The Official Israel-Gaza Thread

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

I didn't say shaming/convincing MAGA voters was your position, but it is the position that follows the logic of certain people taking part in the broader discussion we're having in here. To address your specific post, refusing to pretend that GOP's fascism is just a natural result of Democratic timidity may be correct in the context of a History seminar, but it's often a harmful distraction in the context of political advocacy in our current moment. Focusing on the decades of systemic power-building the GOP has engaged in is only useful if it creates conditions for positive change, but the people who are constantly diverting discussions of Democratic Party failures towards that point are (purposefully imo) neutering the potential for positive change. Seeing the situation clearly would show us that the GOP is immovable and intransigent (as you agree) and the Democratic Party is failing to mount an effective political movement to overcome that. Acknowledging the fixed nature of the GOP's harmful goals only creates indifference if there is no oppositional force that can cohere a movement against that, which the Democrats are currently failing to do.

I'm not advocating that the Democrats pretend the Republicans don't exist. Just the opposite, in fact. I'm saying they need to actually villainize them instead of doing the useless performative kabuki of controlled opposition, but to do so requires intra-Democratic Party reform first. It's the people who keep demanding evasion of Democratic Party leadership accountability via shifting vital reform focus to Republicans that are creating dangerous pretext for disengagement because there's no actual prospect of practical change by yelling at the brick wall of Republican evil.


Right, everything you're saying here is exactly what the people advocating for Democratic Party reform have been demanding of Democratic leadership, but getting derailed by the people saying we should be criticizing the Republicans instead. The Democrats cannot go to voters and say "Look at how bad the Republicans are on voting rights protection" when they couldn't pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act with a legislative majority. They need to get their own house in order first, otherwise calling out Republicans for doing Republican things will fall on deaf ears. Any effective Democratic progressive message will have the Republican Party as a villain in its political narrative, but you can't credibly build that narrative unless you yourself are clean.


Right, I think any path forward has to contend with GOP structural entrenchment, but contending with it means Democratic Party reform because that's the only vehicle that can beat it. No one is saying "ignore the Republican half of the problem", we're saying "first get strong enough to credibly take on the Republican problem." But that's being stymied by people having this instinctive reaction to protect the honor of Democratic Party leaders and diverting the conversation to Republicans. This is why the normative-descriptive dichotomy is relevant. Because if we're looking at things through the descriptive lens of a Historian, then giving equal (or more) focus on Republicans is correct. But if we're taking the normative lens of someone looking to change things for the better, then its a bad strategy and waste of resources to pull attention away from Democratic Party reform towards impotently chastising Republicans.


Great, we have the same goals and understanding of what the Democratic Party should be doing. What I'm criticizing isn't the naming of the full extent of the problem, it's the diversion of attention towards an impotent, masturbatory strategy of booing the opposing team instead of demanding your team do better.

I believe the GOP is a fascist death cult that should be completely stricken from any semblance of a healthy society and have the earth they are buried in be salted over. I don't think they should ever hold power in any office of power ever again, regardless of what superficial moderation they make. They are rotten to the core, and they were so before Trump showed up. I'm more anti-GOP than the people on the opposite side of this discussion. I just don't have a deep parasocial attachment to the Democratic Party that inhibits me from criticizing them when they fail in their charge to fight on behalf of us and our supposed shared values. I don't treat politics like stan wars or marvel movies. I have no problem shooting a dog that won't hunt because the stakes of this fight are life and death. And that's how we should be viewing these Democratic politicians and the party itself. They are simply tools to build the society we need. If the tool is dull, throw it out and pick up a sharper one.

You lost the popular vote.

You need to change some of your positions. All you want is democrats to behave differently without acknowledging the policy and issue-set.

 

[Outlaw]

I disagree with the bold.

Point 1:

Yes, there is a large contingency of the republican base that are white Christian nationalist that are flat out prejudice, and racist. However, republicans now have a large fairly new financial side of the base that have been growing over the past decade that are in fact unwilling participants that are now giving republicans a chance based on their "policy rhetoric". Yes we both realize republicans are corrupt frauds that only believe in tax cuts for the rich, but their criticisms of the democratic party have landed with both the younger and poorer voting base. You bring up equity, people under 100k don't believe equity exist which is why they dont believe in today's norms which allows them to even consider giving the republican party ( even with their extremism) a chance because the democrats believe institutions work which like i said the voting base under 100k DO NOT believe institutions work.


