"The DNC, he wrote, would remain neutral in primaries, as would its leaders."
With regard to the former Republican party, the only positive thing I can think of is - Before Trump, the GOP leadership/establishment wing did not rig their primaries as much as the Democratic leadership, to keep insurgents out of power. If they had, Trump/MAGA would never have turned the GOP political party into a cult/mafia.
This was a great read and informative read and particularly great in that it came from a fellow member of the film community (I am a script writer myself having formerly been a journalist). In the UK we havn't got a fascist government YET but, supported by Trump, Musk and their Russian chums, Farage's Reform UK and the EDL (equivalent to Proud Boys and Oath Keepers) are on the ascendant. And the reasons are alarmingly similar in that BOTH countries are in decline, in capitalist terms, under a dying capitalist system whose failed neo-liberal free market project finally ran out of road in the crisis of 2008 from which it will not and cannot recover. In Britain this has been amplified by BREXIT (manipulated by the same Russian assets who first brought Trump to office) and the Tories' scorched earth fiscal limits which Rachel Reeves has idiotically clung to as she drives the austerity-happy-and-not-so-magic-bus over the cliff.
As an example of the stark fact that the new fascism, based on the tech oligarchs and with a layer of support with an alienated working class, is now the only strategy for survival available to capitalism consider the shifting constituency of financial support to Trump and his European/Project 2025 clones within the super-rich bourgeois biosphere. From the 1990s through to the first Obama administration, those funding the Republican Party's shift to the Far Right in the US were mostly people like Charles Koch and his brother who'd made their fortune in mineral extraction and wedded the Far Right to climate change denial accordingly. They also re-wrote the rules of the manufacture of consent, in the age of De Bord's media as Spectacle, along lines admirably exposed e,g. by Jane Meyer of THE NEW YORKER. However, their commitment was indeed to the kind of de-regulated free market established by the Reagan-Thatcher axis, by way of the crushing defeat of Britain's political labour movement, the fire sale privatisation of its publicly owned industries and services and rise of a parasitic financial sector involved in wealth appropriation rather than wealth creation. The misrecognition of the collapse of Stalinism, in the degenerated and deformed workers states of Stalinism as a failure of socialism added permanence and force to this process.
Nonetheless the ideology pushed by the Koch's was primarily that of the free market, with as little government and state intervention as possible. This project reached the end of its road in 2008 and the new kids on the Far Right block, beginning with Robert Mercer, were of a different complexion, all working in Tech and ultimately exemplified by Musk. In effect these are the Western equivalent of the Russian Oligarchs and LIKE the Russian Oligarchs they NEED a corporate state (as in Nazi Germany) to serve and protect their interests and wealth.
After Trump's second election victory I had a conversation with a friend who refuted my claim that the US under Trump not only had a fascist government (cue Italy and until recently Poland) but a FASCIST STATE like Hungary under Orban. My friend said that the US had had reactionary Presidents in the past such as Nixon, Reagan and both Bush's. I said no, that this was different and added that because of the grotesque powers afforded to ANY US President, to be immune from prosecution, to appoint members of the Supreme Court, to pardon fascist paramilitaries and enable an armed friekorps in the form of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, the transition to a fascist state was relatively easy compared to a West European country.
We've since seen ICE overtly transformed into an American Gestapo and the purge of the FBI, CIA and other organs of state.
The situation in Britain might be slightly different in that we DON'T have an executive Presidency (thank God!) and nobody has that kind of power BUT there is one disturbing parallel. In Britain, the Labour goverment and party has not only purged socialists systematically from its ranks but completely adapted to the austerity happy and bankrupt free market policies of its predecessors and allowed fascists to frame the terms of the debate around immigration at the same time. It has also continued to suck the cock of Adolf Hitler's stunt double in the White House instead of re-joining the Customs Union, while ANY trade deal with the US will involve the privatization of the NHS, tax breaks for US Tech and an extention of DOGE's purge of the public sector to the UK. In this way, Counterfeit Labour, by positioning itself as a Party of business and austerity rather than a party of the working class, offers power to the fascists of Reform on a bit-coin embosted platter as the up-coming local, Mayoral and Runcorn bi-election are likely to prove.
And this also happened in the US. Hillary Clinton was the worst candidate to put up against Trump, Biden hung on for too long and Kemala Harris, when she belatedly took the reigns, made too much show of what a big fan she was of capitalism and so called moderate Republicans while counting on celebrity support to paper over her abandonment of the working class.
These are dangerous times, there is no middle ground and its class struggle socialism versus fascist barbarism from now on.
