- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- news@lemmy.world
“Democracy sustains capitalism. Capitalism thrives in a democracy. And, right now, we are dealing with, as I called him at my speech on the Ellipse, a tyrant,” she said, referencing her rally last year on the White House Ellipse in Washington. “We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump. And these titans of industry are not speaking up,”
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He’s a fascist dictator, not a communist one. And when the ‘titans of industry’ care more about their bottom line than democratic principles, that’s a sign to rally against them, not frame one’s argument with an echo of McCarthyism.
Nah this is USSR style government at its core. Hes running all the classic dictator playbooks but a lot of this was ripped from USSR
Some would say he’s a commie fascist tankie dictator.
hes sewing chaos that means hes actually a anarchist
Yeah, uneducated people might say something like that.
Education is the opiate of the masses.
If only education was actually that addictive. Maybe we wouldn’t have so many dumb fucks voting for these dipshits.
It’s smart messaging
Trump is Statist, which is something loathed by both conservatives and libertarians
Except calling him a statest is misleading. He will gladly undermine the state until it is subservient to the party. That’s the purges.
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Conservatives don’t care about small government. They just uaw “small government” as a dog whistle to attack racial minorities. New Deal-era and post-WW2 GI Bill policies were quite popular in the South, as they were written to exclude black people from their benefits. It was only with the Civil Rights Act and the Great Society movements, when black people started qualifying for poverty assistance just like white people, that conservatives suddenly started caring about small government.
Conservatives don’t care about small government.
I see this often from (presumably) liberals.
I came from a conservative family and held conservative / libertarian beliefs most of my life. These people really, really do want small government. Saying that they don’t makes it impossible to understand their motives – and we really do have to understand where people are coming from.
To complain that their political leaders sell out those ideals for the sake of buying votes is fair, but only if you admit that same set of perverse incentives is not unique to any party.
These people really, really do want small government.
If they do, then none of their actions support this desire.
There’s a reason why the venn diagram between libertarians, conservatives, and maga is practically a circle.
Words mean nothing anymore.
these conversations as to which political philosophy is identified correctly: No, its marxism! No communism!, socialism!, bolshevism!, always sprout up. No one cares if he is a “statist”. No one cares about finely parsing which brand of leftwing is which. Its a pointless circlejerk where no one gets off in the end, so why do it?
LMAO
I can understand what she was trying to do; pull the libertarians and the conservative small state crowd to the Democrats, but it’s a dumb message and I doubt current DNC voters want anything to do with them. This is why they lost so many votes and will continue to lose; they need to attract those who abstain from voting and stop trying to please potential undecided Republicans once and for all.
Trump’s actions mirror the modus operandi of most dictators, whether from the left or right. The way he appointed an anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist as health secretary is reminiscent of Stalin promoting Lysenko’s ideas against all the scientific evidence independently produced by his peers.
He has taken some very communist steps. The government has taken stake in Nvidia and Intel, as well as received voting shares in Nippon Steel. His government has literally started seizing the means of production…
Complete misunderstanding of what the term even means. Like I said in another comment, it’s incorrect, antiquated boomer speak.
Jeepers, did you ever consider the fact that the Nazis have a better understanding of communication than you do? Do you understand about messaging and target audience? Do you think you’re the target audience for this statement? Do you think Kamal Harris is speaking to your personal understanding of what communism is? Or do you think she is speaking to 50 years of US propaganda? And the description that would be readily recognized by most republican voters? Do you think everything is about you?
So she’s still out there pandering to right wing voters? No wonder she lost.
I mean how’s your voting block doing? The country is what it is, convincing people on the wrong side, to do the right thing, is politics at its core???
She has to start losing 2028 at some point
/s
So good communication is lying to people instead of trying to achieve higher understanding? Just keep dumbing down discourse so long as it gets you some short-term gain?
Wow, with thought like that it’s no wonder Americans voted in fascism. You’re supposed to be on the “good” side? I see why Democrats are more than happy to smash leftists teeth in alongside their fascist counterparts. 'm sure you’ll get there when chips are down.
