It’s fucking hilarious how the comments under this is full of far left MAGA proving why any hope of uniting can never happen.
this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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But ignorant chodes in their parent's basement keep telling me Democrats have never done anything of value.
Do your homework, folks.
Tbf, democrats were the ones opposing many in that list... but they also weren't 'liberal' back then either.
Liberals do love stealing credit for socialist activism after the fact and pretending they supported it all along, this is true.
Aside from the conflation of liberals and leftists, this is mostly incorrect about the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. The Clean Air Act was passed under Johnson, but major Amendments that expanded the regulatory power of the federal government were passed under Nixon and Bush (the first one). The Clean Water Act was signed into law under Nixon, who also pushed for the creation of EPA. Republicans are shit on the environment now, but it used to be a way more bipartisan issue, and Lawrence O'Donnell apparently doesn't know that.
Ironically that works just fine as liberalism under the ideological definitions and reflects the modern reality that American conservatives are no longer liberals and have outright embraced fascism.
I'd be curious to see a similar list for the Reich. Like a legitimate one though, where they actually try to list what they're proud of. At the moment I can only think of a list containing a bunch of "cut taxes for the ultra wealthy."
"fucked the middle east"
"revoked abortion rights"
"let millions of f****ts die of HIV"
"biggest prison population in the world - can I have a 'hell yeah' for modern slavery?"
If memory serves me right just about everyone in Congress supported the Iraq War both times.
Everyone except Bernie Sanders and a couple of other kooks. But yes, everyone else.
Young people don't realize how far things have moved left in American politics in the last 20 years, with Palestinian people in congress now and socialists running for president, and even people having big protests now without instantly just getting tackled and arrested by the NYPD by the hundreds and then stuffed in a warehouse.
It's still bad enough that I understand how people can't grasp it and just assume "everything's moving to the right all the time every year," because that's sort of what it feels like, but it's not what's happening.
It feels that way because conservatives have held most of the power for almost all of those 20 years.
I mean conservatives have held power since Carter. He was the last non-conservative president we had, he actually tried to reign in the CIA and get Israel to stop killing Arabs in a big way, among other things. Biden was actually way further left than the norm, if that tells you anything.
We took a massive tumble with Reagan/Clinton, and then ever since then, we've been crawling our way back up towards some kind of humanity in government an inch at a time.
Biden literally split with the democratic party to stop desegregation. He was always one of the most conservative dems.
unfortunately the left has no idea how to unite. We get caught up on too many different issues to actually come together and be pragmatic.
I'm actually really concerned that the left might not even understand what the word pragmatic means.
All of these were fought for with literal blood well before any liberals decided it was in their interest to push legislation. Don't delude yourselves by thinking the libs did these things out of the kindness of their heart.
Whose blood do you think was being shed? Liberalism is the default in this culture. Those people dying were likely Liberals. There has never been a substantial enough number of leftists in the USA to be the drivers of most major policies.
Don’t delude yourselves by thinking the libs did these things out of the kindness of their heart.
No, they did it because their lib constituents wanted it in large enough numbers that they had to represent the will of their constituents. Because liberalism builds and conservatism destroys.
So instead of posting useless, divisive bullshit to demonize lib legislators, let's get together and work against the fucking fascists.
I suggest learning about the ratchet effect and how it influences modern politics in america. Liberalism and leftism are two different things. Liberalism, in america especially, is a right wing ideology that seeks to act at the "rational" party. They will not act unless, as you said, their constituents make it clear they will lose their seat without said action.
Democrats fight progressives more than they fight Republicans. The ratchet effect was coined for a reason. I've seen it for over 10 years as a voter.
I think this type of thinking ends up being quite self defeating.
We should evaluate all politicians as vessels to carry out the will of the people.
When you consider them as such, not as people or entities to assign blame, as your goal is to be pragmatic, you look at their incentives and track records instead.
I think leftists often have this self defeating problem of being unable to stomach the fact that they will not get their ideal politician, and there will be no sudden uprising.
As a result, they often will criticize the politicians closest too them too loudly, ending up supporting "both sides" notions that cause voter apathy and let quite literally fascists win instead.
What I am saying is that we have to be pragmatic.
Particularly for the US, people have to realize that yes, while the DNC sucks, the democrats are the only practical, realistic way for people to actually end up winning.
Its long, slow, and no fun at all, but people have to support them publicly, and acknowledge their faults in ways that don't dissuade voters from voting for them. They then must also vote in increasingly progressive candidates in primaries and local politics.
Anything else is simply grabbing a foot gun, because this imperfect system is very slow, and won't change over night.
Or we could actually work to build up our own communities and set a real workers party up. Otherwise we are at the whims of fascists and fascist lite
This is not realistic and only results in the fascist coming to power.
A system that is all or nothing or first past the post mathematically results in a 2 party system as any time one side fractures, the other side wins disincentivising people from fracturing and creating only 2 groups. You can't escape this reality, so truly, the only option forward is long slow and unfun as described, because what you've described is essentially what Russian backed Jill Stein is, and exactly why Russia want her to steal votes from democrats.
The system you want can only come about after years of the boring, long, unfun stuff I described resulting in proportional representation. Anything other than proportional representation pushes any political system back down to 2 major sides and any other parties being largely irrelevant. Parliamentary systems make them slightly more relevant with coalitions and such, but still, you just can't win the way you've described.
Not with that attitude.
Not with any attitude.
These are the realities of the american political system.
To ignore those realities is to support many many people being discriminated against and potential dying.
You can't fix a system by ignoring it.
It is impossible, as in unlikely to the point that discussing it is counter productive, to start a new party, and win in the USA with its current system.
