this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2025
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Yah I love how places like Lemmy are packed to overflowing with "radical leftists" who scream murder at liberals and moderates and how broadly appealing progressive policies aren't going far enough to address [issue X].
Guys, we're getting literally murdered out there, figuratively and literally. If there was ever a time to start building larger coalitions, it's now. No, you're not getting everything you want. No, we're not having a revolution, we don't have the military. Yes, you will have to compromise. And if you hate that word because you think it means walking alongside someone you despise...
Tough shit.
Pick an issue, gather allies, overwhelm it, then repeat for the NEXT issue and realize nobody is coming, you may not see a better world in your lifetime, your immediate sense of resignation at this fact is manufactured. Get your shit together. Your personal problems are clouding your thinking.
They're winning because they don't recoil in horror at the idea of working towards mid-way goals or making deals they find distasteful, that's how they pushed the overton window off the fucking map.
But yeah, lets continue to fuss over if our flags represent enough people and if [popular content creator] said the word "retard" once, while our administration builds camps and readies for war for funsies.
edit: just because I'm ready to soak up hate on this, you all also need to make real friends. You don't build movements in discord, not ones that have impact at least. You are medicating your loneliness while the world burns outside. Get out and push through the discomfort of your introversion, your ADHD, your ASD, your sexual identity insecurity, your looks or your accent or WHATEVER it is that you think is keeping you from being social and building community. We lost because we're isolated. Online groups don't count. Don't reply to me, go outside.
Big tent liberalism is exactly what got you the anti-union, pro-war, pro-fracking, anti-immigrant democratic party of today. Every single time someone argues for speaking to a broader base it's used as an excuse to move further right. And it isn't working. Please, for the love of god, learn from the past three election cycles.
If you have a way to make it work without compromise let me know, I'm all ears. Expert Mode: something that doesn't involve waiting for some charismatic and perfect savior figure to somehow come out of the sky and start successfully advocating for socialism. Nobody is coming.
Because what we're doing now isn't working.
That's kind of a broad question, and there's at least two contexts in which I can answer it. One is on a personal level, and one is more on the level of "what should the DNC do if they want to win another election".
Personal answer first. Quite simple:
join a union
engage in mutual aid
read theory (yes really)
local politics (no matter how local) matter, act like it
vote for politicians and their policies because you believe in them, not because other guy bad. If your choice is between Hitler and Hitler wearing a funny hat, voting uncommitted is not only your democratic right, but your duty. If you guarantee your vote to a politician regardless of what rhey do or advocate for, the politician has no reason whatsoever to listen to you or cater to your needs. None.
Now if you're asking as a card carrying DNC member with influence:
Do not capitulate to right wing framing. You will never win at being right wing, the right wing is much better at that than you. Concretely, engage in counter messaging. For example, when it comes to undocumented immigrants, frame them as a boon to society (which they are) and aggressively fight anyone who claims they commit more crimes (they don't, in fact they commit fewer per capita), don't say "I agree mr republican, and my border policies are just as draconian as yours, if not more, just as they should be!" Same with fracking, genocide, crime, taxes, etc. Be an alternative, not a weak derivative.
Don't fund a genocide. So easy. All you have to do is not send 17.8 billion in military aid to any country committing a genocide. You see a country committing genocide? Do not send 17.8 billion dollars in military aid. If you can't help yourself and have to send the money anyway, don't go bragging about it on your campaign trail, you fucking idiot. More generally, people do not like war, and prefer not to spend billions on some country they've never been to. Trump managed to position himself as the peace candidate TWICE because the dems kept falling over themselves to prove how fucking hawkish they were. This is pure incompetence.
Start advocating for worker's rights. Stronger unions, higher minimum wage, forced and paid parental leave, paid sick leave, and so on. These are deeply popular positions, as polling shows, also among people who normally vote republican. A one time tax credit is not worker's rights.
Start advocating for universal health care again. Or at least fucking mention it every now and then. The US is the only nation in the developed world (and beyond?) that doesn't have this, you can gain so much on this.
Follow these simple steps and you'll win your next election!
So wait for a charismatic and perfect savior. We see what happens every time someone of this stature reaches the actual federal election stage.
I'm talking about what people can do here and now, which is built coalitions and not have purity tests about who is in it, just focus on single-issues like the right has done successfully over and over and over.