Let me critique this critique because the critique is not hard enough, and it also hurts my feelings more than the fascist stealing my government.
I mean she’s doing more than you are doing to oppose your enemies currently. Seriously have any of you armchair communist done anything? Are you guys still in fighting over labels? Like the fastest have pretty much taken full control and you are picking apart Kamala Harris‘s press briefing. And you’re saying, I am a fucking sympathizer.
Those aren’t even under the illusion of the workers owning the means of production, though.
It’s fascism, utilizing the pre-existing Christian fundamentalism of American conservatism. The fact it includes kleptocratic state capitalism doesn’t change the fascism, or its means of attaining power.
Yeah, we’re not talking about Lennon. We’re talking about Stalin.
I am the walrus.
Coo coo cachooooooo. I wanted to correct it, but I’m lazy and thanks for this
To be honest, turning the cross, in the following decades, into a forbidden symbol, because of the christofacist evil that’s happening in the US right now, would be a boon
It’s government control which MAGAS equate with “commie”
Ya gotta meet people where they are
Yeah it’s similar to Putin’s Russia or the Uns’ North Korea, both of which are fascist regimes dressed up as other types of government.
That’s what’s called “crony capitalism”, in this case. Communism is something completely different.
Communism is the people taking control of production right? Not the fascist dictator.
This is a great question! You’re basically correct, but there are a few additional things. As far as the relationship between workers/consumers and the means of production is that of social ownership. Rather than an individual (or individuals) privately owning the means of production and purchasing labor from workers, the workers, consumers, and society as a whole collectively own and operate the means of production.
Additionally, the economic system is not a market system. Instead, investments, production, and allocation of capital goods (resources/products which are used either as ingredients for another product or as machinery/tools to produce another product) are planned, and not left up to “market forces”.
There are some aspects which are debated among communist philosophers. One major aspect is whether the economic planning would/should be centrally or decentrally done. The USSR had a primarily centrally planned economy. Others (myself included) advocate for a decentrally planned system.
Some things, which are usually stated, as being part of communism, are that society is moneyless, stateless, and classless. Starting with moneyless, if goods are exchanged on a market, an intermediate good is usually used specifically for exchange purposes (currency/money). If goods are not exchanged on a market, money is less necessary, so it is expected to be phased out.
Many philosophers say that the state’s purpose is to “ease” tensions between classes, and enforce economic policies. If there are no classes, and goods and services are “produced based on ability, and distributed based on need”, the primary purposes of the state no longer exist, so it would likely “whither away”. Anarchists generally argue for an immediate dissolution of the state.
The keen eyed, among you readers, might wonder how the planning could be done without a state, especially if the planning is central. I would be interested in the answer to that, myself. There are a few books talking about a post-capitalist system. I recommend No Bosses and Inventing the Future.
Hope this helps!
Yes, very well described. Thanks
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Harris continues to demonstrate that she is not only was too incompetent for the job, but also 1/3 of the reason we have a fascist administration. The other 2/3 belong to Biden and the DNC for the curious. I don’t think she’s too uneducated to know the difference between communism and fascism, i belive she’s intentionally conflating the two because at the end of the day, she’s still a right wing pig.
So you don’t blame the actual fascists in your mathematics?
Do you blame water for being wet, or a dog for licking its balls? Fasc gonna fasc, I’ll reserve my criticism for the folks I expected to actively work against it.
The other side is also reserving their criticism for those people, so the net result is that the only people who aren’t receiving hate are the fascists.
They’ll receive bullets. Not hate.
I dont think we’re trying to constructively critisize or reform the nazi party currently
why not both?
spoken like a true tankie
Bro, the first election I voted in was 2016. I only knew that I should vote for Hillary Clinton because she was the Democratic nominee. I wasn’t even aware that Bernie was done dirty by the DNC.
