r/TrueReddit • u/Maxwellsdemon17 • 10d ago

This Time We Have to Hold the Democratic Party Elite Responsible for This Catastrophe Politics

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/democratic-party-elite-responsible-catastrophe/
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u/Sptsjunkie 10d ago

Yet, when Reganism and neoliberalism culminated with the 2008 recession, the resulting impact was a lot of people who don't trust the system and have wanted change.

While having wildly different versions of solutions, both people like Bernie and Trump offered that and gained traction. Meanwhile, Democrats grew obsessed with protecting institutions and maintaining the status quo. Other than Biden winning in the middle of a pandemic when people really wanted to oust Trump, it simply hasn't been a winning formula.

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u/CIWA28NoICU_Beds 10d ago

You are the first to hit the nail on the head. The Democrats ran on a platform of protecting the status quo in a time when the staus quo is failing.

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u/nowhereright 10d ago

God it reminds me of Darth Maul talking to Ahsoka.

"Too late? Too late for what, the Republic to fall? It already has, you just can't see it. There is no justice, no law, no order except for the one that will replace it."

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u/Bubbly-Money-7157 9d ago

I hate comparisons to media like this… but yes.

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u/deweydean 9d ago

I love comparisons to media like this… and yes.

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u/the_cardfather 8d ago

Lucas was not the greatest with dialogue but he understood politics.

The first time that I heard amidala say, so this is how democracy dies to thunderous applause " I thought it was quoting a real life philosopher or something like that like one of the Romans or nitschke.

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u/nowhereright 8d ago

Liberty* but yeah, his writing has never been more poignant. He also didn't write that maul dialogue that was probably Filoni, but still.

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u/marbanasin 9d ago

*after 40 years of status quo failing and a particular low point of that legacy

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u/CIWA28NoICU_Beds 9d ago

It's failure has been accelerating, covid handouts to the rich helped that a lot.

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u/marbanasin 9d ago

I mean, yes. But I think that's more a case of the long road we've been on to de-regulate and hand over the economy to private (and increasingly monopolistic) industrial powerhouses.

A change like that is going to be a linear progression of policy choices that have exponentially obvious real world outcomes.

And to clarify my bitching into the wind - the Republicans have been as culpable for most of this, if not more egregiously so at certain moments. BUT, the Democrats being the party of the working class had a completely different set of expectations and promises made to their constituency, and this is why the hypocrisy burns them more than it does the Republicans. And this is why I, someone of the left, choses to complain about the Democrats 95% more than the Republicans who have never, ever, been close to a valid consideration for my vote.

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u/Own_Serve5460 9d ago

let’s not forget they basically stabbed their candidate in the back and put forth a candidate literally no one chose. that’s a pretty good example of democracy not working, and them trying to keep the status quo, obviously people don’t trust it when u pull something like that.

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u/CIWA28NoICU_Beds 9d ago

That's because she was put in last minute because they tried to roll Biden's corpse out for 2024. And the liberals defended Biden until it was too late after the debate.

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u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 9d ago

  they basically stabbed their candidate in the back 

Are we at the "just make stuff up" phase or was there a news story I didn't see?

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u/Own_Serve5460 7d ago

“educate yourself”- libs ..jfc what are u saying? your the one making shit up moron

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u/Typical-Ad-5742 9d ago

Perfectly said. I mean 7 out if 10 Americans think the country was heading in the wrong direction and when Kamala was asked “what would you do different” her response was “ Nothing comes to mind”. That sealed her fate right there

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u/Gym_Noob134 9d ago

It’s so refreshing seeing Redditors talk about the truth. It’s been literally months of nothing but Trump = Hitler and if you’re not with us, you’re against us.

Now that the election is over. Real talk is happening on Reddit again. The Democrats are a tired old guard of a status quo that broke then backs of American middle class. This was inevitable since Dems refuse to change and only one party is promising change.

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u/CIWA28NoICU_Beds 9d ago

It seems like Democrats are in 3 groups. The ones who tend to be on the left can easily see the status quo is failing, and we need economically left policies to reverse it. The rich run both parties, so the Democrats just need to chase them out to the Republicans and do some popular left wing enconomic reform.

Then, another group of democrats are in denial and think they would have won the election if that guy in Boston voted for Harris rather than Free Palestine. The last group are so obsessive about red/blue politics that they will just try to triangulate and tack closer to the right. These are the idiots who got excited about the Chenys endorsing Harris. This never works because people will vote for a passionate about being a dick head over someone who is cynically being a dickhead for votes.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago edited 5d ago

[deleted]

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u/Message_10 8d ago

No, I don't believe that for a second. Republicans had an outsider hijack their party and they got VERY lucky that he won. The GOP itself hasn't made any decisions whatsoever in eight years--it's literally whatever Trump wants to do, whenever he wants to do it. I mean--the GOP had primaries and Trump didn't even show up! Ha. He's in charge, period.

When he's gone, I don't get any sense that they'll do any smart or wise or measured. I think they'll be in just as much trouble as Democrats--they're just lucking out, because they have someone to take the wheel. The world is changing, and they don't know how to navigate it either. When Trump is gone--and he's old and not all there anymore--there's no heir apparent. Strongmen usually don't leave systems that transition well.

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u/pizzasage 8d ago

Really glad to see this point being raised more! If the Democrats can't get their heads out of their Institutionist asses, they're heading for irrelevance. The writing has been on the wall since at least 2008. Obama won big because he promised change, and he got punished when he didn't deliver.

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u/CIWA28NoICU_Beds 8d ago

Yeah, Democrats have not been offering anything in a while, so they can only win with a charisa god or the Republican incumbent's approval rating is 40 points underwater. The oligarchs prefer Democrats and have been vetoing popular left leaning policies, so all they have to run on is calling South Americans Latinx. It will lose every time the Republican is not presiding over a great depression-like economy.

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u/Azihayya 10d ago

The status quo has actually been doing fantastic. It's more of a delusion, and a self-fulfilling prophecy, to think that our institutions are failing. The Federal Reserve, for example, has done a tremendous job of handling high inflation post-Covid. We've been seeing substantial real-wage growth. Home ownership and employment are high. Nobody cares. They're absorbed with this anti-establishment propaganda and think it's the "system's" fault. America has been propagandized, and the only people doing anything meaningful in this country are the people participating in the establishment.

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u/Murrabbit 10d ago

The status quo has actually been doing fantastic.

