pointing out his lies and failures to people who may have voted for him to erode his support
What evidence do you have that this works? If anything, the last decade has demonstrably proved that this idea is false.
You can appeal to facts and logic until the cows come home, but you're not going to make a dent in his approval rating or quell fascism. This is pure liberalism: the idea that the marketplace of ideas is what ultimately turns the wheel of history - the idea that with an epic enough slam, with enough scathing blasts, with enough late night talk show hit pieces, with enough appeals to facts and logic, you can convince a fascist to reason themselves out of being fascist. Although that might work once in a blue moon, it’s not how you systematically stop fascism. Fascism thrives when material conditions for working-class people start to deteriorate, so the only way to stamp it out is either to kill the fascists or make material changes to the daily lives of working people. The dems have shown zero interest in doing either. It is pretty scary to me that your idea of "fighting injustice" ultimately just boils down to virtue signaling online about how you're so much smarter than the fascists who fail to see (or simply dont care) about Trump's hypocrisy. Liberals are getting mighty jumpy since the only recourse they have included in their poltical framework is linking politifacts on Facebook and hoping fascism magically dies.
Fair enough. That was wrong of me to falsely insinuate.
However, I'd still posit that these sort of milquetoast strategies are so ineffective and distracting, that they ought to not be brought up at all since they defang otherwise radical people and distract from real solutions.
In other words, Trump and team would like nothing more than for the opposition to waste untold millions in legal fees (and weeks of prolonged court time) all to make him auto pen a document over the course of 15 minutes. These suggestions are worth less than nothing.
It literally takes trump 20 seconds to tell an aid to start paperwork for a pardon.
After 8 years of watching the legal system completely and utterly fumble any semblance of justice against Trump, it is bizarre to see you hail legal action as the ultimate method of dismantling the Trump regime. Big "I think Mueller is still going to bring Trump down!" energy.
Nothing will change until the ruling class have fear in their hearts, and if the most obstructive and radical thing you can imagine is "waste trumps time by making him pardon an extra 15 people" also happens to be the prevalent mindset of other liberals, then yall are mega doomed.
"The Committee for a Free Asia’ in 1951, sanctioned by the National Security Council and with the knowledge of Congressional Oversight Committees, supported by covert indirect CIA funding, the Committee had been created to help find ways to contain and expand private U.S. contact and communication with people of Asia following the establishment of Communist regimes in China and North Korea. The emphasis was on a private instrumentality that would be privately governed and have the freedom and flexibility to do things the government would like to see done but which it chose not to do or could not do directly."
"The question has been asked: 'Why a Radio Free Asia?' It is proposed to answer that question in terms of our objectives in the Far East and the effectiveness of radio in accomplishing them … Apart from its covert propaganda usefulness to the United States, RFA proposes to speak to Asia in the vernacular of Asia and about the things with which Asians are most concerned. It proposes to assist and encourage Asians in fighting Communism and establishing or recovering their dependence by spreading the truth in Asia about Asians.
That is wishful thinking. The democrats have never responded in kind to republicans breaking precedent. If there's any lesson to be learned from the 2024 election, it is that democrats hold "precedent", "decorum", and "mature pragmatism" to be more important than winning (or quelling fascism).
It's the same wishful thinking as people who were saying "Biden could use the new presidential inmunity SCOTUS ruling to legally assassinate trump!"
Understand that both democrats and republicans are driving us off a cliff.
That playbook is literally how the US justice system has worked since pretty much the beginning. Our constitution explicitly enshrines the right to keep slaves.
And calling the Gulag Archipeligo a "first hand account" is laughable. That book is basically folklore and rumors.
Gillibrand was literally the AOC of yesteryear. You can push populist candidates to your party of capital until the cows come home, but special interests will swallow them up every single time for eternity. You need to think beyond the democrats and American electoralism in general for that matter.
The MAGA movement (often referred to simply as MAGA, or Make America Great Again), was founded on the belief that the United States was once a “great” country but has lost this status owing to foreign influence, both within its borders (via immigration and multiculturalism) and without (via globalization, or the increased integration of multiple national economies). MAGA members think that this fall from grace can be reversed through “America first” policies that would provide a greater degree of economic protectionism, greatly reduce immigration, particularly from developing countries, and encourage or enforce what MAGA members consider to be traditional American values.
