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US Democrats call for more aggressive tactics against Trump and Musk: ‘We’re going to be the opposition’
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2025
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So nothing was different when Democrats were in power over the last 32 years, in terms of reproductive rights, racial politics, education, programs for the poor, women's rights, LGBTQ rights, and even healthcare?
I know progressives are frustrated they didn't get enough, but the needle moved substantially in the correct direction.
The two sides are substantially different, and the voters have repeatedly rejected the policies of the Democrats. Trump had to really fuck things up the first time not to have two consecutive terms.
I agree with you, and would also like to point out that "power" that they had was also CONSTANTLY razor thin at best.
Clearly they could be more effective with the power they do have, but voters have never given them the legislative authority needed to pass the sweeping reforms they demand. Congress is literally set up to give conservatives an advantage. 51/49 is not control of the Senate when you need to proactively do something, it's only enough to block action.
Dems had a super majority 3 times in as many decades, and the only meaningful legislation they managed to pass in that time was a Republican (Mitt Romney’s) healthcare plan. Anything else they got done only lined the pockets of rich and corporations, nothing for the working class.
Compare that to the absolute torrent of shit being done in just 2 weeks with a Republican supermajority.
Dems either don’t know how to use the power that voters do give them, or they choose not to. Either way, it leaves many people to feel totally without representation.
They had a whopping 80 days to pass the largest healthcare overhaul in a generation, with not a single vote to spare and Joe Lieberman refusing to play ball with a bunch of very much need systemic changes.
How many bills has Congress sent to Trump to sign this session? How many Republican priorities are being passed through Congress right now? What meaningful BILLS has the GOP majority passed outside of tax cuts that need a simply majority to pass?
None. Because it is significantly easier to stop something than it is to push it forward.
I agree that Democrats have not used every tool they have, but I'm simply saying they have never had the tools to make sweeping changes like a lot of people seem to think.
If they had 60+ votes in the Senate and a strong majority in the house like they should, I would fully expect them to pass good legislation.
Why did they need 60 votes? Could they have done something in the senate without 60? Think carefully.
The 51 senators needed to nix the filibuster weren't there. There were 49 that said they would.
At least someone gets that it's easier to tear everything down than it is to build something.
Well, it is and it isn't. The filibuster is a rule of senate procedure, not a law. The party in control of the senate can remove that rule if they wish.
I do agree that a lot of progressives will unnecessarily leap from valid criticism of the Dems to claiming - in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary - that they're literally as bad as the GOP. A party of some progress is manifestly and obviously better than a party that wants to undo progress.
But it's also complete valid to point out that a lot of the things that supposedly prevented the Dems from achieving more progress were norms, not hard rules. Biden could have rebalanced the supreme court by simply adding more members. The Dems could have thrown out the filibuster. There were options that were on the table that the Dems refused to use because they think they're playing a polite game of chess, while their opponent just showed up and slapped a gun down on the table. I despise the GOP with every fibre of my being, but at least they understand the stakes.
I think those are all reasonable criticisms.
But it still seems like the constant refrain here when Trump and his Republican party are doing terrible things to set this country back is to blame the Democrats.
The Democrats have been moving this country forward since the great reversal. There is room to criticize, but are they the biggest threat to America? I argued with someone who said Biden would go down as the worst President in history because he didn't stop Trump. So he's worse than... Trump?
"End Racism" was removed as the slogan in the end zones in the stadium where the Superbowl is being hosted, and people wanted to attack neoliberals for being so soft that "People Exist" would be their replacement slogan. Would there have ever have been an "End Racism" sign from the Saints and NFL if the "neoliberals" hadn't been pushing things forward since LBJ?
People constantly complain that the Democrats aren't united enough to block Trump's agenda. They point to Fetterman's nominee votes. Really? It's these same people who are pushing in-fighting in the party because they want to bring a very specific agenda about, and stopping fascism isn't good enough.
