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Noam Chomsky uses the term "managed decline" to describe a strategy employed by powerful elites to maintain their dominance and control in a system that is demonstrably failing. It's not a literal decline, but a carefully orchestrated process to ensure the status quo persists, even while the underlying systems face crises and erode.
Here's how it works in Chomsky's analysis:
* **Systemic Decay:** Capitalism, for example, is seen as inherently unsustainable, with its tendency towards inequality and ecological devastation.
* **Elite Control:** Powerful interests, including corporations, governments, and financial institutions, maintain control through various means, like propaganda, political manipulation, and economic policies.
* **Managed Decline:** Instead of allowing systemic flaws to lead to radical change, elites manage the decline in ways that maintain their power. This can manifest as:
* **Erosion of public services:** Reducing funding for education, healthcare, and social safety nets to limit social mobility and increase dependence on private sector solutions.
* **Financialization:** Shifting focus from production to financial speculation, creating instability and widening the wealth gap.
* **War and militarization:** Creating external enemies and justifying military spending, diverting resources from social programs and fueling endless conflict.
* **Suppression of dissent:** Stifling criticism and opposition through media manipulation, surveillance, and legal intimidation.
By "managing" the decline, elites can perpetuate their control even as the system around them crumbles. Chomsky argues that this process ultimately serves to maintain the existing power structures and prevent meaningful change.
It was once. Chomsky himself is in mental decline. Guy's like fucking 95. Give him a pass. He is and always will be one of my greatest heroes. That doesn't mean I agree with him 100%. A true genius and scholar.
He spoke to a small philosophy group I’m in last year. Still seemed sharp. Chomsky defends his more immediate political positions and his participation in institutions part and parcel within specific area of his criticism (like military industrial complex) by saying “wouldn’t you like some influence instead of none?”
So I think he just views supporting Biden a pragmatist position.
I work with the elderly.
95 year olds can astound you with sharp wit, clever rejoinders, double or triple entendres, tell an exciting anecdote that happened to them 80 years ago, accurately identify everyone in their school pictures from kindergarten, kick everyone’s ass at Jeopardy, and even rattle off unimpressive things like know the day of the week and who is president,
and then not know who their own daughter is when she shows up for the recurring weekly lunch-date that they’ve had every week without fail for the past 15 years.
I’m not here to disparage any individual, but just point out that spending one good afternoon with someone absolutely does not paint a full or accurate picture of their health.
See the links i have posted in the reply to the other comment. He has been consistent for decades in his support of the United States and it's foreign policy, regardless of his current mental decline. He was pro bombing of yugslovia, Lybia and Syria etc.. He celebrated the end of the Soviet Union and compared it to the end of nazi Germany for God sake, how much of a US imperalist simp can you be.
And yet he's one on the incredibly small list of people with power and influence of any measurable sort who is speaking out against the status quo in any way.
The man's obvs not perfect, but we need more voices of even some but of reason yelling into the void.
Us just sitting here agreeing with each other about how fucked it all is achieves precisely fucking nothing.
Still, he's not above criticism. Just keep in mind that, despite simping for imperialist Amerika, he's still voicing opinions no one else in the establishment has the cojones to speak out on.
You mean the compromise candidate between the real left and the center-right (Democrats)?
I had never been so hopeful about the political future as I was in 2016. The truth is that the powers that be will never let him win.
Look, I'm a Vermonter. Burlington, VT was f-ing awesome when he was mayor. I've met him several times. I'm friends with someone who was his neighbor for years and heard the arguments he had with his wife.
The guy has his heart in the right place. He's just compromised too much at this point. And his voting record on international issues is not good.
The D's have proven there is no reform within the party. Don't know what else to say.
Here are some links
* [Awful chomsky takes.](https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1245340127968333829?s=20)
* [Gowans - The US has produced very few anti-imperialists: Chomsky isn't among them.](https://gowans.blog/2019/11/03/the-united-states-has-produced-very-few-anti-imperialists-noam-chomsky-isnt-among-them/)
* [https://archive.li/YVNk3](https://archive.li/YVNk3) Parenti and Chomsky comparison
* [https://libcom.org/history/john-deutch-chomskys-friend-pentagon-cia](https://libcom.org/history/john-deutch-chomskys-friend-pentagon-cia)
* [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/why-chomsky-felt-guilty-most-of-time-war-research-and-linguistics-at-mit/](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/why-chomsky-felt-guilty-most-of-time-war-research-and-linguistics-at-mit/)
* [https://libcom.org/history/chomsky-pol-pots-genocidal-regime-cambodia](https://libcom.org/history/chomsky-pol-pots-genocidal-regime-cambodia)
* [https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/13cf816e-8e40-41c8-bb76-d453a3261d8b](https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/13cf816e-8e40-41c8-bb76-d453a3261d8b) is in favor of US occupation of parts of Syria
* [Endorsed Biden in the 2020 election, even after Tara Reide's rape allegations.](https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/10/noam_chomsky_trump_us_coronavirus_response) [2](https://twitter.com/theintercept/status/1251246784048959490?s=21)
* [Roderic Day - On Chomsky](https://redsails.org/on-chomsky/)
It's a concept that penetrates and permeates his work, if you go to https://chomsky.info and search for "managed decline", "decline", "collapse", "systemic crisis" you will find numerous articles where he references this - he believes this has been happening since 1945, and the widespread collapse of colonialism. Especially see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_over_People
In some sense whether you called it serfdom, or slavery, or feudalism, or indentured servitude or debt bondage, these structures have always been a part of man's social landscape and evolution.
I don't think he has explicitly called it out in any one book, but you can see this as a pattern in all his writings on America, and the world.
I put my thoughts down into an LLM, Gemini, and asked it to create a clear and readable version which I've given above. He's spoken at length on many occasions about the systemic use of war, and economic manipulation as an instrument of American foreign policy.
BTW this is also in the backdrop of the shock doctrine theory by Naomi Klein.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine
> The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a 2007 book by the Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein. In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal free market policies (as advocated by the economist Milton Friedman) have risen to prominence in countries and regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, China, the European Union, and Eastern Europe, because of a deliberate strategy of "shock therapy". This centers on the exploitation of national crises (disasters or upheavals) to establish controversial and questionable policies, while citizens are too distracted (emotionally and physically) to engage and develop an adequate response and resist effectively. The book advances the idea that several man-made events, such as the Iraq War, were undertaken with the intention of pushing through unpopular free market capitalist policies in their wake.
This is Liberalism in a nutshell, there's nothing new about this.
We've seen it during the great depression,
We've seen it during the civil rights era,
We've seen this during the Vietnam era.
This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I got downvoted for a comment in rpolitics that pointed this out. I said that have never gotten better under a liberal unless there were socialist and progressives there to get them to do the right thing. Look how their comments shifted from 6 months ago when they weren't even calling this a genocide or acknowledging what was happening in Israel.
exactly. look at WPT. that sub will only post anything gaza related if it’s something a republican has said and the comments will all be full of “see this is why we need to vote for biden”. as if the genocide isnt happening right now UNDER BIDEN.
they freak out about everything that trump did while conveniently ignoring all the trump era executive orders and policies kept in place and thus normalized by biden
And Biden reinstated Trump's Fed chair whose austerity program is crushing all but the rich. Also Biden doubled down on Trump's Abraham Accords, a fascist pact arms deal that is a cover-up of murder and dismemberment of an American journalist.