The country is in a bad situation. We have criminals running part of the Federal government. And in other parts of the government we have lazy and/or cowardly people. Complacent folks are being challenged the first time in their lives. Many, many are not up to the task at hand! But the rest of us ARE NOT going to surrender!!! The American working class will once again save this country. The Democratic Party can lead as they did in the 1930’s in the Great Depression. They just have to make a 100% commitment to working people. Not the 65% they have given since the 1980’s. It is there for the taking. The people are crying out for true hardworking leadership. Give it to them! Then get to work & make things right!!!
I’m old and, for now, still a Democrat. Have been since ‘84, when I was a Jesse Jackson delegate to the State convention. I served in my State’s House of Representatives as Majority Whip, then Majority Leader. But my faith in my Party is not just waning, it’s on life support. While Democrats fiddle, Rome burns. Democrats and the Democratic Party sip the champagne provided by corporate masters, just as Republicans do. And as long as we do, we’ll continue to have “Democrats” vote for things like Laken Riley and SAVE. It’s not Jeffries or Schumer or Smith inspiring huge crowds all over the country, including in solid Red districts. It’s Bernie and AOC, who actually have a message, who call fascism out for what it is, who talk about fighting the Oligarchs, not inviting them to six figure dinners. For the most part, the “Democratic” Party has stood by in stunned silence as DOGE unwinds the social safety net, RFK destroys public safety and tRump thwarts the rule of law. Democrats pretend they’re still in the old world, where civility and rules of engagement still apply. They don’t. It’s time for Democrats to become a real opposition Party that refuses to go along in order to get along. Forget getting along. Get fighting or go away.
There are a few Democrats who are working tirelessly to oppose tRump and MAGA. We all know who they are. But Party leadership is too busy threading donor needles and moving to whatever they and their consultants perceive the middle to be on any given day. Move on principles. Move on values. Move on protecting Democracy and the rule of law. Call them out as the fascist Hitler threats that they have proven themselves to be. The American people will follow leaders who lead with their values. They will leave leaders behind who lead with their fundraising.
"The DNC, he wrote, would remain neutral in primaries, as would its leaders."
...
WHEN THE EVERLOVING ACTUAL FUCK HAS THE DNC EVER BEEN NEUTRAL IN PRIMARIES???
"The DNC, he wrote, would remain neutral in primaries, as would its leaders."
With regard to the former Republican party, the only positive thing I can think of is - Before Trump, the GOP leadership/establishment wing did not rig their primaries as much as the Democratic leadership, to keep insurgents out of power. If they had, Trump/MAGA would never have turned the GOP political party into a cult/mafia.
This was a great read and informative read and particularly great in that it came from a fellow member of the film community (I am a script writer myself having formerly been a journalist). In the UK we havn't got a fascist government YET but, supported by Trump, Musk and their Russian chums, Farage's Reform UK and the EDL (equivalent to Proud Boys and Oath Keepers) are on the ascendant. And the reasons are alarmingly similar in that BOTH countries are in decline, in capitalist terms, under a dying capitalist system whose failed neo-liberal free market project finally ran out of road in the crisis of 2008 from which it will not and cannot recover. In Britain this has been amplified by BREXIT (manipulated by the same Russian assets who first brought Trump to office) and the Tories' scorched earth fiscal limits which Rachel Reeves has idiotically clung to as she drives the austerity-happy-and-not-so-magic-bus over the cliff.
As an example of the stark fact that the new fascism, based on the tech oligarchs and with a layer of support with an alienated working class, is now the only strategy for survival available to capitalism consider the shifting constituency of financial support to Trump and his European/Project 2025 clones within the super-rich bourgeois biosphere. From the 1990s through to the first Obama administration, those funding the Republican Party's shift to the Far Right in the US were mostly people like Charles Koch and his brother who'd made their fortune in mineral extraction and wedded the Far Right to climate change denial accordingly. They also re-wrote the rules of the manufacture of consent, in the age of De Bord's media as Spectacle, along lines admirably exposed e,g. by Jane Meyer of THE NEW YORKER. However, their commitment was indeed to the kind of de-regulated free market established by the Reagan-Thatcher axis, by way of the crushing defeat of Britain's political labour movement, the fire sale privatisation of its publicly owned industries and services and rise of a parasitic financial sector involved in wealth appropriation rather than wealth creation. The misrecognition of the collapse of Stalinism, in the degenerated and deformed workers states of Stalinism as a failure of socialism added permanence and force to this process.
