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Imagine having a candidate that got more popular after speaking in public...
We literally haven't even passed that low of a bar in over a decade. I don't understand what's happened to people.
People as a whole are more politically aware than I've ever seen, but we're just wasting it.
We have to undo decades of policy enacted the much longer politically aware and active owner class. They've had a head start on us, so it's going to take tome to dismantle the political machinery they've created while minimizing harm done to the rest of us.
We actually don't.
A single progressive president means they get to name the DNC chair and a bunch of voting positions.
It's literally that easy to take over the party.
Obama just didn't do it because he didn't need the party after they turned on him for opposing Hillary.
If he'd have rebuilt it, we'd have a functional progressive party planning decades ahead already. And trump would still just be that guy from the Mac Miller song. The SC would be a progressive majority. The situation and Gaza wouldn't have turned into an open genocide, COVID would have been handled appropriately.
It's not some insurmountable task, but it gets harder and harder every cycle.
By all rights we should have had protests in the streets calling for Biden and the DNC leadership to step down for stealing NH's delagets. But not enough people had crossed their personal lines by then.
If we'd have had the fight then, we'd have had a full primary almost to figure shit out.
But we didn't.
Until we finally do, shit won't change.
We should have been in streets for Gore.
We should have learned that confidence is the one thing you can't fake. A candidate can be confident for illogical reasons, but that's still more convincing than being right but not being confident. It creates this weird effect where once people get too smart, they become less decisive and people perceive that as less confident.
The stereotypical nerd.
Gore probably would have been a top 10 president. But he couldn't sell himself to voters just a little more. And if memory recalls, he technically didn't even have to concede. Like, if he had waited I believe the recounts were actively happening. He didn't even let it run down to the final vote.
But I think its important to note not a single Dem Senator challenged it either which would have been even better than Gore challenging it
Bernie would have most likely, but he wasn't in yet. Biden could have done it, but he didn't, same with most of the current Dem leadership.
So Gore should have planted his feet, and voters should have gotten behind, probably would have. But the party didn't have Gore's back either. And Gore wasn't confident enough to try it without the party.
It's crazy how shit comes so close and has such widespread consequences. Just one Dem senator back then dragging it out till a final count would have done it.
He pushed right up to the deadline. Like, Bush v Gore was decided literally hours before the state deadline to certify the vote.
We've had this sort of situation before, FDR was radically progressive on a lot of policy decisions, he made great strides ad pulling us out of the Great Depression, leading us through world war 2, dramatically reduced the wealth disparity and was so popular with the voting public he was elected 4 times. Then the politically connected wanted to make sure that kind of presidency never happened again, so they paid to get the political machinery altered to suit their needs, term limits were introduced, influential think tanks were created to push favorable public policy and install favorable political assets, launched propaganda campaigns to sway public perception and consolidated economic power.
I agree that a single properly progressive president can do a lot to make things better, and a president who actually wields power can make some very important structural changes within the political party but it doesn't disassemble the political machinery that led us to our current situation in the first place. It doesn't disassemble the vast propaganda networks and think tanks, it doesn't stop the flow of dark money into politician pockets. All these positive changes can be undone if the next guy that comes in is a shitbag.
During the Hillary vs Bernie times, I was talking with a Bernie supporter in a bar. He told me that the establishment Dems/DNC would promote Hitler himself before they promote an anti-establishment candidate.
Back then I thought he was a case of mentally sick person making it to the bar and having too much drink. As time passes I agree with him more and more.
Do you think the ownership class was upset when AOC voted to stop the rail union from striking?
During the Hillary vs Bernie times, I was talking with a Bernie supporter in a bar. He told me that the establishment Dems/DNC would promote Hitler himself before they promote an anti-establishment candidate.
Back then I thought he was a case of mentally sick person making it to the bar and having too much drink. As time passes I agree with him more and more.
We have a party entirely dedicated to the ownership class with literally 0 internal conflict, and we have a party almost entirely dedicated to the ownership class with some internal conflict (the squad.)
What we don't have is a party that gives one solitary fuck about the labor class and actively fights those that get too close to real power. The squad is a useful token to point to and say "see we aren't all corpo fascists! We allowed them to exist!" (Because there's only like 5 of them so they have no power whatsoever)
I'd be happy if we just had an administration where no one in the DOJ, State Department or Cabinet quits in disgust. The last time that happened was what, Bush Sr.?