United States Politics Thread 46

[Ares Land]

Maybe the lesson leftists should learn from Trump is not that people are essentially conservative, but that people are essentially dumb.

Or maybe that they're easy marks. Reactionary conservativism of the kind the Republicans and Trump practice is essentially a large scale con.
I don't know if people can actually be fooled into socialism; there's probably too much about it that's counter-intuitive.

At least 12% of Sanders supporters switched to Trump IIRC. Not all, but a significant fraction. A woman in Jan 6 who was mentioned by the media several times was one of them. Try Googling: Sanders–Trump voters.

Many more were simply demoralized when Sanders didn't gain traction, and stopped following politics.

Interesting; I'll have to look this up. 12% is more than I expected.

You know more about this. I remember reading analyses saying that when the Socialists were in power, they were not able to govern as socialists like their voters expected.

That is also correct To put it shortly, it's worth keeping in mind expectations and standards here are way to the left of Americans; and used to be even further left.

The core demographic that constitutes the fascist base are people with small proprietor class interests: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqESHNvmP20 Granted, these people can be difficult to reason with.

Yes, that's what I believe as well.

In the American context, the key is that leftists have to convince them the left is not in favor of "replacing" the majority by appeasing minorities, safe spaces are compatible with personal liberty, etc. A lot of these grievances are perpetuated by right-wing propaganda outlets. This suggests a strategy of making them see the owners of these outlets as rivals who are keeping them down (absolutely true) rather than businessmen with a common cause.

I'm not so sure about that... Why even engage these grievances? Even acknowledging, say, Great Replacement theory is an automatic win for the far-right.

You didn't say the time is not right for a socialist President. I read you as saying that as long as there's a fascist threat, the conversation should be about how to counter it. If you don't discuss socialist alternatives, what will motivate voters to counter the fascist threat? How will 51% ever be in favor of socialism if it's never the right time to argue for it?

There's kind of a balancing act, I believe? It's always the right time to argue for socialism; but I don't think it's incompatible with acknowledging that the Democrats are still better than the Republicans.

I can get the attacks against liberals... but at times the rhetoric sounds like an own goal; or even borders to parroting Republican talking points.