Mid morning rant- I’ll try to keep it concise, but be warned, this is absolutely a rant.
Pre-rant: thank you to the mods here for being, from what I’ve seen, the most reasonable mods on reddit. And it’s not even close. Many subs just Shadowban/delete comments or ban users for anything even slightly left of center right.
This platform has hundreds of “safe spaces” for right wingers, often literal Nazis, and only a half dozen for leftists, this being one. It’s absurd, it’s annoying, and it’s the topic of my rant. Kinda.
(US oriented- apologies non-US people)
Democrats kept the Senate and might end up with 51/49 majority. They might also keep the House. But we just had two years of them holding congress and the White House. So why does everything still suck? Why wasn’t anything of substance passed in two years? Does this mean Republicans are better?
First, to the last question, no. Under no circumstances should we ever vote for or support a republican with their current party platforms and makeup. It’s literally the party of bigotry and lowering taxes for the wealthy. Everyone here gets that I think.
What are democrats then? Surely the opposite? If only. Unfortunately the democrats are just the party of less bigotry but still very pro capitalism and pro “trickle down” economics, although many, but not enough, will acknowledge need for and support safety net programs like SSDI, Medicaid, Medicare, and other various underfunded “welfare” programs that democrats can tout as solutions to things, republicans can demonize as the problem for everything, and the truth is those programs are all underfunded, don’t pay enough to enough people, and are means tested to all hell not to mention the bureaucratic red-tape of getting approved for something like Medicaid, SSDI, VA disability, etc. All of which I have personal experience with and can assure you- it’s degrading, it’s embarrassing and the end result is just barely worth it.
So there’s my layout on where we’ve been the last two years and maybe next two years. People want “radical” change in the form of some kind of universal healthcare (Medicare for all perhaps), they want better retirement through SS, they want SS funded, they want safety nets for disabled people, people who are fired or laid off, homeless people, etc. Why don’t we have any of this? None of this has been done or expanded in the last two years despite a senate and house majority. WHY?
The simplest answer is capitalism. The slightly less simple answer is capitalism under neoliberal rule for about 75 years (death of FDR).
Everyone with half a brain sees that the best time in America for the most people was under FDR and his programs. The only reason so many older people are retired right now instead of working until they die is social security retirement and/or disability. The only reason many poor people have had any access to healthcare is because of Medicaid.
So pretend for a moment you’re not a decent person, but instead you’re a capitalist. Eww. You want to exploit people by taking their surplus value created through their labor. Well, it’s easier to exploit someone if their housing, healthcare, and retirement are all tied to YOU Mr. Moneybags. You have to acknowledge the government is better at running these programs, mostly because they can compel weasels to pay out their taxes with the threat of a gun instead of relying on the angelic nature of the capitalists, but that doesn’t mean you want to allow it to continue. Perhaps on a personal level you’re even a great guy, but that doesn’t stop you from pushing for policies to end SS, food stamps, etc. which makes you, well, a terrible guy.
This is the most basic and first contradiction under capitalism. Capitalists need you tied to them to maximize control and exploitation. Labor wants the surplus value they’ve produced and capitalists want to steal that surplus value from labor. Capitalists produce nothing and inherently capital has no value, only labor, and thus capitalists must corrupt any systems of government and bend laws, write laws, ignore laws to hold down labor. I’m too lazy to look the quote up, so loosely paraphrasing from memory, but Marx says in Capital Vol I something along the lines of (speaking of the history of industry in England): “it was all perfectly legal, of course. Ownership of property was the law. Everyone was equal before the law. Laws crafted for capital, by capitalists, but they were laws! And equal!” Bad paraphrase, perhaps I’ll dig the quote up someday, but the point is capitalists write the laws and under any “democracy” they will make the laws “just” and “equal.” “We are a country of laws!” They’ll often refrain. (Laws that protect capitalists, and bind labor).
Every single sitting politician, to my knowledge, is a capitalist. Including, yes, Bernie, god love the man. He’s still a capitalist. He’s just an FDR style capitalist who believes in those strong support systems for people.
Is it any surprise then that a capitalist class of people running a bourgeois-designed government (the senate is literally meant to keep us plebs from having our way- it’s too much of an aside, but literally just look up why the US has two chambers- “passions of the mob” (us) and to protect slavery is the tldr) ends up with a system that when asked to help labor and punish capital… never does it?
I’m laying out a lot of shit that’s fucked. Most of it’s obvious even to the right wing chuds. They’re just too racist, etc. to realize that they’re getting fucked just as hard as black and brown people, LGBTQ, etc. Talk to some normie white dude and you’ll see. Their complaints, besides any racist, etc. ones, will be MATERIAL complaints. Gas prices, food prices, home prices, the price for their truck, etc. They don’t make enough money, etc.
These people go out and vote against all of their self interests every 2-4 years. Why? Well, bigotry aside (too big for this rant), it’s because the system is designed by capitalists to cause gridlock and despair. A ton of people who are otherwise reasonable (ie not personally racist, etc.) vote for republicans because they SEE democrats do nothing. And they flip back and forth every election because they see nothing happening. Which is, of course, the entire point.
Elon Musk, objectively a sack of shit, just said the quiet part out loud the other day on Twitter. Something to the tune of “a split gov is better because nothing will get done.” HE ADMIT IT
But seriously that paraphrased quote is their entire ideology. “Their” being capitalists. They want either no government or government that works for them- and be very assured, the US gov works for Elon Musk. Look up how his companies have ever made money and stayed afloat- spoiler: taxpayer dollars.
—-Been typing too long on the shitter. Gotta do some stuff. Will finish ranty thoughts later