this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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Sorry, maybe I’m still misunderstanding, but I don’t see how this responds to what I was saying above. Whether or not the dems are lying (I’m assuming lying about being anti-trump and against the current hard right turn) I don’t believe contradicts my point that when explaining the rise of trump settler colonial ideology, the racial landscape of the us, and the collapse of empire are more important than any action by the dems. Things like the pied piper strategy commonly blamed for the rise of trump are important and should be criticized, but the only reason those things had the effect they did is because of the things cited above that are baked into the American landscape. Without Clinton and the dnc’s actions in 2016 we still get a trump-like figure, though maybe not in 2016.
In terms of the furtherance of settler colonial ideology and the maintenance of racial hierarchy, the dems are to blame, but I don’t believe more than any other bourgeois capitalist. I think this this is what you mean when you’re talking about how the dems are lying, like they’re not really against trump and the inaction is deliberate. But they’re a bourgeois party so any action (or inaction) is due to that imo, not anything specific to the dem party. In terms of actions specific to the dem party, there’s still important stuff to criticize there, but to me the focus tends to be skewed when the rise and continuing support of trump is really rooted in things that go far beyond the dem party.
If they were simply little guys doing their best that would be one thing.
They are a fundamental part of our government. They helped create those vibes. They have blood on their hands from the lives spent to enshrine their power over vibes here in the country. They are responsible for creating and they do the most work in defending it. Down to the last intern they deserve the wall for their sins.
I haven’t argued they have no blood on their hands. But their responsibility in creating and sustaining settler ideology and empire is not fundamentally different or greater than any other part of the bourgeois class or the colonial power structure. I take issue with your idea that they somehow do the most work in defending settler ideology. They shouldn’t be treated as an exceptional force in the maintenance of settler ideology and I’m wondering how your statement could even be quantified. I also take issue with the idea that they are responsible for creating something (what it is you don’t say). The Dems are about 200 years old. Settler ideology and the colonial power structure stretch back 500 years. The dems are one expression of that settler ideology, not the other way around.
And specifically we’re talking about the rise of trump and the maga movement. For all we can say about the dems, for all of their fault in helping to unleash that force, at the end of the day it didn’t come from their camp. It came from something with a long history in this country that greatly predates the dems that has been present on the American landscape since the first European settlement. The dems are a part of that force which I think is what you’re saying, but I don’t think the dems can truly be blamed except as one part of a wider condemnation of capitalism, colonialism and empire. To single out the dems in assigning blame for the rise of trump to me just seems to be missing the forest for the trees.
They are the group that made trump happen. They are the most proximal cause. You are right trump would exist without them. He wouldn't be a problem without their support and protection. The current crop of the DNC is still guilty of the old sins those hundres of years ago. They didn't have to join an evil organization for the purpose of profiting off evil but they did. In every meaningful well they are fully culpable of every sin of the empire. More importantly if they were removed the odds of fixing things go up. If the GOP was removed the DNC would just keep on enacting conservative policies with no change at all.
And so I say again trump and the maga movement did not come from the dem party camp. You’re falling into the trap I criticized in my initial comment of denying trump and his supporters agency. The actions of Hillary Clinton and the dnc are widely known at least on this site, but those actions they took in 2016 that allowed trump to seize power did not create trump and the maga movement. Go back to the tea party, the Republican revolution, the moral majority, the southern strategy. The ideological predecessors of the maga movement had been consolidating themselves in the gop throughout the latter half of the 20th century and into the 21st. The extent to which the dems are blameful is merely inaction, co-signing the destruction of the left and acting as a bourgeois party supporting these trends, or at least supporting the colonial power structure from which these trends are a natural consequence. Which are serious charges. But the gop is equally blameful in this, why I take issue with your claim that the absence of the dems increases the chances of achieving socialism in this country. And while both parties act as bourgeois parties do, the gop becomes home to the direct predecessors leading to the maga movement.
To say the dems are the group that made trump happen ignores the actual groups who placed him in power and how present his ideas are in the American landscape. Hillary Clinton didn’t force half the country to become fascists and rabid settlers in 2016. Fwiw I don’t think blaming the dems for the rise of trump is wrong per se, I just think the focus is skewed away from the places where trump’s support actually springs from. And it tends to pin larger picture stuff on the dems that is in reality much larger than the dems
Trumps support springs from the DNC. If they weren't so powerfully suppressing the left trump would never have gotten popular. He was originally an outsider to the left on mainstream politics on several issues and people responded positively enough to that to start the ball rolling. Trump is a symptom of a diseases the DNC prevents us from treating. They are the most proximate cause of all this.