And that’s being generous.
I’m tired of Democrats trying to convince me that making kind gestures and “being reasonable” to “help Republicans” is some kind of strategy.
At this point, after decades of this nonsense propaganda pushed at me from Democratic Party and Democratic Party politicians, I have to assume that some politicians are delusional, or I have to assume that it’s possible these Democrats, who push this nonsense at us, are in fact controlled opposition working with Republicans to try to control and shut up people like me, and that this has been the plan all along. The fact that Democrats constantly also tell us to accept trickle down economics, and tell us to be grateful our “betters” are “creating jobs”, and do taxpayer money giveaways to businesses and even banks, makes it all the more clear that these “Democrats” are not just not on my side, but also not living in reality, because trickle down economics is an unserious thoroughly debunked far right economic ideology and a project to usurp our money upwards. I think the Democratic Party needs to look at what the hell it stands for and not bolster politicians that treat voters in this egregiously abusive way.
Why would legitimate Democrats want these kinds of bad actors in the mix?
Voting for grossly unqualified Trump nominees that endanger us all. Proclaiming they’re going to find common ground with fascism, racism, sexism, as well as medical disinformation.
And then I hear that the explanation for this is because the Democratic party strategy. And I think calling these things strategies is incredibly generous.
They say that the Democrats try to make goodwill with Republicans to get goodwill back and make deals, and Republicans will have to come to their senses or something. But obviously those deals just sell out the people all the damn time. It’s quite obvious this doesn’t work, and that politics doesn’t work like that.
Another strategy I’ve heard mentioned several times is that Democrats just stand back and wait for people to get tired of or fed up with Republicans and their failed policies and they will go running to Democrats.
Frankly that makes me more suspicious about the controlled opposition theory because I don’t think people screw up that bad on purpose, lowball themselves out of the gate in a haggle, and they don’t tend to just think things work out without working for them. I would think people who’ve managed to get themselves elected would be so foolish. And of course sabotage works best when it looks like incompetence.
But let’s take them at their word that this is really the Democratic Party politician political strategy mindsets…
THIS IS ACCELERATIONISM.
Accelerationism is mostly associated with far left and far right extremist politics. So why is this center left political party adhering to a fringe political ideology?
People have some weird apocalyptic hopium associated with accelerationism. Since the election I’ve heard voters talking nonsense like this. I’ve heard actual Trump supporters saying that liberals and people on the left who voted for Harris, or who are registered democrats are going to wake up and realize how great Trump is and get on board with it once they see him clean things up and does all this great stuff. And I’ve also heard leftists claim that the Trump win and the Trump presidency is going to drive liberals into the arms of communists finally, when they realize that they’ve been betrayed by Democratic Party, and they’re going to be ready for a revolution. And I’ve heard many similar hopium ideas expressed from people along the political spectrum. So I get that this is apparently a really alluring and tantalizing story to tell oneself.
But it’s not real. We need a better story, a better movement than that, a better strategy for sure.
There’s no tipping point that can be reached. There’s no self-correction with an invisible hand of the market.
“Markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.”
— John Maynard Keynes
The idea that a portion of the entirety of the political spectrum in the U.S. has bought into this weird libertarian tipping point awakening accelerationism apocalyptic hopium is quite frankly a little embarrassing.
Do yourself a favour, don’t fall for that bullshit. The only thing to do is to pressure the representatives, of whatever party, that currently hold office, to do the right things, because that’s what we have to work with right now. And going forward try to support and vote for better ones getting in there, and that includes asking some hard questions when they’re campaigning. We need to birddog the heck out of them all.