There’s levels of corruption to politics in America, and part of that corruption is keeping people dumb. If they weren’t so dumb, they might develop class consciousness and vote for things that actually improve their material conditions!
You don’t have to be a tankie to refute Democrats, and even moreso Republicans. Some people might call that being an Independent.
Thanks for making that word more useless though.
Not everyone who points out the Democrats lost the last election are tankies…
They annoy me to, but also shut the fuck up if this is your only thought. Even if they were a tankie, which I don’t think they are because the criticized them for reasonable things we all saw, you should actually point out their errors so reasonable people see your comment and don’t trust them instead.
See fellows, if you still think Harris was a good candidate. This pretty much along with her support of Israel seals the deal.
Yeah we definitely did a lot better by splitting on her so Trump could get in office a second time, possibly as the last President of the US. Israel’s policy matters much more than what happens here at home, to me for sure.
So the DNC should not change at all and did nothing wrong, you’re saying?
If only they could read.
Imperialism called, it wants its boomerang back.
Yup, You couldn’t pressure democrats or anything riiiiiiiiight. Trump is simply forcing Americans to feel a modicrum of the torture USA inflicts upon the world.
A fascist dictator, not a communist dictator.
Not a huge difference when it comes to the communism most people are familiar with. Look at the Soviet Union and tell me Corporate and State power wasn’t merged.
What a stupid fucking person
These people don’t even know what a communist is. They just have “red bad” drilled so far into their heads that it’s right next to “woke” as a catch-all term for bad things.
Oh my fucking god shut the fuck up Kamala.
Except they have actually started seizing parts of businesses. Is that not literally communism? Honest question. Because if it’s not, I don’t know what it is.
And an honest answer for you: no.
Communism speaks of “seizing the means of production”. The means of production aren’t solely “business”. More core than that, communism speaks of a “dictatorship of the proletariat”. Since we are still evidently in a dictatorship of the bourgeois, this move isn’t “communism”. These things don’t get us closer to working people having real power in this country.
State stake or ownership in companies isn’t new by a long shot. Fascist regimes of old also fused and blurred the line between state and private enterprise.
So long story short: this is another muddying of the waters from the two major parties that serve the same interests - profit at the detriment of all else.
My hypothesis is this is Kamala signalling to fascists that she’s not a real enemy, because now she’s calling them something other than what they are, while also aligning herself with the fascists against anyone who’s more left than her politics.
So the buisness they seized are now distributing the money earned by the company equally to all its employees?
It’s communism when the workers seize the means of production. The thing is, this is not a workers’ government.
So the split hairs is that technically it’s not communism because it’s not helping the workers?
This really feels like “no true Scotsman”. The government that workers chose, seized the means of production. This is communism.
It’s not even under the illusion of communism you nonce. So no, it’s not communism.
Might as well call Trump the real “woke librul antifa” if you don’t care about the meaning words.
It’s not “no true Scotsman”, you just have a completely blurred concept of what communism even is. Literally happening under a capitalist economy, with a dictatorship of the bourgeois.
This is part and parcel of fascism by the way: the muddying of discourse itself so terms become meaningless. Everything becomes everything, and nothing all at once. Education is the cure. I’d recommend reading communist texts if you want to learn more of the difference.
I guess what @degen@midwest.social is trying to point at is that worker’s don’t truly control the government and so when the current government seizes the means of production it’s closer to a change of hands between different groups of capitalists than anything envisioned by communists.
I’d also like to say that although the government has “seized” 10% of Intel shares for example it has no control over Intel’s decisions. Those shares only provide dividends.
Question was the history of the USSR what you envisioned as communism because that’s what we’re comparing this to? You understand no one’s thinking about your belief in what communism is right? We are using the term communist to refer to the USSR related propaganda we enjoyed as children. No one cares what your vision of communism looks like and how it compares to the Trump administration ffs. How many of you are going to embarrass yourself stating this strange sentiment
I guess politics is a touchy topic for some.
