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I'm heartened to learn about Die Linke, thank you. I was afraid AfD's only real opposition was an anemic coalition of centrist political parties. Youth are reje
by sterlind 2y ago
I'm heartened to learn about Die Linke, thank you. I was afraid AfD's only real opposition was an anemic coalition of centrist political parties. Youth are rejecting the status quo, they're done with neoliberalism, for better or worse. Radical ideas are in. If the only radical ideas are on the Right, well - we know how well that worked out for Weimar Germany (or the USSR under Brezhnev.) Democrats have had since 2016 to learn that lesson, and I fear they still won't in 2028. I'm not a Commie, but if the choice is between Nazis and Commies, I'll sing the Internationale.
(Yes, I know that Die Linke aren't literally Communist, and I know AfD aren't literally Nazis, but Die Linke descended from the legal successor of a Marxist-Leninist party, as AfD descended from the legal successor of a neo-Nazi party, so I think my analogy holds.)
- nozzlegear 2y agoI'm a firm believer in the horseshoe theory, so I'm really not interested in a radical left or a radical right. Give me more Bidens, Harrises, Clintons and Obamas. I'll vote for them every time. > Democrats have had since 2016 to learn that lesson Biden won in 2020 pretty resoundingly, so the lesson they learned from 2016 was enough to win decisively in 2020. Parties don't stay in power indefinitely, conditions change and incumbents all across the world — not just the US — lost in 2024.
- bonzini 2y agoAt this point it's basically three states deciding the election (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan). Both Biden and Trump won or loss based on those three, and with a ridiculously low margin each time.
- nozzlegear 2y agoIt's more than those three states, but I get your point. We need electoral college reform, and we need to uncap the house of representatives like the founders intended. Until then it's going to keep coming down to those purple states with razor thin margins, and safe red/blue states will just be used to run up the popular vote count.
- bonzini 2y agoWell yeah, there's North Carolina, Arizona, Nevada and Illinois too. But they seem to be less likely to be the tipping point, plus AR/NV are too small to undo republican vote in MI/WI/PA which have provided 50 electors to the winner and zero to the loser for the last three elections.
- DiggyJohnson 2y agoHow many elections do you remember and followed closely? These things shift all the time.
- DiggyJohnson 2y agoThat's only true if the period of analysis is extremely, extremely short.
- bonzini 2y agoWell yeah I mentioned the last 8-9 years. But a lot of the shift already occurred with Bush: "Bush flipped 11 states that had voted Democratic in 1996: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Tennessee, and West Virginia" (source Wikipedia); 8 of those have turned very much Republican since then. So while the number of swing states has reduced a lot in 2016, the strength of republicans in the south hasn't changed a lot since 2000.
- rdm_blackhole 2y ago> Bidens, Harrises, Clintons and Obamas Not too get too political but if the these people had done their jobs in the first place, there would be no Trump in the WH presently. The problem with them is that they are all for the status quo which to the average voter means "more of the same". See the current compete U-turn from the German conservatives who less than 24H after being elected decided to break their main campaign promise and renege on doing what they said they would do. The far right and the far left are not growing in a vacuum, they are growing because people are getting tired of being lied to.
- baud147258 2y ago> German conservatives [...] decided to break their main campaign promise and renege on doing what they said they would do. what kind of promise was it?
- rdm_blackhole 2y agoTighter border controls.
- nozzlegear 2y ago> The problem with them is that they are all for the status quo which to the average voter means "more of the same". I vote for them because they represent change and progress at a steady, measured pace — not stagnation and status quo. You're discounting big campaign achievements like Obamacare and Biden's infrastructure plan.
- rdm_blackhole 2y agoI am not discounting anything. I look at what we are seeing today. Trump is more powerful than he as ever been. In Europe, European-skeptic parties are rising, the far right and the far left are rising as well and the center is slowly crumbling. Those are facts. So the question is why are the center right/left politicians not acknowledging the problems and trying to find adequate solutions? Why do they let the far right and the far left being seen as the ones who are/will be doing something? The horseshoe theory is real. If you look at France, the far left and the far right merged their votes and forced the previous government to resign. If that is not a sign that something is seriously wrong, then I don't know what to tell you.
- mrighele 2y ago> but if the choice is between Nazis and Commies, I'll sing the Internationale. I don't understand why people give a pass to Communism when it caused an order of magnitude more suffering than Nazism.
- petre 2y agoBecause they were living in the West, not subject to the USSR sphere of influence, so they pretty much don't know Communism? Here's a summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism
- boroboro4 2y agoDoubt this will hold if you adjust by number of years in power/population under control.
- sterlind 2y agoI'm not giving Communism a pass, I'm picking the lesser of two evils. Also, because the Nazis would have sent me to the gas chambers.