Zompist Bboard Again

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 4:01 pmCheer on, not ignore or demoralize. Defeatism is literally collaboration.

Sure but looking at the situation objectively and dispassionately, how would you rate the chances of defeating Trump and the broader MAGA movement?

malloc wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 8:12 pm

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 4:01 pmCheer on, not ignore or demoralize. Defeatism is literally collaboration.

Sure but looking at the situation objectively and dispassionately, how would you rate the chances of defeating Trump and the broader MAGA movement?

Significantly higher than 0; probably even higher than 50%. And your actions can help increase that chance!

malloc wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 8:12 pm

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 4:01 pmCheer on, not ignore or demoralize. Defeatism is literally collaboration.

Sure but looking at the situation objectively and dispassionately, how would you rate the chances of defeating Trump and the broader MAGA movement?

Pretty good, considering that he's extremely doddery, and extremely fond of self-defeating policies.

But it's the wrong question. The world is not set up to give you your personal utopia, at no cost to you, nor is it our job to coddle and reassure you into giving a damn. Political advances have to be fought for. And sometimes we fight them for other people.

malloc wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 8:12 pm

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Aug 25, 2025 4:01 pmCheer on, not ignore or demoralize. Defeatism is literally collaboration.

Sure but

aaaaand here we go again, refusing to listen. *sigh*

looking at the situation objectively and dispassionately,

we have been.

how would you rate the chances of defeating Trump and the broader MAGA movement?

'and' changes the question. because the 'broader maga movement' is already ticked off at Trump and may not vote for him like they did before. that in and of itself, defeats Trump. so we already know he'll be not returning in the next US Presidential Election Cycle.

Some good news (Malloc, take note!), it turns out that cutting Medicaid isn't popular after all:

https://x.com/MeidasTouch/status/1960513405149990937 wrote:Democrat Catelin Drey FLIPS Iowa SD-1 — a district Trump won by 11.5 points in 2024 — defeating Republican Christopher Prosch in a landslide special election and breaking the GOP supermajority.

She won 54.5% to 45.5%. That's a swing of 20.5 percentage points, although the comparison isn't exactly apples to apples.

This is the same state where a few months ago a different state senator said "Well, we all are going to die." (the implication being that it's not preventable, so why bother trying) in response to worry about medicaid cuts.
- https://www.npr.org/2025/05/31/nx-s1-54 ... wa-senator

Also, as a word of advice to Malloc, as somebody who also gets depressed, the most useful feelings to have right now (and in life in general) are defiance and activity, not despair and acquiescence.

Well alright, I realize that my comments here sound horribly depressing and even demotivating. Nonetheless, it just doesn't feel right to deny the overwhelming evidence that we are cooked like a Christmas goose. Why does this thread exist if not to discuss the cold hard facts about the current administration?

this isn't a well formed proposition and, therefore, does not qualify as "discussing the cold hard facts" about anything. operationalize it

for example, do you maybe mean "the standard of living of americans will fall in the next years"? if so you're correct, but it was also dropping before the clown

maybe you mean "the us will definitely become an authoritarian regime"? leaving aside that the edges between authoritarian and non-authoritarian are fuzzy, that's at least a concrete claim.

If you are going to be pessimistic, at least have "Optimism of the intellect, pessimism of the will", like Gramsci.

News!

Trump further weaponized the DoJ and had John Bolton's home raided a week or two ago.
- https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/25/white-h ... -deal.html

President Trump, or maybe should I say "chairman Trump", has done some state capitalism by buying 10% of Intel to create a sovereign wealth fund, a thing that leftists like Bernie Sanders and Matt Bruenig have long advocated for. Trump has also said that he wants to make more "deals" like this.
- https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/22/intel-g ... stake.html
- https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/25/white-h ... -deal.html
- https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-sen ... 2025-08-20
- https://www.peoplespolicyproject.org/pr ... ealth-fund