Point 2:

Republican extremism is here to stay, nothing can be done to reverse that party at this point. the financial conditions that have been built up in the voting population the past decade have allowed Republicans the ability to publicly massage flat out fascism as the end goal in ending economic inequality. The feelings and the realities of economic inequality was the symptom that allowed Republicans the ability to exist in their current state. Our goal going forward should be to transform the Democratic Party, the only party that has a semblance of normality in hopes of getting out of this fascist period.

By being as “bold” as you want them to be while ignoring the Republican Party as a “force of nature” you’re going to force the capital class to align with fascism.

Socialism can take hold in a liberal America, not an America teetering on full blown fascism.

Lina Khan made big tech flip to Trump

 

[King Kreole]

We can start delivering by ignoring special interest groups locally that block housing and infrastructure projects with claims about equity representation, environmental impact statements and other everything-bagel plans to attempt to achieve associated goals indirectly.

You lost the popular vote.

You need to change some of your positions. All you want is democrats to behave differently without acknowledging the policy and issue-set.

 

[King Kreole]

By being as “bold” as you want them to be while ignoring the Republican Party as a “force of nature” you’re going to force the capital class to align with fascism.

Socialism can take hold in a liberal America, not an America teetering on full blown fascism.

Lina Khan made big tech flip to Trump

When we talk about the Republican Party's evil as a "force of nature" the solution isn't to ignore it, it's to move without the assumption that it can be reformed or changed. Just as when a tornado is baring down on your house, you don't go into the yard and shake your fist at it, you take positive action in accordance with its immutability.

Any political movement that is not willing to bring the capital class to heel will inevitably end up with fascism because the incentives of capital are aligned with fascism. It is neoliberalism - with its definitional acquiescence to capital - that midwifed the right-wing fascist resurgence. It is exactly the heightening of contradictions that fascism brings along that makes socialism a highly viable counter-movement. People are clamouring for change from the status quo, and the right is the only force filling that void. Fascist Republicans are swinging for the fences and Liberal Democrats are bunting.

Lina Khan was one of the only Democratic officials actively fighting the war in front of us instead of nodding off on the opium of nostalgia.

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

I disagree with the bold.

Point 1:

Yes, there is a large contingency of the republican base that are white Christian nationalist that are flat out prejudice, and racist. However, republicans now have a large fairly new financial side of the base that have been growing over the past decade that are in fact unwilling participants that are now giving republicans a chance based on their "policy rhetoric". Yes we both realize republicans are corrupt frauds that only believe in tax cuts for the rich, but their criticisms of the democratic party have landed with both the younger and poorer voting base. You bring up equity, people under 100k don't believe equity exist which is why they dont believe in today's norms which allows them to even consider giving the republican party ( even with their extremism) a chance because the democrats believe institutions work which like i said the voting base under 100k DO NOT believe institutions work.


Point 2:

Republican extremism is here to stay, nothing can be done to reverse that party at this point. the financial conditions that have been built up in the voting population the past decade have allowed Republicans the ability to publicly massage flat out fascism as the end goal in ending economic inequality. The feelings and the realities of economic inequality was the symptom that allowed Republicans the ability to exist in their current state. Our goal going forward should be to transform the Democratic Party, the only party that has a semblance of normality in hopes of getting out of this fascist period.

This is a class-first reading of right-wing radicalism that verges on class reductionism, and I reject that framing. "Economic anxiety" isn't a myth because people aren't struggling, it's a myth in the way it's selectively invoked to sanitize or excuse explicitly reactionary politics. The suggestion that fascism is just a byproduct of economic hardship flattens the reality that many of these voters are animated less by material deprivation than by relative loss of status, racial resentment, and backlash to social change.

You keep trying to frame fascism as a response to inequality, but offer no explanation for why marginalized groups experiencing equal or worse economic inequality aren't radicalizing in the same way.

Treating Republican voters as "unwilling participants" or dupes of economic despair strips them of agency and lets them off the hook. These voters are not confused; they're making conscious decisions. Many aren't rejecting the system because it fails them economically; they're rejecting it because it's being shared more equitably. And no message will bring those people around.

There's also a contradiction at the core of your argument: you recognize that the GOP is ideologically lost to extremism, that it can't be reasoned with or rehabilitated. But somehow, you don't extend that same realism to the MAGA base that made it what it is. Why assume that an electorate shaped by years of grievance politics, conspiracy beliefs, and open authoritarianism is still just waiting for a better economic pitch? That's just wishful thinking.

