Thank you for this, especially the helpful chart showing the outrageously overblown US spending on the military and ICE. As for the Democratic hypocrisy when it comes to raising the alarm about Trump but dutifully approving funding for all his wars--both domestic and foreign--I've come to accept this as the Party's complete surrender to the Pro-War and Pro-Genocide foreign policy wing of our empire.
I'm old enough to remember when many Democrats were unafraid to criticize America's war mongering, even when the war was carried out by a Democratic president. As James Carden has written:
"The Vietnam era marked perhaps the high point of progressive dissent against the American war machine. The anti-war movement was certainly well represented (especially by today’s standards) in the US Senate, where J William Fulbright, William Proxmire, Wayne Morse, Robert F Kennedy, George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy and Frank Church opposed president Lyndon B. Johnson’s war."
The Democratic Party has long since abandoned its former working class base and become just another tool of the corporate oligarchs that now direct its policy preferences. Any statements or proposals made by Democrats that purport to oppose these policies are purely theatrical.
Thank you, Chris! I read the theatrics you're talking about as a tacit admission that Democrats know what they're doing is unpopular. We need to find ways to transform public opinion (which is largely on our side) into an active accountability mechanism that punishes politicians who defy the views of their base and supports those who actually do their jobs. Narrative-wise, I think one of the best things we can do is weave militarism into a broader class-based argument, like you did in your comment above.
Thank you for this, especially the helpful chart showing the outrageously overblown US spending on the military and ICE. As for the Democratic hypocrisy when it comes to raising the alarm about Trump but dutifully approving funding for all his wars--both domestic and foreign--I've come to accept this as the Party's complete surrender to the Pro-War and Pro-Genocide foreign policy wing of our empire.
I'm old enough to remember when many Democrats were unafraid to criticize America's war mongering, even when the war was carried out by a Democratic president. As James Carden has written:
"The Vietnam era marked perhaps the high point of progressive dissent against the American war machine. The anti-war movement was certainly well represented (especially by today’s standards) in the US Senate, where J William Fulbright, William Proxmire, Wayne Morse, Robert F Kennedy, George McGovern, Eugene McCarthy and Frank Church opposed president Lyndon B. Johnson’s war."
The Democratic Party has long since abandoned its former working class base and become just another tool of the corporate oligarchs that now direct its policy preferences. Any statements or proposals made by Democrats that purport to oppose these policies are purely theatrical.
Thank you, Chris! I read the theatrics you're talking about as a tacit admission that Democrats know what they're doing is unpopular. We need to find ways to transform public opinion (which is largely on our side) into an active accountability mechanism that punishes politicians who defy the views of their base and supports those who actually do their jobs. Narrative-wise, I think one of the best things we can do is weave militarism into a broader class-based argument, like you did in your comment above.