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I think the issue that is stopping most people from engaging in any mass movement is that people under 50 don't think anything good is gonna happen in their life. There was mass mobilization around BLM, the women's march, pro Palestinian protests, and what did we get in response?
In 2020 the DNC rallied around an ancient politician who was anti bussing and has been on the wrong side of every major political issue in his career over a candidate that had a groundswell of popular support from their base. The BLM protests were co-opted and then buried with no major changes to policing enacted. Obama failed to codify Roe, then after he helped clear the field to give Hillary the nom, the dems eat shit, then trump's supreme court nominees overturn roe v wade. Then in 2024 the majority of Americans are rightfully horrified by the genocide in gaza and mobilize, most of it occurring on college campuses. The democratic administration responds by siccing cops on them and beating them, arresting them and censoring free speech. Then that ancient unpopular president had to be forced out of the contest because it was blatantly clear that he was too fucking old to continue, they rally around his vp who didn't even get to early state voting in the primary because she was so unpopular. She fails to separate herself at all from the current administration that, despite how much people say "the economy is so strong and good!", most people are making less and the cost for everything has gone up significantly. All of this creates a perfect storm to convince millions of people to just not vote this year because to them, things are only going to get worse. The most craven and awful people in our culture and government get to wreak havoc and the opposition barely has an appetite to even pretend they're going to overturn what trump did, let alone lay out a new direction or inspire hope.
This is the main obstacle to anyone hitting the streets in any major numbers. Things are going to have to get significantly worse for a lot of people before anyone is driven to get up and fight. I'm not holding my breath
Bernie Sanders said, "It should come as no great surprise that a Democratic Party which has abandoned working class people would find that the working class has abandoned them.
While the Democratic leadership defends the status quo, the American people are angry and want change.
And they’re right."
Whatever your thoughts on Bernie are, I think this statement holds some truth. Both parties are right leaning and there was some point in the past where working class, middle American's felt the the Democratic party supported them more than the Republican party. The Republican side didn't like Trump at first either but for their demographic, it's a lot easier to just fall in line with his rhetoric and continue to line their pockets.
The Democrat side has a much more diverse group to convince - LGBTQ+, minorities, women, etc... - and seem to have failed to realize that they're somehow starting to lose ground there, just don't care, or are merging with the other side. I think part of the reason people went for Trump is just because wasn't a politician. His rise to power and events around it pointed out the utter ridiculousness of the system. People voted for him as a joke, some in protest, and some people actually turned to his side.
I think Bernie had some hype around him, same as Trump. A lot of people were really bummed to find out what really happened with him along with the DNC scandal. He was saying the healthcare, military industrial complex, pharmaceutical, and education system need to change amongst other things. Corporate America, rampant capitalism, and the top 1% were mostly to blame. Neither party wants someone who's going to actually try and represent the middle class and isn't also in the pocket of the top 1%. The top 1% definitely didn't want that.
Trump gave people someone to blame. The democrats, immigrants, China, the "woke", etc... However misguided, sometimes people just want someone to blame and he gave that to them.
Even the "you have a responsibility to vote for the lesser evil" argument - I think a lot of people just didn't care anymore. Neither side is going to actually do anything for the middle class. If you vote for the lesser evil, you're always going in the direction of evil. You're eventually going to end up somewhere like this. All the blame and finger pointing just continued to divide people even more.
I do think this generation is probably the most progressive ever. It'll take these people getting into politics and replacing the people there now. However, there's surely an awful lot of gate keeping and the current turds will be there until they die.
Topic: Changes under Trump 2.0 (Read 188614 times)