Yes, we absolutely need a Democratic Party that is bold, unapologetically pro-worker, and willing to confront both corporate and structural power. But that boldness has to be rooted in the full reality of what we're facing, and that includes a rising fascist movement driven not by misunderstanding, but by grievance and entitlement. If we keep treating fascism like it's a misdirected economic tantrum instead of an ideological project with real adherents who willingly buy into it, we will continue to misunderstand the threat and how to address it.

 

[88m3]

ethnic cleansing

is exactly what we would see if the shoe were on the other foot

it's time for the US and the rest of the world to move on, if it were up to me the US wouldn't have anything to do with the entire rotten region.

Aren't you tired of watching them trying to wipe each other out in these cycles of violence?

Hamas and other groups aren't interested in coexisting that much is clear, they want total conquest through war, and this what we end up with hundreds of thousands of civilians dead and displaced.

I don't take pleasure in any of this. In a perfect world they could live together and there wouldn't be countries.

 

[Outlaw]

When we talk about the Republican Party's evil as a "force of nature" the solution isn't to ignore it, it's to move without the assumption that it can be reformed or changed. Just as when a tornado is baring down on your house, you don't go into the yard and shake your fist at it, you take positive action in accordance with its immutability.

Any political movement that is not willing to bring the capital class to heel will inevitably end up with fascism because the incentives of capital are aligned with fascism. It is neoliberalism - with its definitional acquiescence to capital - that midwifed the right-wing fascist resurgence. It is exactly the heightening of contradictions that fascism brings along that makes socialism a highly viable counter-movement. People are clamouring for change from the status quo, and the right is the only force filling that void. Fascist Republicans are swinging for the fences and Liberal Democrats are bunting.

Lina Khan was one of the only Democratic officials actively fighting the war in front of us instead of nodding off on the opium of nostalgia.

My theory please feel free to to call it horseshyt but intuitively it makes sense to me is that socialism cannot rise in America while it’s dealing with fascism because it splits two populist movements and the capital class will always side with fascism if it has to pick between fascism and socialism.

In order for America to become more socialist(and I think it should be eventually) it has to be brought back to balance which is liberalism.

The capital class IMO prefers liberalism over fascism so I think the most strategic solution to get us out of the fascist state were in is to accept we must get back to a “liberal status quo” by working with capital to get us out of fascism.

Once both parties are two forms of liberalism then socialism can take hold.

In America if both parties are populist, the fascist right will win because it’ll have the support of capital.

Modern day Liberalism isn’t populist by nature, so if the right wing is in a form of liberalism, socialism can win because the people will overwhelmingly support the most populist party.

My formula for the theory is that populist right + capital class will defeat populist left

Populist right will lose to a unified capital class + liberal left (2020 election)

Liberal/conservative +capital class right will lose to a populist left

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Yeah, so why are you here?

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

When we talk about the Republican Party's evil as a "force of nature" the solution isn't to ignore it, it's to move without the assumption that it can be reformed or changed. Just as when a tornado is baring down on your house, you don't go into the yard and shake your fist at it, you take positive action in accordance with its immutability.

Any political movement that is not willing to bring the capital class to heel will inevitably end up with fascism because the incentives of capital are aligned with fascism. It is neoliberalism - with its definitional acquiescence to capital - that midwifed the right-wing fascist resurgence. It is exactly the heightening of contradictions that fascism brings along that makes socialism a highly viable counter-movement. People are clamouring for change from the status quo, and the right is the only force filling that void. Fascist Republicans are swinging for the fences and Liberal Democrats are bunting.

Lina Khan was one of the only Democratic officials actively fighting the war in front of us instead of nodding off on the opium of nostalgia.

Socialism is not the inverse of “fascism” FYI.

 

[King Kreole]

My theory please feel free to to call it horseshyt but intuitively it makes sense is that socialism cannot rise in America while it’s dealing with fascism is because it splits two populist movements and the capital class will always side with fascism if it has to pick between fascism and socialism.

In order for America to become more socialist(and I think it should be eventually) it has to be brought back to balance which is liberalism.

The capital class IMO prefers liberalism over fascism so I think the most strategic solution to get us out of the fascist state were in is to accept we must get back to a “liberal status quo” by working with capital to get us out of fascism.

Once both parties are two forms of liberalism then socialism can take hold.

In America if both parties are populist, the fascist right will win because it’ll have the support of capital.

Modern day Liberalism isn’t populist by nature, so if the right wing is in a form of liberalism, socialism can win because the people will overwhelmingly support the most populist party.

