Quo Vadis, Democrats?

[Josquius]

Well. If you define always as since WW2...
Though even up to Reagen there's a decent argument it was a lot more centred in many areas.

And don't be ridiculous. Of course left wingers don't want the US to collapse. You're doing that thing again of assuming a right wing frame and assuming left wingers believe in this same view of the world but choose the baddies.

[Razgovory]

Well. If you define always as since WW2...
Though even up to Reagen there's a decent argument it was a lot more centred in many areas.

And don't be ridiculous. Of course left wingers don't want the US to collapse. You're doing that thing again of assuming a right wing frame and assuming left wingers believe in this same view of the world but choose the baddies.

I'm really getting a "bring it down" vibe from the left.  Decolonize the American settler-colonialist state, end the American empire, honor all treaties to native Americans (this would amount to handing over all US territory to native tribes).

DSA has written this program for ending capitalist oligarchy and creating a real democracy. Some of these demands may be won under our current system, but we know complete victory will require building a new society from the ground up. We push these demands to their furthest extent today, so we can fight for their fullest realization in a socialist future. Join us.

https://program.dsausa.org/#demand-end-war-machine


Can't build a new system from the ground up without bringing the old system down.  Which is probably why they want a new constitution.  Since half the leadership of the DSA is now Democratic Centralist, I shudder to think what such a constitution would look like.

You would be happy that to know that they do basically agree with Trump on Ukraine.  Get the US out of NATO and no weapons or money for Ukraine.

[Josquius]

I'm really getting a "bring it down" vibe from the left.  Decolonize the American settler-colonialist state, end the American empire, honor all treaties to native Americans (this would amount to handing over all US territory to native tribes).
 

Sounds like you're talking about a small niche of very silly people here. I've never heard talk of handing over the entire US to native tribes.
Where natives are mentioned at all (not a big thing that I've seen) it's more with an eye towards the progress of other anglo nations than anything so daft.

[Tamas]

Yeah Raz. What you describe may be the virtue-signaling chest-thumping of a few Tankie 20 year olds, but I seriously doubt that the left of American politics are looking to dismantle their country and give it back to native Americans. That's silly cartoon villain level. Stuff.

[Razgovory]

I mean, this shit is in the DSA program.  Of course they don't actually intend to actually hand territory over, it's simply an instrument to bring down the current system and build a new one in their image. 

The Left is where the right was ten years ago: Bring the system down.

[DGuller]

Yeah Raz. What you describe may be the virtue-signaling chest-thumping of a few Tankie 20 year olds, but I seriously doubt that the left of American politics are looking to dismantle their country and give it back to native Americans. That's silly cartoon villain level. Stuff.

They probably don't mean it, but just the fact that they think saying such nonsense signals the right kind of virtue indicates where their minds are. 

I think Raz is hitting at a real weakness:  the way to signal you're serious to others on the left is to engage in self-flagellating loser talk.  That doesn't really attract those not already indoctrinated and not willing to be indoctrinated, although clearly it attracts quite a lot of people willing to be indoctrinated, as it's becoming more mainstream to look for everything negative in the US, real and exaggerated, and taking pride of nothing that is positive.

[Sheilbh]

I think as in Europe there's a left-right divide but also a sort of pro-system/establishment v anti-system/establishment divide and the two interact, but are not the same.

And I think the reason for that on left and right is because the system kind of deserves it? Certainly for many people - forever wars, global financial crisis, opioid epidemic, China shock and deindustrialisation (accompanied with the nostrums about helping communities adapt for the new economy that never actually happen), the inequalities all of that has driven - to the extent that life expectancy is falling in America which is very late Soviet (see Emmanuel Todd). What is the system's record that would inspire a defence?

I don't think it's the first time we've seen this - there were similar energies in the 70s which produced both the unlikeliest outcome in a Carter presidency and then the Reagan ascendancy. I'm unclear at how it ends but I think a large part of why people want to burn the system down (and very much not just in the US) is because the system deserves it.

[DGuller]

I think as in Europe there's a left-right divide but also a sort of pro-system/establishment v anti-system/establishment divide and the two interact, but are not the same.

And I think the reason for that on left and right is because the system kind of deserves it? Certainly for many people - forever wars, global financial crisis, opioid epidemic, China shock and deindustrialisation (accompanied with the nostrums about helping communities adapt for the new economy that never actually happen), the inequalities all of that has driven - to the extent that life expectancy is falling in America which is very late Soviet (see Emmanuel Todd). What is the system's record that would inspire a defence?

