I am amazed they haven’t run out of money already.

Were they all millionaires before this whole Trump thing started?

Gold fringes on the flag of the country “Donald Trump” was president of? Damn it! We’ve been bamboozled! We aren’t even living in the real United States! We were the sheeple all along, just like they were trying to tell us!

Yeah! Was he Donald Trump – the person – president? Or was it “Donald Trump” the legal entity? Is his name capitalized on the documents? Was his presidency valid under maritime law?

To the people who watch these sources they believe its legitimate, real and true.

One year after leaving California, my mother was explaining to me – based on some selfie video made by two Christians sitting in their car, claiming they had visited San Francisco – that California was now a hotbed for crime and violent death.

It’s not like they suddenly changed their story. For decades now, conservative vloggers and bloggers and “news” networks have been screaming about how California was a post-apocalyptic wasteland and millions of refugees were fleeing the state. She just… tuned it out while she was living in the proverbial horse’s mouth, and then started trusting them the second the first-hand evidence was (I am not exaggerating here. She is now in the next state over.) two hours in her rear-view mirror.

Yeah, we already have government research funding a lot of medicine. Hell, the MRNA vaccine was DARPA’S doing.

I can see that. Like how Hitler wrote Mein Kampf during his 264-day incarceration in Landsberg Prison for his Jan-6-style insurrection attempt.

People’s mistake is thinking fascism is an evil ideology that uses any tactics necessary to achieve its goals.

What they don’t realize is that “ideology” and “tactics” need to be reversed in this statement: fascism is a cynical tactic that uses any ideology necessary to achieve its goals.

It will hate groomers on Tuesday and find grooming “the only way to raise responsible, patriotic citizens” on that same exact Tuesday, later in the afternoon.

It will hate nepotism and family connections in the same breath as it calls Ivanka “smart” for wielding her presidential clout to enrich herself.

It will defend the sanctitude of the life belonging to a fetus right up until the main threats to that fetus are poor access to medical care, financial stress leading to miscarriages, and our unsustainable car infrastructure killing off pregnant mothers right alongside every other type of person. THOSE fetuses were killed by the laws of nature of course, (and they certainly lack a level of sanctity that competes with Americans’ right to be forced to drive twenty minutes to the nearest grocery store and ninety minutes to their place of employment on threat of homelessness. That “right” is inviolable.)

There’s no ideology here. No utopia on the map. No belief about how to improve society. There is merely the last, dying , defiant warcry of a certain subset of corporations. A subset that profits more from maintaining underclasses than they do from providing a product to a stable society. A subset that needs to keep reminding black people that if they don’t like working for dirt wages at Amazon, they can always get the police involved and die with a police officer’s knee on their neck.

And the question isn’t, “can our ideology defeat theirs?” Because there was never a single belief to defeat in the first place. The question here is “can democracy survive?”

And so far, it’s holding up better than it did in Italy and Germay. 1930s Germany wouldn’t have thrown the Patriot Front in jail. Wouldn’t have convicted the Wolverine Watchmen, either. Certainly wouldn’t be prosecuting the Proud Boys who showed up to Jan 6.

*whispers* I don’t think he can accept that people like you are out there.

Look: I’m going to admit. Biden seemed to be the “establishment” pick (I was a Sanders supporter) and that vague, distant impression is why I didn’t like him until he actually got elected and started passing his policy goals.

You might have known he was going to be doing things like passing the CHIPS Act and banning slave labor solar panel imports and ending ICE worksite immigration raids and keeping student loan payments paused.

But if you did, that’s an impressive amount of political awareness. I’m genuinely not sure how one becomes that politically aware. And I think the person you’re responding to might not accept that it’s even possible.

What do you think of the IBEW praising Biden in the wake of their June 2023 victories surrounding sick leave?

“Biden deserves a lot of the credit for achieving this goal for us,” Russo said. “He and his team continued to work behind the scenes to get all of rail labor a fair agreement for paid sick leave.”

Do you think Russo (the IBEW’s railroad director) was being dishonest with this quote? Do you think he was playing politics and that Biden was no help at all?

All you have to do is convince them the old town leaders are communists.

Well, if long COVID eventually manages to drag Senator Inhofe into hell, you can be assured he’ll bring a snowball with him.

And then tell them they’re losers when those loans don’t work out.

Their states broadly have the most crime, and yet they continue to pursue ineffective solutions like executing people who turn out, in hindsight, to have been innocent.

Awwww! Thank you!

Fair enough.

In terms of supporting Biden, I’m sure I’m broadly on your side, but I wanted to note: when I vote for Biden in 2024, it won’t be for stability.