My formula for the theory is that populist right + capital class will defeat populist left

Populist right will lose to a unified capital class + liberal left (2020 election)

Liberal/conservative +capital class right will lose to a populist left

I don't think your theory is horseshyt btw, I think it follows an internal logic and is drawing on historical events. I just disagree with it.

I don't think the capital class prefers liberalism to fascism, I think history shows us that it's more or less indifferent to the two ideologies because both are willing to give them a co-equal seat at the table of power. A fight between two populist visions - one left wing and one right wing - is one in which the left wing vision can win if they marshal the power of the people, without whom the capital class cannot operate. The capital class are not all-powerful. They need us more than we need them. But this understanding has to be taught and fostered. This is where class politics has to come in. Which is what I mean when I say the Democratic Party is failing the current moment.

So I guess I would amend your formula to be populist left + the masses will defeat fascist right + capital class.

 

[King Kreole]

Socialism is not the inverse of “fascism” FYI.

Very good

 

[Outlaw]

I don't think your theory is horseshyt btw, I think it follows an internal logic and is drawing on historical events. I just disagree with it.

I don't think the capital class prefers liberalism to fascism, I think history shows us that it's more or less indifferent to the two ideologies because both are willing to give them a co-equal seat at the table of power. A fight between two populist visions - one left wing and one right wing - is one in which the left wing vision can win if they marshal the power of the people, without whom the capital class cannot operate. The capital class are not all-powerful. They need us more than we need them. But this understanding has to be taught and fostered. This is where class politics has to come in. Which is what I mean when I say the Democratic Party is failing the current moment.

So I guess I would amend your formula to be populist left + the masses will defeat fascist right + capital class.

Wouldn’t you say the capital class is seeing that the populist right (MAGA Fascism) is bad for business? Tariffs, limitation of free trade, global talent drain through xenophobia, weaponization of the government towards private business if the business isn’t loyal to the government enough?

I think the capital class would much prefer free market liberalism.

 

[wire28]

This is a class-first reading of right-wing radicalism that verges on class reductionism, and I reject that framing. "Economic anxiety" isn't a myth because people aren't struggling, it's a myth in the way it's selectively invoked to sanitize or excuse explicitly reactionary politics. The suggestion that fascism is just a byproduct of economic hardship flattens the reality that many of these voters are animated less by material deprivation than by relative loss of status, racial resentment, and backlash to social change.

You keep trying to frame fascism as a response to inequality, but offer no explanation for why marginalized groups experiencing equal or worse economic inequality aren't radicalizing in the same way.

Treating Republican voters as "unwilling participants" or dupes of economic despair strips them of agency and lets them off the hook. These voters are not confused; they're making conscious decisions. Many aren't rejecting the system because it fails them economically; they're rejecting it because it's being shared more equitably. And no message will bring those people around.

There's also a contradiction at the core of your argument: you recognize that the GOP is ideologically lost to extremism, that it can't be reasoned with or rehabilitated. But somehow, you don't extend that same realism to the MAGA base that made it what it is. Why assume that an electorate shaped by years of grievance politics, conspiracy beliefs, and open authoritarianism is still just waiting for a better economic pitch? That's just wishful thinking.

Yes, we absolutely need a Democratic Party that is bold, unapologetically pro-worker, and willing to confront both corporate and structural power. But that boldness has to be rooted in the full reality of what we're facing, and that includes a rising fascist movement driven not by misunderstanding, but by grievance and entitlement. If we keep treating fascism like it's a misdirected economic tantrum instead of an ideological project with real adherents who willingly buy into it, we will continue to misunderstand the threat and how to address it.

@Pull Up the Roots got time today

 

[Pull Up the Roots]

I didn't say shaming/convincing MAGA voters was your position, but it is the position that follows the logic of certain people taking part in the broader discussion we're having in here. To address your specific post, refusing to pretend that GOP's fascism is just a natural result of Democratic timidity may be correct in the context of a History seminar, but it's often a harmful distraction in the context of political advocacy in our current moment because it can often be transformed into diffusion of action potential. Focusing on the decades of systemic power-building the GOP has engaged in is only useful if it creates conditions for positive change, but the people who are constantly diverting discussions of Democratic Party failures towards that point are (purposefully imo) neutering the potential for positive change. Seeing the situation clearly would show us that the GOP is immovable and intransigent (as you agree) and the Democratic Party is failing to mount an effective political movement to overcome that. Acknowledging the fixed nature of the GOP's harmful goals only creates indifference if there is no oppositional force that can cohere a movement against that, which the Democrats are currently failing to do.