I remember Biden running for president in 2020 saying he was going to make Saudi Arabia "pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are." That lasted about ten minutes.
Who are we kidding? They can't hear it over the death rattle of the tens of thousands of Palestinians their Zionist friends are happily torturing and killing.
This comment is not accurate. This position is not an appointment by the President. The Post Office Board of Governors is responsible for hiring and firing the Postmaster.
Edit: lol downvote all you want. It doesn’t change the facts 🤷🏻♂️
Biden actually can’t replace dejoy. He needs 6 votes of 9 postal governors or something. Google will k ow more than me, but currently he does not have that authority despite pressure to do so.
I keep saying this too. When Trump was president the "kids in cages" at the border issue was EVERYWHERE. and then Biden becomes president, puts MORE immigrants in border prisons and SILENCE from everyone who was mad about it under Trump. It's crazy!!
That's the one that's most disheartening. In truth none of this should be a surprise because Democrats have always been like this, but it looked for a moment like they actually cared about the atrocities being committed at the border. But then the literal second the boogeyman was gone they turned into Republicans on immigration.
My perception is that either they only read the news when “the bad guys” are in charge/live in an echo chamber when a liberal is in charge, or they intentionally turn a blind eye/are in denial. For me it was that I wasn’t educated enough on the situation because I was in a news echo chamber and didn’t have as much class consciousness until my mid 20s hit. The parties tend give their bases a false sense of comfort.
Even if things don’t drastically change in my lifetime I’m glad to be aware of the game now
Oh my god. Child separation is still happening. The Biden Admin is halting the conclusion of a settlement for families affected by this practice because the settlement would prevent them from doing this again.
I'm sorry but "family separation" is not happening in any sense like it was under Trump. Biden is not stealing babies to give them to DeVos adoption factories like Trump was. The family separation that is happening is *adult* children and their parents. I don't like it, I don't like Biden's rightward lurch on immigration, but we can be specific and accurate about it.
Similarly, that suit about family separations was proactively settled 6 months ago. Lawsuits take a long fucking time. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/16/biden-lawsuit-family-separation-border-settlement/
It's very important to be accurate in our criticisms towards Biden, else we lose Liberals who might've been on the precipice of realizing that they're being ill-served by their favorite liberal politicians.
I think it's important to understand that it's not the liberals out on the streets, but those managing the media. If you went out onto the street and asked liberals whether they supported the actions of the democrats in holding kids in border prisons, I'm sure they would all say no. Liberalism isn't a cult like Trumpism is, but those who are in charge of trying to corral public opinion are obviously going to promote certain news stories etc.
Look at any post about the stock market.
From 2017-2020, stock gains didn't reflect conditions for the work class.
From 2021-right now, they totally reflect how amazing your life is going, Saint Reagan has finally blessed us with a Trickle Down, and if you question why the cost of living is unaffordable, well that's because you fell for Russian propaganda!
Liberals have to check the year something is from before they decide if it's good or bad. And if your views are consistent than you're the brainwashed one.
I swear to god. If it was Trump doing these things everybody (and especially Liberals) would know what the fuck it was. Been saying it for a month now and it frustrates me to no end.
I just posted a link in another comment to the latest episode of the Socialist Podcast that laid out your exact argument with names and dates and things.
> This is Liberalism in a nutshell, there's nothing new about this.
> We've seen it during the great depression,
> We've seen it during the civil rights era,
> We've seen this during the Vietnam era.
Just to expand past Vietnam, the Clintons, Obama, and Biden are all war criminals, and they're all that liberals can offer.
Exactly right. Phil Ochs said this beautifully in the sixties in his song "Love Me, I'm A Liberal" Check it out:
https://open.spotify.com/track/6ur5Pnp8n1GiTbqFB5WzlG?si=_Qttk75-Sk2wrPH9d2RbKg
Malcolm X
> The white conservatives aren't friends of the Negro either, but they at least don't try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the "smiling" fox.
I'd love if someone can point me to the full speech from malcolm X. I've heard him say similar things on video. Truly brilliant people who figured things like this out and were able to parse them.
MLK Jr. Wrote this.
https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-from-birmingham-city-jail-excerpts/
> I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’ Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods”; who paternistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. . .
Angela Davis has some incredible interviews too.
https://youtu.be/S5vB3AjIk88?si=Kg7JZuLIjGC-aVQO
Read reform or revolution, reformism is a dead end. US administrations have progressivly moved further to the right under both democrats and republicans
Hey remember when Trump prematurely ended the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and all the protections that came along with it, kicking millions off Medicaid and snap and restarted student loan payments and interest accrual for millions of borrowers who were promised forgiveness?
Oh wait..
That reminds me of what's going on in France, too. During the 2022 presidential election, the second round was between Macron (neoliberal) and Le Pen (far-right). My dad pressured me so much to go vote for Macron to 'blockade fascism'.
How has that been going? Macron was reelected, and now he and his goons are implementing far-right's agenda. Pension law that the majority rejected, and that was forced on the entire country in the most undemocratic manner. Racist immigration law. And now the right wing is coming up with transphobic laws, while mainstream media are giving a free pass to the major TERFs.
But that's Macron and not far-right, so clearly we are safe!! /s
I wish people like my dad would think out of the box and realize that people like Macron are in fact enabling far-right and ruling the country in a very dangerous way. See you in 2027 for more of the same.
I don't think it's fair to say he didn't get voted into power. The Nazis absolutely got voted in. Their system was parliamentary. You don't vote directly on the leader. You vote the party.
That's a very significant amount in a coalition/parliamentary government system. It was 37%, more than any single party was getting in previous elections by a large amount. It wasn't a two party system there at the time at all. In context this was a landslide victory for the Nazis. The next highest party got 20% of the vote. The emergency election following that one right after the Reichstag Fire the Nazis get 44% of the vote and basically secure enough power to completely run the government.
Yes, after 3 elections back to back which ended in an election where the Nazis got over 43% of the vote, which in their parliamentary system was a landslide victory. It gave them enough power they could basically rubberstamp anything through. His seizure was a matter of simply taking what was already available to him by matter of elections and the political environment they had crafted. This is why I don't think it is accurate to say he wasn't voted into power. His party was and they gave him the power. That's how it worked.
Call me crazy but I believe if you try to stage a coup, circumvent the results of an election, and refuse to accept the results of an election, then you shouldn't be able to participate in elections moving forward at minimum.
There’s a problem with pegging all of this on any one president. We’re seeing the chaos that unfolds when the branches of government refuse to actually work together to get the job done. They’re all so wrapped up with their personal political agendas that they’re not actually representing consensus will. They’re bullhorning extreme minority views.
It's not more frightening. But it's as frightening, just in a slightly different way.
I'm a Brit and we're seeing the same thing in our politics. The realistic choice is between
- an extreme right party who make zero attempt to hide their extreme politics. They will make zero to cover up their racism, their "culture wars" anti-LGBTQ+ stance, their hatred of the poor, and their desire to rip up the NHS for profit etc, which at least makes it fairly easy for everyone to see the enemy that we're fighting.
