Expect More Bulldozings

https://harpers.org/archive/2025/02/expect-more-bulldozings-easy-chair-matthew-karp-trump-harris-democrats-elections/

created by Maxwellsdemon17 on 24/01/2025 at 17:28 UTC

86 upvotes, 9 top-level comments (showing 9)

Comments

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1 upvotes, 0 direct replies

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Comment by Spacecowboy78 at 24/01/2025 at 17:55 UTC*

89 upvotes, 2 direct replies

The Democrats should become like Republicans and foment hate against Nazis. They should use symbolism from the WWII era. They should start propaganda machines running.

Oh. Or maybe the two party system is useless?

We need a clear public mandate for the 350,000,000 Contributors v. the 3,100 Billionaires. Maybe when there are multiple coinciding bread basket failures people will riot.

Comment by wholetyouinhere at 24/01/2025 at 18:52 UTC

26 upvotes, 2 direct replies

I fully understand the frustration about inflation and rising costs, alongside neoliberal parties all over the world insisting that everything is fine, the line is going up! I feel that frustration personally.

What I do not understand is why anyone thought Trump would try to improve the economic situation, despite the fact that every point of available data made it clear that he would do the exact opposite.

I do appreciate this piece calling out the Jon Favreau constituency's batshit insistence that the Democrats were too progressive, or overly beholden special interests (which ***never*** includes the Israel lobby, naturally). I don't even use social media, but the couple weeks when that garbage was flying around, I lost IQ points just from third-hand exposure.

Comment by Maxwellsdemon17 at 24/01/2025 at 17:29 UTC

36 upvotes, 1 direct replies

"The fault is not in the Democrats’ campaigns; it is in themselves. This is a party that represents the nerve center of American capitalism, ideological production, and imperial power. Elon Musk’s contributions notwithstanding, in just three months Harris raised far more money than Trump, from a much broader and deeper bench of wealthy elites. This is a party that embodies a contented American status quo—its faultless Constitution, its dynamic “opportunity economy,” its “indispensable” role as military policeman of the global order. And this is a party for which everything is either righteously moral or bloodlessly technical, but for which nothing is political—that is, alert to real questions of power and subject to actual popular contestation.

It is no coincidence that the past three Democratic nominees for president did not emerge from any kind of political process, but were preselected by fellow elites—“anointed” is, in fact, the correct word for the actions of a party of such aristocratic manner and apostolic self-regard. Barack Obama anointed Hillary Clinton in 2016 and then, in a crunch, Joe Biden in 2020; Biden, in turn, anointed Harris when he stepped down. Squashing the Sanders insurgency was one thing, since the rebels were all outside the castle, but this is a party that simply does not welcome internal ideological debate."

Comment by N8CCRG at 24/01/2025 at 20:34 UTC

14 upvotes, 1 direct replies

I'm always amazed at how many tons of ink are spilled being angry at liberals or Democrats or progressives both as a whole and individuals, while completely ignoring the 77 million Americans that voted *for* fascism and the overwhelming majority that continue to support it very loudly. Or the 90 million that couldn't be bothered to even vote at all.

Comment by seapiece at 25/01/2025 at 00:48 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies

"These populists were not progressives, at least not in the juvenile two-dimensional conception of American politics. Beginning with a political argument rather than a moral code, they avoided unpopular positions on energy, immigration, and gender policy."*

So here's the thing - if the Democrats win by abandoning coalition politics, abandoning progressives and their policies, and separating morality from politics, how is that not a hollow victory? For what reason are they even trying to win at that point?

There's already a political party that exists to win at all costs - it's the Republicans. There doesn't need to be another.

And for the record, I am on the side that the 2016 and 2024 elections are an indictment of America. I think American culture is fundamentally broken, and has been for a very long time. The way the populace votes is only one indicator of this - there's plenty of others.