• markstos@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Imagine a beach of infinite length with one lemonade stand on it.

    Where do you open a second lemonade stand to maximize sales if people will buy from the closet stand?

    The answer: next to the first stand. Everyone to the left of your stand will find you are the best option and everyone to the right will choose the other.

    This model explains why two political parties along a spectrum can end up not too different from each other in an attempt to capture the most votes.

    • Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz
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      6 days ago

      Weird how the republicans never use this logic to add dem policy, but democrats always use this logic to duplicate republican policy and messaging, and then eat shit in elections because betraying your base to do what the opposition wants is the best way to decrease turnout.

  • rising_man@lemmy.world
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    6 days ago

    Politics today:

    -Far Left pretending they are normal Left wing, and everyone else are dumb fascists.

    -Far Right pretending they are normal Right wing, and everyone else are woke communists.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      You forgot:

      -Centrists pretending they see through everyone by just picking the centerpoint on an arbitrary axis, without actually considering which side is actually correct

    • enthusiasm_headquarters@lemmy.world
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      6 days ago

      The “left” in the United States is much further right on the global median. The Democrats are barely a center-left party on the global political spectrum.

      Traditionally, at least since the Reagan Coalition was formed, the Democrats have functioned as a Republican-regulation party, the safety valve of rightwing ideas. The Republicans have put all of their chips on the Reagan Coalition, which they know is a tent with limited accommodations for the non-white non-rightwing. Both of these strategies have weaknesses that we can see cracking open in real time.

      The Democrats, by comparison, are a much bigger tent of a party, and regional pressures and interests make it much harder for them to break the mold. There are still Democrats that identify as “conservative,” if you can believe that, and a substantial amount of them, too. There used to be “liberal Republicans,” but that number has dwindled into near-zero %.

      I’m not in any way forgiving these dissenting senators for destroying what little health care Americans have. If there were any time in history where any one senator could choose to go rogue and still get re-elected, it’s now.

  • jcarax@beehaw.org
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    7 days ago

    On the one hand, a totally unified party is clearly a problem. I don’t particularly want the Democrats to be united on everything, we can see from the Republicans that is a recipe for authoritarianism.

    On the other hand, it would be nice if they could fucking unite against authoritarianism.

    • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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      7 days ago

      Unity is a good thing if it’s around a good idea, like climate change. Disciplined parties that openly discuss problems internally and come to a resolute conclusion on are far more effective at meeting the needs of the people. There isn’t a “recipe for authoritarianism,” we can see that it is through disunity that the Statesian working class is divided and oppressed.

      • jcarax@beehaw.org
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        5 days ago

        I guess my major issue is that unifying discussions shouldn’t be behind closed doors, and it certainly shouldn’t be around anything and everything one person or group of people says. Both of those things are dangerous, and it’s partially in contrast to those dangerous forms of unity that Democrats seem so disjointed.

        Another part of it is that the Republican party has been going off the rails for decades now, and that’s brought the Democratic party further right as people jumped ship to it. With the party representing such a large spectrum, it’s understandable that there’s more diversity in opinion. Two parties are already not enough, but when you cram more of the political landscape into just the one, well, here we are. It makes it even harder to stand up to what caused it in the first place.

        Though that still pales in comparison to the problems of money in politics and lack of term limits, and many other things I’d consider in different layers.

    • JustKeepStretching@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      So an independent, a dude that essentially went maga after a stroke, and 6 other centrist Democrats making a deal means liberals are “spineless”.

      I guess we should all stop voting because both sides are the same right bro?!?!

      • kittenzrulz123@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        7 days ago

        The cowardice is significantly deeper than those six Democrats, its also with Chuck Schumer and the entire party. Quite frankly if the party had even the semblance of a spine than they would have purged many of these politicans long ago. The party should uphold an absolute basic standard and if we had a real left wing party than it absolutely would.

      • JoYo@lemmy.ml
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        7 days ago

        It’s pretty obvious that without an institution there’s absolutely nothing that will be done to stop the Epstein class. A large enough institution will include some traitors.

        “Let us remember that a traitor may betray himself and do good that he does not intend. It can be so, sometimes.”

    • SippyCup@lemmy.ml
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      7 days ago

      Charles Schumer makes policy decisions based on an imaginary Republican family.

      Democrats have been basically Republicans since the Clinton administration.

    • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksBanned from community
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      7 days ago

      You mean the two Dems and the independent that acted as scabs and went against the rest of the democratic party?

      US Senate advances bill to end federal shutdown

      Sunday’s deal was brokered by Democratic Senators Maggie Hassan and Jeanne Shaheen, both from New Hampshire, and Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine, said a person familiar with the talks. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, the chamber’s top Democrat, voted against the measure. Many Democrats on the Hill watched the deal unfold with displeasure.

