@Steve Sorry, but I'm nonethewiser how you use that term. Sure the Democrats are slightly left of center and the Republicans are moving farther and farther right of center, with the center being classical liberalism. But what is being attacked isn't actually deregulated capitalism, what they attack is individual liberties of marginalized groups. Like there is no backlash against billionaires having so much money that they do space travel for shits and giggles, yet people hate on trans people

Like one group of people actively contributes to climate change and the not-well being of the entire global population and the other group is minding their own business (which I don't mean in a financial sense) and does barely or at all interfere with anyone else's life at all.

When they "own the libs" they're not fighting capitalism, they're fighting regular folks with regular jobs just trying to live their lives. How is that revolutionary? I'd say that's more like fascism. They punch on scapegoats to avert attention from actual issues.

@Steve Also what time frame are we talking here were people switched pro and anti racism? LIke you're conflating different groups and different ideologies just by their means and results which doesn't really make much sense at all. Like for most of the time republicans and thus conservatives were ruling the U.S. so for them to pretend they are the anti-establishment party is a marketing stunt so obviously disingenuous that it's hard to believe anyone buys that.

@Steve Yes... kinda... but also that's not a good thing... Sure going full crazy dictator and being an unreliable business partner is going to put your name on a no-trade list and other countries will look for alternatives to you once you've gone full moron. What I'm not seeing is how nationalism benefits workers in any way shape or form. Usually the localized oppression is far more effective than a global one. It's easy to fool the people in a country to do it globally is difficult.

Like it's actually regressing. Even Marx already argued that it needs to be internationalist and that the proletariat needs to globalize and harness the power that the capitalists have already harnessed for a long time. While nationalism is dividing the proletariat and playing them against each other.

@Steve What do you mean by "so are the liberals". Like again in the economic sense he is backed by "the liberals": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch . That guy alone controls a substantial amount of the conservative media business... And the media landscape is not as broad as the one might think en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_conglomerate#United_States

@Steve Though none of Trumps nonsense seems to hurt them, on the contrary they happily feed people bullshit as that a) means clicks and money and b) if people are willing to buy obvious bullshit you can feed them anything... Like Trump gave tax cuts to rich people and people praise him as working class hero... how much more insane could you get?

@Steve Nah Trump bragged about having 3000 law suits even before attempting to run for office, he had several bankruptcies, defrauded people working for him out of their money, had a fraud university. And that's all before he misused campaign finance for hush money or buying art, before he didn't cut ties to his businesses upon taking office. So even on day 1 of his presidency he would have been impeachable and with one foot in jail

@Steve I mean to his credit he pretty much exposed a lot o the inner workings of the political machine, like no one said the quite parts that loud as he did and no one exposed this drastically how spineless the republicans actually are and how little they care about any principles as long as it gets them to win and rule. However neither did that result in a backlash against Trump nor the republican party, so if that was the goal he failed miserably.

@Steve Also the only one seriously claiming that the election is rigged is himself. He basically runs on "either I win or it's rigged". He hasn't proven anything to that point and he never actually managed to win a popular vote either. Even when he won an election it was by electoral college not because he had the most votes, so there's a good argument against his claims, while he has brought no actual argument for it...

@Steve There actually was quite some argument in terms of the election being rigged against hillary clinton given that Russia apparently advertised on Facebook against her and stuff like that. I mean a moron as commander in Chief of the U.S. is an advantage to Russian imperialism, but Russia is far from being a socialist country or advancing working class causes.

@Steve For the last decades the U.S. has been flooded with anti-communist cold war propaganda. So for a center left party to even use the s-word is kinda remarkable even if what they mean by it is just being slightly less social darwinist than before...

@Steve Fascism doesn't want to work within the liberal status quo, Fascism is radically reactionary. Though what that means is that they tell people "what we're doing the whole time isn't wrong, we just need to do it with more power". Which is what the establishment parties like to hear and thus support it, but which is a narrative that either leads to violent destruction or is ditched after they achieve power and no longer rely on support by the establishment.

@Steve Who is actually threatened by that are "social liberals" because fascism usually picks upon the weakest and most vulnerable groups as scapegoats for the problems that they can't solve. So usually that is at the expense of first marginalized minorities (not the rich) and then the working class...

@Steve No. While it is true that the turmoil of the world war allowed for a lot of systemic changes. As said Lenin came really really late to the party. When he arrived in Russia, there had already been a revolution and the tsar had already been abdicated. So his political rivals weren't really the tsar but the Congress of Soviets and the Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries ... And I'm not even joking here.

@Steve Again where is the organized proletariat? Where are the socialist or even social demands? Like your cheering for fascism in a global nuclear power. That was already devastating when Germany did it, but a fascist U.S. has the potential to make the question of economics a no brainer. Like sticks and stones or what ever is left after that.

