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Hexbear admin just sent me this.
(lemmy.blahaj.zone)
The DM was a DM asking us to change our no tankies policy and remove the fuck tankies banner as it was apparently upsetting hexbear users. Apparently tankies view the word tankie as a form of slur. The admin wants us to ally as a form of "left solidarity"
I am a social democrat. I think we should elect socialist politicians through our existing democracy. The socialist politicians will then vote on legislation to regulate the economy and ensure that corporations do not gain an outsized influence in the free market.
Looks at Allende, the Indonesian Genocide, ÖSDAP, and the US Civil War... I am sure, this time the ruling class will just say "aww shucks", and peacefully give up power, rather than fight to retain power like every previous time.
This has been tried many times and history shows that it's a really effective way of getting yourself couped and get a brutal reactionary regime put in your place. The bourgeoisie is not burdened by any high-minded liberal ideals when it comes to preserving their wealth and power, they are going to do whatever it takes.
Here in the US, the people rule. Since socialist policies are in the interest of the people, they will want to vote for politicians who support socialist policies.
This is literally objectively not true:
https://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy
The US is not, and has never been, a democracy, because the people do not direct the actions of the government except on the margins. There is no democratic input on imperialism or capitalism. Those are invariate, and the system is designed to protect those from public influence.
It's crazy to see a far left news source be used to try to convince people that the US has never been a democracy.
We have always been a democracy and we thankfully still are a democracy. We are in danger of losing our democracy to fascism however. If we don't fix the flaws in our democratic institutions we will end up in a fascist dictatorship.
I am well aware we are circling the fascist drain. I also know that the modern neoliberalism movement started by Regan and Thatcher is how we got here.
and yet these and other popular policies remain politically impossible
"Far left" lol lmao even
Ok, you know things. Cool. So why are you being so dodgy about hyperspecific political tendencies? Why is such a precarious, controlled, center-left (by ur standard) system like the US worth balancing?
come on this has to be satire. you can't be serious about this shit.
Study: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens:
From the abstract:
further down:
What is it, like, 70% of Americans want single payer healthcare?
The people rule so effectively in the USA that the candidate with less votes has won 1/3 of presidential elections in the 21st century.
How can you be a "democracy" if the candidate with the most votes loses the election? I thought that was the number one rule of democracy, the person with the most votes wins.
If only. The US is almost a democracy in name only. It's pretty oligarchic - not only is the election system itself very unfair, but one party is just openly fascist and most of the other are spineless neolibs 90% of the time (though the federality of the USA means some states can approach socdem sometimes, but definitely not demsoc, while others are just openly fascist and have been a long time :/ nya).