3d ago

We can beat Trump together — but there's only one way to do it

www.rawstory.com We can beat Trump together — but there's only one way to do it

The headlines over the past few weeks have been unrelenting. The Trump administration is activating the full power of the federal government against perceived enemies, from liberal groups to elections officials to a former FBI director.Meanwhile, autocratic powers like China and Russia are running i...

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The only way to defeat us is if the Trump administration and the movement that undergirds it manages to divide us. We can’t let that happen. To win as a majority coalition, we must always invite everybody who believes in civil liberties and human rights.
Agreed. The purity testing and splintering into to niche issues is what always screws the left.
If people could just focus and align on some core root cause issues, like getting corrupt money out of politics, the message would be stronger.
- All well and good, but what happens when someone comes to the meeting and says "we should end corruption and remove Trump, but I don't like DEI policies."
  I'm guessing that will suddenly be added to the "root" cause and we're right back into splintering and purity spirals again.
  
  @FaceDeer @justanotherperson @simplejack
  "I'm a huge racist, but I don't like Trump. Can I join your group?"
  No.
  That person should go find a "Racists Against Trump" group.
  
  This is another perfect example of the point I'm making. The slightest variation from perfect alignment with your complete set of ideals and you'd rather descend into a purity spiral and purge your own supporters than beat Trump.
  It's a tale as old as history, alas.
  
  @FaceDeer @justanotherperson @simplejack
  I'm not going to partner with racists. I am not sorry.
  If you are willing to work with fascists and racists, you are not my ally.
  
  Be careful with insisting on "all or nothing", you often end up with "nothing." Like what happened in the 2024 election.
  Also, I am not a racist. If you read my other comments you'll find that I'm in favor of the intent of DEI programs, they've just been implemented badly in many cases. But it's just like the virtue-signalling that Trump himself demands of his followers, the moment I said something that seemed slightly out of step I get ejected into the "enemy" camp. No compromise, no effort to understand nuance.
  Well, bold strategy, good luck with your future elections I guess.
  
  @FaceDeer @justanotherperson @simplejack
  I'll take nothing over partnering with racists.
  Winning with racists is losing.
  
  And the racists winning without you is an even bigger loss.
  
  @agamemnonymous
  The biggest loss would be aligning with racists.
  I'm wondering if some people actually understand what being on the progressive left even means.
  Partnering with racists makes you a racist, win or lose.
  
  No, the biggest loss would be fascists staying in power and eliminating racism by eliminating all but one race. Material conditions are much, much more important than ideals.
  Is the life of every minority a worthy cost for standing by your principles? If, I hypothetically, you knew for a fact that losing would mean total ethnic cleansing, would you still refuse to accept the support of racists to elect someone you knew for a fact wouldn't do ethnic cleansing?
  
  @agamemnonymous
  Yes, we've all seen the Trolley Problem. It's bullshit.
  Just like this entire question. People who hate DEI aren't trying to join the left. No one on the left has to reject racists because racists hate us too.
  This whole thread is basically trying to split the left. But the funniest part is pretending the fascists and the racists aren't the same people.
  
  I'm guessing that will suddenly be added to the "root" cause
  Hopefully yes, because that's exactly what it is. You can't fight fascism with fascism lite.
  
  If everything is "root" then nothing is.
  
  You... you think racism and xenophobia aren't a root cause of this? If so, you should read a history book. Start from Nixon.
  
  And here we go, a disagreement over policy balloons instantly into "racism and xenophobia" and an ally gets kicked out of the meeting because everything is black or white and no compromise is possible.
  I find DEI policies to be a complicated topic, personally. I don't oppose the basic idea and motive behind them, but I think they've been implemented poorly and often turn into discrimination in their own right. Am I now classed as "Trump supporter" in your eyes? I've been called a Trump supporter because I don't like the recent Star Wars movies, so I'm sure a lot of people would indeed lump me in with him on that basis. And thus is proven the basic point about how Trump's opponents are destroying themselves without Trump's supporters having to lift a finger.
  
  And here we go, a disagreement over policy balloons instantly into "racism and xenophobia"
  Oh, so you're saying you personally don't like DEI policies. In that case I'm not necessarily calling you racist and xenophobic, but your seeming willingness to accept the results of past racism and xenophobia is definitely concerning. If I was running the meeting you wouldn't get kicked out, but your "can we not include DEI in our platform" would be met with an uncompromising "no." Before I explain why, do you understand the concepts of systemic racism and generational wealth?
  but I think they've been implemented poorly and often turn into discrimination in their own right.
  You need such "discrimination" to undo the results of past discrimination. For example, did you know that despite being only ~0.7% of the population, Native Americans make up about 24% of the poverty population of the US? Is this not injustice? How do you rectify it without affirmative action (aka DEI)?
  