Biden’s ban on ICE worksite immigration raids takes a miniscule step toward empowering migrant workers.

Biden’s decision to keep student loans paused for the entire first 30 months of his term has empowered borrowers by giving them more wiggle room to make decisions like moves and career changes. That translates to higher pay.

The energy efficient home improvement subsidies in the Inflation Reduction Act make individual homeowners less dependent on energy companies, and keeps more of their money out of those companies’ hands.

Biden’s ban on slave labor solar panel imports forces solar panel buyers to purchase from companies that pay their workers. This compounds an already existing labor shortage and gives workers even more leverage.

Like anyone, I was disappointed with the result of the rail workers’ strikes. But even there, the IBEW won a few sick day victories in negotiations with rail companies just this June, and their president said,

We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement.

So far from merely defending stability, Biden has been winning ground for workers on dozens of tiny, subtle battlegrounds, and that gives me hope for the future.

A few weeks ago, when I left Reddit, I saw an argument between anarchists and tankies where one of the tankies sneeringly referred to their anarchist interlocutor as an “anarcho-Bidenist”

I know it is not a real economic philosophy. I know it was supposed to be an insult. But after what I’ve seen of President Biden so far? Count me in.

But how do the congressmen you elect feel about it?

I think we all need to watch a full Biden speech every once in a while, just to remind ourselves that he’s not the walking dementia case a lot of outlets portray using fifteen second clips of him stumbling on words halfway through a sentence (just like he stumbles on sandbags that are conveniently cropped out of these same videos).

When you bring up the “dynamic of oppressed and privileged groups” are you referring to Marxism, and Marx’s idea that all of history is the history of class struggles between oppressors and oppressed?

I can understand deciding that such a belief would compel Marx’s followers (though not necessarily progressives) to be constantly on the lookout for oppressors and oppressed. But firstly, I’m not convinced that the above action – identifying an oppressor – is sufficient for a group marked as oppressors to face discrimination. And secondly, I’m not convinced that progressivism requires a class conscious (aka Marxist) lens. So, if you don’t mind elaborating on your beliefs, I would appreciate if you answered these questions.

My Questions

1. Regarding Marxists: must Marxists discriminate? Once a Marxist has identified an oppressed group and an oppressor group, must the Marxist thereafter be compelled to attempt discrimination against the “oppressors” ?
2. Regarding Marxists again: can Marxists see an entire race as an oppressor class? Marx reiterated numerous times that ever since capitalism overthrew feudalism, there have been only two classes – capitalists and workers. If one went about adding more oppressor classes and oppressed classes, wouldn’t that contradict one of Marxism’s core beliefs? How can one believe entire races are oppressor classes without abandoning the entire basis for class theory?
3. Regarding progressives this time: must progressives believe in class conflict in the first place? After reading or skimming the Wikipedia page for progressivism do you believe that the progressivism described therein absolutely must require a Marxist lens? I’m including an excerpt from the page below, along with why I find the connection hard to see.

Excerpts from the Wikipedia page in question:

Excerpt 1:

As a political movement, progressivism seeks to advance the human condition through social reform based on purported advancements in science, technology, economic development, and social organization…

Excerpt 2:

In the 21st century, progressives continue to favor public policy that they theorize will reduce or lessen the harmful effects of economic inequality as well as systemic discrimination such as institutional racism; to advocate for social safety nets and workers’ rights; and to oppose corporate influence on the democratic process. The unifying theme is to call attention to the negative impacts of current institutions or ways of doing things and to advocate for social progress, i.e., for positive change as defined by any of several standards such as the expansion of democracy, increased egalitarianism in the form of economic and social equality as well as improved well being of a population. Proponents of social democracy have identified themselves as promoting the progressive cause.

As you can see, there is scant mention of oppressor or oppressed. Nor does the Encyclopedia Britannica fill the void – it doesn’t even mention the words “class”, “oppressor”, “oppression”, or “oppressed” . In fact, the only mention of class conflict in either Wikipedia or Britannica is when the Wikipedia page mentions that early progressives (around the time of Teddy Roosevelt) believed a “good education, a safe environment, and an efficient workplace” were sufficient in stemming – or even circumventing – class conflict.

Given the above, one could argue that progressivism is equally as compatible with Marxist theory as it is with anti-Marxism. It’s even feasible that progressives could outright reject the idea of classes and still retain every aspect of progressivism laid out in this definition.

Am I missing something? Am I not reading Wikipedia or Britannica closely enough?

Are you referring to Ilhan Omar here? (as I see it, her remarks are possible to interpret however the listener pleases. And that includes antisemitism but it also includes anti-what-Omar-sees-as-oppression.)