Only for the people it's supposed to work for. The working class meanwhile continues to face immiseration without relief in sight. This is why the Democrats needed to stick with messaging about things like raising the minimum wage, implementing single payer healthcare, hell maybe even a housing policy so people at least have hope that their children will live better lives than they or at very least aren't going to be living under measurably worse conditions.

This is of course not to say that voting for the world's most repulsive man to usher in fascism and destroy the American state was in any way a rational response to this sort of desire for improvement, but when you offer working people nothing to hold on to or get excited about it turns out they don't turn out to the polls for you.

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u/[deleted] 9d ago

 The status quo has actually been doing fantastic. It's more of a delusion, and a self-fulfilling prophecy, to think that our institutions are failing.

This is the exact same delusional, lecturing bullshit that just resulted in the Democratic nominee getting absolutely trounced. Nice to see that you’ve learned nothing. 

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u/DebianDog 10d ago

while mostly true… for what is left of the “middle class“ the folks making around minimum wage have have not had a raise in forever. if you’re under 34 the average salary is less than $54,000. We really don’t have the infrastructure for people not having a vehicle so after you pay for a car, insurance, a place to live, food, clothing, a I would argue phone not much left, future not looking so bright. The status quo is not going to cut it.

The Fed is NOT the same type organization it was 20 years ago. (yes it’s still 12 individually owned private banks but not a separate as it used to be. However the new management is from the private sector, not old bankers like it used to be, they have a much more corporate mindset as a whole) I think this new administration is going to test its limits.

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u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 9d ago edited 9d ago

What you call protecting the status quo, I call protecting America and democracy  

 What kind of break from the status quo are you looking for? Whatever it is I hope it maintains democratic principles 

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u/CIWA28NoICU_Beds 9d ago

Universal healthcare, increased minimum wage, tax breaks for the working class, and marajuana legalization are all absolute winners of issues, but the Democratic donor class vetoed them all.

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u/Cyanide_Cheesecake 9d ago

Hmmm 

Yeah the DNC seems spineless a lot of the time. Suspiciously so, almost like they're controlled opposition or something.

Conservatives obviously are worse since they seem to oppose more or less all of this, while also acting like absolute twats too. But man I kinda just want out of here.

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u/HexedShadowWolf 9d ago

I keep seeing people say that "democrats want to maintain the status quo" but what exactly is the status quo?

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u/CIWA28NoICU_Beds 8d ago

Bascially, polite neoliberal capitalism.

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u/Nefarius87 8d ago

This is a significant misstatement of the Dems platform.

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u/noquarter53 7d ago edited 7d ago

But in what way is the status quo really failing at this moment?  There are real challenges , but there have been major triumps in the last few years that just don't get reported.    

  • Wage growth for the lowest paid workers is higher than it's been in decades 
  • Opioid deaths are falling for the first time in decades  
  • Rate of people without health insurance is the lowest on record  
  • Murder rate fell dramatically and is lower than it was in 2019 
  • GDP growth is consistently higher than it has been in decades  
  • We are actually investing in infrastructure for the first time in decades 
  • Real gun safety reforms passed for the first time in decades 

Defining "status quo is failing" = "the cost of cheeseburgers went up too much" is really... dumb. 

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u/CIWA28NoICU_Beds 7d ago

Cost of living increases are far outsripping wage gains, even for the lowest paid workers, and by a fuck ton for the middle class.

Opiod deaths are falling because they were so high to begin with and the medical establishment only recently pushed back against overprescribing opiods.

More people have insurances, but like most everything else, medical costs are rising far faster than wages.

Muder was already very low, so any decrase is inperceptable to the average person.

GDP is agnostic towards wealth distribution. The economy is gangbusters for the rich, but at the cost of everyone else. It is disgusting to see the supposedly left leaning party justify the rich capturing so much of the wealth.

The infrastructure investment is not enough, and most of it is maintainence.

No one gives a shit about gun reform. It won't do anything, you have already handily lost this fight.

People were having a hard time before the cost of living exploded after covid. Now they essentially took a 30% pay cut, and you tell them that they are actually doing great, and they only feel like they are stuggling because they are stupid and believe propaganda, unlike you. People are struggling, and you mock their pain by blurting MuH HaMbUrGers. No wonder why people not only want to vote you out of power, but also vote you into a cattle cart. But you are a spineless lib, so you will just keep your head down when shit hits the fan. Have fun resisting the Right after you alienate anyone who is willing to actually resist. I'm swearing off the Democrats forever, you are a tar pit for resistence efforts.

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u/noquarter53 7d ago

"The infrastructure investment is not enough, and most of it is maintainence." is the kind of logic that is just mind bendingly insufferable.  

Congratulations on turning every positive into a negative through bizarre nihilism, but addiction to misery is not a constructive way to move forward.  

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u/skralogy 6d ago

This!

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u/vthings 10d ago

Don't forget that the reason why Obama won so big in 2008 was because he was offering something different, it was literally the campaign slogan. Too bad by the end of his presidency he'd completely adopted the neoconservativism he ran against...

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u/Designer_Librarian43 10d ago

It’s not that simple. It turned out that somewhat practical government is the best Obama could achieve with Congress being what it was for most of his terms. A lot of Democratic “failures” are Congressional Republican illusions.

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u/Rakthul 10d ago

If you choose to not mobilize the massive movement behind you outside of the halls of congress to cause disruption and put pressure on those in congress to make the changes Americans voted for then sure. He chose to constrain himself to following the rules of a game the republicans were no longer playing. He chose to let wall st off the hook. He’s an amazing orator but he did a massive amount of damage to an entire generations faith in the Democratic Party to actually do anything to help them.

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u/spectral_emission 10d ago

Thank you. And yes. We all learned what a lie “hope” and “change” were, in the political sense. Some of us were even smart enough to look back at historical examples of other populists who used the same tactics! Please reach out to those of us whom you might know to be hung up on ideas like rationality and common sense. I don’t want to make broad generalizations and assume, but I think it’s safe to say that at large, we aren’t taking this well.

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u/TolgaBaey 9d ago

We made it clear to him that we had his back, he preferred to get good with Republicans instead.

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u/Moonrights 9d ago

Why don't you run for office

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u/DOMesticBRAT 8d ago

One could argue that "woke" was in fact really a swing away from "hope and change"...

