There is a strange playfulness or maybe it's walking on eggshells the Dems are taking this term vs 2016. They are hitting the " they're defunding the police" note instead of " you're gonna spend 300$ a week feeding your grandparents because meals on wheels got frozen" for a reason. You're right for a group of people who campaigned on the horrors of project 2025 they could've fought back a little harder even for cheap theatrics. Very different than times before
Simply put, but perfectly sums up what this moment feels like. I really admire your ability to capture the raw emotions and disappointments that many people are feeling, and then channel that energy into how we can build a movement that gets us to where we want and need to be. Despite how many people still remain married to the idea of "enacting change within our current system", something we can never give up on is being imaginative, innovative, but also adhering to the lessons of those heroes of the past. We've seen time and time again now that our current system and framework isn't going to provide those revolutionary avenues for us, and your Audre Lorde quote spoke to this perfectly as well. Democratic Party leadership have shown us how incapable they are of meeting the current moment, and at a certain point, it really is going to be up to us to make the change we want to see. Hakeem Jeffries can tweet about God sitting upon a throne all he wants, but at a certain point, you have to be willing to engage in the difficult work in order to protect and look after the most people possible.
"We have to be willing to change our minds. We have to be unafraid to change course towards a true path for liberation. After all, we are facing oblivion if we fail."
Mindset has been at the forefront of my mind lately, and trying to figure out how we can best help people see that another mindset and perspective is in fact possible. So many everyday people have been hammered and crunched by our capitalist framework over and over again - it can be hard to fault them for clinging onto whatever they deem as being "stable" - but that doesn't mean we should give up on them. People can be malleable when shit really begins to hit the fan, and I think you're spot on in addressing throughout this entire peace that our time to act, is now:
"If ever there were an opening to do something else, to create a structure that could mount a real resistance to Trumpian neofascism, this is it."
Thanks for another fabulous read Scarlet! You're providing everyday people with a lot to think about and consider with these pieces. Can't wait for the next one!
The question right now is how do we push for a shift in our media figures strategy. I don't think there's an easy answer but it's so desperately needed. I always say that time is a finite resource, the more time we waste on trying and failing to primary congress members, the less time we ultimately have to spend building a working class movement that is actually capable of confronting the right. I can only hope that as even normie Dems abandon the party, it becomes more apparent that we need to do something different.
Yeah there doesn’t seem to be an easy answer at the moment, but you’re right in that it’s desperately needed. The clock is ticking and has been ticking for quite some time, so our conventional methods are running out of usefulness and a new, bolder direction and vision will likely have to take place. Time is absolutely finite, and I think people are, hopefully, starting to understand that. It’s becoming a “now or never” moment, like you eluded to in your piece - time to seize it.
I agree with you on a "moral need" for a third party, but as a practical matter, the left needs to work to shape the Democratic Party. The perfect is often the enemy of the good.
Destruction of the administrative state and exposing the corruption and rot in the institutions incidentally helps advance your goals.
You said it yourself; the party apparatus is exceptionally good at crushing dissenting voices and preventing them from ever winning primaries. Draining the sources of funding that the UNIPARTY uses to keep its own members in power and enrich its flunkies will allow more of those actual revolutionaries to win their primaries.
We need to look to our heroes AND heroines. One I just finished writing my latest Campfire Story of Resistance about, Emma Tenayuca, is barely known outside of San Antonio, or Texas, or a very small number of Chicana scholars...but she deserves to be right up there, recognized and named, and standing with the heroes you named...she preceded so many of them and inspired them, too; and in her day and her lifetime, she was very much a household name. There are so many other heroines of anti-fascism and for the working class whose accomplishments are also just as towering as the heroes you named...one who springs to mind, of course being that "other Revolutionary Emma," of labor, communist, and organizing fame (i.e., Emma Goldman, of course) as well. My story about Emma Tenayuca can be found at: https://www.storiesofresistance.org/p/the-tale-of-the-passionate-one-emma
So, let me understand: you think it is somehow easier to build a third party sufficiently large enough to elect our candidates in a three-way race between our new party and the R and Ds, than it is to win Democratic primaries so that our candidates face only a Republican in the general election? Did George Wallace’s not-large-enough third party ever win even though it was on all the ballots for years?
The Tea Party shows us the way, which is to mobilize within, and eventually take over one of the only two games in town. Just because we lost ground in 2024 due in no small part to the Musk money surgically targeting voters in the swing states using social media and more—you seem to have forgotten how far progressives had advanced in their takeover of the Dems to date. Bernie may have lost the nomination, but his influence and that of the Progressive Caucus was all over the successful Biden agenda which was chock full of real benefits to working Americans.
