I am increasingly convinced that the Democrats are facing the same crisis as the Whig party in the 1850s. They are nominally the party of progress, but their material interests are too rooted in the current system. So, they collapse under their own contradictions and a new party that is explicitly progressive (in regard to the primary contradiction of the time) emerges to replace them. The issue of the 1850s was slavery, the issue of the 2020s is capitalism. I would not be surprised to see an explicitly democratic socialist party come to replace the Democrats, made necessary by the fact that the Democratic party is structurally incapable of moving in that direction. Of course, the short term outcome of civil war seems like an inevitable consequence of that (even if we act in the most reformist way possible) so we need to plan accordingly
Meh, he's been doing a lot of hippie pacifist stuff. I'm not surprised. He's never had a principled ideology, his criticisms are all purely bleeding heart reactions to pain and violence
He's never going to convince lib politicians to change, that's not how this works. Getting those interviews gives him national visibility, which drives people to his channel, where he can radicalize them more directly. Of course, streaming isn't revolutionary, and most of those "radicalized" viewers will only ever make angry comments online. But that's the maximum extent of his influence as a streamer no matter what he does
That makes sense, if there ever is a politician in this country willing to speak the truth about Israel, they will almost certainly come out of the movement being supported by Bernie and AOC. You can't knock down the old problematic leaders until new ones are ready to replace them, without collapsing the entire project of US left electoralism (whether that's a worthwhile project to begin with is a different conversation)
I'm not sure if she's controlled, she's just tolerated because she's marinated in the propaganda so much she's basically a pickle. She's a loose cannon and this might actually sink her chances of gaining any more power
the actual mechanisms that drive capital now need much more exploitation and in more forms than they used to
I would challenge this claim, in Marx's time Congolese workers would have their hands cut off for missing quotas, or worse. The era of socialist revolutions helped reduce the level of exploitation around the world. Though the shape of things has changed, the core mechanisms of capital today are essentially the same as when Marx was writing (he predicted increasing automation, so even AI is within the scope of his theory).
What he didn't discuss much in his writings (but was definitely aware of) is the nature of imperialism. Being an imperial subject himself, I think he underestimated the degree to which workers in the imperial core could be convinced their interests align with the imperial bourgeoisie instead of the international working class-- so, even as an organized working class in industrial countries advanced, their material gains actually alienated them from the international working class and severely dulled class consciousness
However, it is precisely because of the internal contractions of capitalism that Marx identified way back in the 19th century that we are seeing a return of class consciousness even in the imperial core. The capitalists just can't help themselves, the logic of competition pushes them to dismantle the very systems that stabilize the capitalist system. Once again the choice of the workers is becoming clear-- organize or be crushed
MAGAstapo is great tho, I vote to keep the user