cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16451158
this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2026
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Even if we DO vote, we still get Republicans. They just wear a different color and use a different letter.
That’s just what a Republican would say to potential Democratic voters 🤔
No, that's what a leftist would say who recognizes that there can be no progress for the working class by continuing to enable the capitalist elite.
Marxism is in of itself a proven failure. Trying to implement failed ideologies will only ever result in more of the same failure. There are other, more successful ways to bring change with better principles, more accurate framework, and better results historical results.
"Well then we'll make them free", the contradiction of the auth-left, that has it face-plant, successfully making a mockery of "the left" in the minds they and their auth-right counterparts have both convinced to believe the only left. Freedom first, or they'll keep playing us across the economics tacking ever more authoritarianwards.
And to those in the Marxist-believer groupthink, and those peddling the notion that "neo-liberal" parties are "the left", there is no libertarian left. Oh no, don't look over there, and don't say things like that, or you're a Republican fascist. LOL. It's a lot more fun when you see through the psyop ploys, and stop falling for it.
No more having terror successfully deployed on the brain for political power usurping. Terrorism, definitively. No more of that. From those who accuse, but really confess. "Look out! Terrorists!" Is terrorist. And that's what the duopoly do. Keep scaring you into the arms of their counterpart puppet. "No such thing as bad advertising", especially when you've cornered the market and are in a system where people are scared into voting against who they don't want, rather than for what they do want.
Imagine what that's like... being in a system where you get to vote for what you want, not terrorised into voting against who you most don't want. Imagine. Not a system racing to the bottom of kakistarchy, but a system where you have a real say, towards good stuff.
No corrupting centralising single-point-of-failure power-nexus attracting the most ruthless and power-abusing.
Everybody getting their real say, without duress. Free to use their creative, critical, constructive, considerate potential of their forebrains (y'know, the thing oft said most separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom), rather than succumbing to our hind-brain's survival mode, all reactive and tribal, stressing us, making us sick. Imagine that, being healthy and free... Sounds like what'd happen if we didn't have all this fascism and kleptarchy and kakistarchy and attercoparchy. Sounds like real democracy; organised by the people.
Direct democracy, liquid democracy, hybrid democracy, config-democracy, so many ways better...
[/Dreamer].
This ain't Marxism bruh.
Which Marxism though?
The young Marx, when there was still freedom in his thinking?
Middle Marx, when freedom was reduced to a wishful "it'll happen, trust the economics, bruh"?
Old Marx, when the "well then we'll make them free" & "some are more equal than others" tankies and totalitarians had completely usurped it, and handed it back to state-capitalists?
Best not take the freedom out. Other political philosophers are available.
"We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality." -- Mikhail Bakunin.
Bruh, I do believe you may have responded to the wrong person. I never mentioned Marx here other than to say I didn't quote Marxism.
I literally posted a picture and quote of Malatesta.
But
Is what you wrote. The very thing I responded to. That mentioned Marxism. I was merely expanding on that, showing it's not the one simple thing that many Marxists and many McCarthyians swing around like a homogenous cudgel.
It seems more like you've made an error there.
I didn't see how you were trying to expand on what I said.
Yes, and we need a revolution if we can't effect change from within the current system.
BUT THE FUCKING POINT is that WHILE THE SYSTEM STILL EXISTS, NOT SUPPORTING THE DEMS ENDS UP SUPPORTING FASCISM.
Supporting either is a support of fascism, as the Democrats, being a neoliberalist party, fundamentally enable fascism. This bullshit didn't just spring up overnight, it was the result of generations of political fuckery by the owning class to slowly and methodically consolidate power while keeping the working class pacified with bread and circuses.
Your simple, fallacy logic doesn't fly. Real change doesn't come from a ballot box.
Fascism - a far-right, authoritarian ultranationalist political ideology that emerged in early 20th-century Europe, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and subordination of individual interests to the state. It promotes national rebirth, militarism, and often racial superiority.
Can you explain to me how you think the Democrat party is fascist? Because in this definition of fascism, the only one I can stretch to make work is "militarism", but then A LOT of countries would be falling under the fascist label.
Republicans, on the other hand, check all of these boxes.
The Democrat party is flawed and weak. They are not fascist. Learn to use words properly based on their definitions.
this definition isn't accurate
Yes. They are.
Less fascist is better than more fascist, but it's still fascist. Just some different aesthetics to keep the placatium palatable. Still corporatist fascist. Still fascist.