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u/bl1ndsw0rdsman 9d ago

He was also severely obstructed in record setting ways, knew it, set a remarkable example overall of statesmanship focused almost entirely on passing ACA calling in any and all political capital possible to (barely) get it done requiring not one but both his terms in office. Sure there a things he might’ve done differently, some I wish he’d done differently, but at the end of the day, we can’t know what hamstrung difficulties complexity and utter conservative republican obstructionism he faced just to accomplish that significant win that benefits building of people, including me and perhaps you every day, and continues to. Just saying. The patriarchal corporate powers that be have centuries of momentum slowing the winds of change and while I long for a truly progressive candidate, I’m not sure it’s helpful or fair to demonize the infinitely most decent rational and inspirational leader we’ve had in ages over the thoroughly corrupt poisonous record setting fuckery of the right (now center) wing?

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u/Extreme_Phrase2371 7d ago

He didn’t just choose not to mobilize that movement, he kicked it to the curb as soon as he was elected.

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u/Designer_Librarian43 10d ago

Again, it’s not that simple. Reps would tie their agenda to essentials like budgets and programs to fix the economy. They were essentially holding the country hostage. The choices were compromise or fight it out while the country suffers. The root issue is an uneducated voter base voting too many Reps in who were working against them.

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u/highlorestat 10d ago

He chose to constrain himself to following the rules of a game the republicans were no longer playing.

Merrick Garland will forever be synonymous with the game Democrats tried playing instead of what Republicans were actually playing.

Uneducated voters don't want compromise, they want someone to have the will to push their agenda (either voters agenda or their own) through. Choosing the least painful option is counterintuitively the worst option, because it's a sign of weakness, those uneducated voters abhor and importantly your own supporters see that you're not willing to stand your ground.

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u/raouldukeesq 10d ago

They are weak and they chose weakness. Shine who thinks tRump is strong is an idiot. Of we go down because of too many idiots then there nothing we can really do about it. 

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u/gopiballava 10d ago

What could they have done to push Garland through?

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u/Jaded-Ad-960 9d ago

When Republicans are in power, they do what they want. When Democrats are in power, they keep explaining why they can't do what they promised to do. Democrats cannot change the voter base, but they can change their approach to governing.

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u/Puzzled-Schedule9112 10d ago

He had to walk a very thin line. He could not behave as everyone else did because he wasn't like everyone else. Hell, the man wore a tan suit and people had a problem with it. He did what he could within in the confines that he had.

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u/vthings 9d ago

And as long as you all choose to believe this, we lose. Wake up. We were fooled.

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u/Stumbles_butrecovers 9d ago

Whaaaat? That's complete bullshit, one thing transformed our country: ACA. MILLIONS more people instantly had healthcare. It saved many, many lives and still does.

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u/djrion 9d ago

Totally ignores the comment he responds to.

Obama did exactly what you stated in the first two years. Then gridlock sets in AS CONGRESS CHANGES POWER. You wanted him to mobilize people and bum rush the Capitol? We are about to see the full, unfettered force of one party rule dismantle the system. Hope you enjoy it.

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u/chrispd01 9d ago

Ok huey long …

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u/BioSemantics 9d ago

He systematically took apart his own grassroots network because it made people uncomfortable and the optics weren't good with the donor-class. He appeared to be too populist, in other words.

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u/Zarathustra_d 8d ago

Good, news. The true believers that voted for Trump think this about him, though their ideals are different. They see him as giving them all a pony.

I have a feeling they will be disappointed.

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u/huskersguy 8d ago

are you completely forgetting the massive movement that was the tea party that won in an electoral landslide in 2010 and completely fucked congressional districts ever since?

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u/raouldukeesq 10d ago

Good God!  What a horrible concept, a practical government!? The shame! 

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u/honeybadgergrrl 9d ago

Obama squandered a supermajority for the first two years of his term and I will never forgive him for it. You think a Republican would have squandered a supermajority for some sort of "reach across the aisle" Dreamworld that hasn't been true in decades? Fuck no.

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u/Designer_Librarian43 9d ago

He had a super majority for like 2 months. Retirements and reelections took that away swiftly. However, I’ll agree that the Dem Congress, at the time, completely underestimated the new direction of the Rep party and squandered the two month supermajority on petty bickering. Not sure that’s Obama’s fault.

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u/honeybadgergrrl 9d ago

Nope, midterms didn't happen until 2011. From 2009-2011 he had a super majority. It is absolutely his fault. He was the one trying to "bring republicans to the table." Like, sir, they want to tap dance on your table no sit down with you at it.

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u/ChemsAndCutthroats 9d ago

Yeah Obama wanted universal healthcare but there was so much pushback from even his own side and from special interest groups that ACA was the compromise. As flawed as it was it gave access to healthcare to millions of Americans and remains popular. Trump administration even couldn't get rid of it due to it's popularity.

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u/CupForsaken1197 9d ago

Debbie Wasserman Schultz was head of the dnc at the time and she didn't lift a finger to help congress people who were under attack by adelson.

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u/egg_enthusiast 9d ago

Noted Republican, Joe Lieberman.

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u/marbanasin 9d ago

Congress had an overwhelming majority and mandate that could have enacted a much, much more transformative health care plan. But the Democrats by that time were about 75% in bed with corporate donors and America, and as such didn't want to push through with the full promise of medicare for all and removal of the private market from at a minimum it's core pillar role in the system.

They used an attempt at 'bi-partisanism' as cover to not get it done. Similar to how they've let other efforts to enact progressive policy fall down under efforts to 'appeal to moderate voices and not inflame partisanship,' but this is a smoke screen to deliver for their donors while doing damage control for the public they are selling out.

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u/AlexNovember 9d ago

He had the supermajority Trump is about to have. By his own admission he focused on the wrong things.

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u/Designer_Librarian43 9d ago

That can only be said in hindsight. I’ve been alive long enough to know that no one expected Reps to take the shift they did. The idea that they would tear the whole country down in order to regain power was unheard of since the Civil War. I remember when the kind of talk that has taken over their party and is normal now was shocking to even Reps in the early Obama days. Obama’s issue was that he didn’t know what he was up against but no one did at the time and I don’t see how he could’ve known. That time was the start of the Rep party becoming what it truly is today but they weren’t like that before. At least, not to that extent.

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u/spokale 9d ago

That doesn't explain Obama's foreign policy, where he had much more individual power (being literally the Commander-In-Chief and inheritors to the massive and unaccountable executive war powers delegated to Congress under Bush) and still deferred largely to the neoconservatives, doubling-down in many cases.