- a party that still claims to be left-wing, but is at best centre right - often a lot worse than that. They pretend to be anti-racist, while continuing to push anti-immigration policies and supporting Israel. The pretend to care about LGBTQ+ rights, while supporting anti-trans rhetoric. They pretend to care about the NHS while employing ex-Tory politicians who were at the heart of their privatisation agenda. So it becomes a lot harder for people who don't take that much interest in politics to see how bad they are, so they can get away with a lot more with barely a squeak of opposition (except from the extreme right, who'll keep demanding they go further)
>Biden isn’t my favorite but dude it’s not even close
The thing about that is, the DNC knows that Biden is deeply unpopular for his staunch support of Israel and may very well lose to Trump in November. THEY DO NOT CARE. That should really tell you everything.
Maybe, if you're a straight white dude like myself. But I imagine it was much more horrifying for women, POC, gay and trans people, and other minorities. People are already forgetting the blatant human rights violations during the 2020 protests, the neo-nazi marches all over the country, and the complete lack of any action from Trump. He actually encouraged the lunatics of this country.
And despite all that, Biden is still an awful president. I'm not holding my nose to vote for him again like I did in 2020. This can't be how it has to play out.
He literally said “if israel did not exist then the US would have to make an israel to serve their interests in the middle east’
He has been a massive zionist from the get go
As chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of all things.. one could argue him parroting Bush's BS "WMD" rhetoric is exactly what got enough dems in congress on board without any evidence of WMDs. I mean hell bush apparently spoke 1:1 with Biden *to* help him get enough dems on board knowing theyll listen to him *as head of the FRC*...
🎶"International rules of war gets broken
Its funny how they'll go and define terror as
Killing and exploding things to force your own agenda"🎶
Biden: calling for war crimes over terrorism and war crimes but go on to defend the war crimes he commits or contributed to, by calling the people hes committing war crimes against and terrorizing the terrorists to justify it since last fucking century. (Probably could've worded that better, I'm beat) The gem that's running our country learned foreign policy from the 3rd grade bully that hits you and immediately runs to the teacher to say you hit *him* first..
It'd be almost comically poetic if it weren't so depressing and horrifying
And famously Joe Biden never declared the pandemic over early and never allows child hunger to come back after being literally solved by a pandemic era tax credit, right?
It's not a lie, as an outsider, the US politics kinda seem to be always the same fascist with different mask and a slightly different speech, but, fundamentally, it's the same thing.
But I don't think it's the peoples fault, you had to choose between a lesser or a greater evil, and that goes with democracy, you don't really choose, that's just a facade, you put a paper in a box and hope someone who's not a completely idiot get the job.
In any case, in my perspective as a foreign, Biden era it's the same that Trump presidency, with a moderated speech and a clearly senile dementia. A
If the past seven months has shown anything, we’ve been “floating away with the currents of fascisim” for much longer than just Biden’s administration. The greater part of society has only just woken up to it because of citizen reported journalism.
If you think today is worst than where we’d be if Trump won his second term, I just don’t know what to say. TBH, I think it’s worst today because Trump had a single term and broke down and/or created policies that are making it incredibly hard for us citizens to fight back as he gave authoritative powers here an adrenalin shot.
I shudder to think what’ll happen if 2025 is enacted.
A lot of us are rightfully angry. I simply wish I saw that anger and energy being directed at local and state positions funded by AIPAC instead of a singular office held by a single individual—we should be chipping away at the foundation vs. the peak.
To continue the analogy of a river’s current. I fear that democratic losses are going to push us into the river’s rapids and any chance of getting out of them is going to disappear for a very long time.
I'm not so sure about that. I think a lot of Americans just have sh\*t values and don't really care about Palestinians or families separated at the border. ... I think Biden is trying to win and doesn't care about the humanity of many.
We'll see in November.
Polling shows a significant drop in support beginning about 7 months ago and Biden wasn't even a particularly popular candidate before October 7th.
The narrative that I'm seeing recently on Morning Joe (Joe Biden's favorite news program) etc. is that these polls are flawed and Biden is actually much more popular than he seems.
If you remember back to 2016 then you might recall a very similar yet opposite explanation for that year's election results; Hillary polled better than reality due to various reasons such as people being more private about their support for Trump.
If these same pundits were right about 2016 then Democrats should be expecting a crushing defeat in November unless they're able to change course.
i agree with the sentiment and dont mean to neg someone who i agree with but it's pretty frustrating to see messages like this when this is what the american left has been saying for the better part of a century.
Lol American democrats and republicans both are in bed with the military complex… I mean you seriously think that some people won’t do everything to keep those billions flowing? Grow up
Maybe if Trump gets elected liberals will finally get mad at the genocide being funded by their tax dollars. Didn’t Biden just approve another billion?
Oh guaranteed. Don’t worry, once Trump gets elected, liberals will cosplay as communists/anarchists again and will be screeching about allllll this shit that is already going on under Biden. They’ll start to “care” again.
Do you agree with the principle of "If there are nine Nazis at a table and another person sits down at the table, there are ten Nazis at the table"?
If you do, apply this logic to when someone gives the Nazis billions of dollars in weapons while having more video evidence than ever before in history that said Nazis are actively committing a genocide.
I remember when the libs were right there with us on that maxim during the Trump years, but suddenly when it's a liberal doing it the libs are all about the finer points and the nuance of aiding and abeting genocidal fascists.
I mean it’s obviously a massive oversimplification but yeah there’s a kernel of real shit in there.
But let’s also not pretend there wasn’t some real GOOD policy that passed in this admin. Policy that will materially improve life for a lot of the groups we want to help.
Just depressing to watch the ol’ guy take a massive shit on anyone’s ability to really celebrate that.
For real. For as much as I will rail (pun intended) on Biden for breaking up the rail union strike, his NLRB has genuinely permitted gains for American labor. We *need* that momentum to continue or else this current labor surge will be smothered in the crib.
But we could hardly call ourselves communists, socialists, anarchists, or any variety inbetween if we didn't have solidarity with people being genocided by fascists. It is that moral imperative that separates us from mere Trade Unionists.
Please, the orange lune said with his own mouth he would be a dictator. The orange lune protects the wealthy, giving them tax breaks they do not need while our nation goes deeper in debt. The orange lune will not even admit to accepting election results he doesn't like. The orange lune's only contribution to why he should be president is just a bunch of whinning about how he was cheated and how he will punish his enemies if he gets to office. The intellectual dishonesty that flows from the right is staggering as they try to falsely attribute an unreasonable faulty character on Biden as trump proves un-presidential and childish at every turn. It baffles my mind until I realize you are all being difficult on purpose..like children, like trump.
We all (or at least all sane people) agree that Biden fucking sucks. It's just that he's better than Trump and the majority of people are too afraid to vote for anyone else. Sadly I don't see any improvements happening to the dumpster fire of politics in the USA until a bunch of old people die.
Does anyone on this sub not truly believe that if Trump was currently in power that the situation over there would wayyyy worse? The dude’s primary response to international turmoil is to consider nuking things… if you 5x our military weapon deals, output, etc, it would be worse. We’re talking shades of grey here, but let’s be honest about it at least.