I don't think it's the first time we've seen this - there were similar energies in the 70s which produced both the unlikeliest outcome in a Carter presidency and then the Reagan ascendancy. I'm unclear at how it ends but I think a large part of why people want to burn the system down (and very much not just in the US) is because the system deserves it.

Maybe my perception is skewed by living through the collapse of the USSR, and the total economic disintegration that followed, but this kind of desperation just seems incomprehensible to me.  Where is this terminal dissatisfaction coming from?  This system that deserves being burned down is still the one that attracts people from every other system that exists in this world.

[Zoupa]

Where is this terminal dissatisfaction coming from? 

I've read a compelling article somewhere blaming boredom. So there's that. I'll try to find it.

[Zoupa]

Fukuyama.

https://www.persuasion.community/p/boredom-at-the-end-of-history-part-i

https://www.persuasion.community/p/boredom-at-the-end-of-history-part-ii

[DGuller]

Where is this terminal dissatisfaction coming from? 

I've read a compelling article somewhere blaming boredom. So there's that. I'll try to find it.

I think that's a good explanation actually, humans sometimes create problems when problems don't present themselves on their own.  Another explanation I can think of is that Western objective success sometimes comes at the cost of what really matters:  social connections.  Suffering can foster camaraderie, while success often brings isolation.

[HVC]

comparison is the thief of joy. While the west is still better off then a lot of other nations compared to past generations were worse off and especially to the well off people we are in a more unequal then they've ever been in recent history.

[Sheilbh]

Maybe my perception is skewed by living through the collapse of the USSR, and the total economic disintegration that followed, but this kind of desperation just seems incomprehensible to me.  Where is this terminal dissatisfaction coming from?  This system that deserves being burned down is still the one that attracts people from every other system that exists in this world.

Again to list it the two failed wars, the torture, the global financial crisis with foreclosures and other impacts for a decade, the opioid crisis and rising deaths of despair in the US, de-industrialisation and destruction of commmunities and pride in them - I'd also add persistent underestimation of the threat from both Putin and Xi. That is the legacy of the system and the establishment - it was not the burn the system down guys who left that legacy - and I think that is what an awful lot of people are angry about. And I think very often it has been combined with either a head in the sand attitude to those problems or promises that have never materialised - for example on helping affected communities transition to the new economy - I can't think of one example where that actually meaningfully and successfully happened.

This is not all evenly distributed and it may very well be the case that in aggregate things have continued to improve, but people don't live their lives in aggregate. It's been pretty good for me - but I'm a professional in major urban centre. And I think it does also interact with in the US especially institutional decay. The self-willing, wilful subordination of Congress is enormous and that is a gaping hole at the heart of the American system.

You're absolutely right it's nowhere near as bad as post-Soviet states - but in the same as people don't experience their lives in the aggregate, they also don't experience it in a sort of Our World in Data way but in comparison with their own previous experience, or that of immediate friends and families. However even then there is a shift and this is in large party the rise of China and Asia that is destabilising  - I'm not sure on the US but in 1990 the poorest quintile of Italians was in the top 75% of global income (and lifestyle), they're now in the bottom half. I think that's probably true across the West as the global middle clas (overwhelmingly from Asia and China particularly) emerges and in the world of what sort of little luxuries is acceptable for the poor and the working class in our societies, they've slipped down the list quite significantly.

Again this is the contrast with China - we are generation from the very start of 'reform and opening' with profound, deep poverty across China, only two generations from the Cultural Revolution - that change within people's experience is a huge source of system legitimacy.

As I say the 70s produced a lot of disruption (in Europe and the US) and I think the issues then were in many ways a lot more serious and challenging (I also think the statecraft and quality/ability of politicians and leaders was higher) and I think in the US in particular the institutional arrangements were vastly more robust. Congress mattered.

[crazy canuck]

If the argument is based on comparing the United States to the Soviet Union, post collapse, it kind of gives up the game, doesn't it?


It astounds me that people can be so blind to the effects of wealth accumulation, which we have not seen since the Gilded Age.

I'm genuinely perplexed as to why people are so ignorant of the basic economic effects

[Sophie Scholl]

AIPAC has spent a record amount on Michigan's Senate primary, the biggest test of its influence yet, as per AP article linked. I'm not sure how you can view such things as positives, even if you are pro-Israeli. *Any* massive influx of PAC funds, especially mystery ones likes the advertising millions spent in this race as mentioned in the article, to *any* campaign is bad for democracy in my opinion.

https://apnews.com/article/aipac-michigan-senate-stevens-elsayed-588bb869eb557643950bf68d6a0d7a10