The problem is that the Establishment Consultant Class that controls Democratic messaging, (and work as corporate lobbyists between elections), were clueless in championing the enormous shift in economic priorities that happened under Biden, who broke the neo-liberal economic stranglehold that had dominated since Reagan. This was a big deal, with significant impact on not just workers, unions, the environment, climate, infrastructure, manufacturing jobs, but also put the brakes on corporate consolidation via vigorous anti-trust enforcement—to name just a few progressive policies that would never have been achieved without the tremendous growth of the Progressive Caucus of the Dems.
And Bernie probably had more influence in getting these policies adopted because of his leadership positions on significant Senate committees—which he only had due to his commanding a large constituency within the Democratic Party.
In sum: it is by far easier to mount a takeover of the Dems and to re-brand it than it is to create a third party that has any hope for success. In going the 3rd party route you will do nothing more than attract enough Dem-leaning voters to insure Republican victories. A dangerous proposition in already dangerous times!
You missed the whole point. The Democratic Party is hopelessly comprised and are just as responsible for where the country is. They have no candidates or a platform that represent the people. Your thought process is exactly why this country will never advance. Hopefully the sheep mentality, where you can only have two parties, will die off soon. You can’t see past the propaganda. Divide and conquer and partisan politics have indoctrinated you. I can’t imagine doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.
If the Tea Party had followed your advice instead of taking over the Rs from within, we’d have a President Harris and a D Congress today. Progressives within the D party got a lot of their/our agenda into the Biden bills because Biden needed them to pass those bills.
The tea party and the old guard republicans, didn’t have a huge chasm between their ideologies. The chasm between a true progressive or workers party, and the democrats is huge. They won’t allow true progressives on ballots, because it goes against the democrats best interests. You’re still under the ruse, that democrats care about the commoners. They are in it together. This is a class war, not partisan politics. The democrats are just as worthless, to bring change as the republicans, because they both want the same thing.
I agree. The best way forward is to gain power within the Democratic Party. Focus on moderate left economic policies and skip the identity politics bullshit. Trump and Maga are evil, but a broken clock is right twice a day. Trade and immigration need to be addressed.
She didn’t lose the popular vote and all five swing states. She won the popular vote and three of the swing states. Musk and Trump stole the election via electoral fraud by hacking the voting machines. And we can prove it.
Thank you! Harris won this election. I think the real missed message is to stop turning on your party when the rethuglicans have been stacking the deck for years with voter suppression, gerrymandering and now theft! I think Schumers misguided choice of focus was in response to the R’s false claim of “love” for law enforcement, i personally don’t think they care that grandma’s going to starve and he was pointing out the lies the R’s have been feeding their base with.
Be careful when you romanticize “working class”hero’s…I’ve been to Cuba, pretty fascist and very poor! So what became of Socialist/Communist Russia and China? They became fascist states. If you want to look at heroes, look at the leaders that fought massive scale fascism of WWII, stopped it and continued living to live in a “free” liberal democracy…for 40+ years.
These aren’t sexy or particularly great men, but they did a great job leading the fight against a fascist takeover of the globe…FDR & Winston Churchill.
Currently I’m reading all about the American Revolution, ours. It’s a good time to read up on George Washington, another man who lead our original fight over Tyranny.
My 2¢, us old (and young) lefties need to take a look at our unfruitful past and rearrange our thinking too. Pragmatism, fight and determination not romanticized ideals of failed dogma & revolutions.
I agree with most everything you’re saying. I’m just like everyone else though, I’ve got an asshole & an opinion. I respect yours, I hope you can mine.
LOL. Have you ever tried connecting the dots, as the reason Cuba is poor? Your whole post is a blanket repeat of the most basic US propaganda, that I would expect most 18 year olds to see past. You have to be a 🤖!
Nope, not a bot. Not propaganda, just real actual life experiences from living as fucking human being in the 20th & 21st century’s. Cuba went broke because the USSR collapsed and stopped supporting and subsidizing everything in Cuba and the severely out dated world wide economic embargoes didn’t help. At the time I was in Cuba 🇨🇺 the only economic assistance they were receiving (2016) was from Venezuela and some food assistance via China. This was straight from the mouth of my Cuban guide named Pedro who was a private citizen and former professor of economics at the University of Havana who’s daughter is a Dr. and makes 35 Cuban pesos (CUP) a month. China and Russia are fascist states, where have you been for the last 50 years? BTW, you’re the one that sounds like a fucking one trick bot propagandist!
