politics

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.