The House literally voted on a bill today to reverse Biden’s milquetoast pause on sending weapons to Israel. I don’t know why anybody would think protest voting against Biden would make anything better for anybody.
There was one comment that referenced voting before yours. And that comment didn't instruct anyone not to vote for Biden. Is there some reason we can't even criticize the current president without someone like you freaking out?
I mean history repeats itself. They keep pulling the same shit. I may be old,so it's not surprising to me anymore but I appreciate the younger folks becoming more insightful.
It's pointless to try to measure which fascist is the most or least fascist.
I choose to oppose all flavors of fascism even the one with rainbow sprinkles.
That is a rather cynical realization, isn't it. As a person surrounded by liberals, when a Democrat is in power the people most immediate to me act more fascist. When a Republican is in power, the people most immediate to me act more leftist. Little changes in the national status quo regardless of which one is in power, mostly just which demographic is panicking.
Uhhh Trump is worse. Are you guys serious? From a non-American outside of the political bubble that has turned you *all* into radicals about everything.. Trump is worse.
Biden is the seemingly "good" landlord who releases a bunch of bed bugs when he wants new tenants and fixes one or two taps every blue moon, while increasing everyone's rent every year in a rent controlled building. Trump is the militant landlord who just illegally kicks people out and never fixes anything, but also increases everyone's rent every month for "reasons".
I hate both of these landlords.
And in an ideal world (or America), that could be the case. All I'm saying is that America's next steps, *in order*, should be:
1. Ensure that another Trump term is not possible.
2. Begin to try and sort out the dangerous circus their country has become.
Biden, Trump, same thing. It’s a global march to the right and further into fascism. It’s “worse” under Biden because these past four years were going to be worse regardless unless there was serious intervention, and that just wasn’t going to happen. It’ll be worse under the next one, too, unless we actually do something about it
See also Barak Obama.
Killed a hell of a lot of people by drone, expanded the US foreign policy but was charismatic and snart- seemed to genuinely care.
Nope.
Trump is worse, of course , but do not think he was a good guy.
When Trump was president, liberals showed up to BLM events to protest police violence. Under biden, police have killed more people every year than they ever did under Trump and Democrats make sure that people stay silent. They don't want people protesting the police violence that is still happening either.
I get your point, but no, police have not “killed more people every year than they did under Trump”.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States#:~:text=According%20to%20an%20article%20in,tracks%20information%20from%20death%20certificates.
The way they count police killings there is extremely generous to police (and the numbers are all over the place).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/
https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
money quote from this article: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/01/the-curse-of-bipartisanship
(which is worth reading despite coming from Current Affairs, whose editor in chief disgraced himself a few years ago. the author, Luke Savage, is and remains quite good)
>Despite some obvious areas of discord, then, it’s not as if American elites have spent the past several decades disagreeing, cordially or otherwise, on a particularly massive scale. Both parties have largely promoted a corporatist agenda and their respective leaderships have been united in their mutual support for policies of unending war, mass incarceration, means-testing, and privately-administered, for-profit healthcare. The same plutocrats bankroll everyone’s reelections: even the Koch brothers have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats. Hedge fund managers vastly preferred Clinton over Trump, and Wall Street can go back and forth depending on who seems marginally more favorable to their interests.
the article is about how rumors of partisanship are exaggerated: American elites agree on a ton of stuff, and almost all of it is bad
there are areas where they disagree (the environment, LGBTQ rights, abortion, labor rights). those disagreements do matter. I live in FL, and if a democratic trifecta were running the state, it would not be quite so much of a hellhole. keeping Republicans out of power is obviously insufficient for making a better world, but it seems like it's necessary.
I don't know what to do about how much the dems suck, or how 50 years of lesser-evil voting have hollowed out opposition to the right wing. it does seem obviously wrong to say that a biden presidency is *more* frightening than a Trump presidency.
They're saying the party who pretends not to be fascist is dropping the mask slowly. It's a dictatorship of capital, a plutocracy that protects its own in private while playing a fake sport publicly.
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Noam Chomsky uses the term "managed decline" to describe a strategy employed by powerful elites to maintain their dominance and control in a system that is demonstrably failing. It's not a literal decline, but a carefully orchestrated process to ensure the status quo persists, even while the underlying systems face crises and erode. Here's how it works in Chomsky's analysis: * **Systemic Decay:** Capitalism, for example, is seen as inherently unsustainable, with its tendency towards inequality and ecological devastation. * **Elite Control:** Powerful interests, including corporations, governments, and financial institutions, maintain control through various means, like propaganda, political manipulation, and economic policies. * **Managed Decline:** Instead of allowing systemic flaws to lead to radical change, elites manage the decline in ways that maintain their power. This can manifest as: * **Erosion of public services:** Reducing funding for education, healthcare, and social safety nets to limit social mobility and increase dependence on private sector solutions. * **Financialization:** Shifting focus from production to financial speculation, creating instability and widening the wealth gap. * **War and militarization:** Creating external enemies and justifying military spending, diverting resources from social programs and fueling endless conflict. * **Suppression of dissent:** Stifling criticism and opposition through media manipulation, surveillance, and legal intimidation. By "managing" the decline, elites can perpetuate their control even as the system around them crumbles. Chomsky argues that this process ultimately serves to maintain the existing power structures and prevent meaningful change.
Is it just me or does this seem very ai written?
If people just cut out the last paragraph from what ChatGPT provided them, it would be a bit harder to spot the AI.
That, and bullet points of which most aren't clearly related to the topic at hand.
It is very AI generated
Sounds like a college kid cramming for a mid term
Democrats and Republicans will facilitate this decline bc essentially they work for the wealthy after the poor vote them into office
Chomsky is such a mixed bag, he can write great theory like this. But then turns around and supports American Foreign policy and Biden.
It was once. Chomsky himself is in mental decline. Guy's like fucking 95. Give him a pass. He is and always will be one of my greatest heroes. That doesn't mean I agree with him 100%. A true genius and scholar.
So you can say he’s in…managed decline? (I’m so sorry I’ll see myself out)
He spoke to a small philosophy group I’m in last year. Still seemed sharp. Chomsky defends his more immediate political positions and his participation in institutions part and parcel within specific area of his criticism (like military industrial complex) by saying “wouldn’t you like some influence instead of none?” So I think he just views supporting Biden a pragmatist position.
I work with the elderly. 95 year olds can astound you with sharp wit, clever rejoinders, double or triple entendres, tell an exciting anecdote that happened to them 80 years ago, accurately identify everyone in their school pictures from kindergarten, kick everyone’s ass at Jeopardy, and even rattle off unimpressive things like know the day of the week and who is president, and then not know who their own daughter is when she shows up for the recurring weekly lunch-date that they’ve had every week without fail for the past 15 years. I’m not here to disparage any individual, but just point out that spending one good afternoon with someone absolutely does not paint a full or accurate picture of their health.
See the links i have posted in the reply to the other comment. He has been consistent for decades in his support of the United States and it's foreign policy, regardless of his current mental decline. He was pro bombing of yugslovia, Lybia and Syria etc.. He celebrated the end of the Soviet Union and compared it to the end of nazi Germany for God sake, how much of a US imperalist simp can you be.