Once again, Trump has picked the low-hanging fruit that Democrats have abandoned. Democrats make up excuses, while Trump just acts, and uses his charisma to get people on board with it. Marketing is half the battle. (Remember the people that didn't/don't know that "Obamacare" and "The Affordable Care Act" are the same thing?)
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sx2scvIFGjE

jcb wrote: ↑Mon Sep 01, 2025 3:58 pm President Trump, or maybe should I say "chairman Trump", has done some state capitalism by buying 10% of Intel to create a sovereign wealth fund, a thing that leftists like Bernie Sanders and Matt Bruenig have long advocated for. Trump has also said that he wants to make more "deals" like this.

Why are you cheerleading actual Nazi shit?

This is corrupt crony capitalism, getting the federal government deeply involved in some businesses and not others, for pure political reasons. As one analyst wrote, "When a president can dictate that leading American firms must pay the Treasury a couple of billion dollars in exchange for merger approval, market access, or other regulatory relief, tax policy becomes indistinguishable from extortion." Or another: "The president has assumed a quasi-authority to orchestrate how the private sector operates, both broadly and down to the management and ownership of individual companies."

Oh, and the administration "created a scorecard that rates 553 companies and trade associations on how hard they worked to support and promote President Trump's [bill]", according to Axios. Personal loyalty to the Führer is all that matters to the GOP now. As a reminder, national socialism did not actually create a thousand-year Reich.

While you're applauding this fascist takeover of business, Trump has ended collective bargaining rights for one milllion federal workers. You think Democrats don't promote unions enough; well, fascists destroy unions.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Sep 01, 2025 11:36 pm
This is corrupt crony capitalism, getting the federal government deeply involved in some businesses and not others, for pure political reasons. As one analyst wrote, "When a president can dictate that leading American firms must pay the Treasury a couple of billion dollars in exchange for merger approval, market access, or other regulatory relief, tax policy becomes indistinguishable from extortion." Or another: "The president has assumed a quasi-authority to orchestrate how the private sector operates, both broadly and down to the management and ownership of individual companies."

I was a bit surprised at the federal government getting involved in Intel -- I was sure that sort of thing just didn't happen in the US. The crony capitalism angle helps make sense of it.

(In Europe the government having share in companies or owning them outright isn't uncommon. I'm not convinced it changes anything one way or another.)

Ares Land wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2025 2:30 am I was a bit surprised at the federal government getting involved in Intel -- I was sure that sort of thing just didn't happen in the US. The crony capitalism angle helps make sense of it.

(In Europe the government having share in companies or owning them outright isn't uncommon. I'm not convinced it changes anything one way or another.)

Yeah, to be clear, public ownership in itself isn't crony capitalism. But this isn't European-style state capitalism, it's just Egypt-style corruption.

That's Trump for you -- or rather, that's the signature move of populism: measures that superficially sound correct and turn out to be just corrupt.

zompist wrote: ↑Mon Sep 01, 2025 11:36 pm While you're applauding this fascist takeover of business, Trump has ended collective bargaining rights for one milllion federal workers. You think Democrats don't promote unions enough; well, fascists destroy unions.

But but but we have to show people how right-wing the Dems are by attacking them at every opportunity (with the fact that the other major party is a bunch of real live fascists being merely an inconvenient sidenote).

To be honest, I really want to ask the people here who said they weren't going to vote for Harris because she wasn't left-wing enough as to whether they are happy now. And yeah, those who didn't vote for Harris over Gaza should at least acknowledge their utter and complete naivete in the very least.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:36 am To be honest, I really want to ask the people here who said they weren't going to vote for Harris because she wasn't left-wing enough as to whether they are happy now.

So do I, so:

To the people here who said they weren't going to vote for Harris because she wasn't left-wing enough, are you happy now? Would you have been happier if she had won?

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:36 am To be honest, I really want to ask the people here who said they weren't going to vote for Harris because she wasn't left-wing enough as to whether they are happy now. And yeah, those who didn't vote for Harris over Gaza should at least acknowledge their utter and complete naivete in the very least.

