagree with that, but it’s not like they would stop with that, if they did they would be doing it so they could empower other types of enforcement
And the DNC would happily create new, worse forms of law enforcement in the sake of bipartisanship. There’s no sunlight between them on support for state violence, the difference is that the GOP base feels a (probably temporary) threat from the current apparatus. You won’t be convincing me to vote out of concern for saving the current fascistic surveillance state appendages.
You won’t be convincing me to vote out of concern for saving the current fascistic surveillance state appendages.
I agree with this, I’m not trying to convince anyone to vote and I won’t be voting, I just think there might be some merit to the idea that there could be an exceptional level of political repression after the next election, I’ve stated my reasons for that.
A large part of me feels Trump being elected could be better for the left because of this repression in a way, there is no energy to do anything material at the ground level when democrats are in power, because to the libs they are the ‘grown-ups’. I just have a large amount of anxiety and fear for immediate victims of violence when chuds get empowered by elections. But it’s not like they’d go away if Trump lost anyway.
You just answered your own question. They’re not going to dismantle it, they’re going to make them more friendly the petit bourgeois cooks that make up the anti-globalist faction within Republicans. Which is who Trump appeals to. The FBI and other intelligence agencies are captured by the internationalist capitalists. There’s a power dynamic here and inter-class fighting happening. It’s not just one faction of wealthy and not pure party politics.
The dismantle talk is different from ours. When we say dismantle/defund, we mean eliminate it. They mean change it to work better for them.
Wait, they honestly said they’ll get rid of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security?
Man, how are people here falling for this shit lmao. In a satire, there’s always a wink to the audience that it’s just a satire. This is the wink.
Of course, we’re going to get rid of the FBI wink. We’re also going to get rid of ICE as well wink. And without ICE, I guess we have to tear down the border wall stifle laughter since nobody will man the walls anyways barely concealed laughter.
That doesn’t follow logically, they aren’t planning on dismantling anything without a replacement
“We going to get rid of the Federal Bureau of Investigation by replacing it with the National Agency of Crimesolving” is also farcical in its own way.
I am certainly afraid of the contingencies of Project 2025. But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up everything I’ve been working toward.
For several years already it has been part of my strategy to not hitch my hopes to state power. So now with the prospect of state power being outright hostile, that doesn’t change much. Acquire spaces, encounter working-class people, bring as many of them as possible on board as partisans. Accrue the ability to act cohesively and decisively, while minimizing exposure and traceability. Develop an economic base of workers’ cooperatives, that serves to provide comrades with a means of survival and also a deterrent for any direct action taken against us, because they’d be hurting their own national (and especially regional) economy. On the far horizon, construct a culture and dual power that can completely break from the surrounding state and culture if it needs to.
Yes! I’m right there with you. Working hard on local projects to this effect: cooperatives, mutual aid networks, radical action groups, etc.
I wish I could get further with unionizing my workplace (IWW style). THAT is my point of serious frustration at the moment. But hopefully helping comrades do better in theirs through training, emotional support, etc. is enough for now.
feel free to vote for the genocide guy. It just won’t make a real difference, and you’ll have the weight of voting for genocide on your conscience. the point of agitating against biden isn’t just to change people’s voting behavior, its to reinforce that electoralism is a waste of time and energy that could maybe make a real difference if spent elsewhere. Politicians rule at the beck and call of capital, if conditions are right for fascism, electing a liberal won’t stop it, and if they aren’t, electing a fascist won’t let them go beyond the constraints placed by capital and the material conditions of the country in enacting their goals.
People on lemmy love to say “well this is just voting, it takes 5 minutes, I’m not campaigning for him, so doesn’t prevent me from doing other organizing” which is technically true, but coming on here and hand wringing about it kinda makes me doubt that the asker is actually committed to the struggle.
maybe we’re all just larping but if we are to get serious about organizing a revolutionary party it will require a lot more dedication and consistency than constantly hand wringing about electoralism or merely volunteering on the weekends
If it means so much to you, hold yourself to your own standards and go knock on doors and make phone calls. There’s no scenario where there’s a super serious threat and your role in defeating it is just hanging out online.
OP did mention not being American
Literally the first sentence too lol