I'm not advocating that the Democrats pretend the Republicans don't exist. Just the opposite, in fact. I'm saying they need to actually villainize them instead of doing the useless performative kabuki of controlled opposition, but to do so requires intra-Democratic Party reform first. It's the people who keep demanding evasion of Democratic Party leadership accountability via shifting vital reform focus to Republicans that are creating dangerous pretext for disengagement because there's no actual prospect of practical change by yelling at the brick wall of Republican evil.


Right, everything you're saying here is exactly what the people advocating for Democratic Party reform have been demanding of Democratic leadership, but getting derailed by the people saying we should be criticizing the Republicans instead. The Democrats cannot go to voters and say "Look at how bad the Republicans are on voting rights protection" when they couldn't pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act with a legislative majority. They need to get their own house in order first, otherwise calling out Republicans for doing Republican things will fall on deaf ears. Any effective Democratic progressive message will have the Republican Party as a villain in its political narrative, but you can't credibly build that narrative unless you yourself are clean.


Right, I think any path forward has to contend with GOP structural entrenchment, but contending with it means Democratic Party reform because that's the only vehicle that can beat it. No one is saying "ignore the Republican half of the problem", we're saying "first get strong enough to credibly take on the Republican problem." But that's being stymied by people having this instinctive reaction to protect the honor of Democratic Party leaders and diverting the conversation to Republicans. This is why the normative-descriptive dichotomy is relevant. Because if we're looking at things through the descriptive lens of a Historian, then giving equal (or more) focus on Republicans is correct. But if we're taking the normative lens of someone looking to change things for the better, then its a bad strategy and waste of resources to pull attention away from Democratic Party reform towards impotently chastising Republicans.


Great, we have the same goals and understanding of what the Democratic Party should be doing. What I'm criticizing isn't the naming of the full extent of the problem, it's the diversion of attention towards an impotent, masturbatory strategy of booing the opposing team instead of demanding your team do better.

I believe the GOP is a fascist death cult that should be completely stricken from any semblance of a healthy society and have the earth they are buried in be salted over. I don't think they should ever hold power in any office of power ever again, regardless of what superficial moderation they make. They are rotten to the core, and they were so before Trump showed up. I'm more anti-GOP than the people on the opposite side of this discussion. I just don't have a deep parasocial attachment to the Democratic Party that inhibits me from criticizing them when they fail in their charge to fight on behalf of us and our supposed shared values. I don't treat politics like stan wars or marvel movies. I have no problem shooting a dog that won't hunt because the stakes of this fight are life and death. And that's how we should be viewing these Democratic politicians and the party itself. They are simply tools to build the society we need. If the tool is dull, throw it out and pick up a sharper one.

I want to be clear here, because I think you're sliding past what I'm actually arguing and reacting instead to a composite of other people's takes in this thread. You keep invoking "some people" or "the broader conversation," but I'd rather you engage directly with what *I've* said. I'm not asking for pity for Democrats, and I'm not deflecting accountability for their failures. I'm saying that the GOP's structural authoritarianism isn't just background noise, it is the terrain, and failing to confront it honestly doesn't sharpen the fight within the Democratic Party, it dulls it.

You say naming the GOP's role can become a "harmful distraction" or "neuter action potential," but I'd argue the opposite. What actually neuters urgency is treating Republican power as a fixed natural force that we just have to work around, while delaying structural reform until Democrats are somehow "credible" enough to deserve the fight. That's the contradiction in your position. If the GOP is truly the existential threat you say it is, then we don't have the luxury of sequencing reform efforts like a to-do list. We have to press on *BOTH FRONTS* - demanding internal change while also naming and confronting the systemic GOP machinery that obstructs even the best efforts.

I'm not here to excuse the "controlled opposition" mode of leadership. I want Democrats to stop playing by rules the GOP long abandoned. But I also reject the idea that talking about Republican obstruction is what's killing momentum. What kills momentum is pretending the fight can be won by treating only one half of the equation. That's not a serious theory of change.

We agree that Democrats are the only lever we have. That's why I want them pushed harder *AND* smarter. But that push isn't weakened by naming what we're up against, it's strengthened by it. If we're serious, we can't look at this with only one eye opened.

 

[☑︎#VoteDemocrat]

Very good

Non-specific loquacious rants isn’t a sign of intelligence, FYI.