Check out the current voter suppression, and the [oft Democrat [and Republican] aligned [but not 3rd party/green/libertarian/independent aligned nor neutral]] corporate media "crystallising public opinion", and other parallels to the defining historic examples of fascism, in how they suppress opposition to preserve the dictatorial power and subordination of individual interests to the state, and how it promotes national rebirth ("CHANGE" as the perpetual political slogan, anyone?) to carry on with its "militarism" (jingoist hegemony and national supremacist global domination).
... Or keep complicitly hiding what's going on peddling placatium, and just keep repeating "USA Number 1" and "Land of the free" harder along with some "lesser" evil hopium.
1st ammendment is there to assure that freedom.
The freedom to hold dear to the whataboutisms of comfort in pointing at terrifying worse to keep terrifyingly convinced ones own groupthink is the right one, is the same freedom to strive to attain the mark of an educated mind, able to entertain an idea without necessarily accepting nor rejecting it.
Supporting and enabling fascism is still fascism.
... Oh but it's less fascism. They said the one true way we're to think is like this and it's nicer than the one true way the other side have. ... Stay divided and conquered, while ever falling for the one true way of a groupthink, and the crooks will take everything from you, while you still are yet to stop falling for it.
Sublimating out of it is impossible?
No.
It's necessary.
The most you can say about democrats is that they passively object to fascist ideology, but they never do more than throw procedural obstructions to fascist momentum and legitimize reactionary grievances by repeatedly affirming xenophobic anxieties about immigrants and minorities.
The reason leftists argue that both parties operate under the same fascist framework is that they both prioritize a failing capitalistic system over radical socialist reform, and so will (either by choice or because trying to preserve failing capitalist systems leaves them without a choice) bend to reactionary populism and abandon socialist populism.
"democrats are better than republicans because they oppose fascism" is really only true if you ignore the common consensus among political theorists that fascism is the end product of deteriorating material conditions and the tendency of capitalist systems toward self-preservation. So long as democrats deny the demand for popular socialist reform, they are nothing more than the moderate wing of the same fascist uni-party. To be truly oppositional to fascism they need to address the contradictions in their own political framework, or else be constantly pulled rightward by the same reactionary forces acting on the right.
One is fascism. The other enables fascism through systemic means. Thus, support for either is supporting fascism.
Go read theory. You'll learn a thing or two. Malatesta has good works on this subject.
Can you, using the defnition of fascism, describe how Democrats enable fascism?
Can you go read theory to gain an understanding of complex systemic forces? I'm not going to sit here and explain textbooks worth of information about the inner workings of political systems to you.
"You do the thinking, Ricky! You do the thinking!"
;D
Yeah, that rhetorical ploy shoots themselves in the foot. Too easily drags us down into their combative one-upmanship, out of the considerate space. Too big a gap to effortlessly bridge, when the groupthink precludes consideration, just too stubbornly determined to defend the dunnykrugilous hill to die on, because it's identified with, it's them, that's a threat! Limbic system engage! Social-Dominance mode engage! Tribal survival depends on it! Panic! Throw anything at it! Cannot consider ideas outside that which will save us, our one true way, or the great peril will get us! LOL. I perhaps shouldn't laugh and mock... it comes with very dire consequences. This whole "Psychology of Totalitarianism" thing. Mass formation. Where what's obvious from outside the groupthink, is double-down denied from within it, and the desperation drives it ever deeper, to where then any and all atrocities are seen as necessary virtues... and nary a moment given to consider "are we the baddies?"
So you're acknowledging that you don't have a firm enough grasp on the point you're trying to make to explain to me how Democrats enable fascism and are instead suggesting I read entire textbooks to understand how Democrats enable fascism because you can't?
So you're wasting my time with nonsense?
Thanks.
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. See the logical fallacy made there? Bounding from one rhetorical device to another. Understandably coming from a frustrated place, especially aggravated when the rhetorical hook didn't catch something.
Also, if one knew even a little of what Doc referenced, you'd then also see they were not coming from a place of ignorance on the matter, and has a much better grasp on the point they've made, which is broader than the little trap you thought you'd set up to prove your false dichotomy, answering your question. Even just a couple minutes websearch the name...
No, I'm not gonna get into a political argument with a numpty who clearly has no understanding of the topic to nit-pick my word choices and interpret my explanation in bad faith.