Some parts of the left, including the left in the u.s., have always denounced electoral "socialist" Democrats & worked on strategies to destroy them—along with the rest of the yankee entity—for decades. People who generally trace their disillusionment to political events from 2016 onward can learn a lot from these traditions. Some introductory material here:
You say this as if Guantanamo Bay doesn't exist, as if the US isn't home to 25% of the prisoners in the ENTIRE WORLD while having only 4.2 percent of the world's total humans. As if we don't have record numbers of homeless at this very moment. Open your eyes, get a grip.
There is a strange playfulness or maybe it's walking on eggshells the Dems are taking this term vs 2016. They are hitting the " they're defunding the police" note instead of " you're gonna spend 300$ a week feeding your grandparents because meals on wheels got frozen" for a reason. You're right for a group of people who campaigned on the horrors of project 2025 they could've fought back a little harder even for cheap theatrics. Very different than times before
"The cavalry is quite simply not coming."
Simply put, but perfectly sums up what this moment feels like. I really admire your ability to capture the raw emotions and disappointments that many people are feeling, and then channel that energy into how we can build a movement that gets us to where we want and need to be. Despite how many people still remain married to the idea of "enacting change within our current system", something we can never give up on is being imaginative, innovative, but also adhering to the lessons of those heroes of the past. We've seen time and time again now that our current system and framework isn't going to provide those revolutionary avenues for us, and your Audre Lorde quote spoke to this perfectly as well. Democratic Party leadership have shown us how incapable they are of meeting the current moment, and at a certain point, it really is going to be up to us to make the change we want to see. Hakeem Jeffries can tweet about God sitting upon a throne all he wants, but at a certain point, you have to be willing to engage in the difficult work in order to protect and look after the most people possible.
"We have to be willing to change our minds. We have to be unafraid to change course towards a true path for liberation. After all, we are facing oblivion if we fail."
Mindset has been at the forefront of my mind lately, and trying to figure out how we can best help people see that another mindset and perspective is in fact possible. So many everyday people have been hammered and crunched by our capitalist framework over and over again - it can be hard to fault them for clinging onto whatever they deem as being "stable" - but that doesn't mean we should give up on them. People can be malleable when shit really begins to hit the fan, and I think you're spot on in addressing throughout this entire peace that our time to act, is now:
"If ever there were an opening to do something else, to create a structure that could mount a real resistance to Trumpian neofascism, this is it."
Thanks for another fabulous read Scarlet! You're providing everyday people with a lot to think about and consider with these pieces. Can't wait for the next one!
The question right now is how do we push for a shift in our media figures strategy. I don't think there's an easy answer but it's so desperately needed. I always say that time is a finite resource, the more time we waste on trying and failing to primary congress members, the less time we ultimately have to spend building a working class movement that is actually capable of confronting the right. I can only hope that as even normie Dems abandon the party, it becomes more apparent that we need to do something different.
Yeah there doesn’t seem to be an easy answer at the moment, but you’re right in that it’s desperately needed. The clock is ticking and has been ticking for quite some time, so our conventional methods are running out of usefulness and a new, bolder direction and vision will likely have to take place. Time is absolutely finite, and I think people are, hopefully, starting to understand that. It’s becoming a “now or never” moment, like you eluded to in your piece - time to seize it.
I agree with you on a "moral need" for a third party, but as a practical matter, the left needs to work to shape the Democratic Party. The perfect is often the enemy of the good.
Destruction of the administrative state and exposing the corruption and rot in the institutions incidentally helps advance your goals.
You said it yourself; the party apparatus is exceptionally good at crushing dissenting voices and preventing them from ever winning primaries. Draining the sources of funding that the UNIPARTY uses to keep its own members in power and enrich its flunkies will allow more of those actual revolutionaries to win their primaries.