        • Basic Glitch@sh.itjust.worksBanned from community
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          7 days ago

          I agree this should be the career ending vote for 8 scabs, but I also think refusing to replace them with better candidates if they also run as dems, won’t do anything other than guarantee the re-election of 8 scabs.

          • anarchiddy@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            7 days ago

            It doesnt matter if they’re democrat or independent - what matters is that they aren’t a class traitor.

            Do whatever you want but I sure as fuck wouldnt vote for a democrat who is going to sell me out as soon as acting in my interest is politically inconvenient.

  • Gonzako@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    Oh, yeah this is defo controlled opposition. When people asked for spine, they got jello.

    • comfy@lemmy.ml
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      6 days ago

      I wouldn’t even call it purity testing, they’re just testing. I’ve seen obsession over purity taken to a counterproductive extent, and I maintain that it can be a problem when dealing with a complex unideal reality, but what BadEmpanada is talking about here is fine. That’s a healthy level of testing, and important in preventing recuperation or sanewashing. Democrats are a bourgeois-controlled party and don’t share our class interests.

      To give an example of the kind that is counterproductive, I know of a (small) socialist organisation in my country which has been banned from worker strikes after counterprotesting one, insisting that since industrial unions are bureaucratic, the workers should all just boycott the strike and make their own union. This group claims all other socialist organisations are impure and pseudo-leftist whenever they compromise with material reality and present conditions.

      And, obviously, that’s a whole other world of purity testing to what you’re talking about. The problems are when it reaches no-true-Scotsman levels.

  • BanMe@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Democrats are like half the left tho, so we can either fight prog vs dem, or we can unite to actually take on an external foe

      • SolarPunker@slrpnk.net
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        7 days ago

        I suppose you are both referring to USA politics: it seems clear that dems contains many different souls but I wouldn’t call AOC or Sanders right-wing, even here in Europe where we actually have real left.

        • Dessalines@lemmy.ml
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          7 days ago

          Both pro-war candidates. Sanders voted to bomb like 8 countries, and AOC has supported israel many times with her votes also, like the iron dome.

        • Spectre@lemmy.mlOP
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          7 days ago

          The left starts at anti-capitalism. Anything other than that is right wing

            • Spectre@lemmy.mlOP
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              7 days ago

              Reformism is not anti-capitalism. Reforms are just nicer capitalism. There will still be capitalism and imperialism but people just get a bigger slice of the imperialist pie until the ruling class decides to take the slice away.

              • SolarPunker@slrpnk.net
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                7 days ago

                In a state where there are neofascists like Trump, Mamdani is the left, face it. If you deny this, you’re completely ignoring political pragmatism and confusing the historical left with their actual political left.

              • CannonFodder@lemmy.world
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                7 days ago

                “People get a bigger slice of the … pie until the ruling class decides to take the slice away”
                Isn’t that just the same with all systems?

                • NuclearDolphin@lemmy.ml
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                  7 days ago

                  The state is the mechanism through which one class exerts its dominance over the others.

                  Bourgeois states are the enforcement arm of capital. When it offers improved conditions, it is merely a carrot to prevent you from taking actions that may jeopardize its power.

                  In a similar vein, proletarian controlled states can do the same, but the concessions go towards capital and the day-to-day ruling is on behalf of the workers.

                  If we want concessions that cannot be revoked, we must overthrow the bourgeois state and replace with a workers state. We cannot reform our way into a society where capital does not have near complete power.

          • SolarPunker@slrpnk.net
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            7 days ago

            Left and right are relative to the actual political spectrum of the subject. There are different approaches to anticapitalism, centrist on the left-wing wants to implement social politics to improve welfare, this doesn’t make it socialists.

            • Spectre@lemmy.mlOP
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              7 days ago

              Your notion is a very post modernist ideology of absolute relativism, which is an idealist unscientific notion. Socialism starts at anti-capitalism. Anything pro-capitalist is not left wing because everything falls under liberalism which is not a left wing ideology.

                • Amnesigenic@lemmy.ml
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                  7 days ago

                  They’re not saying that’s what you wrote, the saying that what you wrote was incorrect and they’re right

        • Saymaz@lemmygrad.ml
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          7 days ago

          The left starts at anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism, buddy boy. Reformists are still right wing.

    • orc_princess@lemmy.ml
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      7 days ago

      Sure. I’m a Communist, surely we can meet halfway under a socialist platform. A politician should earn their votes, so it’s their choice really.

    • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      So unite with progressives. Or keep attacking them instead of the republicans your wing of the party just capitulated to.

    • cassandrafatigue@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      7 days ago

      I can’t think of a way to gwt them to stop fighting us except winning and putting their asses down. They are rhe fucking enemy.

      I’d rather they stand back and sit it out, but they cannot risk us getting any win.