When a "good" solution ultimately defangs or sedates workers with otherwise radical potential, then no, a "good" solution is inadequate and should be thrown out. Why is everyone bleating this empty aphorism all around lemmy? The simple fact is that the only way we are going to steer ourselves out of this devolution into fascism is with a hail mary: some sort of labor movement, a geopolitical shock, a massive strike, etc... And this (almost religious) faith in "good solutions" or half measures is not worth anything. It's copium. It's toxic positivity in the form of blind, religious hope.
Why didn't the "economic blackout"
change anything?
Stocks rose Friday instead of falling, and there was no sign that the "economic boycott" that spread across social media had any impact whatsoever, other than maybe being a promotional tool for smaller businesses.
Why didn't it work and what would work instead?
We don't have power as "consumers".
Working people are always going to need to buy things. And even if a large portion of workers stopped buying everyday goods from Target or Starbucks, we'd still need to pay rent, pay the mortgage, pay utilities, and ultimately depend on a larger supply chain. You can't "opt-out" of capitalism.
Boycotts that work are focused on a clear target and have with a specific demand, and are built on long-term, deep organizing. But even then, as a tactic, a boycott isn't going to be what brings the economy to a halt to stop the Trump agenda.
We have power as workers.
In January 2019, a 35 day shutdown of the federal government came to an end after the flight attendants union announced their intention to strike. Such a strike would have grounded a large percentage of air travel, which even if just for a short period of time would have had a devastating impact on the US economy.
If we want to hit the ruling class where it hurts we need to organize as workers, not as consumers. Our power is in collectively withholding our labor, not withholding our dollars (which we only have in the first place by selling our labor).
Strikes are organized, not mobilized.
Strikes don't happen because someone made an Instagram post calling for it and then everyone thought it was a good idea.
Strikes are the result of long-term organizing that builds tightly structured organization through a series of escalating actions that show the level of support for the union, which if successful leave workers confident and the boss afraid.
A strike can't work if only a minority of workers walk out either. Strikes require a supermajority of workers to be effective.
So what can you do?
Join an organization like DSA that is working to build the kind working class power necessary not just to beat back Trump's attacks but to win a better world.
Join the labor movement. Organize at work, in your union if you have one, and get trained on the secrets of successful organizing through organizations like Labor Notes. Looking for a new job? Consider taking a job in a "strategic sector" like healthcare, education, or logistics.
Stop scrolling and start talking to your coworkers, your neighbors, friends, and family. The revolution will not be posted. Revolutions are made through organizing.
This is what Biden solidified by refusing to prosecute Trump, refusing to stack courts, and refusing to espouse policy that would've won the election. Biden had a choice between beating Trump and continuing genocide, and he chose to genocide.
The leftists' claim through this whole debacle has been that the democrats are controlled opposition, and the complete lack of resistance from democrats after Trump's victory should make it abundantly clear to you that they were correct.
Ferrous @ Ferrous @lemmy.ml Posts 1Comments 264Joined 1 yr. ago
What evidence do you have that this works? If anything, the last decade has demonstrably proved that this idea is false.
You can appeal to facts and logic until the cows come home, but you're not going to make a dent in his approval rating or quell fascism. This is pure liberalism: the idea that the marketplace of ideas is what ultimately turns the wheel of history - the idea that with an epic enough slam, with enough scathing blasts, with enough late night talk show hit pieces, with enough appeals to facts and logic, you can convince a fascist to reason themselves out of being fascist. Although that might work once in a blue moon, it’s not how you systematically stop fascism. Fascism thrives when material conditions for working-class people start to deteriorate, so the only way to stamp it out is either to kill the fascists or make material changes to the daily lives of working people. The dems have shown zero interest in doing either. It is pretty scary to me that your idea of "fighting injustice" ultimately just boils down to virtue signaling online about how you're so much smarter than the fascists who fail to see (or simply dont care) about Trump's hypocrisy. Liberals are getting mighty jumpy since the only recourse they have included in their poltical framework is linking politifacts on Facebook and hoping fascism magically dies.