We need to look to our heroes AND heroines. One I just finished writing my latest Campfire Story of Resistance about, Emma Tenayuca, is barely known outside of San Antonio, or Texas, or a very small number of Chicana scholars...but she deserves to be right up there, recognized and named, and standing with the heroes you named...she preceded so many of them and inspired them, too; and in her day and her lifetime, she was very much a household name. There are so many other heroines of anti-fascism and for the working class whose accomplishments are also just as towering as the heroes you named...one who springs to mind, of course being that "other Revolutionary Emma," of labor, communist, and organizing fame (i.e., Emma Goldman, of course) as well. My story about Emma Tenayuca can be found at: https://www.storiesofresistance.org/p/the-tale-of-the-passionate-one-emma
So, let me understand: you think it is somehow easier to build a third party sufficiently large enough to elect our candidates in a three-way race between our new party and the R and Ds, than it is to win Democratic primaries so that our candidates face only a Republican in the general election? Did George Wallace’s not-large-enough third party ever win even though it was on all the ballots for years?
The Tea Party shows us the way, which is to mobilize within, and eventually take over one of the only two games in town. Just because we lost ground in 2024 due in no small part to the Musk money surgically targeting voters in the swing states using social media and more—you seem to have forgotten how far progressives had advanced in their takeover of the Dems to date. Bernie may have lost the nomination, but his influence and that of the Progressive Caucus was all over the successful Biden agenda which was chock full of real benefits to working Americans.
The problem is that the Establishment Consultant Class that controls Democratic messaging, (and work as corporate lobbyists between elections), were clueless in championing the enormous shift in economic priorities that happened under Biden, who broke the neo-liberal economic stranglehold that had dominated since Reagan. This was a big deal, with significant impact on not just workers, unions, the environment, climate, infrastructure, manufacturing jobs, but also put the brakes on corporate consolidation via vigorous anti-trust enforcement—to name just a few progressive policies that would never have been achieved without the tremendous growth of the Progressive Caucus of the Dems.
And Bernie probably had more influence in getting these policies adopted because of his leadership positions on significant Senate committees—which he only had due to his commanding a large constituency within the Democratic Party.
In sum: it is by far easier to mount a takeover of the Dems and to re-brand it than it is to create a third party that has any hope for success. In going the 3rd party route you will do nothing more than attract enough Dem-leaning voters to insure Republican victories. A dangerous proposition in already dangerous times!
You missed the whole point. The Democratic Party is hopelessly comprised and are just as responsible for where the country is. They have no candidates or a platform that represent the people. Your thought process is exactly why this country will never advance. Hopefully the sheep mentality, where you can only have two parties, will die off soon. You can’t see past the propaganda. Divide and conquer and partisan politics have indoctrinated you. I can’t imagine doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.
If the Tea Party had followed your advice instead of taking over the Rs from within, we’d have a President Harris and a D Congress today. Progressives within the D party got a lot of their/our agenda into the Biden bills because Biden needed them to pass those bills.
The tea party and the old guard republicans, didn’t have a huge chasm between their ideologies. The chasm between a true progressive or workers party, and the democrats is huge. They won’t allow true progressives on ballots, because it goes against the democrats best interests. You’re still under the ruse, that democrats care about the commoners. They are in it together. This is a class war, not partisan politics. The democrats are just as worthless, to bring change as the republicans, because they both want the same thing.
More or less true, but it is what it is. Third party won't work right now.
I agree. The best way forward is to gain power within the Democratic Party. Focus on moderate left economic policies and skip the identity politics bullshit. Trump and Maga are evil, but a broken clock is right twice a day. Trade and immigration need to be addressed.
She didn’t lose the popular vote and all five swing states. She won the popular vote and three of the swing states. Musk and Trump stole the election via electoral fraud by hacking the voting machines. And we can prove it.
Thank you! Harris won this election. I think the real missed message is to stop turning on your party when the rethuglicans have been stacking the deck for years with voter suppression, gerrymandering and now theft! I think Schumers misguided choice of focus was in response to the R’s false claim of “love” for law enforcement, i personally don’t think they care that grandma’s going to starve and he was pointing out the lies the R’s have been feeding their base with.
They’ve actually been stealing elections with those damned machines since 2002. It was part of the 60-year plan to take over the government.
They have effectively taken over mainstream media that’s for sure.
Yes. That may be part of plot too.
Tell em Robert.
The bullet ballots
they’re in on it. its the uniparty, and we’re not important to them.
Be careful when you romanticize “working class”hero’s…I’ve been to Cuba, pretty fascist and very poor! So what became of Socialist/Communist Russia and China? They became fascist states. If you want to look at heroes, look at the leaders that fought massive scale fascism of WWII, stopped it and continued living to live in a “free” liberal democracy…for 40+ years.
These aren’t sexy or particularly great men, but they did a great job leading the fight against a fascist takeover of the globe…FDR & Winston Churchill.