  You're really, really intent on driving my point home here, aren't you?
  I oppose Trump. I think he's the worst president the US has ever had and he needs to be stopped. But I expressed an unrelated view that is mildly in opposition to yours, and now that's the only thing you can think about. You're focusing entirely on attacking me on this issue.
  Have you forgotten that this is about Trump, and about how the only way to defeat him is to get over these sorts of divisions and diversions?
  
  Have you forgotten that this is about Trump,
  To you this is about Trump. To others it's about the injustice they have suffered their whole lives that got worse under Trump but did not originate with him. Being able to laser-focus on Trump is a privilege; it assumes that the politically relevant parts of your experience before Trump were if not good then at least tolerable. This is not the case for a massive chunk of the population. I mean, hell, for example ICE kidnappings are nothing new; Trump is just performatively cruel about them. You can't take a stand against some injustice and expect the people experiencing the chunk you're letting go to help you. As a wise man once said:
  First they came for the Communists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Communist
  Then they came for the Socialists And I did not speak out Because I was not a Socialist
  Then they came for the trade unionists And I did not speak out Because I was not a trade unionist
  Then they came for the Jews And I did not speak out Because I was not a Jew
  Then they came for me And there was no one left To speak out for me
  
  Yes, we get it, you don't want any allies in your fight against Trump that aren't perfectly aligned with every part of your fight against Trump. You don't need to keep on driving it home now, you've amply demonstrated why Democrats just can't seem to get it together to oppose him.
  
  The Democrats? Seriously? These Democrats? Sigh.
  
  I honestly don't think dei did shit one way or another and was all just a show. That being said I agree. Lets all get behind the constitution including all the bill of rights and argue about the other things once we have enough rights to do so in a civilized manner.
  
  "We need to get my rights now. Your rights can come after we can argue about them in a civilized manner." Setting aside the moral duplicity of this, it's just not how you build a coalition. For them to fight for your rights, you need to fight for theirs with equal commitment.
  
  So seperation of powers, the bill of rights including speech, assembly, due process, etc. Those are just rights for one person to you? The point is if we can't express views and assemble or get a day in court then everything else is in the toilet. You need to get a clue.
  
  Those are just rights for one person to you?
  These are rights for people who are economically well-off enough to exercise them. You don't, in fact, have the right to due process if you can't afford to miss work to exercise that right, and you don't have the right to speech if your three jobs don't leave you enough time to exercise that right. And you don't have any of these rights if you're being enslaved (and yes, it is slavery) by a for-profit prison. Constitutional political rights on their own are woefully insufficient to address the problems of minorities in America, and as they have repeatedly experienced, "later" more often than not is a synonym for "never." Point being: If you have no answer for systemic discrimination in your program, then yes you're not defending the rights of minorities experiencing that discrimination. The right of a black person to not be killed by the police is as or more important than your right to complain about the government.
  
  This is a ridiculous stretch. This is exactly the path towards finding out what a real lack of rights are. This is the same all or nothing fallacious reasoning I see all the time online. I mean look what you said "If you have no answer for systemic discrimination in your program" now name a program that exists that 100% definitely has nothing that could be called systemic discrimination.
  
  These are rights for people who are economically well-off enough to exercise them. You don’t, in fact, have the right to due process if you can’t afford to miss work to exercise that right, and you don’t have the right to speech if your three jobs don’t leave you enough time to exercise that right.
  Agreed. No war but Class war. Identity Politics is a privileged distraction. A game of oppression olympics always undermining social good.
  
  This comment chain is just chef's kiss
  
  At best I was expecting a few "huh, yeah, that's a common pattern" responses.
  This heap of "you're racist! Get out!" Rage I got instead illustrated my point better than I could have hoped for. Unfortunately. What a complete lack of self-awareness.
  I wonder if anyone would change their mind if I "recanted" and started gushing about how I loved everything about how things were being handled on the left with no reservations or caveats? Or if, once branded an enemy, always an enemy?
  In any event not a promising sign for future efforts to take Trump down. Probably for the best I'm not American, I'll just focus on staying out of the splash zone.
  
  I'm holding out hope that the real world remains separate from social media. We shall see. And for the Americans in the audience, remember No Kings Oct 18!
  
  Racism and Xenophobia are tools the Nixo used quite effectively. Do you think Nixon was racist and that was his goal? Was he in Vietnam because of how racist he was? Perhaps you should take your own advice Re: Nixon and make sure you understand "Why" and don't confuse it with "how."
  