That's really only a gotcha question in states Harris didn't win. E.g. here in Illinois the vote was 3.06 million for Harris, 2.45 million for Trump. The margin is 613,784. I'd wager that most of the leftist Harris-non-voters live in safe states.

But they're fair game in, say, Wisconsin, where Trump won with a margin of 29,397.

I'm dubious about claims that far leftists cost Harris the election. The group that should be (and so far as I know is) most abashed over their dereliction is Hispanics. (28% for Trump in 2016, 42% in 2024.)

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2025 3:57 pm The group that should be (and so far as I know is) most abashed over their dereliction is Hispanics. (28% for Trump in 2016, 42% in 2024.)

My hope is that many of those people will have learned their lesson and strongly question voting Republican ever again.

zompist wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2025 3:57 pm The group that should be (and so far as I know is) most abashed over their dereliction is Hispanics. (28% for Trump in 2016, 42% in 2024.)

Well, a lot of Hispanics are working class, so I guess that's where the Democrats' neglect of the working class that jcb loves talking about comes in.

Found this on Mastodon and thought it was amusing.

Oliver Kornetzke wrote: Behold. The festering carcass of American rot shoved into an ill-fitting suit: the sleaze of a conman, the cowardice of a draft dodger, the gluttony of a parasite, the racism of a Klansman, the sexism of a back-alley creep, the ignorance of a bar-stool drunk, and the greed of a hedge-fund ghoul--all spray-painted orange and paraded like a prize hog at a county fair. Not a president. Not even a man. Just the diseased distillation of everything this country swears it isn't but has always been arrogance dressed up as exceptionalism, stupidity passed off as common sense, cruelty sold as toughness, greed exalted as ambition, and corruption worshiped like gospel. It is America's shadow made flesh, a rotting pumpkin idol proving that when a nation kneels before money, power, and spite, it doesn't just lose its soul-it shits out this bloated obscenity and calls it a leader.

I'm always impressed when people manage it to come up with fairly complete bullet point lists of all the things that are wrong with Donald Trump. If someone told me to do that, I'd probably have no idea where to start.

I tried to convince people to support Harris, but I feel like this is going too far in the other direction.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:36 am But but but we have to show people how right-wing the Dems are by attacking them at every opportunity (with the fact that the other major party is a bunch of real live fascists being merely an inconvenient sidenote).

Centrist Democrats constantly provoke leftists. They see Republicans as a force of nature they must always capitulate to. Leftists are the actual targets of their ire.

Evangelicals still love Trump. I feel like a lot of extremists don't understand how much the rest of us hate them. We need to organize rallies against them.

Travis B. wrote: ↑Tue Sep 02, 2025 10:36 am To be honest, I really want to ask the people here who said they weren't going to vote for Harris because she wasn't left-wing enough as to whether they are happy now. And yeah, those who didn't vote for Harris over Gaza should at least acknowledge their utter and complete naivete in the very least.

I tried to tell people, but it's human nature to prefer death over disability. Secondly, the American election system is designed to be inconvenient for the poor. It's hard to get voters out in large numbers for candidates they're not enthusiastic about. The answer Harris gave about how her administration would be different from Biden's was not convincing. Also, a lot of people honestly don't understand the concept of voting for a politician they don't support. They're like, "The left was against Gaza, so we opposed them. I don't get it." I don't think a lot of them will ever learn the lesson. The lesson can't be represented within their conceptual framework.

Besides, if it's worth supporting genocide just to work within existing institutions, that blunts all liberal criticisms of the Soviet Union. Tankies can say the same thing: Since Soviet genocides were endemic to the system as it existed, it was worth looking the other way to prevent the system from failing. If the Soviet genocides argued for opposing Communism, maybe the same argument can be made against a plutocracy that offers voters a choice between left-Nazism and right-Nazism.