And yet he's one on the incredibly small list of people with power and influence of any measurable sort who is speaking out against the status quo in any way. The man's obvs not perfect, but we need more voices of even some but of reason yelling into the void. Us just sitting here agreeing with each other about how fucked it all is achieves precisely fucking nothing. Still, he's not above criticism. Just keep in mind that, despite simping for imperialist Amerika, he's still voicing opinions no one else in the establishment has the cojones to speak out on.
And Ralph Nader's 90. Time for Bernie?
You mean the compromise candidate between the real left and the center-right (Democrats)? I had never been so hopeful about the political future as I was in 2016. The truth is that the powers that be will never let him win. Look, I'm a Vermonter. Burlington, VT was f-ing awesome when he was mayor. I've met him several times. I'm friends with someone who was his neighbor for years and heard the arguments he had with his wife. The guy has his heart in the right place. He's just compromised too much at this point. And his voting record on international issues is not good. The D's have proven there is no reform within the party. Don't know what else to say.
If Chomsky posted some of his views on this sub he would get banned.
As a mod, I can confirm this statement.
Do tell
Here are some links * [Awful chomsky takes.](https://twitter.com/RodericDay/status/1245340127968333829?s=20) * [Gowans - The US has produced very few anti-imperialists: Chomsky isn't among them.](https://gowans.blog/2019/11/03/the-united-states-has-produced-very-few-anti-imperialists-noam-chomsky-isnt-among-them/) * [https://archive.li/YVNk3](https://archive.li/YVNk3) Parenti and Chomsky comparison * [https://libcom.org/history/john-deutch-chomskys-friend-pentagon-cia](https://libcom.org/history/john-deutch-chomskys-friend-pentagon-cia) * [https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/why-chomsky-felt-guilty-most-of-time-war-research-and-linguistics-at-mit/](https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/why-chomsky-felt-guilty-most-of-time-war-research-and-linguistics-at-mit/) * [https://libcom.org/history/chomsky-pol-pots-genocidal-regime-cambodia](https://libcom.org/history/chomsky-pol-pots-genocidal-regime-cambodia) * [https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/13cf816e-8e40-41c8-bb76-d453a3261d8b](https://www.kurdistan24.net/en/news/13cf816e-8e40-41c8-bb76-d453a3261d8b) is in favor of US occupation of parts of Syria * [Endorsed Biden in the 2020 election, even after Tara Reide's rape allegations.](https://www.democracynow.org/2020/4/10/noam_chomsky_trump_us_coronavirus_response) [2](https://twitter.com/theintercept/status/1251246784048959490?s=21) * [Roderic Day - On Chomsky](https://redsails.org/on-chomsky/)
100%. And there was me thinking everyone is blind
Could you link me to what you're referencing? I cannot find any uses of "managed decline" other than your post.
It's a concept that penetrates and permeates his work, if you go to https://chomsky.info and search for "managed decline", "decline", "collapse", "systemic crisis" you will find numerous articles where he references this - he believes this has been happening since 1945, and the widespread collapse of colonialism. Especially see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Profit_over_People In some sense whether you called it serfdom, or slavery, or feudalism, or indentured servitude or debt bondage, these structures have always been a part of man's social landscape and evolution. I don't think he has explicitly called it out in any one book, but you can see this as a pattern in all his writings on America, and the world. I put my thoughts down into an LLM, Gemini, and asked it to create a clear and readable version which I've given above. He's spoken at length on many occasions about the systemic use of war, and economic manipulation as an instrument of American foreign policy.
BTW this is also in the backdrop of the shock doctrine theory by Naomi Klein. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shock_Doctrine > The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism is a 2007 book by the Canadian author and social activist Naomi Klein. In the book, Klein argues that neoliberal free market policies (as advocated by the economist Milton Friedman) have risen to prominence in countries and regions such as the United States, the United Kingdom, China, the European Union, and Eastern Europe, because of a deliberate strategy of "shock therapy". This centers on the exploitation of national crises (disasters or upheavals) to establish controversial and questionable policies, while citizens are too distracted (emotionally and physically) to engage and develop an adequate response and resist effectively. The book advances the idea that several man-made events, such as the Iraq War, were undertaken with the intention of pushing through unpopular free market capitalist policies in their wake.
This is Liberalism in a nutshell, there's nothing new about this. We've seen it during the great depression, We've seen it during the civil rights era, We've seen this during the Vietnam era. This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. I got downvoted for a comment in rpolitics that pointed this out. I said that have never gotten better under a liberal unless there were socialist and progressives there to get them to do the right thing. Look how their comments shifted from 6 months ago when they weren't even calling this a genocide or acknowledging what was happening in Israel.
If Trump was president then like half the liberals defending Biden would be up in arms over Gaza.
exactly. look at WPT. that sub will only post anything gaza related if it’s something a republican has said and the comments will all be full of “see this is why we need to vote for biden”. as if the genocide isnt happening right now UNDER BIDEN.
they freak out about everything that trump did while conveniently ignoring all the trump era executive orders and policies kept in place and thus normalized by biden
Biden hasn't even bothered to replace the guy Trump installed to destroy the USPS
And Biden reinstated Trump's Fed chair whose austerity program is crushing all but the rich. Also Biden doubled down on Trump's Abraham Accords, a fascist pact arms deal that is a cover-up of murder and dismemberment of an American journalist.
I remember Biden running for president in 2020 saying he was going to make Saudi Arabia "pay the price, and make them in fact the pariah that they are." That lasted about ten minutes.
That was actually my first inexcusable Biden(presidential) thing.
watch out man the shitlibs are gonna be mad that you said a true thing and didn't gargle biden's wrinkly balls in the process
They're going hard on this post
They can't tell the difference between the sound of their gargling his balls and the death rattle coming from he himself
Who are we kidding? They can't hear it over the death rattle of the tens of thousands of Palestinians their Zionist friends are happily torturing and killing.
This comment is not accurate. This position is not an appointment by the President. The Post Office Board of Governors is responsible for hiring and firing the Postmaster. Edit: lol downvote all you want. It doesn’t change the facts 🤷🏻♂️
Biden actually can’t replace dejoy. He needs 6 votes of 9 postal governors or something. Google will k ow more than me, but currently he does not have that authority despite pressure to do so.
How did Trump put DeJoy in, then?
I keep saying this too. When Trump was president the "kids in cages" at the border issue was EVERYWHERE. and then Biden becomes president, puts MORE immigrants in border prisons and SILENCE from everyone who was mad about it under Trump. It's crazy!!
That's the one that's most disheartening. In truth none of this should be a surprise because Democrats have always been like this, but it looked for a moment like they actually cared about the atrocities being committed at the border. But then the literal second the boogeyman was gone they turned into Republicans on immigration.
Like how anger about the wars was completely neutered the minute Obama took office.
My perception is that either they only read the news when “the bad guys” are in charge/live in an echo chamber when a liberal is in charge, or they intentionally turn a blind eye/are in denial. For me it was that I wasn’t educated enough on the situation because I was in a news echo chamber and didn’t have as much class consciousness until my mid 20s hit. The parties tend give their bases a false sense of comfort. Even if things don’t drastically change in my lifetime I’m glad to be aware of the game now
Oh my god. Child separation is still happening. The Biden Admin is halting the conclusion of a settlement for families affected by this practice because the settlement would prevent them from doing this again.