@Steve Whether their model and concept is any good is another question but to group them in with the capitalists is not just wrong, but also doing a disservice to any worker movement. Like they've often achieved more than most "communist" parties and taking them as "the enemy" has usually only aided far right reactionaries never anything positive has it?

@Steve Are you kidding me? Like they spend lavish vacations in the West, buy football clubs and inner cities and are only distinguishable from Western rich people by style. In that they show their wealth while Westerners often go for a more subtle richness that isn't this offensive to the people around them. But that they enrich themselves on the back of their countrymen is really out of the question.

@Steve Also seriously you think that soldiers wages are going to change the wealth distribution within a country? Like first of all people lot of people are going to die so they aren't making a fortune there... Secondly a lot of that is going to be eaten up by inflation so the distribution stays the same even if they have nominal money. And thirdly do you think the ruble will have much buying power internationally? And nationally a war economy is wasting lots of resources and people on ...war

So in the worst case this increased wages is just a scam to make them fight for their corporate overlords because if they don't win their entire "fortune" will be worth nothing as they can neither domestically nor internationally buy something with it...

@Steve Sorry but how naive is that idea? And what do you think "benefit the economy" means? Like that's the thing "the economy" isn't a machine that has one mode of operation and can be "optimized". It's the question who produces, what for whom and who decides that. And so far it's the Russian people, it's war material, it's for waste and it's Putin. How is any of that benefiting the working class?

How is Russian working class shooting on Ukrainian working class helping the working class and not their corporate overlords? Like again that's not new that were questions that Marx already posed and WWI had unfortunately shown that people were more willing to fight and die for "their" country, despite the fact that they realistically didn't own even a handful of dirt in it...

@Steve Your literally treating the working class not as actors but as pawns in a game of chess. You even go so far as to make their very lives disposable. Why would anybody with a functioning brain and the tiniest bit of self-respect go and die for commanders that literally treat them like cannon fodder? If that isn't the point where you call the revolution and at least die for your own goals, than what is?

@Steve You're literally describing a fascist death cult. I mean yes revolutionary bards would proudly hail liberty or death, but the point is not that anyone would want to die, but that they are determined to fight for their freedom. But to want death is just plain stupid.

@Steve What the heck is stopping the workers from organizing in the Western world? Are you kidding me? Even 20th century tech is more than capable of reaching the masses by now and if you have sufficient masses you could even enact change legally and if that turns out to be a farce you'd also have the numbers to do it revolutionary if that path is barred.

Seriously we're no longer in the 19th century with absolute monarchs and rigid caste systems. What is actually stopping people from organizing. And usually it's not the all powerful antagonist, but just the fact that quite some people are already content with their existence and don't want that kind of power. Which is a problem in and off itself but none that you can solve by destabilizing the system...

@Steve Seriously dude talk switch liberals with Jews and you could file your application for the SS... Like that's among the most reactionary and anti-progressive form of anti-capitalism, to support the capitalists if it goes against [scapegoat].

@Steve You seriously think the most powerful people will fight the wars? They will either surrender or be generals and command an army of useful morons. This endgame that you imagine can and will never happen and nothing about it is any good. Maybe there are places where such a desperate strategy is necessary but it's not where you think it is.

@Steve What's next? The illuminati? A shadowy elite that controls everything is all powerful, but also so weak you can crush them? Like that's literally from the fascist play book. If you have the numbers theoretically all you'd need to do is go on strike. That's going to bring the capitalist economy to a grinding halt while the physical economy is still working fine. And killing protestors isn't making them work either so even that is hurting them.

@Steve Everyone makes themselves the world that they want to live in, not realizing that this isn't the world everyone else wants to live in. So in that regard Marx was wrong, not only are there still more classes, there's also an infinite potential for people to divide each other.

@Steve But that isn't going to bring something productive is it? Like how does that benefit the working class and not just a hostile foreigner trying to make use of the disarray? And how is that hostile foreigner actually any better than the domestic hostlile colonialism?

@Steve First of all they rarely develop their working class... Like seriously those are usually the last priorities in any system including the so-called communist ones... They develop their economy so the productive output usually at the expense of the working class. And doing it domestically is near impossible as few if any countries have the resources and technology to do so (alone). So global cooperation and be it through trade is usually what cut that development time short by millennia.

@Steve Dude if "liberty" is your enemy and despotism is your ally you're only up for reactionary systems of oppression that follow even more regressive economic modes of production. Think for a second not of what you want to destroy but what you want to create because without having that in mind you only make things worse, never any better.