  You don't vote for the candidate you want to fight for you, you vote for the candidate that's easier for you to fight.
  It's not about fighting fascism with fascism lite, it's about fighting fascism lite instead of full strength. Whatever you're going to fight with is going to be much more effective against a weaker enemy.
  
  You don’t vote for the candidate you want to fight for you, you vote for the candidate that’s easier for you to fight.
  If that is the case, then I assume you voted for the geriatric cult of personality who will be dead within the year?
  
  The fascist with a cabinet full of fascists, congressional control, SCOTUS control, and a detailed fascist playbook?
  No, that would be stupid. Even if he is on death's door, his replacement will be just as bad.
  
  Ah ok. Then I assume you voted for the PSL candidate who isn't quite on-board with full communism now (She still believes in markets) , but could probably be swayed that way right?
  
  I did not give any consideration to candidates with no chance of winning, for obvious reasons.
  I voted for the one who wasn't a rabid fascist, and also stood a snowball's chance of beating the rabid fascist. So the Dem candidate.
  If it was useful to vote for allies instead of enemies (say, if our elections were some variety of ranked choice) I would have voted for whoever was most socially liberal and closest to market socialism (since that's about the farthest we can hope to push the needle in a term or two; after that I'd start considering positions moderately to the left of that, rinse and repeat).
  But it isn't, so I didn't. Dirty break is the only strategy that makes sense in our political environment. Obstruct the worst major party while you build a better platform grassroots style, and then once that platform is popular and normalized, and the worst major party is neutralized, then start running outside the Dem tent.
  Voting for a candidate with no chance of success, with a population effectively propagandized against the platform, does not improve the material conditions of the working class in any way.
  
  Ah, so the very least you could do, not voting for capitalism, you refused to do. However you have concocted a series of didactic expressions to help you rationalize your unwavering support of the "lesser evil". But added some additional qualifiers that make your position indistinguishable from the average blue no-matter who voter. I'm sure eventually, somehow, your pragmatically compromised morality will certainly defeat fascism.
  In the meantime, things have gotten a lot worse for a lot of people, so maybe it's time for you and the other liberals to try something different?
  
  Ah, so the very least you could do, not voting for capitalism, you refused to do.
  What? Only if by "least" you mean "least helpful". Capitalism was going to win that election. It's probably going to win the next one. The choice we have is between fighting Christo-nationalist fascist capitalism, or milquetoast neo-liberal capitalism.
  The very least we can do is choose the fight with fewer literal casualties. Accelerationism is cringe.
  In the meantime, things have gotten a lot worse for a lot of people
  That's exactly my point. Protest voting keeps not doing anything, fascists keep winning. You have to abandon this strategy, it obviously isn't working. The Dems aren't going to "learn their lesson", and your third party darling isn't going to gain 49.97% of the vote overnight.
  There are appropriate axes of praxis for principles and integrity. FPTP elections ain't one of them. Elections are a support action. You're not going to get to vote for someone you like until after a lot of people spend a lot of time on some serious local work.
  
  Electoralism is the least you can do. It accomplishes next-to-nothing. So you may as well vote for the best candidate. Not the "most-viable" candidate in your extremely imperfect understanding of US voting trends, not the one you can post on facebook about how your vote "matters," but the literal best one that doesn't support capitalism. Everything else you can possibly do is much more important and has greater impact. Not voting for capitalism costs you nothing, you will never be punished for not voting for capitalism, no one is worse off for you not supporting capitalism, it is the least you can do. Yet you can't even manage to do that, because the status quo is what you support. The genocide is what you support. Capitalism is what you support. Even within an imperfect system where you are free not to support those things, you will still choose to support them.
  As for local work I volunteer at a workers association. They run no candidates, they accept no cash for services, they are volunteer based, do grass roots work, hold workshops on theory, provide legal, dental, and medical benefits to their members. They have nothing to do with who you are voting for, and the only political help you can give them is trying to end capitalism. Yet you won't even do that, even when it costs you nothing. You are more interested in voting for "student loan forgiveness for pell grants recipients who run a business in a disadvantaged area for 3-years." You don't know why you support that, you don't even know that is what you support, but you don't care. And that is the actual problem.
  
  Fascists keep winning cause the Dems are also fascist. Either support actual non-fascist parties or just accept you're no better than Blue MAGA.
- But but… wHaT aBoUt SuPpOrTiNg GeNoCiDe?
- Centrists never have a problem when they do it against leftists, but cry fowl when leftists refuse to compromise with awful human beings that deserve the worst things that happen to them including the end of their lives.

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