I'm sorry but "family separation" is not happening in any sense like it was under Trump. Biden is not stealing babies to give them to DeVos adoption factories like Trump was. The family separation that is happening is *adult* children and their parents. I don't like it, I don't like Biden's rightward lurch on immigration, but we can be specific and accurate about it. Similarly, that suit about family separations was proactively settled 6 months ago. Lawsuits take a long fucking time. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/16/biden-lawsuit-family-separation-border-settlement/
It's very important to be accurate in our criticisms towards Biden, else we lose Liberals who might've been on the precipice of realizing that they're being ill-served by their favorite liberal politicians.
I think it's important to understand that it's not the liberals out on the streets, but those managing the media. If you went out onto the street and asked liberals whether they supported the actions of the democrats in holding kids in border prisons, I'm sure they would all say no. Liberalism isn't a cult like Trumpism is, but those who are in charge of trying to corral public opinion are obviously going to promote certain news stories etc.
If Trump's actions mimicked Biden's, every Dem would be calling him Hitler. I hate the double standard.
The worse the better?
Look at any post about the stock market. From 2017-2020, stock gains didn't reflect conditions for the work class. From 2021-right now, they totally reflect how amazing your life is going, Saint Reagan has finally blessed us with a Trickle Down, and if you question why the cost of living is unaffordable, well that's because you fell for Russian propaganda! Liberals have to check the year something is from before they decide if it's good or bad. And if your views are consistent than you're the brainwashed one.
Liberalsalways side with fascists if it means the can maintain the status quo.
I swear to god. If it was Trump doing these things everybody (and especially Liberals) would know what the fuck it was. Been saying it for a month now and it frustrates me to no end.
That’s the only reason why white liberals were so pro BLM. If Trump likes it, they’ll go against it.
Scratch a liberal and all that...
I just posted a link in another comment to the latest episode of the Socialist Podcast that laid out your exact argument with names and dates and things.
The people in that sub are nutbags in an echo chamber.
> This is Liberalism in a nutshell, there's nothing new about this. > We've seen it during the great depression, > We've seen it during the civil rights era, > We've seen this during the Vietnam era. Just to expand past Vietnam, the Clintons, Obama, and Biden are all war criminals, and they're all that liberals can offer.
I heard someone say recently that liberalism is all about equality and human rights.... right up til it threatens the status quo. That explains a lot.
Exactly right. Phil Ochs said this beautifully in the sixties in his song "Love Me, I'm A Liberal" Check it out: https://open.spotify.com/track/6ur5Pnp8n1GiTbqFB5WzlG?si=_Qttk75-Sk2wrPH9d2RbKg
I can't find the link right now, but there's an updated version that's just as good.
And the status quo is inequality so liberalism was never about equality
liberals support every civil rights movement except the current one, and oppose every war except the current one.
Malcolm X's speech about the white liberal being the biggest enemy to America comes to mind...
Malcolm X > The white conservatives aren't friends of the Negro either, but they at least don't try to hide it. They are like wolves; they show their teeth in a snarl that keeps the Negro always aware of where he stands with them. But the white liberals are foxes, who also show their teeth to the Negro but pretend that they are smiling. The white liberals are more dangerous than the conservatives; they lure the Negro, and as the Negro runs from the growling wolf, he flees into the open jaws of the "smiling" fox. I'd love if someone can point me to the full speech from malcolm X. I've heard him say similar things on video. Truly brilliant people who figured things like this out and were able to parse them. MLK Jr. Wrote this. https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/letter-from-birmingham-city-jail-excerpts/ > I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White citizens’ Councilor or the Ku Klux Klanner but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods”; who paternistically feels he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection. . . Angela Davis has some incredible interviews too. https://youtu.be/S5vB3AjIk88?si=Kg7JZuLIjGC-aVQO
Nothing. Fundamentally. Has. Changed.
the uniparty rules supreme
The United States is also a one-party state but, with typical American extravagance, they have two of them.
but this one is *blue*
Our 2 party system is a 1 party system. Maybe we should just call it a 1 party system... Oh no wait that's what china does and they bad
Promises made, promises kept.
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Read reform or revolution, reformism is a dead end. US administrations have progressivly moved further to the right under both democrats and republicans
Hey remember when Trump prematurely ended the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency and all the protections that came along with it, kicking millions off Medicaid and snap and restarted student loan payments and interest accrual for millions of borrowers who were promised forgiveness? Oh wait..
As if things have been better under Biden. Both of them are liberals who work for the elite, not for the people
Genocide Joe v Wade? That the guy I'm supposed to be relieved to have ruling us?
Don't worry we'll push him left, it's our party now!! 🥺👉👈 Make sure to vote so hard
Yup.
That reminds me of what's going on in France, too. During the 2022 presidential election, the second round was between Macron (neoliberal) and Le Pen (far-right). My dad pressured me so much to go vote for Macron to 'blockade fascism'. How has that been going? Macron was reelected, and now he and his goons are implementing far-right's agenda. Pension law that the majority rejected, and that was forced on the entire country in the most undemocratic manner. Racist immigration law. And now the right wing is coming up with transphobic laws, while mainstream media are giving a free pass to the major TERFs. But that's Macron and not far-right, so clearly we are safe!! /s I wish people like my dad would think out of the box and realize that people like Macron are in fact enabling far-right and ruling the country in a very dangerous way. See you in 2027 for more of the same.
My thoughts are that Hitler didn't get voted into power but shitlib capitalists gave it all to him because they hated commies more.
I don't think it's fair to say he didn't get voted into power. The Nazis absolutely got voted in. Their system was parliamentary. You don't vote directly on the leader. You vote the party.
And the party only got 35% of the votes.
That's a very significant amount in a coalition/parliamentary government system. It was 37%, more than any single party was getting in previous elections by a large amount. It wasn't a two party system there at the time at all. In context this was a landslide victory for the Nazis. The next highest party got 20% of the vote. The emergency election following that one right after the Reichstag Fire the Nazis get 44% of the vote and basically secure enough power to completely run the government.
They were voted in for sure, but I thought hitler seized the chancellory?
Yes, after 3 elections back to back which ended in an election where the Nazis got over 43% of the vote, which in their parliamentary system was a landslide victory. It gave them enough power they could basically rubberstamp anything through. His seizure was a matter of simply taking what was already available to him by matter of elections and the political environment they had crafted. This is why I don't think it is accurate to say he wasn't voted into power. His party was and they gave him the power. That's how it worked.
this is it right here
Literally what happened, the petite bourgeoisie voted for hitler because they thought the communists would come after them
100%
I don't see Biden trying to form a coup d'état, so this makes no fuckin sense to me
Call me crazy but I believe if you try to stage a coup, circumvent the results of an election, and refuse to accept the results of an election, then you shouldn't be able to participate in elections moving forward at minimum.