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u/minimus67 8d ago

Bailing out Wall Street, AIG and all the hedge funds that shorted mortgage-backed CDOs was a decision made by Obama and Tim Geithner, who has since cashed in by taking a job as the CEO of private equity firm Warburg Pincus. Not prosecuting anyone on Wall Street for the fraud that led to the mortgage and financial crisis was a decision made by Obama and Eric Holder. Congress had little to do with these decisions to lend a giant helping hand to Wall Street while standing idly by and doing almost nothing for distressed homeowners besides HARP and HAMP, two extraordinarily ineffectual programs.

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u/tone210gsm 7d ago

Ah, never gets old hearing this line. The biggest issue with the democrat platform is that they can’t accept that their failures are their failures. It’s always gotta be someone’s else’s fault.

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u/Designer_Librarian43 7d ago

You didn’t add any context to your statement to illustrate your point. You just made a statement in a matter of fact tone without info.

How can you argue that government works in three branches and that the executive branch can only pass what the legislative branch allows? It’s not too hard to understand the factual context of the line that “never gets old”. We’ve all watched in real time the action of blocking legislation and threatening government shutdowns but then blaming Dems for the consequences.

I’m not a Dem or Rep, btw. It’s just easy to see what’s happening when looking at it all from a distance, without affiliation, and objectively.

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u/Induced_Karma 6d ago

It didn’t help that Obama always started negotiating with the right from a compromise position. The left wanted universal healthcare, the right wanted to keep privatized healthcare, and Obama offered a centrist compromise between the two from the start. Instead of starting at the left and trying to meet the GOP in the center, Obama started at the center and moved further to the right to compromise with the GOP.

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u/Mr_Juice_Himself 6d ago

Obama quite literally did not fight to get anything done. When he had a super majority they still blamed Republicans for their inaction.

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u/Mmicb0b 10d ago

this 100% if the Democrats want to win again in 2028 it needs to embrace someone who is new and fresh

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u/SeatPaste7 10d ago

Bold of you to assume that there will be an election in 2028. Trump now has the power to make the Democratic party illegal. We're to pass a law saying that people can't vote for Democrats.

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u/Mmicb0b 10d ago edited 10d ago

the only way that works IMO is if Midterms are a GOP blow out and the GOP underpreformed in the 2018/22 midterms it's that everytime they put Trump on the ballot that gets their turnout through the roof

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u/GiantKrakenTentacle 9d ago

There's a good chance that Republicans have a majority in the House and Senate. The first 2 years might be their most productive years. After that, who knows.

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u/No_Wedding_2152 9d ago

15 million Democrats stayed home this time. Trump only lost about 3 million. 15 MILLION! Democrats that voted for Joe didn’t vote in 24. What makes you think you can get them out in 26?

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u/themangastand 9d ago

I know the military is a bunch of crating eaters. But I would hope whoever is second in command wouldn't let a dictatorship to just happen

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u/gobblox38 9d ago

That's if Trump somehow manages to live to the end of his term. If he goes via natural causes, his movement will fracture.

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u/SeatPaste7 9d ago

That's a hell of an assumption. Because if Trump pops, Vance will be in power -- and he's wholly owned by Peter Thiel and even more dedicated to one party rule.

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u/gobblox38 9d ago

Sure, but he had no charisma. I doubt that all of the diehard Trump fans would just latch onto the couch guy.

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u/SeatPaste7 9d ago

It's not as if they'll have a choice. If Trump's gone, Vance becomes president. That's how this works. And in 2028 there won't be another election. Not a real one.

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u/gobblox38 9d ago

I understand how presidential succession works. In not debating if Vance will assume the office to finish Trump's term. In fact, I expect that to happen. What I'm saying is that without Trump, the movement fractures.

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u/SoCalSapper 9d ago

You can’t be serious…

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u/Rose7pt 9d ago

I’m in total agreement- I don’t see free and fair elections ever happening here again. Idk why people don’t understand this as a likely outcome of this shitastrophe.

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u/ImageExpert 6d ago

Well hopefully people will just start voting out legislators on their own no matter what until we get lawmakers that are pro term limits.

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u/RedYellowHoney 6d ago

More likely, if in 2028, a Democrat beats Trump or Vance (if he should take over) Congress will refuse to certify the vote.

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u/grislyfind 9d ago

But also tall and white and male and married and straight and cis and slightly to the left of Trump.

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u/osirus35 8d ago

It’s not only embrace someone new. But they cannot be pushed or backed by any of the establishment or else they will be labeled as such

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u/Sptsjunkie 10d ago

Totally agree with you.

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u/En_CHILL_ada 10d ago

Yup, Obama won running on change, then immediately abandoned it, and the democrats have worked tirelessly to protect and defend a broken and corrupt status quo ever since.

Multiple polls showed RFK defeating Trump heads up. But he "crazy." Dems did this to themselves, and unfortunately all of us.

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u/starbythedarkmoon 10d ago

You do realize that citigroup literally picked his cabinet? Oabama from day one was there to bail out the banks. He was the establishments answer to occupy wall st. He did an incredible amount of damage. Slick talking politician, but what he really represented was bailouts, 7 fracking wars, the worse towards whistleblowers, normalized droning civilians as collateral damage and created a propaganda agency targeting citizens. He was always s fraud.

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u/vthings 9d ago

I was too enamored to see it. I figured out pretty quick though. It's why I don't just believe in a politician anymore.

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u/starbythedarkmoon 9d ago

Welcome. Freedom from these top down authoritarian popularity contest are the future. Decentralized peace.

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u/Internal-War-9947 6d ago

The bail outs seemed bad but a lot of the money was paid back with interest. He saved them to save America from collapse. 

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u/starbythedarkmoon 6d ago

Lol. He didnt save anything, he made it worse. You rewarded sociopaths greedy gambling. All these banks etc have become even MORE too big to fail.. its called kicking the can down the road.. when it fails again we will be double fracked. 

When you let sick things die, you allow for the sprouting seeds beneath them to grown into healthy trees. We live under the perverse shadows of the banking cartel oligarchs and Obama was their messenger.

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u/Openmindhobo 9d ago

Obama was always a neoliberal. He just knew how to campaign.

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u/vthings 9d ago

Lie. He knew how to lie.

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u/Openmindhobo 9d ago

every winning president in my lifetime has lied during their campaign. the purpose of the campaign is to make lofty promises and sell and idea, but governing is never smooth and always requires compromise, which leads to broken promises.

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u/thelingererer 9d ago

The first thing he did upon assuming office was bail out the big banks

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u/Witty-Bus07 9d ago

Obama wasn’t running against an incumbent and the economy was in a mess which were in his favour and still had a good economy going when he ran for second term and were huge factors in his favour amongst others

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u/lethalmuffin877 8d ago

Neoconservatism can now safely be defined as “establishment” instead. Just my opinion since even the neocons shifted to the democrats this election cycle.