@Steve Again classes and revolutions predate capitalism and of course autonomously acting bureaucrats are a class of their own, are the oppressors to the oppressed who serve their goals. You can argue as to whether they are bourgeoise but that's moot, as said they are likely even regressing an on par with the aristocracy. Which also wasn't necessarily hereditary, that's just the narrative they crafted to consolidate power

But the power that they held stemmed for their ability to make decision and to organize the work of other people. So the whole hereditary stuff is just fluff to sell that narrative and to extend its lifetime.

@Steve For a capitalist it's also seen as corrupt. It's actually plenty rare that a capitalist would be so blunt as to tell you that he's just motivated by greed. That's only something they tell people who are also completely motivated by greed. But at that point the class consciousness is outside of the window as greed knows no comrades.

So how is that an improvement and not a step back? Like again capitalism isn't the enemy, it's the system that needs to be overcome. So how is regressing to authoritarianism and naked brutality any better? Like live in the dark ages, is hardly an improvement over capitalism...

over

@haxor789, it'll take me some time to fully finish this response...

@haxor789 I agree with you that (e.g.) Trump is not anti-capitalist per se. But he is against it's purest liberal forms. That's why liberals are outraged. They don't give a hoot about foreign lives - they're bankrolling genocide. What they care about is flooding labour markets.

And they care about offshoring production, and they care about being able to jurisdiction shop.

Its these things on which, rhetorically at least, Trump is saying the right things. When he says he's going to eject migrants, he means clamp down on liberal market-flooding.

When he says tariffs on China, he means attacks on one of the main sites of liberal offshoring.

Even over trans rights, I think liberals have gone too far, and many people are sick of liberal disrespect for the reproductive responsibilities. That's what's really at stake with this gender identarianism. You can't in fact choose whether you gestate or inseminate, and for many people - if not liberal bootlicks - that's still an important question about how an important social function is performed.

The fact that Trump is not wholly anti-capitalist is perfectly fine with most of his supporters, because neither are they! There are a great many people who have no ideological commitments beyond the idea that the nominally capitalist system should be like it was for their parents or grandparents.

Namely, you could feed a family of six or more on a man's wage, a woman could get pregnant and stop work without becoming homeless, and so on.

And the practical measures which regulated capitalism, like trade unions, closed shops, strong borders including capital controls, and so on.

It's far from obvious that Trump is against any of these things, whereas liberals are violently against them.

@haxor789 Marx argued that there needed to be international solidarity and democracy governing all. Not liberal mass migration.

@haxor789 if Trump is a pure representative of the liberal agenda, then why do so many liberals hate him? I concede it could be a ploy by rich liberals, but I'm not seeing that. The defection of liberals to Trump, is like the defection of liberals to Hitler.

They seek to get in early and thereby manipulate the illiberal forces in play, it's not because Trump is their ideal. Many Republicans like Romney - a clear right-wing liberal and ex-presidential candidate - have defected to the Democrats!

@haxor789 I'm not suggesting Trump became a criminal for the first time with the presidency. I'm saying none of his previous wrongdoing seriously threatened his wealth. There wouldn't have been the same people rooting around for that wrongdoing to use against him.

The point I'm making with this is that, whilst the presidency may be the "get out of jail free" card for him, playing the presidential game is the only thing that has seriously put him at risk of that in the first place.

@haxor789 this resonates with people though. I personally don't think the ballots themselves are interfered with. What's systematically interfered with are things like the choices on the ballot, and the processes that produce those choices, and the activation of the electorate to go and vote.

Liberals like yourself get so hung up on rebutting the apparent detail of how it's rigged, you're not addressing the fact that most people think the process is rigged against them in some way, and they aren't concerned exactly how, only that it is.

I'm in the strange position of broadly agreeing with the content of your argument that the ballots are probably not stuffed, yet disagreeing that this means we should trust the result. It's bankrupt of trust because it is nobbled by rich liberals, and Trump is really just participating in that and even acknowledging that he's been outdone with it.

That's why they continue to cleave to Trump, because he's actually willing to say it's rigged, whilst you consider yourself a left-winger and keep defending it. That isn't how left-wingers actually think, because left-wingers have always understood that capitalist democracy is for the rich. It's how liberals think.

@haxor789 as for fascism picking on the weak and vulnerable, I agree Hitler intended to win, but he didn't exactly choose the weakest enemies. I mean "the rest of Europe" wasn't exactly a sitting duck for Germany - after all, they'd all won the last war.

@haxor789 and how many Western football clubs have they bought since the war, compared to how many they've forfeit? We were talking about who the war is enriching, not whether the Russian rich are rich to begin with.

@haxor789 liberal attacks on workers, on their organisations, on their confidence, on their moral health. That's what stops workers organising under liberals. That's what workers gain from the soldiery - confidence, organising skills, fighting skills. Many workers know this.