The American people are clearly on the fence about fascism. Your progressive agenda isn't going to be winning any time soon. Real people are suffering even more today than a month ago because of Republicans. Not because of Democrats. A truck is intentionally rammed into a crowd of pedestrians, and these people are arguing the regulators didn't have high enough standards for brakes on automobiles. That's the problem that needs addressing?
The problem is that these criticisms of the Dems do matter. Fascism doesn't grow in a vacuum. Treating the Democrats as an outright enemy is idiotic, but it's not at all idiotic to point out that they've created the conditions for this swing to the hard right.
In 2020 I predicted that a Biden victory would guarantee the Republicans win in 2024. I knew then that he would be a one term president, because he's exactly the kind of hide-bound, corporate friendly Democrat that fascists love. In actuality Biden was far better than I expected; while his legislative agenda was incredibly reserved, he used the justice department and the machinery of the federal government to achieve a lot of big progressive goals. And he was in reality a hell of a lot less corporate friendly than I expected.
But, exactly as I suspected, his goals were still far too reserved, his actions designed to pay off much too far in the future and the result was that at a time when people were struggling with a skyrocketing cost of living, Biden's government was trumpeting "economic accomplishments" that in no way translated to the average person having more money in their pocket. People aren't so stupid that they can't figure out how poor they are. Progressive policies have to actually achieve progressive goals to be popular, and billionaires getting richer while everyone else gets poorer is the opposite of that.
Biden would have been a great president in the nineties. But it's too late for his quiet, dignified approach to politics. They've run out the clock. We hit "France five days before the revolution" levels of wealth inequality a while ago, and the average person is ready to burn everything down on the 0.001% chance that something better might emerge.
You can't resist fascism with quiet, dignified centrism. Weimar Germany tried that. Look where it got them.
You resist fascism by solving the underlying problems that make fascism appealling. This is true one on one when dealing with individual converts (there are some great studies and practical examples on this, showing how the best way to peel people off of fascist movements is to help them resolve the problems in their personal lives) and its equally true at the mass scale. Fascism feeds on the feeling that traditional governance is failing the masses. Mussolini got elected on promises to solve the political gridlock that was preventing the government from doing anything useful. Hitler was elected because people were feeling intense economic hardship and he offered simplistic solutions. By the time Hitler and Mussolini achieved power, the second most likely outcome in either country was that the Communists took over. In Spain the hard left actively fought a war against the fascists for control of the country. These are not conditions where the status quo can be maintained, and anyone whose overriding objective is to wholly or largely to maintain the status quo is ultimately creating the conditions where fascism grows best.
The Dems are not evil in the way that the GOP are evil, and they are inherently preferable to the GOP as a result, but as they are now they cannot - not will not, cannot - save the country from fascism. Instead they have inadvertently enabled it by being unable to take the kind of radical action necessary to prevent its growth.
If the "neoliberal" party wasn't around to constantly stop socialism, do nothing slogans like that wouldn't need to exist at all. Slavery would have actually been banned, not enshrined in the constitution as punishment. FDR wouldn't have even been elected, it would have been Eugene Debs or someone even more radical. The purpose of the democratic party is to make sure that things cannot get better economically unless a large corporation benefits first and foremost.
Yeah except people don't vote for progressives. So...
Either these ideas are great and people will get off their ass for them or they aren't. Im not convinced it's the Democrats who are stopping progress. It's the lazy ass American people who wouldn't know a good idea if it bit them in the ass.
When they're shown progressive policies, they support them. When they're told those policies are associated with Democrats or progressives, they don't support them.
Yea that's why Roe v Wade was prioritized, and even the most progressive president who ever progressived, endorsed Roe v. Wade by calling it "not our highest priority." Real bang-up job there and that's why abortion rights, something that was first created 50+ years ago are now a bedrock of healthcare in all 50 states.
There was no reason to spend precious political capital on something deemed "resolved" when they could drastically improve healthcare.
Sure it still sucks but it was vastly worse before.