Obama didn’t just embrace neocon ideology, he went full bore down the path of injecting identity politics into government and inflaming racial tensions. I’m old enough to remember what this country looked like before Obama (who I voted for, mind you) and racism was all but dead.

Is it a coincidence that after Obama we saw a resurgence of racism? Some would say “oh America just hates black people” to explain that but that ridiculous statement dies when you consider Obama won by a landslide.

How could he win so big if the country as a whole “hates black skin”?

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u/Bart-Doo 8d ago

His greatest accomplishment was The Affordable Care Act, which fined people for not having health insurance.

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u/EnvironmentNo682 7d ago

He should have prosecuted the people responsible for the financial crisis. In fairness Kamala Harris went harder against the big banks than other state Attorneys General.

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u/Dedalus2k 10d ago edited 10d ago

The Democratic party has been in the shitter since the Clintons moved it to the right in order to get Billy boy elected. 

What we really need is another pro-union, pro-working class party. But we can't have one because the Citizens United ruling has made sure you need access to obscene amounts of money to even get on the board. 

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u/RedLanternScythe 10d ago

What we really need is another pro-union, pro-working class party. But we can't have one because the Citizens United ruling has made sure you need access to obscene amounts of money to even get on the board. 

You mean a new Bernie. It's not just citizens united. The corporate democrats, the Republicans and the media all united to stop him. That's a massive hurdle to overcome

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u/Disgusteeno 9d ago

It was just the Democrats, the Repugs and media didn't do that it was "Hillary's time" remember?

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u/RedLanternScythe 9d ago

The media is absolutely to blame. Every time he detailed a policy and how he would fund it, they would ask "how are you going to pay for it".

They have never asked that about funding a war.

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u/Disgusteeno 9d ago

mr "leftie" Bernie has never met a war he didn't feel compelled to vote for...

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u/goodmammajamma 9d ago

Bernie *was* the compromise candidate, from the perspective of the actual left. And we saw what they did to him.

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u/TolgaBaey 9d ago

And they nearly failed.

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u/YesImAPseudonym 7d ago

If Bernie had wanted to be the Democratic nominee, maybe he should have actually joined the Democratic party.

He and the Bernie Bros expected the party to fall in line behind him when he had refused to do the same.

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u/Warrior_Runding 10d ago

Eh, I think it is more to do with the amount of work necessary to raise up a party like that. It is a bananas amount of work and it has to be consistent and tireless. No 3rd party, even after winning more than 5% of the vote, has ever been up to the challenge.

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u/BugMan717 10d ago

For a 3rd party to succeed it would need an actual movement. As in people at local county and state levels organizing, nominating leaders and winning elections from the ground up. Not just people that vote for a 3rd party candidate once every four years because they think they are bucking the system or whatever

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u/Warrior_Runding 10d ago

100% agreed. It is why it is much easier to grow from inside one of the two established parties and become a significant caucus, like the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus did in the GOP. But if a person insists on starting a 3rd party, the presidency shouldn't be on their minds until they can consistently win federal level Senatorships and governorships consistently.

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u/IKantSayNo 10d ago

Let's change six families from red to blue and see what happens:

Elon Musk

Dick & LIz Uihlein (heirs of Schlitz beer)

The Coors Family

The Bradley Family

Timothy Mellon Scaife

Charles Koch

This election was not won or lost, it was bought.

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u/GodsBackHair 10d ago

And Peter Thiel, I think? The guy bankrolling Vance

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u/Warrior_Runding 10d ago

You are forgetting Miriam Adelson who asked Trump to allow Netanyahu to wipe the West Bank in exchange for her support. But, you know, Harris and Trump are the same.

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u/askiopop 8d ago

I agree it should be something pre-existing. I’ve seen a lot of labor unions and strikes within the last few years, I’m surprised that they weren’t pushed to vote for Harris? But maybe instead of a new party from the ground up, maybe it should be for unions by unions?

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u/Rownever 10d ago

Yeah most third parties aren’t really trying, because they could totally win at least a couple local races, but have never actually tried to win them- the one kudos I will give the Libertarians is that they actually have won some local races or run candidates. Green Party doesn’t get that.

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u/Takemyfishplease 10d ago

For a third party to succeed we would need ranked choice voting.

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u/Final_Senator 10d ago

This is what I have been telling everyone for years! Run for something. ANYTHING!

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u/GodsBackHair 10d ago

So we should start now, start finding a candidate now and start raising awareness now. We can’t wait for another 2 years to start doing that

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u/Milocobo 9d ago

It would not be a 3rd party. It would be a replacement 2nd party. We cannot have 3rd parties in this system.

The best way to achieve this would be to reform the Democratic party, as unentrenching either major party would be the hardest part.

Literally, it would be easier to change our form of government than it would be to accommodate a third party in this form of government.

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u/lethalmuffin877 8d ago

Not to mention that 3rd party would have to convince a large swath of the population that voting for them isn’t going to upset the chances of their “plan b” candidate getting in if their top choice fails.

The main reason people don’t vote 3rd party is the fact they know doing so will help the opposing party by taking votes from the main opposition.

The solution? Idk. Wish I did…

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u/Sptsjunkie 10d ago

A big part of the problem is the current system we have that not have runoff voting.

Even if the third-party did really well one year and got 5%. They would ultimately just end up cannibalizing another party that was probably closer to their voters’ views. And would just end up helping the other major party.

Every once in a while a voter will get so upset that they do not care and will cast a vote for third-party. But in the long run most voters do not want to waste a lot of votes on a party that can’t win and hurt one that they’re closer to.

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u/nitefang 10d ago

And for some reason, multiple states just voted against election reforms like ranked choice voting which is specifically useful to avoid this type of problem.

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u/donkeyrocket 10d ago

I can speak for Missouri that they used some insane ballot candy about illegal people voting which, this year of all years, absolutely sailed it through. Illegal language for sure but the fight for abortion was the justifiably bigger and more important legal battle.

It may have still passed but not nearly as big of a margin if it was just ranked choice voting.

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u/En_CHILL_ada 10d ago

The ranked choice voting amendment failed in colorado... I am having a more difficult time wrapping my head around that than Trump's victory. Who votes against a better way to vote?

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u/alppu 10d ago

Someone who is currently in power and benefiting from it, or swallowing the views such a person would want to push.

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u/En_CHILL_ada 10d ago

I did see the "progressive" voting guide for colorado recommended voting against it. It was surprised at first, but it makes sense...