@haxor789 most people aren't dying for their country. Ukrainians are being pressed. Russians are being pressed as well as volunteering for high wages. And who else will stop the liberals in control in Ukraine if not the Russians, and how if not by fighting them? The Eastern parts of the country were sick of liberal control and largely welcomed the Russians.

@haxor789 couldn't you say the same thing about any socialist argument? That if you "replace X with Jews, you'd sound like a Nazi"? You do realise that liberals caused both world wars, with their competition, international bankrolling, and beggaring of working classes everywhere?

Why do you think the USA, the main liberal regime in the world, helped bankroll both world wara, and the recovery in Western Europe after WW2 so as to better fight the Soviets?

The liberals tried attacking the Soviets after WW1 to destroy them, but they couldn't get working people, already tired from war, to fight for that cause.

@haxor789 we don't just need the numbers, we need the confidence, organisation, and fighting skills. The liberal will respond to strikes by killing people, if it thinks that will demoralise them. The Americans once considered bombing coal miners from the air - they demurred due to the erupting effect it could have on people who wouldn't be intimidated by being threatened.

Look at US- controlled genocide in Gaza for an example of how the liberal thinks.

@haxor789 I know what I want to create. A healthy society in which people can organise themselves for the common good. To achieve that, the destruction of liberals must be achieved. It may not even occur in our societies - the destruction of Western liberals may unchain different parts of the world instead from their parasitism.

@haxor789, I'll have to limit the length of my response. Over.

@Steve Again what is the "purest liberal form". Like seriously it's actually very weird to use liberal as an insult. Like you're accusing an enemy of being pro-freedom... What does that make you? Pro-slavery? I mean in case of fascism it literally does, but for anything not oppressive that's a weird position to take. Also Trump is not just not an anti-capitalist he basically is THE capitalist. Like there's probably no version of capitalism that is more transparent than what he is.

@Steve He abuses his wealth to gain personal favors, he proves that rich people are above the law and people cheer him for that, he's cheating his employees out of their money while seemingly getting away with running businesses in the ground because he kept assets elsewhere an is uncommitted to those things. And everything he does is aimed at increasing his personal prestige and money... He is basically a real life caricature of what a capitalist is.

@Steve Also that's vastly oversimplifying the middle eastern conflict and there's no money in genocide... especially if you bankroll someone else's genocide so that's an antisemitic smear that's not even on target.

@Steve Again who is "they"? Like your trans supporters are usually not the ones having slave factories in china... They're rather the ones opposing them. It's rather people like Trump or even the establishment conservatives that will argue with pragmatism and "oh look another scandal"...

@Steve Wild idea, but have you ever contemplated that people aren't invited by the liberal elites to "flood the country"? But that the distribution of goods has a stream towards 1st world countries and that people in poorer countries just follow that stream of wealth? That if you extract capital from other places that even revolutions in those places aren't going to get you any better system and that therefor they move elsewhere?

It's a similar process to even people left the rural areas and moved to the bigger cities... Just that now cities have become countries and the solution is definitely not building walls. That's is literally bourgeoise (in that this word apparently comes from Burg which means fortress, so the better offs living in a medieval gated community...). So you're conflated to kinds of liberals here, on the one hand those who want to care for the people in need and

on the other hand those who like a permeable wall that lets stuff pass and keep people out.

Even the ones that are invited because they are wealthy or highly educated and so on and usually running contrary to that narrative as keeping them away is usually easier as they can be paid less if they are away while they would earn real cash the closer they are to where the profits end up...

@Steve Sure he's taking symbolic swings at foreigners to cater to a domestic audience, but what he does behind the scenes and when the dust has settled is exactly the same as always. He's idk against climate change measures, but climate protects his golf courses. It's all just theatre.

@Steve People existing has gone too far? Like how can you claim entitlement to another person's body or reproductive ability without making them your slave? Like seriously for someone claiming to champion the interests of working class people you literally advocate for treating working class people like shit. Because being such a minority is not really what makes you rich unless you are rich to begin with.

@Steve Probably.

@Steve If a woman go pregnant back in those days that definitely would have meant homelessness. That's why they had a whole legal and moral system to support this model of families which women not unjustified saw as draconian oppression and invasion of their lives. Now getting rid of it creates other problems, but that doesn't mean that those things have ever actually worked or done more good than harm.

@Steve But they apparently don't even realize that these were the measures that ensured them. They simply buy the promise that it was unregulated capitalism that enabled them to do that and that it's on the back of black people, so they are fine with racism, hoping to cash in on that...

@Steve Again he is a capitalist, he is weirdly proud of that and I don't mean by ideology but by class. Of course his actual record is one that sees unions very critical as they are in direct conflict with his own economic power. Same for the other stuff, I mean he apparently wants Elon Musk to get rid of regulaions and he has assets in other countries as well...