References:
PBS Hacking Your Mind Weapons of Influence Episode 102 Aired: 09/16/20 Thaler helped to create a new field, behavioral economics, for which he won the Nobel Prize. One of the field’s key insights is that gut feelings like loss aversion lead consumers to make predictable mistakes, and companies in a market economy make a lot of money by encouraging us to make those mistakes. Until then, the widely accepted view had been that markets actually protect consumers from their mistakes.Thaler: “And so I would often hear something like the following — “Yes, yes.I understand that the people in your experiments and some of the people I know do foolish things, but in markets, then — and then I claim…” They could never quite finish this sentence without literally waving their hands, and the argument is somehow if you choose the wrong career or fail to save for retirement, that the market will somehow push you back toward being rational. There’s a reason why no one can make this argument without waving their hands, and that’s because the argument is just silly. You know, if you don’t save enough for retirement, what happens to you? You’re poor when you’re old. The market doesn’t discipline you.
Americans WILL TURN on CRACKPOT Trump (w/ Jim Acosta) | WTF 2 0 – The Bulwark – Feb 11, 2025 but I suspect there’re going to be enough Americans between now and then who are going to say we we don’t want this this is not what we signed up for who the hell signed up for invading Greenland and taking over the Panama Canal in Canada we didn’t even have that conversation during the campaign so you know they they I saw this when I covered him the first time around when I was a White House correspondent he always bites off more than he can shoot he always falls flat on his face I was talking to James Carville yesterday about this he was saying just let Trump go and do that to some extent yes go ahead and let him do that but I think between now and then the there is a need for push back and people have to push back and there’s just no other way around it
2.13.25 – What’s the Plan – A Weekly Discussion with Leah and Ezra – Indivisible Feb 13, 2025 some of us were saying we should not approve any of this guy’s cabinet nominees um he’s a bad guy he’s wants to be authoritarian he wants to be a dictator day one why would you give him any votes and there was a different strategic path which was well let’s vote for some of them let’s give Democratic votes for some of these and that will prove that we’re reasonable and that means we can fight harder on the really bad ones and Republicans will see that we’re reasonable and they’ll come over that was the strategy that was taken and I think what we’ve learned is that didn’t work that didn’t work and uh you could say in response to that therefore get them all out of office we need new leadership we need we need different Democrats and office well that that’s not where we are we should learn from trying to strategy having out worth and say hey when you try to demonstrate you’re reasonable to Republicans they take it for every penny you’re worth they’ll take all the votes you’re willing to give and they’ll give you nothing in return if you want to win against the Maga Coalition you got to play hard ball like they listen to Power they listen to you actually using your votes they don’t listen to your kind gestures just doesn’t work that way and I also think you know there was the voting for some nominees in order to concentrate fire on the worse but there was also I think the policy was called strategic silence I have to it back up again but the whole idea was if Democrats weren’t very outspoken about any of the nominees throughout November and December then that would clear space for Republicans to really fight each other that did not happen and in general I think if someone says the best way politically for us to approach the situation is to just stay as far away from it as possible and hope that voters come to the right conclusions on their own it’s that is not a strategy that has much of a track record of working we’ve got to recognize that most people most of the time are not paying attention and one way that they form their opinions about what’s happening in the world is they look to uh elites in Congress or elites in media spaces or maybe folks in their community who are organizing and think oh what are they saying okay well maybe I’m somewhere around there if you have strategic silence you know who they’re hearing from they’re hearing from Robert Kennedy they’re hearing from JD Vance they’re hearing from Donald Trump they’re hearing from Elon Musk and they’re hearing from Republicans who are in favor so you know this is why we we are pushing as much as we can a a a clear say no to the worst parts of what’s coming forward agenda clearly go out there and speak to your constituents and ultimately where we want to end up I want to be clear is not in one faction winning the debate I don’t care about winning the debate where I want to get to is a unified Democratic opposition that is the end goal and I’m not looking to settle any scores I somebody mentioned an axio article that um was brought up that some uh Democratic members were complaining about indivisible or moveon don’t feed axios driven drama that that’s not where we need to be y’all we need to be uh holding our friends accountable and pushing them into strategic Unity but but we need to have our eyes on the prize here which is nobody’s going to do any good if we’re fighting amongst ourselves ultimately we got to get to unified opposition that’s all I I hope we can get there and that’s what we’re working towards