If Americans don’t wake up to the fact that both of our parties have been leading us down a road that only leads to fascism, we will just keep sinking in the quicksand.
Look at it like this. Democrats are AIDS and Republicans are pneumonia. AIDS will never be the thing that kills you, but it’s the thing that should have been addressed to avoid the pneumonia. Pneumonia will absolutely kill you, but only takes hold when there is already a broader issue.
Democrats took away our ability to effectively fight fascism, and now fascism has come for us. We might beat fascism back for a time, but failing to address the broader issue means that time will be short.
I’m going to give this one more try without the metaphor because I think this is an important point that everyone should understand.
Cutting funding to AIDS research and medical care is a very fascist thing to do, and fascist Republicans are the ones responsible for doing it. Fascists are what formal logic would label the proximate cause for the change. Events also have what are labeled as distal causes which include the broader set of circumstances that led to the event happening. In that case that would include the societal factors that led to the rise of fascism in the first place. That is where neoliberalism gets to shoulder some of the blame. Neoliberals aren’t the ones cutting AIDS funding, but they set the stage for fascists to take over.
Neoliberal policy has led (as it always does) to massive wealth inequality and a general mistrust in government. That leads to populist movements. Populist movements seek to reform “the system” to fix real or perceived injustices. They can be positive (think Bernie or AOC) or negative (think MAGA). Negative populism includes racism, xenophobia, nationalism, and all kinds of scape goating. When politicians ride negative populism into power, that is fascism.
In a society like ours with record setting inequality and a marketplace where predatory corporations are ripping people off as a regular business practice, stopping populism is like trying to stop a tide from coming in. Neoliberals (Republicans and Democrats) have been trying to do that for 50+ years. When “anybody but Bernie” Democrats crashed into MAGA and Trump, the rise of fascism and, ultimately, the end of funding for AIDS research was locked in. Democrats fought tooth and nail to suppress healthy populism, so most of the populist ferver went to supporting Trump.
Populism is here to stay, until some real reform starts to happen. As long as Democrats keep trying to suppress it, fascism will continue to benefit.
Neoliberal policy has led (as it always does) to massive wealth inequality and a general mistrust in government.
This is the keystone of your entire position and you breezed past it as if it wasn’t total fiction. Liberal policies have lifted billions of people globally out of poverty. Over the last century, they have measurably improved lives to an extent and at a speed that would stagger a peasant in the 1600s. Liberal capitalism is, in an extremely measurable way, quite likely the greatest invention in the history of mankind.
In the near term, Democratic policies under Biden literally reduced the wealth gap for the first time in a generation. The problem was, facts be damned, people felt like the wealth gap was getting worse.
Which brings us to the real reason for distrust in government under democratic policies - literal fucking media propaganda. The Fascists took over the media apparatus, and the rest was history.
That’s not even a proper use of that meme.
If Americans don’t wake up to the fact that both of our parties have been leading us down a road that only leads to fascism, we will just keep sinking in the quicksand.
Look at it like this. Democrats are AIDS and Republicans are pneumonia. AIDS will never be the thing that kills you, but it’s the thing that should have been addressed to avoid the pneumonia. Pneumonia will absolutely kill you, but only takes hold when there is already a broader issue.
Democrats took away our ability to effectively fight fascism, and now fascism has come for us. We might beat fascism back for a time, but failing to address the broader issue means that time will be short.
Fun fact: Republicans are currently slashing the budgets of AIDS prevention organizations, budgets that were largely put in place by Democrats.
But hey, “both sidez” lol
It’s called an analogy. Actual AIDS policy is irrelevant to my point.
Here is something “both sides” do, thought terminating cliches.
Actual AIDS policy is just a particularly salient example of how your point is wrong.
No, it’s a salient example of how (metaphoric) pneumonia kills us.
That doesn’t even make sense. You’re floundering.
I’m going to give this one more try without the metaphor because I think this is an important point that everyone should understand.
Cutting funding to AIDS research and medical care is a very fascist thing to do, and fascist Republicans are the ones responsible for doing it. Fascists are what formal logic would label the proximate cause for the change. Events also have what are labeled as distal causes which include the broader set of circumstances that led to the event happening. In that case that would include the societal factors that led to the rise of fascism in the first place. That is where neoliberalism gets to shoulder some of the blame. Neoliberals aren’t the ones cutting AIDS funding, but they set the stage for fascists to take over.
Neoliberal policy has led (as it always does) to massive wealth inequality and a general mistrust in government. That leads to populist movements. Populist movements seek to reform “the system” to fix real or perceived injustices. They can be positive (think Bernie or AOC) or negative (think MAGA). Negative populism includes racism, xenophobia, nationalism, and all kinds of scape goating. When politicians ride negative populism into power, that is fascism.
In a society like ours with record setting inequality and a marketplace where predatory corporations are ripping people off as a regular business practice, stopping populism is like trying to stop a tide from coming in. Neoliberals (Republicans and Democrats) have been trying to do that for 50+ years. When “anybody but Bernie” Democrats crashed into MAGA and Trump, the rise of fascism and, ultimately, the end of funding for AIDS research was locked in. Democrats fought tooth and nail to suppress healthy populism, so most of the populist ferver went to supporting Trump.
Populism is here to stay, until some real reform starts to happen. As long as Democrats keep trying to suppress it, fascism will continue to benefit.
This is the keystone of your entire position and you breezed past it as if it wasn’t total fiction. Liberal policies have lifted billions of people globally out of poverty. Over the last century, they have measurably improved lives to an extent and at a speed that would stagger a peasant in the 1600s. Liberal capitalism is, in an extremely measurable way, quite likely the greatest invention in the history of mankind.
In the near term, Democratic policies under Biden literally reduced the wealth gap for the first time in a generation. The problem was, facts be damned, people felt like the wealth gap was getting worse.
Which brings us to the real reason for distrust in government under democratic policies - literal fucking media propaganda. The Fascists took over the media apparatus, and the rest was history.