Nonetheless the ideology pushed by the Koch's was primarily that of the free market, with as little government and state intervention as possible. This project reached the end of its road in 2008 and the new kids on the Far Right block, beginning with Robert Mercer, were of a different complexion, all working in Tech and ultimately exemplified by Musk. In effect these are the Western equivalent of the Russian Oligarchs and LIKE the Russian Oligarchs they NEED a corporate state (as in Nazi Germany) to serve and protect their interests and wealth.
After Trump's second election victory I had a conversation with a friend who refuted my claim that the US under Trump not only had a fascist government (cue Italy and until recently Poland) but a FASCIST STATE like Hungary under Orban. My friend said that the US had had reactionary Presidents in the past such as Nixon, Reagan and both Bush's. I said no, that this was different and added that because of the grotesque powers afforded to ANY US President, to be immune from prosecution, to appoint members of the Supreme Court, to pardon fascist paramilitaries and enable an armed friekorps in the form of the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, the transition to a fascist state was relatively easy compared to a West European country.
We've since seen ICE overtly transformed into an American Gestapo and the purge of the FBI, CIA and other organs of state.
The situation in Britain might be slightly different in that we DON'T have an executive Presidency (thank God!) and nobody has that kind of power BUT there is one disturbing parallel. In Britain, the Labour goverment and party has not only purged socialists systematically from its ranks but completely adapted to the austerity happy and bankrupt free market policies of its predecessors and allowed fascists to frame the terms of the debate around immigration at the same time. It has also continued to suck the cock of Adolf Hitler's stunt double in the White House instead of re-joining the Customs Union, while ANY trade deal with the US will involve the privatization of the NHS, tax breaks for US Tech and an extention of DOGE's purge of the public sector to the UK. In this way, Counterfeit Labour, by positioning itself as a Party of business and austerity rather than a party of the working class, offers power to the fascists of Reform on a bit-coin embosted platter as the up-coming local, Mayoral and Runcorn bi-election are likely to prove.
And this also happened in the US. Hillary Clinton was the worst candidate to put up against Trump, Biden hung on for too long and Kemala Harris, when she belatedly took the reigns, made too much show of what a big fan she was of capitalism and so called moderate Republicans while counting on celebrity support to paper over her abandonment of the working class.
These are dangerous times, there is no middle ground and its class struggle socialism versus fascist barbarism from now on.
The country is in a bad situation. We have criminals running part of the Federal government. And in other parts of the government we have lazy and/or cowardly people. Complacent folks are being challenged the first time in their lives. Many, many are not up to the task at hand! But the rest of us ARE NOT going to surrender!!! The American working class will once again save this country. The Democratic Party can lead as they did in the 1930’s in the Great Depression. They just have to make a 100% commitment to working people. Not the 65% they have given since the 1980’s. It is there for the taking. The people are crying out for true hardworking leadership. Give it to them! Then get to work & make things right!!!
We're not going back!!
“Let the right ones in”: and may the moribund leadership of the DNC find themselves supporting players in Swedish B vampire movies.
I’m old and, for now, still a Democrat. Have been since ‘84, when I was a Jesse Jackson delegate to the State convention. I served in my State’s House of Representatives as Majority Whip, then Majority Leader. But my faith in my Party is not just waning, it’s on life support. While Democrats fiddle, Rome burns. Democrats and the Democratic Party sip the champagne provided by corporate masters, just as Republicans do. And as long as we do, we’ll continue to have “Democrats” vote for things like Laken Riley and SAVE. It’s not Jeffries or Schumer or Smith inspiring huge crowds all over the country, including in solid Red districts. It’s Bernie and AOC, who actually have a message, who call fascism out for what it is, who talk about fighting the Oligarchs, not inviting them to six figure dinners. For the most part, the “Democratic” Party has stood by in stunned silence as DOGE unwinds the social safety net, RFK destroys public safety and tRump thwarts the rule of law. Democrats pretend they’re still in the old world, where civility and rules of engagement still apply. They don’t. It’s time for Democrats to become a real opposition Party that refuses to go along in order to get along. Forget getting along. Get fighting or go away.
There are a few Democrats who are working tirelessly to oppose tRump and MAGA. We all know who they are. But Party leadership is too busy threading donor needles and moving to whatever they and their consultants perceive the middle to be on any given day. Move on principles. Move on values. Move on protecting Democracy and the rule of law. Call them out as the fascist Hitler threats that they have proven themselves to be. The American people will follow leaders who lead with their values. They will leave leaders behind who lead with their fundraising.
“fascistic flex of power by gestapo thugs” is the best line I’ve read all week haha