Mark Paoletta, an attorney general candidate, has championed Trump’s power to order prosecutions. Mike Davis has called for criminal investigations of special counsel Jack Smith and N.Y. Attorney General Letitia James.
From the same place that suggests that if people suffer enough under capitalist regimes they’ll become suddenly inclined towards socialist revolution?
It’s revolutionary roleplay.
Republicans and Democrats are both (mostly) capitalists. But one is much easier to organize under than the other, not to mention the numerous demographics Republicans target and spread bigotry towards in the hope of creating divisions in the proletariat which can be exploited to perpetuate their system until it straight-up regresses into feudalism. I could go on and on about the differences there, but ultimately, it boils down to not all capitalists are equivalent, and I need people who have any pretense towards seriousness to stop pretending they are. Fuck, even Lenin said as much, but apparently he’s too much of a shitlib or something for some online.
Even if the point of view is that even left-leaning Democrats are just Social Fascists™ inhibiting the True Revolutionary Potential Of The Proletariat, the time to convince your enemies to go mask off and try to crush you is not when you don’t even have a power base set up to resist them. Even assuming I took revolution as gospel instead of an option, the equation of Democrats and Republicans by some self-proclaimed leftists is nothing short of insanity. It’s putting a gun against your head and daring someone to pull the trigger when you have no leverage on them, and they suffer no negative consequences from doing so.
I agree with most of your analysis, when viewed through the lens of immediate consequences. However I’d like to push back on the idea that it’s just revolutionary roleplay, and I’d like to explain why I see things that way.
I’ll agree that both parties, as in the voting base and establishment, are generally supportive of capitalist policies. However I believe that it’s far deeper than that. Not only are the folks at the top of both parties capitalists, but a vast majority of all the fundraising money they earn comes from billionaires. In a political context, money is never given without a reason. When you or I donate money, it’s because we want to see 1 or more candidates to win. When a billionaire donates money, they want political influence to direct party and government policy to benefit them and their capital. If they can’t get that influence with one party, they will happily change party allegiance because the duopoly does not provide any wiggle room for genuinely progressive policies due to financial incentive, unless there is a true working class crisis (i.e. the fallout from the great depression). It’s happened constantly throughout US history.
I will always point out that Marx would have never been able to do his crucial work in economics and political theory had Engels not funded and co-authored the endeavors. Everyone in the ruling class has the capacity to become a class traitor and fight for workers, but not the incentive. Mark Reuben genuinely seems like a decent person to me, and I respect him stepping in with Cost Plus. However, he has an economic incentive to get influence through the democratic party to improve profits for his other ventures at the cost and exploitation of the workers at those companies. It’s nowhere near as blatant as Musk, but it’s absolutely still present. If the Democratic party puts forward a policy that is in direct opposition to his profits, that support will dry up immediately.
Not only that, but remember how the democratic party forcibly pushed out Bernie in 2016, because he was offering genuine improvements to the working class? That pressure came from both the billionaire donors and the billionaire party establishment. The same happened in NY to AOC, to a lesser extent and primarily over her anti-genocide and anti-colonial stance towards Israel. The billionaires want to profit off of illegally seized land, and they do not care how many people they need to kill to get that profit. In my eyes, this might be a reason why Harris didn’t even try to disingenuously sell an anti-genocide stance.
From the same place that suggests that if people suffer enough under capitalist regimes they’ll become suddenly inclined towards socialist revolution?
It’s revolutionary roleplay.
Republicans and Democrats are both (mostly) capitalists. But one is much easier to organize under than the other, not to mention the numerous demographics Republicans target and spread bigotry towards in the hope of creating divisions in the proletariat which can be exploited to perpetuate their system until it straight-up regresses into feudalism. I could go on and on about the differences there, but ultimately, it boils down to not all capitalists are equivalent, and I need people who have any pretense towards seriousness to stop pretending they are. Fuck, even Lenin said as much, but apparently he’s too much of a shitlib or something for some online.
Even if the point of view is that even left-leaning Democrats are just Social Fascists™ inhibiting the True Revolutionary Potential Of The Proletariat, the time to convince your enemies to go mask off and try to crush you is not when you don’t even have a power base set up to resist them. Even assuming I took revolution as gospel instead of an option, the equation of Democrats and Republicans by some self-proclaimed leftists is nothing short of insanity. It’s putting a gun against your head and daring someone to pull the trigger when you have no leverage on them, and they suffer no negative consequences from doing so.
I agree with most of your analysis, when viewed through the lens of immediate consequences. However I’d like to push back on the idea that it’s just revolutionary roleplay, and I’d like to explain why I see things that way.
I’ll agree that both parties, as in the voting base and establishment, are generally supportive of capitalist policies. However I believe that it’s far deeper than that. Not only are the folks at the top of both parties capitalists, but a vast majority of all the fundraising money they earn comes from billionaires. In a political context, money is never given without a reason. When you or I donate money, it’s because we want to see 1 or more candidates to win. When a billionaire donates money, they want political influence to direct party and government policy to benefit them and their capital. If they can’t get that influence with one party, they will happily change party allegiance because the duopoly does not provide any wiggle room for genuinely progressive policies due to financial incentive, unless there is a true working class crisis (i.e. the fallout from the great depression). It’s happened constantly throughout US history.
I will always point out that Marx would have never been able to do his crucial work in economics and political theory had Engels not funded and co-authored the endeavors. Everyone in the ruling class has the capacity to become a class traitor and fight for workers, but not the incentive. Mark Reuben genuinely seems like a decent person to me, and I respect him stepping in with Cost Plus. However, he has an economic incentive to get influence through the democratic party to improve profits for his other ventures at the cost and exploitation of the workers at those companies. It’s nowhere near as blatant as Musk, but it’s absolutely still present. If the Democratic party puts forward a policy that is in direct opposition to his profits, that support will dry up immediately.
Not only that, but remember how the democratic party forcibly pushed out Bernie in 2016, because he was offering genuine improvements to the working class? That pressure came from both the billionaire donors and the billionaire party establishment. The same happened in NY to AOC, to a lesser extent and primarily over her anti-genocide and anti-colonial stance towards Israel. The billionaires want to profit off of illegally seized land, and they do not care how many people they need to kill to get that profit. In my eyes, this might be a reason why Harris didn’t even try to disingenuously sell an anti-genocide stance.