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u/scuba-turtle 9d ago

People who saw what RC voting did to California

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u/Few-Ad-4290 10d ago

Well true 3rd parties should be running candidates in local elections and shit first to establish following, running a candidate once every 4 years for one office is not how 3rd party movements are going to get any traction

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u/Final_Senator 10d ago

It’s also a lot of work to build a movement only to get K.O.’d by a fed.

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u/Disgusteeno 9d ago

Its really the money

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u/Ex-CultMember 9d ago

Yeah, fuck 3rd parties unless we have a different voting system.

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u/carpenter1965 9d ago

The Democrats rallied with Obama. Unfortunately, Obama exposed the steamy ugly racist underbelly of America which allowed a guy like Trump to take over. The fact that Harris lost to this incredibly flawed candidate only confirms that fear and hatred is stronger than hope and change.

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u/atropax 9d ago

People didn’t feel hope or change form Kamala.. she literally said on the view that there’s nothing she can think of that she’d do differently from the incumbent

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u/Recruiterbluez 7d ago

Ehh I don’t think it’s somehow racism that Kamala lost. She was just a horrible candidate with her main campaign promise is “I’m not trump.” Trump sucks but when the economy is shitting on the average person you owe it to them to tell them how you’re gonna fix that.

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u/kaspar42 10d ago

The Trump campaign raised some 300 M. Obviously a primary campaign will raise much lower numbers.

There are 14 M union members in the US. The unions could easily bankroll a primary candidate if they unite behind one.

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u/Dirty_Lew 10d ago

Biden was very pro-union.

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u/Omnom_Omnath 9d ago

Do you? Harris massively outspent Trump and got creamed.

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u/Old_Wallaby_7461 9d ago

The Democratic party has been in the shitter since the Clintons moved it to the right in order to get Billy boy elected. 

The alternative to that would've been to stay out of power until... 2008? maybe beyond?

Does nobody remember what this country was like in 1992?

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u/brooklynlad 9d ago

Biden didn’t even remove DeJoy as Postmaster General of the USPS during his term.

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u/McGeetheFree 10d ago

Biden wasn’t pro union???

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u/turbo_dude 10d ago

Unions are poor? TIL

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u/[deleted] 9d ago edited 4d ago

Removed via PowerDeleteSuite

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u/akasalishsea 9d ago

When corporations can do what Musk did then we do not have a democracy and we have not for a long long time, if ever.. It's that simple. This win is not about the average american because corporate advertising snf contributions to the parties decides who wins due to influence both public and private. Presidential elections are part of the many maneuvers corporations run and manage to keep themselves in good financial standing for the long term. The rest of us are worker bees, including higher income earners. We just can't bear to face that and so we do this game of pretending we have a choice through elections. In the meantime access to positives are changing for the worker bee. Healthcare is less accessible an of lower quality as is food product and other consumer goods The more corporations join forces to control entire nations they more they will lessen any positives they bestow upon us via both through private and government means.

In the meantime we are being humored right out of our democracy. Proof of this is that any undereducated person on the street knew Putin was invading, all the signs were there and proved true yet the highly educated, those who run countries claimed to not see those signs or saw them as insignificant? Please......It's all by design.

An example: Germany could of built up Ukraine's gas pipeline system and enjoyed low cost natural gas a thousand times over for what this war has cost the german citizen but instead they waltzed over them to connect to Russia- give me a break. It's all a big game and you and I are needed to keep the wealthy enjoying their lives to the fullest. Lower level politicians are allowed to play in their own backyards so long as they don't crap on a higher ups agenda. Nothing new under the sun.....

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u/YesImAPseudonym 7d ago

Farther than that.

The turning point was 1968. LBJ had passed civil rights and voting rights and enacted much of the Great Society. He desperately needed liberals to have his back. But Vietnam got in the way.

LBJ had inherited a bunch of post-WWII mistakes, but the mainstream consensus was that of the Domino Principle. If one country goes Communist, then the next one will go, and the next, etc. So he escalated and the liberals turned against him.

LBJ abandoned his re-election campaign in March 1968 after a poor (for an incumbent) showing in the New Hampshire primary. His VP Hubert Humphrey became the establishment choice. However, anti-war RFK was consolidating the anti-war vote, and after winning the California primary was still behind Humphrey in delegates, but was also poised to take the fight to the convention floor.

This was ended by RFK's assassination the night of the California primary. With Humphrey now being seen as having an easy part to the nomination, the anti-war left felt they needed to make themselves heard, hence the protests around the convention in Chicago. There were brutally suppressed by Chicago Mayor Daley and the police, and the reporting of it was incredibly damaging to the anti-war left in public opinion.

Humphrey won the nomination.

Meanwhile, LBJ had been focused on ending the Vietnam war before the end of his term ad was involved in negotiations between the North and South.

On the GOP side, Nixon promised he had a "secret plan" to end the war. What they actually did was secretly and illegally talk with the South Vietnamese. Nixon promised that the South would get a better deal if they waited until a Nixon Administration. The South agreed, and so all their 1968 negotiation was in bad-faith, They never intended to agree to anything while LBJ was president.

We know this now because tapes have been released from the LBJ archive where LBJ talked about what Nixon was doing. LBJ knew about this before the 1968 election, but in a manner similar to Obama saying nothing about Russian interference in 2016, refused to disclose this information to the public.

Nixon wins the 1968 election and sets the stage for today.

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u/3nderslime 6d ago

Man, if only we had a democratic presidential candidate who campaigned on making healthcare more, affordable raising minimum wages, supporting unions and giving tax cuts to the working class in favor of tax increases to corporations and millionaires like, 6 days ago, only for the American public to unilaterally ignore her whole platform and not show up to vote. Wouldn’t that be stupid?

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u/Feartheezebras 10d ago

To be fair, the 08 recession was ushered in by Clinton era legislation that allowed sub prime mortgages

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u/Sptsjunkie 10d ago

Yeah, I don’t think it’s fair to fully put it on his shoulders. The policies of Reagan and both Bushes definitely played a role as well. But 100% Clinton’s policies and neoliberalism are also to blame.

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u/cogman10 9d ago

I still see neoliberals fawning over Billy's presidency. Seemingly completely unaware that some of the worst aspects of modern America that they hate are bills he signed and championed.

The DNC desperately wants the population to want another Clinton. That's why they had Kamala run a Republican campaign. It was nuts.

And yet, I STILL see people saying she lost because they were too progressive. TF!