Go read a book if you want to learn. I don't owe you an argument. Start with Marx, then try Kropotkin. Malatesta is good too. Go from there, you uneducated baboon.
There we differ. Not just the succumbing to name-calling, ~ that's understandable, to an extreme. The "Start with Marx". That does not oft go well. Out of the Big Baron frying pan into the Big Brother fire. I suggest it's better to start with the anarchists, from before Marx stripped the freedom, reduced it to economics, like the freedom would trickle down, perverting the worth "communism", that anarchists had been using for at least 5 years before Marx handed it over to tankies and totalitarians.
I say Marx should have listened to Bakunin more than Engels (or whatever or whoever (in London) that so corrupted the philosophy of his youth).
“We are convinced that liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice; and that socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality.” -- Mikhail Bakunin
We need both.
We have neither.
Did you not see how I said to go to Kropotkin? Someone who specifically criticizes Marx and exposes the flaws in his theory?
I simply feel starting with Marx is to get a good understanding of what generally "the Left" sees as a baseline for defining what "communism" is. It is beneficial to be well read, even of those you disagree with what they say.
I should read more Bakunin. I read Engles in my youth around the time I was being exposed to communism alongside Marx. Then I was exposed to Anarchism through a new understanding of media and following the history of geopolitical movements they were associated with (big punk music fan).
I guess I will apologize for succumbing to insults. Social media these days has my patience thin for online interactions.
That is exactly the arguments a Republican shill would use.
Even if both options are fascist, one of them is clearly less fascist. And unless you make sure a third option exist, not voting on the less fascist option will give you the more fascist option.
Lol if you think that's the argument of Republicans then you are desperately unread in leftist theory.
We don't play that bs, reactionary "lesser evil" bullshit.
Or you are desperately unread in Republican theory. The post we are all commenting on is about you.
Having to rely on the lesser evil is a result of a 2-party system, which is a result in a winner-takes-all system.
If you want to break the system, go right ahead. But until then, your mentality is what caused Republicans to win and the US to slide even faster into fascism. This is the reality. Not whatever utopian view you have of the world.
So congratulations, you played yourself.
Unless you don't live in the US of course, which looks to be more likely every comment you make.
Wow you are so confident in your ignorance.
That's the thing. The person you're responding to is trying to draw you into an argument in which you acknowledge Democrats are also fascists. They are not. Not by the very definition of the word.
You don't need to point out that a less fascist party is better than a really fascist party, which is true, because one of the parties in question is not fascist. Period.
The? There are several flying around.
Which definition? e.g.:
....
One of these is not like the others. ;)
Until that last one, I was struggling for a definition that didn't have the Democrat party also qualify.
This whole thing has me think of Pacific's song, "Break your social system". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNCrYT--VKk
No, Democrats are a center-right neoliberalist party. They are not fascist and I'll never claim that they are. I am trying to get people to read and educate themselves on how certain political philosophies, through the systemic forces which they reinforce and institutionalize (capitalism, electoralism, Imperialism, etc...), enable the political philosophy that is fascism to hold and consolidate power over the population.
Go read a damn book.
I honestly don't know what to do to get people to grasp this. I don't know if I'm mostly butting my head against young people's ideology. When we're young we're less likely to make any concessions or grasp how imperfect the reality we live in is. My fear is that I'm trying to get this basic concept through to people my age. If that's true, then this country is in deep, deep shit. Because this is not a hard concept to understand, especially if you've made it past that early adulthood no concessions it has to be just and fair phase.
Like, this is the reality you live in. These are your options on a federal scale. One is very clearly fascist, the other is not, despite a bunch of uninformed people in this very thread saying that both sides are fascist. Clearly these people have no idea what fascism is.
Do not underestimate the chemical lobotomies, the "crystallising public opinion" psyops, the irrational groupthinks. Still, speaking out, exposing them to other ways, as futile as it long seems, is necessary for breaking the spell. Much to mend. Beware certainty, especially in ourselves, lest we unwittingly succumb similarly, depriving ourselves nuance, pushed to polarised reductions, peddling metrics to bolster our certainty of our own one true way, denying ourselves access to multiple perspectives, deluding ourselves into naive realism, believing what we believe is reality, and not just a favoured perspective, one of many potential more.
BOFE SIDEZ YOU SAY?!!?!?!?!
Goddamn. You may as well be a Russian operative.
If you can't see the differences, put on some fucking glasses. It's not exactly subtle.