The presidency position is too powerful, gerrymandering, billionaire controlled media and voter suppression would make it too difficult to actually secure even one ounce of useful power in the house or congress, and you'd need to hit a critical mass quickly enough that fascism hadn't already taken over (you're already past this point).
Your only play, and I mean only, is somehow keeping democracy limping into 2026, campaigning your asses off for the democrats even though we all think they are mid, and somehow getting enough seats in the senate to impeach and remove trump.
There aren't really any other viable win conditions.
We can't just gleefully stick our heads in the sand and hope that wishful thinking cloud 9 dream idealistic goals will happen.
If you really think im advocating for ignoring the system, then you have completely misinterpretted my comments lmfao
How do you figure? I have explained why creating your own party cannot possibly work, so how would that be anything other than ignoring the system to chase an impossible goal?
Is ignoring the abandonment of the actual mechanisms of reform not ignoring the system? I think I am pretty justified in interpreting it that way, but you didn't really expand and just game me a "Not with that attitude." with your last comment.
Well you cant do anything close to what im proposing with that point of view so i just didnt see a point to continuing the conversation.
If you require someone to simply immediately believe your lofty premise to continue a conversation, I question how genuine that conversation is.
I explained in detail the problems I saw with your, I believe, completely idealistic and unrealistic approach, and you kinda just went "nuh huh". that doesnt seem in good faith at all.
I pretty clearly said that i dont think youre worth conversing with lmfao. Take your "good faith" and shove it. Ill continue organizing and radicalizing the homies and you can continue licking boots, and we'll see who has the prettier smile in the end lmao
You are simply hurting the cause you pretend to support by ignoring the only system you have in place to solve it.
It is simply impossible to get the amount of people needed for what you are talking about organized.
You'd need more than the third of maga voters.
It is crazy you aggressively eschew pragmatism/liken it to boot licking. Absurd, naive, and counterproductive behaviour.
Like i said, not worth conversing with. Not with that attitude lmfao
You've been the only one bring incivility to this conversation.
you refused to acknowledge any of my points when you disagreed.
Meh meh meh meh mehmehmeh
Now are these liberals the same as what people now jerk knee think of when reading liberal
Not Lemmy's bonkers definition of "Liberal", no.
Define what you think it means
Republicans did create the EPA but then they destroyed it
Nixon, at this point, would be a progressive Democrat. He was an absolutely legendary piece of human garbage, but he did care about the country and attempt to do big good things for it sometimes, in a way that most of the campaign-contribution-fueled crop of ghouls that are "congress" today do not. Reagan and Clinton really redefined the whole scope of what even being in charge of the country was supposed to mean.
2nd time liberals illusory truth effected what Radicalists praxied.
Stop spreading misinformation @cm0002@lemmings.world.
Didn’t realize the black panthers did all this lol
Not just them. I’ll probably make a more truthful meme than this post humous false accreditation. But without Black Panther's bloodshed, there wouldn't be civil rights. Liberals scared off their belongings and their families next relented for 1,2,4,5,6&7. 8&9 were indigenous bloodshed, 3 was quite Reganomics. Liberals really really didn't want women to vote. It took Stonewall deaths to get there.
Stonewall was decades after women won the vote so that part is a bit puzzling.
Overall I don’t find your retort to be any more accurate than the meme.
But the bigger issue is that successful political movements usually involve huge numbers of people, often in coalitions that include diverse ideologies and tactics. Attribution of the movement’s success to one group or person is very difficult to prove—and it seems likely to me that every part of the coalition contributes in various ways.
People on Lemmy often love to say that MLK didn’t matter and it was all due to the black panthers or Malcolm X or some other more controversial figure. But I’ve never seen any real historical evidence to support this, and I have no idea how such a thing could even be proved even if it was true.
Anyway this tribal bickering is kind of pointless. I care more about where people stand on the issues and the actions they are taking than how they label themselves. There are effective agents for change who might think of themselves as liberals. Others might label themselves leftists. But I usually find that the most effective actors recognize that they should put such labels aside and cooperate with anyone who shares their goals. Even when, at times, there may be tactical disagreements.
While I want to agree with:
successful political movements usually involve huge numbers of people, often in coalitions that include diverse ideologies and tactics.
However, American liberals are collaborating with the fascists. Not a single ICE facility has been taken down in the past 22 years this gestapo has existed.
MLK didn’t matter
We say the opposite: his tactics didn't push the level the way Black Panther praxis did. Black panthers were going to bourgeois homes, burning them, and killing cops. You are welcome to deny how violence is the language to properly communicating with fascists the freedoms they abhor we desire to have. The last two chat leaks proved they want to enslave us again. If liberals do not want slavery back, they have to start demolishing ICE facilities as a proven “diverse coalition.”
If you want a start, there’s a liberal state waiting to be liberated.
I’m not denying anything. I’m challenging you to support your claim that black panther tactics were more effective with actual reasoning or evidence instead of mere assertions.
One could just as easily claim that their campaign was counterproductive—and people do claim this. But what reason is there to believe one claim over the other? I have no position in this debate because I’ve seen no compelling reason to adopt one. As such, I respect anyone who is genuinely working for liberation by any means that seem plausibly likely to push the needle by any amount.
And there are plenty of liberals involved in opposing ICE right now, if you want to focus on that specific issue. And there are some leftists who argue against combatting ICE for various reasons. So it’s not a simple ideological dichotomy like you and OP imply.
This is because leftism and liberalism are broad ideological categories, not homogeneous orthodoxies. There are enemies and allies that fall into both categories in my experience. And after all, we’re all individuals. While ideology and organizations do matter, they only matter insofar as they influence those individual actions.
PS: The article on MLK was interesting but it didn’t really say anything directly related to this topic of tactical effectiveness and its connection to ideological camp.
And I am challenging to praxis liberation…
There are ICE facilities to topple, let’s go!