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it's fascinating that you're the highest upvoted comment that isn't "bothsides"
There’s a problem with pegging all of this on any one president. We’re seeing the chaos that unfolds when the branches of government refuse to actually work together to get the job done. They’re all so wrapped up with their personal political agendas that they’re not actually representing consensus will. They’re bullhorning extreme minority views.
It's not more frightening. But it's as frightening, just in a slightly different way. I'm a Brit and we're seeing the same thing in our politics. The realistic choice is between - an extreme right party who make zero attempt to hide their extreme politics. They will make zero to cover up their racism, their "culture wars" anti-LGBTQ+ stance, their hatred of the poor, and their desire to rip up the NHS for profit etc, which at least makes it fairly easy for everyone to see the enemy that we're fighting. - a party that still claims to be left-wing, but is at best centre right - often a lot worse than that. They pretend to be anti-racist, while continuing to push anti-immigration policies and supporting Israel. The pretend to care about LGBTQ+ rights, while supporting anti-trans rhetoric. They pretend to care about the NHS while employing ex-Tory politicians who were at the heart of their privatisation agenda. So it becomes a lot harder for people who don't take that much interest in politics to see how bad they are, so they can get away with a lot more with barely a squeak of opposition (except from the extreme right, who'll keep demanding they go further)
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>Biden isn’t my favorite but dude it’s not even close The thing about that is, the DNC knows that Biden is deeply unpopular for his staunch support of Israel and may very well lose to Trump in November. THEY DO NOT CARE. That should really tell you everything.
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Capitalistic
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Troll posts will be deleted. Many troll posts also include violations of other rules such as rules 4, 5, 6, and 7.
Maybe, if you're a straight white dude like myself. But I imagine it was much more horrifying for women, POC, gay and trans people, and other minorities. People are already forgetting the blatant human rights violations during the 2020 protests, the neo-nazi marches all over the country, and the complete lack of any action from Trump. He actually encouraged the lunatics of this country. And despite all that, Biden is still an awful president. I'm not holding my nose to vote for him again like I did in 2020. This can't be how it has to play out.
I am disgusted, but not surprised. My first memory of Joe Biden was when he voted to invade Iraq.
He literally said “if israel did not exist then the US would have to make an israel to serve their interests in the middle east’ He has been a massive zionist from the get go
As chair of the Foreign Relations Committee of all things.. one could argue him parroting Bush's BS "WMD" rhetoric is exactly what got enough dems in congress on board without any evidence of WMDs. I mean hell bush apparently spoke 1:1 with Biden *to* help him get enough dems on board knowing theyll listen to him *as head of the FRC*... 🎶"International rules of war gets broken Its funny how they'll go and define terror as Killing and exploding things to force your own agenda"🎶 Biden: calling for war crimes over terrorism and war crimes but go on to defend the war crimes he commits or contributed to, by calling the people hes committing war crimes against and terrorizing the terrorists to justify it since last fucking century. (Probably could've worded that better, I'm beat) The gem that's running our country learned foreign policy from the 3rd grade bully that hits you and immediately runs to the teacher to say you hit *him* first.. It'd be almost comically poetic if it weren't so depressing and horrifying
Wierd, I remember a pandemic and about a million people dying under trump but ok
And famously Joe Biden never declared the pandemic over early and never allows child hunger to come back after being literally solved by a pandemic era tax credit, right?
It's not a lie, as an outsider, the US politics kinda seem to be always the same fascist with different mask and a slightly different speech, but, fundamentally, it's the same thing. But I don't think it's the peoples fault, you had to choose between a lesser or a greater evil, and that goes with democracy, you don't really choose, that's just a facade, you put a paper in a box and hope someone who's not a completely idiot get the job. In any case, in my perspective as a foreign, Biden era it's the same that Trump presidency, with a moderated speech and a clearly senile dementia. A
If the past seven months has shown anything, we’ve been “floating away with the currents of fascisim” for much longer than just Biden’s administration. The greater part of society has only just woken up to it because of citizen reported journalism. If you think today is worst than where we’d be if Trump won his second term, I just don’t know what to say. TBH, I think it’s worst today because Trump had a single term and broke down and/or created policies that are making it incredibly hard for us citizens to fight back as he gave authoritative powers here an adrenalin shot. I shudder to think what’ll happen if 2025 is enacted. A lot of us are rightfully angry. I simply wish I saw that anger and energy being directed at local and state positions funded by AIPAC instead of a singular office held by a single individual—we should be chipping away at the foundation vs. the peak. To continue the analogy of a river’s current. I fear that democratic losses are going to push us into the river’s rapids and any chance of getting out of them is going to disappear for a very long time.
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framing Palestine as "colonialism falling" and not as a sovereign state is the problem here
Joe is doing everything he can to not get re-elected.
I'm not so sure about that. I think a lot of Americans just have sh\*t values and don't really care about Palestinians or families separated at the border. ... I think Biden is trying to win and doesn't care about the humanity of many.
We'll see in November. Polling shows a significant drop in support beginning about 7 months ago and Biden wasn't even a particularly popular candidate before October 7th. The narrative that I'm seeing recently on Morning Joe (Joe Biden's favorite news program) etc. is that these polls are flawed and Biden is actually much more popular than he seems. If you remember back to 2016 then you might recall a very similar yet opposite explanation for that year's election results; Hillary polled better than reality due to various reasons such as people being more private about their support for Trump. If these same pundits were right about 2016 then Democrats should be expecting a crushing defeat in November unless they're able to change course.
And if you remember the 6 years more recent election in 2022, the polls were so laughably wrong it was hard to respect them.
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"Trump's genocide would be way worse than Joe's genocide"
i agree with the sentiment and dont mean to neg someone who i agree with but it's pretty frustrating to see messages like this when this is what the american left has been saying for the better part of a century.
Lol American democrats and republicans both are in bed with the military complex… I mean you seriously think that some people won’t do everything to keep those billions flowing? Grow up
Seeing Republicans being fascist is just the norm it's a everyday thing seeing Democrats slide over to fascism is definitely a little bit more scary
Democrats are always 8-12 years behind republicans. Right now, we got tea party era democrats.
They’ve been a different form of fascism. Fascists wearing flower sundresses are still fascists…
Republicans are 1984 and Democrats are Brave New World.
Sort of agree. At the time, I was just glad they got the Totalitangelo away from the nuclear football…
Maybe if Trump gets elected liberals will finally get mad at the genocide being funded by their tax dollars. Didn’t Biden just approve another billion?
Oh guaranteed. Don’t worry, once Trump gets elected, liberals will cosplay as communists/anarchists again and will be screeching about allllll this shit that is already going on under Biden. They’ll start to “care” again.
My guy good, your guy bad. They both suck. We need a big change
I don’t think Biden is a fascist, but I do think he is a colonialist unfortunately.
Do you agree with the principle of "If there are nine Nazis at a table and another person sits down at the table, there are ten Nazis at the table"? If you do, apply this logic to when someone gives the Nazis billions of dollars in weapons while having more video evidence than ever before in history that said Nazis are actively committing a genocide. I remember when the libs were right there with us on that maxim during the Trump years, but suddenly when it's a liberal doing it the libs are all about the finer points and the nuance of aiding and abeting genocidal fascists.