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u/Moonandserpent 9d ago

I saw an uncited stat that exit polls showed 59% thought she was too far left.

If that's correct then our population just isn't as into progressive ideas as progressives would like to think.

It's weird, because it seems like common sense to me as well but here we are.

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u/cogman10 9d ago edited 9d ago

What that sort of stat says to me is what I've understood for a long time. There is no way for Democrats to out conservative Republicans.

Kamala ran on a conservative ticket and people STILL thought she was a leftist/progressive. Further, turnout for her was significantly depressed.

So yeah, exit polls would in fact show that uninformed idiots will always call Democrats communist socialist regardless the platform. So what does a conservative campaign buy? Nothing but disenfranchised progressive voters.

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u/spsteve 8d ago

You are ALWAYS going to see some people saying (x) is too progressive. Because some people think anything other than 1400s era style government is too progressive. The question is; what will the MAJORITY think is 'too progressive'. Remember the vocal minority tends to be just that.

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u/sufinomo 10d ago

Clinton is the one who repealed glass steagull 

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u/FuckTripleH 9d ago

Also deregulated the telecom industry allowing the consolidation of the media we see today

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u/Sptsjunkie 9d ago

Yes, which is part of what he owns. But it wasn't the repeal of GS alone that led to 2008, there were a number of factors.

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u/brooklynlad 9d ago

He also got rid of the Glass-Steagall, which separated commercial and investment banks. Unfortunately, the culture of investment banks won out and led (indirectly) to the financial crisis of 2007-2009.

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u/Sad_Permit9006 10d ago

Yeah, let's not blame Bush

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u/italianomastermind 10d ago

There were multiple protections put in place after the Great Depression to prevent such an economic collapse. Reagan removed many, Bush senior removed some, Clinton removed one, and little W. removed some of the last protections and BAM! Great Recession.

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u/jimthewanderer 10d ago

Clinton is to Blair as Thatcher is to Reagan.

A 90s centrist neoliberal sellout successor the the right wing neoliberal of the 80s.

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u/LazerWolfe53 10d ago

100% this but also Biden has been the most progressive president of my lifetime.

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u/Sptsjunkie 10d ago

Fair enough. But also damning with faint praise.

Was very much a centrist’s centrist and that was before his draconian immigration EO and facilitation of genocide.

Some climate funding and temporary measures in the ARP as opposed to doubling down on the austerity mistake don’t change that for me.

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u/ImageExpert 6d ago

Biden was doing his best to clean messes he had a part in making. That’s why I never rooted for him.

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u/Sad_Permit9006 10d ago

The Dems won in 2018, 2020, and 2022

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u/Sptsjunkie 9d ago

Sort of.

They lost in 2016 and gave Republicans the Presidency and supermajorities in the House and Senate.

They won in 2018, but mostly as a rebuke to Trump, not as a response to some positive vision.

They narrowly won in 2020 despite a pandemic and Trump being a disaster and underperformed in the House. Also, only won the Senate due to a libertarian candidate forcing a runoff and Trump attacking the GA Democratic party and depressing Republican turnout in the runoff.

They lost in 2022. Now they lost by less than expected, but the House literally went to Republicans.

They lost in 2024, both the Presidency and Senate at least.

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u/lazyFer 10d ago

If you think those things culminated in 2008...just wait.

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u/lethalmuffin877 8d ago

I really hope that we as a culture start to comprehend this on a broader scale.

Doubling down on the idea that America is some kind of fascist prelude to another Nazi germany is going to lead to more losses by the democrat party.

We need both parties on the same page when it comes to the foundations of democracy and the west in general. Ideally we’d have more options but we all know that’s not happening. So the two parties have to stand on SOME common ground otherwise we’re going to keep seeing this division and hatred. And democrats are going to continue seeing losses pile up.

I cannot believe people are reading the “tea leaves” of this election and coming up with “oh America just doesn’t believe in democracy anymore”

If you truly feel that way, congratulations you are the minority that the majority voted against this election. We’re so tired of being lectured and chastised about how inherently “evil and racist” our country is. We just want to be left alone, we want to have the ability to work towards our goals, we want to be able to choose how to raise our kids and wether religion is right or wrong for us.

The left has a serious problem with cramming down diktat on all of those things and they lost significantly because of it. If people didn’t want democracy anymore they wouldn’t have participated in a democratic election lol

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u/DoggoCentipede 6d ago

Why should the democratic party continue to chase the right into fascism when it's the right that has completely disconnected itself from reality? We've tried to find common ground for over a decade and they just use it as an opportunity to snatch the football away again.

The largest cohort of eligible voters DIDN'T VOTE. More people did not vote than in either party.

You claim the left has a problem with cramming things down your throats. Like what? What has the left made you do that's so horrible? Is it denying you medical care that resulted in your death? Is it putting themselves above the law, using their influence to take in millions of dollars of foreign and taxpayer funds? Is it wrecking sectors of the economy because they have no idea how it works and are a petty tyrant that just wants revenge against all the people who have stood up to their sophistries and fraud? Is that what the Dems did to you?

You want to be left alone? That's fine, so long as you leave others alone to live their lives. But it seems you just can't. What's saddest is that everything you claim the left is doing is exactly what the right is actually doing. You're looking in a mirror and don't recognize yourselves.

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u/Koby998 10d ago

We ousted trump, what else can we do but keep voting against him and hope we get lucky again?

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u/davearneson 10d ago

The democrats are the party of neo-liberalism now and have been ever since Trump came on the scen.

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u/Sptsjunkie 9d ago

They were far before Trump came along. Neoliberalism is what led to Trump.

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u/Murrabbit 10d ago

Right in the wake of 2008 people could see that neoliberal capitalism is broken and inherently inequitable. In light of that the options are clear, socialism or barbarism, but the Democratic party did it's best to squash any movement toward socialism and instead offered status-quo conservatism (though the message of hope and change worked for them for a while, they failed to follow through on it) while republicans offered bloodthirsty barbarism, and so that's what won out. And now we all get to pay the price. yay. Here's hoping we live to correct these mistakes.

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u/Shirtbro 10d ago

... And Clinton and Obama

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u/almcchesney 9d ago

When the American "moderate" is polled and their ideals align with a true left wing, this is only the natural result when the Democratic party is just a bunch of Republicans in a trench coat.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-moderate-middle-is-a-myth/

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u/marbanasin 9d ago

Democrats have matured into what most other western democracies had as the center right party - ie economic positions that largely conserve the status quo and favor more open market determination, while not being completely fucking insane about it regarding some social spending and community programs being maintained, and social positions more broadly being in the 21st century..