Currently I’m reading all about the American Revolution, ours. It’s a good time to read up on George Washington, another man who lead our original fight over Tyranny.
My 2¢, us old (and young) lefties need to take a look at our unfruitful past and rearrange our thinking too. Pragmatism, fight and determination not romanticized ideals of failed dogma & revolutions.
I agree with most everything you’re saying. I’m just like everyone else though, I’ve got an asshole & an opinion. I respect yours, I hope you can mine.
💜🤷♀️😁✊💪✌️
LOL. Have you ever tried connecting the dots, as the reason Cuba is poor? Your whole post is a blanket repeat of the most basic US propaganda, that I would expect most 18 year olds to see past. You have to be a 🤖!
Nope, not a bot. Not propaganda, just real actual life experiences from living as fucking human being in the 20th & 21st century’s. Cuba went broke because the USSR collapsed and stopped supporting and subsidizing everything in Cuba and the severely out dated world wide economic embargoes didn’t help. At the time I was in Cuba 🇨🇺 the only economic assistance they were receiving (2016) was from Venezuela and some food assistance via China. This was straight from the mouth of my Cuban guide named Pedro who was a private citizen and former professor of economics at the University of Havana who’s daughter is a Dr. and makes 35 Cuban pesos (CUP) a month. China and Russia are fascist states, where have you been for the last 50 years? BTW, you’re the one that sounds like a fucking one trick bot propagandist!
https://themoderatevoice.com/yes-putin-and-russia-are-fascist-a-political-scientist-shows-how-they-meet-the-textbook-definition/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/is-china-fascist-state/
https://theconversation.com/yes-putin-and-russia-are-fascist-a-political-scientist-shows-how-they-meet-the-textbook-definition-179063
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/04/10/china-xi-jinping-totalitarian-authoritarian-debate/
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/chinas-threat-to-global-democracy/
https://www.reddit.com/r/IntellectualDarkWeb/comments/wmrtgr/modern_china_is_a_fascist_state_not_a_communist/?rdt=36857
https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-is-fascist-state-says-diplomat-who-resigned-over-ukraine-2022-10
https://businessmirror.com.ph/2022/04/04/yes-putin-and-russia-are-fascist-a-political-scientist-shows-how-they-meet-the-textbook-definition/
https://voxukraine.org/en/rashism-or-why-russians-are-the-new-nazi
https://web.archive.org/web/20230127193309/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/22/magazine/ruscism-ukraine-russia-war.html
https://conferences.euba.sk/jazykapolitika/www_write/files/2022/spisiakova_shumeiko.pdf
https://sciendo.com/article/10.2478/jnmlp-2022-0012
https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/05/21/russia-fascist-putin-war-youth-ian-garner-book-z-generation/
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/19/opinion/russia-fascism-ukraine-putin.html
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2022/07/28/vladimir-putin-is-in-thrall-to-a-distinctive-brand-of-russian-fascism
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/25/vladimir-putin-ukraine-attack-antisemitism-denazify
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/21/opinion/how-a-russian-fascist-is-meddling-in-americas-election.html
https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/02/25/Meet-The-Face-Global-Fascism/
https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2018/04/05/understand-putin-by-understanding-his-favourite-thinkers
https://www.nybooks.com/online/2018/03/16/ivan-ilyin-putins-philosopher-of-russian-fascism/
https://web.archive.org/web/20161126063144/https://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/will-united-russia-become-a-fascist-party.aspx?pageID=438&n=will-united-russia-become-a-fascist-party-2008-04-15
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/05/trump-leader-of-the-fascist-world/
https://apircenter.org/archives/1716
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/01/31/china-authoritarian-fascism-totalitarian-uyghurs-surveillance/
https://pajamasmedia.com/michaelledeen/2011/01/20/china-the-first-mature-fascist-state/
https://yubanet.com/opinions/alexander-motyl-yes-putin-and-russia-are-fascist-how-they-meet-the-textbook-definition/
Some parts of the left, including the left in the u.s., have always denounced electoral "socialist" Democrats & worked on strategies to destroy them—along with the rest of the yankee entity—for decades. People who generally trace their disillusionment to political events from 2016 onward can learn a lot from these traditions. Some introductory material here:
https://types.mataroa.blog/blog/dont-voted/
You say this as if Guantanamo Bay doesn't exist, as if the US isn't home to 25% of the prisoners in the ENTIRE WORLD while having only 4.2 percent of the world's total humans. As if we don't have record numbers of homeless at this very moment. Open your eyes, get a grip.