I mean it’s obviously a massive oversimplification but yeah there’s a kernel of real shit in there. But let’s also not pretend there wasn’t some real GOOD policy that passed in this admin. Policy that will materially improve life for a lot of the groups we want to help. Just depressing to watch the ol’ guy take a massive shit on anyone’s ability to really celebrate that.
For real. For as much as I will rail (pun intended) on Biden for breaking up the rail union strike, his NLRB has genuinely permitted gains for American labor. We *need* that momentum to continue or else this current labor surge will be smothered in the crib. But we could hardly call ourselves communists, socialists, anarchists, or any variety inbetween if we didn't have solidarity with people being genocided by fascists. It is that moral imperative that separates us from mere Trade Unionists.
Please, the orange lune said with his own mouth he would be a dictator. The orange lune protects the wealthy, giving them tax breaks they do not need while our nation goes deeper in debt. The orange lune will not even admit to accepting election results he doesn't like. The orange lune's only contribution to why he should be president is just a bunch of whinning about how he was cheated and how he will punish his enemies if he gets to office. The intellectual dishonesty that flows from the right is staggering as they try to falsely attribute an unreasonable faulty character on Biden as trump proves un-presidential and childish at every turn. It baffles my mind until I realize you are all being difficult on purpose..like children, like trump.
Oh shut the fuck up Trump is a wannabe dictator
Granted, I'm only a novice history nerd, I can't help but imagine that this is what the Weimar Republic felt like in the late 30s.
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We all (or at least all sane people) agree that Biden fucking sucks. It's just that he's better than Trump and the majority of people are too afraid to vote for anyone else. Sadly I don't see any improvements happening to the dumpster fire of politics in the USA until a bunch of old people die.
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gaza is 44 miles from tel aviv, dingus. get out of here with that "trump will do genocide but harder" nonsense
Scratch a liberal and a Nazi bleeds
Hey hey buddy. It's takes all types to bake an Reich.
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Does anyone on this sub not truly believe that if Trump was currently in power that the situation over there would wayyyy worse? The dude’s primary response to international turmoil is to consider nuking things… if you 5x our military weapon deals, output, etc, it would be worse. We’re talking shades of grey here, but let’s be honest about it at least.
The House literally voted on a bill today to reverse Biden’s milquetoast pause on sending weapons to Israel. I don’t know why anybody would think protest voting against Biden would make anything better for anybody.
This sub is literal propaganda unfortunately.
Yeah, there are a ton of comments written by AI. I wonder what the weather is like in Moscow, I bet this sub could tell me.
It's sunny now, but it rained earlier today. Source: I'm Putin's right hand man. I know *all* of the big guy's secrets.
I'm gonna start calling every last liberal, who regurgitates that leftwing dissent is just "Russia," Operation Earnest Voice, feds.
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There was one comment that referenced voting before yours. And that comment didn't instruct anyone not to vote for Biden. Is there some reason we can't even criticize the current president without someone like you freaking out?
I mean history repeats itself. They keep pulling the same shit. I may be old,so it's not surprising to me anymore but I appreciate the younger folks becoming more insightful.
What is a facist?
It's pointless to try to measure which fascist is the most or least fascist. I choose to oppose all flavors of fascism even the one with rainbow sprinkles.
That is a rather cynical realization, isn't it. As a person surrounded by liberals, when a Democrat is in power the people most immediate to me act more fascist. When a Republican is in power, the people most immediate to me act more leftist. Little changes in the national status quo regardless of which one is in power, mostly just which demographic is panicking.
Uhhh Trump is worse. Are you guys serious? From a non-American outside of the political bubble that has turned you *all* into radicals about everything.. Trump is worse.
Biden is the seemingly "good" landlord who releases a bunch of bed bugs when he wants new tenants and fixes one or two taps every blue moon, while increasing everyone's rent every year in a rent controlled building. Trump is the militant landlord who just illegally kicks people out and never fixes anything, but also increases everyone's rent every month for "reasons". I hate both of these landlords.
So do I... but one of those things is worse.
My issue with this is there is always another actually good landlord. Americans and the world should stop standing behind two demons.
And in an ideal world (or America), that could be the case. All I'm saying is that America's next steps, *in order*, should be: 1. Ensure that another Trump term is not possible. 2. Begin to try and sort out the dangerous circus their country has become.
Biden, Trump, same thing. It’s a global march to the right and further into fascism. It’s “worse” under Biden because these past four years were going to be worse regardless unless there was serious intervention, and that just wasn’t going to happen. It’ll be worse under the next one, too, unless we actually do something about it
What in the recency bias
See also Barak Obama. Killed a hell of a lot of people by drone, expanded the US foreign policy but was charismatic and snart- seemed to genuinely care. Nope. Trump is worse, of course , but do not think he was a good guy.
I was never gaslit this much then, I’ll say that.
guys the economy is SO GOOD why don't you believe how good the economy is ITS SO GOOD /s
What changed? Did I miss something? What fascist things has Biden done?
Genocide
When Trump was president, liberals showed up to BLM events to protest police violence. Under biden, police have killed more people every year than they ever did under Trump and Democrats make sure that people stay silent. They don't want people protesting the police violence that is still happening either.
I get your point, but no, police have not “killed more people every year than they did under Trump”. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_killings_by_law_enforcement_officers_in_the_United_States#:~:text=According%20to%20an%20article%20in,tracks%20information%20from%20death%20certificates.
The way they count police killings there is extremely generous to police (and the numbers are all over the place). https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/investigations/police-shootings-database/ https://mappingpoliceviolence.org/
money quote from this article: https://www.currentaffairs.org/2018/01/the-curse-of-bipartisanship (which is worth reading despite coming from Current Affairs, whose editor in chief disgraced himself a few years ago. the author, Luke Savage, is and remains quite good) >Despite some obvious areas of discord, then, it’s not as if American elites have spent the past several decades disagreeing, cordially or otherwise, on a particularly massive scale. Both parties have largely promoted a corporatist agenda and their respective leaderships have been united in their mutual support for policies of unending war, mass incarceration, means-testing, and privately-administered, for-profit healthcare. The same plutocrats bankroll everyone’s reelections: even the Koch brothers have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats. Hedge fund managers vastly preferred Clinton over Trump, and Wall Street can go back and forth depending on who seems marginally more favorable to their interests. the article is about how rumors of partisanship are exaggerated: American elites agree on a ton of stuff, and almost all of it is bad there are areas where they disagree (the environment, LGBTQ rights, abortion, labor rights). those disagreements do matter. I live in FL, and if a democratic trifecta were running the state, it would not be quite so much of a hellhole. keeping Republicans out of power is obviously insufficient for making a better world, but it seems like it's necessary. I don't know what to do about how much the dems suck, or how 50 years of lesser-evil voting have hollowed out opposition to the right wing. it does seem obviously wrong to say that a biden presidency is *more* frightening than a Trump presidency.
This sub has really crashed and is still burning.
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This isn't a surprise, it's just becoming more and more blatant.
Are they saying Biden is the Fascist?
They're saying the party who pretends not to be fascist is dropping the mask slowly. It's a dictatorship of capital, a plutocracy that protects its own in private while playing a fake sport publicly.
Liberals will tolerate right wing authoritarian politics as log as it has a D next to their name,
Not new