For some reason whenever someone says "compromise" every lefty immediately pictures "submitting on trans rights and abortion" or something.
I'm saying as individuals, you and me, scared lemmy browsers who don't think they have power: build social connections, make more friends, build activism groups, start in local communities and keep it fixated on solving ONE populist problem that we can get a much wider array of people behind, like childcare or school lunches or yes healthcare and unions, social security or other public safety nets and the whole long laundry list of items we want, but instead of overwhelming a population, local or national, with a huge list of inclusivity and ideals, we attack one thing at a time. I have watched the right do this over and over and each time they fucking WIN.
Again, your notions of an ideal candidate you would vote for are spot-on, I would vote for that person in a heartbeat, most would, but that person doesn't exist and they won't exist until they can ride on the momentum of grass-roots movements to tackle populist issues. The democrat party is not our ally here, not without a mandate under it and if we're more clever about building those mandates and then tying them together when it's time, we might have success.
But I'm getting really pessimistic here. Voter turnout is not the problem. Everyone, everywhere, is avoiding mixing. The atomization of our world is the problem. We had the highest voter turnouts and youth involvement in the last several elections than we've ever had, and they voted Trump. That's my whole point, that's the key we have to fight against, how someone like a brazen fascist and idiot can sway so many people, and it starts with re-mixing our values and perspectives and this may take some kind of "compromise" that may make a lot of isolated lefties really uncomfortable, like having conversations with people you don't like, like accepting people who hate you into your protest so you can both tackle a problem you both hate. If we can cross that boundary we can start mixing together again and pulling people out of this programming that corporate media does. Isolationism is killing our whole world and all our hope for the future.
Did you not read what I said? I'm talking about taking up concrete policy positions. Profoundly uncharismatic people like Biden, Harris, Clinton can do that. And yes, it will gain them votes.
Well not Biden obviously because he's been non compos mentis for the past three years, but you get the point.
I tried. If anyone gets what I'm saying, power to them and the kernel of hope rides in their hands. Otherwise I'm done. Peace.
Because when they compromise it’s never with the left. They always compromise with the right. They want the left to compromise with them but they never make any concessions towards the left.
Who exactly are you going to form groups with? I am a bit lost on where you would even get started on something like that. Most groups I have seen advertised or have any success are extremists I wouldn't want to be a part of. I don't want to go back to being a Trotskyist just to have any meaningful impact. You berate neurodivergent and queer people specifically as not getting off their ass, yet those are the kinds of people in the ranks of these organisations. It's not like your average person is going to go and join the Labour party either.
Not all situations are like America. Here in the UK the backsliding is happening with the traditionally left leaning party who got in power using after massive fuck ups by the conservatives. So the right wing lost hard, but the other party have moved towards them. So you can't even say it's an issue with the alt-right like America. Instead it's actually an issue with the left wing party and left wing moderates. Voting for and allying with them has enabled this behavior. It has enabled them to go after transgender people specifically. Ironically the conservatives might have actually done better in this case, as they haven't expressed issues with queer people in recent times to my knowledge.
We are facing a huge problem that nobody seems to be able to identify, which is not voter turnout. The sad, horrible truth is the last couple election cycles we had record turnout and more young people involved than ever before... AND THEY VOTED FOR TRUMP. It's going to happen all across the world as more and more people have access to their little algorithmic ideology bubbles.
So what's the problem? Atomization of groups. Everyone is isolated and not exposed to each other's perspectives and it's making a vacuum that corporations are easily leveraging to get their right-wing puppets installed so they can make line go up. This atomization is literally turning people delusional, and if we don't push back on it we are going to lose not just the USA but all democracy and organization.
We fight it with activity and community and socialization. If it takes screaming at people to get off their asses, I will do that and I will do it in ways that piss people off if it gets attention.
Exactly the kind of bad-faith, seething, atomized perspective I want to fight by forcing people like YOU to listen to people like ME who will say things to piss you off and make you reconsider what someone else is saying. We need to do that not on Lemmy but out in bars, in family gatherings, in social media, in public lectures, in town council meetings and so on. Withdrawing now will kill you all. I am being dead serious. This avoidance of conflict except with people who want the same outcome as you is ruining our entire world.