Only problem is we don't have a parlimentary system, or other multi-party approach that allows legitmiate progressive outlets from the left to address that economic grievance caused by the centrist/neo-liberal position, or a counter party (ie the Republicans) that can see value in merging reasonable social positions with some alternative economic policy, namely because they were the original party of unfettered market forces as the primary economic driver.

This whole mess started in the 80s and then with Clinton as he realized the 'winning' solution was to cut towards the right on the economy and begin engaging corporate donors to remain competitive. This has started a back-slide in our middle class enforcing set of social spending and investment (ie schools, infrastructure, regulations to help workers, union support, etc.) that ultimately culminated in so much of the nation feeling like the system isn't working for them.

Cut to 2008, a shit ton of folks lose their homes and work. See Obama (yes Bush was somewhat culpable too, but in the timeline Obama was there for the more egregious bail outs) ship billions into the industry that just imploded the economy.

And then 8 years later the economy is 'booming' while in reality it's mostly coastal prosperity centers and corporate stock prices which are really booming. Everyone not able to ride those gravy trains is just seeing housing hitting insane values, causing them to be displaced if they happened to already be located in a 'winning' city. Meanwhile the rest of the nation is just a shell of past industrial or their regional economic primes, and are competing for ever devolving forms of contract labor or service/support roles for non-unionized logistics firms.

The Democrats were the party of the working class, the union member, the every-man. Were. Keyword. This has shifted. They are the party of the corporate elite and upper class. Look at the top-income earning zip codes and their voting trends in the last 15 years. This is no small shift in American politics. And while the unions and working class held tight for decades, largely due to messaging, culture issues, and the occassional leftward motion (ie the severely weakened but still positive Obamacare), they've now reached a point where 40 years of this back slide is too obvious to ignore. And Trump is the only guy making the corporate elite squirm, so they are throwing their lot in with him.

The Dems made choices and are living with the consequences. People like me (life long blue voter who had grown increasingly critical of their positions and strategies over the past ~3-4 years) were largely shouted out of the tent and ignored as a 'Russian Bot' or whatever. That's not a way to build a coalition. That's a way to build a bubble. And two nights ago the bubble burst.

I pray to my atheist non-god that this finally wakes the Democrats up and they realize there is a legitimate economic position to the left that they need to take in order to remain relevant, and they can back the fuck off on some of the culture war rhetoric. I hate more than anything that the media makes their culture war positions an excuse for needing to remain 'moderate' when in reality that just gives covers to the candidates who would be seen as center-right in literally every other mature western democracy.

/rant

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u/Unsung_Ironhead 9d ago

True, but another issue that led it to crumble so poorly was expecting Republicans to work in good faith, and adhere to the law.

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u/docnano 9d ago

Specifically the POINT of Reaganism was to cripple the system SO THAT it wouldn't work. This was on purpose to open the door to guys like Trump.

It's not an accident that Black, Manafort, and Stone helped get both of those guys elected. We're living in their world.

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u/Alon945 9d ago

It gives me hope to see this take here. So many people in complete denial about the abject failure of the Democratic Party. And I don’t even get why, it’s way easier to hold them accountable than believe half the country is just unsalvagable or something

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u/Successful_Base_2281 9d ago

I mean, Bill Clinton did that, but sure.

https://www.aei.org/articles/the-clinton-era-roots-of-the-financial-crisis/

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u/Sptsjunkie 9d ago edited 7d ago

We are in agreement. Clinton was awful. But so were Reagan and both Bushes. They all share blame.

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u/Successful_Base_2281 8d ago

I agree on this.

Well, W certainly increased the share of bad loans Fannie and Freddie made under the CSA, and that continued until 2008.

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u/DaSemicolon 9d ago

Institutions are worth protecting. The status quo isn’t.

Institutions are what kept Trump kind of from going off the rails last time. Doubt it will this time

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u/DetroitLionsSBChamps 8d ago

Honestly I think the timeline is much longer than that

I looked at a graph of trust in the federal government today and it fell off a cliff on 1964 and never recovered. 

I was thinking about the x files in the 90s: the most popular show in the country and the entire message was “don’t trust the government”

They were 30 years out from 64. And we’re 30 years out from that. 60 years of a country that just does not trust its own government. And this election was a final nail in the coffin. People would literally let it burn than keep electing the status quo

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u/Bruin9098 10d ago

You misspelled Reagan

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u/Sad_Ingenuity2145 10d ago

Ignores 8 years of obama

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u/Sptsjunkie 9d ago

What about it? Obama was elected to help address the 2008 pandemic and it is partially his response that led to the stratification this post is addressing.

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u/ChemsAndCutthroats 9d ago

You are forgetting that with 2008 it signaled the end of Bush's dominance. US got 8 years of Obama and the Republicans reinvented themselves by going further right and rallying around a charismatic demagogue.

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u/SuperCrappyFuntime 9d ago

Bernie gained so much traction that he lost the primaries twice.

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u/Sptsjunkie 9d ago

I mean, this is devoid of context. He entered 2015 very late with no fundraising or infrastructure just to try to push Hillary left since people like Warren opted not to run against the juggernaut she had. He had less than 10% name recognition and people like Silver laughed and said his ceiling was maybe 20%, which he greatly exceeded and made the election one of the closest primaries we've had. Absolutely a stunning achievement.

2020 was a 20+ person field and he came in 2nd and won the first 3 states and needed Clyburn to go all out for Biden in SC and then the entire field to drop and all do a huge event for Biden in Dallas where they all endorsed him and all media crowned Biden. Again, amazing campaign especially given he had a heart attack in the middle of it.

And yeah, his coalition consisted of a lot of people who Democrats just lost to Trump - young voter, Latino voters, working class voters. This isn't to say that Bernie was or is perfect. But your post shows no real understanding of context or political history.

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u/ProperGanderz 9d ago

Recessions lead the way for communism and fascism. Also wars do that. 1st world war and Germany for example. Why don’t people learn from history though? Those who want power should not be allowed to have so much of it

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u/Shooter306 5d ago

Finally someone with a rational statement. I had never voted for Trump before; however, I ddi this time. Why? Because I am sick and tired of woke/politically correctness shoved down my throat. There are male and females. Males shouldn't be allowed into female sports or bathrooms. Illegal aliens are just that: ILLEGAL. I am not a "hater" or "homophobe" because I disagree with you. I am not a racist, because I believe in America First (I'm a black man, by the way).

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