"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, Thälmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. Thälmann famously said that ‘some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest’ of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called ‘social fascists.’

After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitler’s orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."

  • EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml
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    3 months ago

    Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed

    Karl Marx 1850

      • EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        Your solution to defeating the duopoly is continuing giving them power and participating in it?

        • chakan2@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          Would you like your vote to matter after November?

          Then yes, I’m pushing the duopoly this time around.

          • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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            3 months ago

            So if they can’t vote for their views now, and we keep pushing the duopoly, when do we get democracy?

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              When you start doing things that actually work.

              Look up the Moral Majority and Jerry Falwell. They would show up at every local GOP organizing event with enough voters to make sure their candidates for jobs like mayor, sheriff, and county clerk got the nod.

            • EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml
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              3 months ago

              That’s the thing, they never do. They have been pushing the lesser evil splitting the vote bullshit for over 150 years. The only people that benefits is the wealthy

              • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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                3 months ago

                Were the party system changes before then more due to

                • a major party crushing the other major party, and then splitting, or

                • a minor party growing and eventually replacing one of the two major parties?

                Bonus points if anyone has a source on this.

          • EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml
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            3 months ago

            It’s not like your vote matters now. Money has all the power in this country, voters have none. When 1 billionaire has more political influence than entire states you have no power. You’ve surrendered your power to the donor class.

            • chakan2@lemmy.world
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              3 months ago

              Who do you think has a better chance of fixing that? Putin’s orange Fleshlight? The chick he had dinner with? Brainworm? Some other rando that gets less than 1% of the vote?

              I hear you…it’s a problem…

              Throwing your vote away this cycle ensures that your vote will never matter again.

              • EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml
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                3 months ago

                The vote thrown away is the vote that’s cast out of fear. The dnc’s entire platform for the last few decades has been. We are not the other guy. You were casting a vote in opposition to the other guy, not in favor of policy or legislation, but not the other guy, that’s a protest vote

                • chakan2@lemmy.world
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                  3 months ago

                  No…I’m voting for policy this time around. If I get the state exception for state taxes I get a point and a half back.

                  Trump’s tariffs should fucking terrify everyone…think shit is expensive now, wait until that goes through.

                  What’s the 3rd parties offering that has a remote chance of dealing with either of those problems?

              • EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml
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                3 months ago

                This is the epitome of why Democrats hate Trump. He says the quiet things out loud. He has said ‘I dont care about you. I just want your vote.’

                This article confirms this, the Princeton study from 2012 confirms this. Several sources have confirmed politicians don’t care about us, only the monied class

        • Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          It’s not a way to defeat the duopoly, it’s a way to survive under it.

          Voting 3rd party is also not a way to defeat the duopoly.

        • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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          3 months ago

          Give me a reasonable alternative and I’ll take it.

          You don’t name a candidate to vote for, just say we shouldn’t participate.

          Who do you think scares Donnie more, Harris or your non-participation?

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        If anything, letting Democrats win the next few major elections could spell doom for the Republican party as a whole, and give us a chance to introduce some actual competition to the Democratic party.

        This will never happen. The replacement party will be fascist. The Republican Party’s fascism doesn’t exist because of “brainwashing” or “conmen,” it exists because fascism rises from decaying Capitalism. If you don’t get rid of the Capitalism, the conditions for fascism remain.

        That means we need to abolish the electoral college, introduce universal mail-in voting, defeat all right-wing disenfranchisement efforts, and introduce ranked-choice voting to all elections. These are radical changes that will take a lot of work to accomplish, and that will face a lot of opposition.

        Under Democrat leadership, these things are possible. Under Republican leadership, we’ll be lucky if we still have elections.

        The Democrats will never work against their donors. This will never happen.

          • Maeve@kbin.earth
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            3 months ago

            That part. They know where we’re going, the only difference as far as I can see is some prefer it slower, to keep from spooking the populace, and others are willing to slaughter any part of the populace that resist.

            One day, the lambs will stop screaming.

    • jordanlund@lemmy.worldOPM
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      3 months ago

      Marx didn’t live long enough to see just how ineffectual that line of thinking actually is.

      • EmpireInDecay@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        Same capitalists trying the same failed tactics of voter suppression.

        Every one of his perspectives of capitalism and it’s bourgeoisie governments still rings true.

      • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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        3 months ago

        Is the US Socialist? Has Socialism been brought about by establishment parties anywhere in history?

            • GlobalCompatriot@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              If it wasn’t for his Secretary of Labor, Francis Perkins, who was socialist, none of the things that he passed would have ever come to fruition. He gets way too much for credit for the ideology of a female socialist

            • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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              3 months ago

              Slow motion is better than no motion.

              It’s pointless to argue over who is a ‘real’ Socialist. I can come up with arguments about anyone you care to name to prove they weren’t ‘real’ Socialists. What are the policies that actually improve people’s lives?

              • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                3 months ago

                FDR was okay, then his safety nets were stripped away. They were only ever temporary concessions because Capitalists were always the ones in control, and they still are. In this manner, it was eventually no motion.

                • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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                  3 months ago

                  Almost as if the point of socialism is to strip away the the means of production from the capitalists in order to install a dictatorship of the proletariat, and not simply apply social safety-net band-aids so that capitalism can continue to function.

                  American liberals are so exhausting in their selective application of definitions.

                  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                    3 months ago

                    100%, I’m trying to get them to come to that conclusion on “their own.”

                    American liberals are so exhausting in their selective application of definitions.

                    Would make things a lot easier, lol

                • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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                  3 months ago

                  then his safety nets were stripped away.

                  Almost as if it’s important to get out and vote in every election.

                  Ronald Reagan sabotaged Jimmy Carter’s Iran policy and squeaked in with the help of spoiler John Anderson.

                  You yourself said it; there were good policies in place, the Right hated them, and used a lot of dirty tricks to get rid of the good policies.

                  Having good government is like controlling diabetes; you have to be vigilant all the time.

                  • Cowbee [he/they]@lemmy.ml
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                    3 months ago

                    No, I fundamentally disagree with your entire view of historical development, ie the why behind everything.

                    History is a progression of material conditions, not people and ideas, not Great Individuals making Big Moves. Social Democracy came at a time when the Soviet Union was rising, and Capitalists within America feared similar uprisings in America, compounded by the Great Depression. Concessions were allowed in that context, temporarily.

                    Neoliberalism came later, after WWII, during the height of the Cold War. It was a way to further seek profits in the Global South.

                    Fascism is rising now because Capitalism is undoubtedly in decline, and is decaying further.

                    Material Conditions drive the ideas that drive the masses that drive what’s salient, not random Great People doing everything.

                  • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.social
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                    3 months ago

                    Jesus christ, that’s just not what socialism is.

                    There’s a reason why social-democrats are castigated in communist circles. Social-democratic policy is always inevitably eroded because social safety nets don’t solve the fundamental contradiction of capitalism. It isn’t a matter of ‘getting out the vote’