"Technically, the United States didn't get bad, it's always been bad! It only got worse!" isn't the flex a lot of leftists think it is.
What's wrong with the message "We should be doing better, not worse"?
Seems preferable to the "hurt people who also want the things I have" that seems the core of conservatism.
What's wrong with it is it's normalizing Donald Trump. Like, actually pointing at Trump and saying "this is normal." US democracy is on life support, and calling this business-as-usual is like telling people there's nothing to see here while he yanks and tugs on the plug.
I'm not sure I understand.
Saying "We can do better than Trump/Fascism/Corruption/Kleptocracy" seems far from normalising the current state?
Saying we can do better than trump/fascism is not what the OP is implying. The op is implying what were are doing now is the same as what we have done before. We can acknowledge that we've done bad before, but now it's for sure way worse. I agree with Bernie that now is way worse than before
Left doesn’t push this, right (or fake left ML) pushes this to same-sides left.
Except one does not contradict the other. The United States has supported democracy, it's just that that support is razor thin.
If we are playing silly semantics then Russia is a "democracy" as well and Trump is supporting "democracy".
This is not fact checking. This is gaslighting. The fact that the USA has been supporting dictators for decades does not change or alter what Bernie is saying.
Yes it does. Supporting countries that happen to be democracies as well as supporting countries that happen to be dictatorships according to your national interests is far different from supporting democracy as a goal.
You can do both. Saying they've supported dictatorships doesn't mean they haven't also supported democracy. It's bordering on being a non sequitur.
If the US ever supports democracy, it is purely by accident.
Where we read "democracy", they read "economic benefit" or "geopolitical benefit". As far as I'm aware, any "democratic movement" that the US has ever supported has been either to get rid of a not sufficiently capitalist regime (whether or not they were democratic), or for some other geopolitical strategic reason.
I haven't heard of a single example of the US supporting a democracy purely for democracy's sake. Sometimes it just so happens that the goals of supporting democracy and getting rid of pesky regimes that pose an economic or strategic obstacle align.
Not to mention that the US has been involved in regime change of many democracies over the last 80 years because they weren't sufficiently friendly to American companies or didn't support American strategic goals strongly enough. This is open, well-documented history. The CIA admits to many of the ones which were done at least 50 years ago.
Here is a list to get started: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_regime_change
No you can't. You cannot say you support racial equality while holding a BLM sign one day and attending a KKK rally the next.
If I give you a dollar and I give Steve a dollar, I've supported you both.
Your example is also wrong. BLM and KKK are organizations. You absolutely can support both organizations by giving them money. It makes you a hypocrite and means you don't believe in equality. But when has anyone claimed the United States isn't hypocritical?
Steve and me are entities. Democracy is an ideology.
You cannot support an ideology while also supporting its polar opposite.
Peak what-about-ism
Peak virtue signalling.
Even if you disagree with what that guy wrote it’s not in any way virtue signaling. Like brother what?
Who needs the CIA when we have useful idiots that sink any working class movement with shit like this
If a working class movement needs to lie and gaslight people into American exceptionalism it is not a working class movement.
Unfortunately sanders is one of our better actors within the institution. Many leftists would have been happy and welcoming of a sanders administration for 2 terms. FDR was also partially aligned with fascists but as far as presidential administrations go he did the most for the working class that anyone ever did(thankfully he was elected for 4 terms) sanders however flawed he may be would have been as close to a new age fdr as we were ever going tk get and this is why the dnc shot themselves in the foot and disgraced their electorate. The democratic party is a center right party so yes bernie sanders is a little too close to center to be a real leftist and he compromises too much with centrists and conservatives but this is the only way to get things done within a partisan class dictatorship we have.
But since the dnc made it clear they would rather move to the right and attempt to court conservative voters rather than move even a centimeter to the left they made it crystal clear the only way to remedy the rot and corruption of corporatist control in our political system is a full on revolution/ class war which has been waged against the working class for the last 5-6 decades at least.
Anyone that meets the working class where they are to build class consciousness in terms they understand are building the working class movement.
But I guess we can nitpick and siphon the air out of any sort of potential for progress by doing the work of fascist apologists. Jailing and killing socialists will really bring about the perfect revolution we need
Accepting reality is fine. Gaslighting and covering for an oppressive system is not. Especially since this supposed movement has failed to make any gains with its endless compromises.
If the movement is only beneficial for the empire and not its victims I care little for it.
Parroting nationalistic myths is an occupation of Fascists, not of those in working class movements.
Nationalistic delusions of grandeurs are part of the foundation for guys like Trump ending up winning elections.
Sanders should know better.
Another nit-pick by the circular firing squad of so-called progressives.
True American Patriots like Bernie understand that the USA was mearly subverted away from the Light of Democracy by malign actors.
Gaslighting from fascist twitter users more than circling firing squad. Definitely took an opportunity to try to dig at the GOAT.
Solid theory. The right does love to trawl through history looking for failed authoritarian regimes to soy over.
Obama's human rights record is abysmal. Sure he did a lot of good things too, but not closing Guantanamo, ramping up drone strikes etc negate all of that good. I've written him a couple of letters with all of this in detail to which he has yet to respond (no surprise). Instead he's doing voice over work for shitty documentaries on Netflix.
Yeah Obama hasn't written me back either!
wtf
You must be so happy that your sitting president is such a humanitarian.
This may come as a surprise for you but you can be against something or someone without being for something or someone else.
When trying to hold your leaders to a higher standard gets you downvotes. Classic.
It’s obviously unclear who actually fact checked Sanders here, but assuming it is indeed in good faith, this is why it’s so hard to mount a resistance to the fascism the US now has in power. There’s countless examples, but more or less they all revolve around (insert name) not being left enough or not being good enough, or in this case, not being honest enough. I don’t even disagree with the countless replies here that are rightfully pointing out that the US has propped up many non-democratic governments all over the world for its own moneyed and geopolitical interests - no shit. And I for one don’t defend it. But as an American myself who’s on the left, I’d gladly take Sanders for all his flaws compared to the bullshit fascist regime my country now has. I just don’t see how shitting on Sanders in this way is truly constructive in any capacity. I should add the caveat- by all means critique him, correct anything false he says- but to totally disregard him as this negative force? To my mind though, this is the so-called Internet left’s favorite pastime- shit talk people actually doing stuff, all while offering zero concrete proposals or actions themselves to make the country better. It’s very easy to sit and post to Lemmy about your self proclaimed radical leftist views, but your views mean fuck all if they never get implemented. Perhaps just sitting in your online echo chamber is all you really want though, so you can feel good about your personal political and social beliefs.
Of course they provide for the dictatorships, who do you think put them there in the first place? It's called responsible parenting sweaty 💅
He just said it supported democracy, not that it didn't ALSO support dictatorships!
arewethebaddies.gif
Dictators are good when they steal resources from the people and share them with us.
Whether technically correct or not (as I don't know anything about this topic), what's going on right now is insane, and if weapons were being sold to baddies under Obama, that also sounds shitty. So seems like any time is a good time to reflect upon how much power USA's militarily-industrial complex possesses.
In any case, you guys need to do better.
The same people would assert that we shouldn't be meddling in other countries affairs to promote democracy.
I'm not defending our history here - some of it is pretty reprehensible.
A lot of it is pretty reprehensible. That being said, in the last 150 years, every single time that the US goes isolationist, we've had a world war.....
Bless this old man's heart, I only wish it were true
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