I don’t know why you are insinuating I’m:
- Agreeing with the original commenter (OC)
- Communist
I was just attempting to clear up what OC was getting at, no need to get all worked up over it.
To answer your questions.
- The USSR never achieved what I understand to be communism
- I understand it’s uncommon to actually comprehend what political terms mean, heck I struggle quite a bit, but that’s why all who read the definitions must, as politely as possible, spread to others what they learnt. In this case what Harris should have said is a dictator period, at most a capitalist one.
Feel free to point out anything I might have gotten wrong, cheers
No that’s totally fair, especially the part about being hard to define. Even Marx struggled with at. USA clearly defined it by its propaganda. Kamala is calling upon that definition. Apologies if I misread your post or your intent
THIS ISNT REAL COMMUNISMM REEEEEEEE
-no shit Sherlock we know it’s not an imaginary classless utopia because I’m still poor
I’m happy you do, others might not be so wise
I’m sure if you guys circle jerk enough of upvotes, maybe you can defeat the authoritarians who are literally openly planning to throw you in a wood chipper.
This is state capitalism. Words have meaning, it’s not “no true Scotsman” simply because you’re using the wrong word.
It can feel that way when communism isn’t really understood. It’s not communism because it’s still capitalism, explicitly. 10% of shares makes the government insider capital, nothing else, and definitely not communist.
A king in medieval times faces an economic crisis, blames and expels the Jews and seizes all their assets (as was their typical, go-to response).
Is that communism, in your eyes? The government is seizing parts of businesses, after all.
I mean, that’s what I’m asking.
No, it is not. “The government doing stuff” (including seizing property) is not communism. Lots of governments seize property for all sorts of reasons. Another example, when the US was building the transcontinental rail system, there were times when it seized land that was in the path of the planned railway and gave it to the rail companies. If that made a person or system communist, then I don’t think I could name a single non-communist country in all of history.
A communist system can mean either a classless, stateless, moneyless society, the ideal that communists pursue, or it can mean a system run by communists in practice, since most communists would say that such a system cannot be implemented overnight. There is no universal, standard set of policies that makes a system communist, because communists (at least, Marxist-Leninists) believe that policies should be developed based on an analysis of a country’s specific material conditions.
Trump is not seizing parts of businesses because he’s applying some kind of Marxist analysis to conclude that that’s the best way to advance the interests of the proletariat. He’s just taking shit because he wants it and nobody can stop him. At that point, it’s like pointing at two wild animals fighting over a kill and calling them communists.
Communists may be known for nationalizing corporations but that does not mean that anyone who nationalizes a corporation is automatically a communist.
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” — Benito Mussolini
Although along those lines, The Soviet Union (ie Bolshevism) was alot more fascist than many Leftists are willing to admit.
Short answer is no.
Long Answer: Communism is an economic progression from capitalism where things aren’t produced for profit/money, but for it’s use value to fulfill needs, where private property and capitalists as a class are abolished.
(Partial) State ownership is something that would happen in a period of transition after workers have took over the state and toppled the capitalists (in US case it’d be all the political parties, government and organs serving it), with all of their private property being repurposed to building up the production - it’s what’s called state capitalism or transitory period, not communism or socialism, as things are still being distributed for money, which means markets, etc.
However, capitalist liberal democratic countries can just own stuff. Mussolini’s Italy for instance had owned a large share of factories, countries such as US/UK had nationalized industry during ww2, there’s tons of EU countries right now that have partial ownership in private companies or have complete national ownership of certain companies (mostly transport or broadcasting).
In other words, it’s heavily contextual, not unique to the building of communism, and Trump’s acquisitions if you look a closer look at them are less of “we control you now” and more like US becoming a shareholder like a private individual (they don’t even have the seat at the board apparently) so none of the explanation was relevant and it’s just a weird way of managing some crisis (probably).
Communism (at least the USSR kind) calls for the state to (among many other things) seize all business, not just a small part of it. Also the government is buying stakes in businesses, not seizing them without compensation. State intervention in the economy isn’t necessarily or even usually communism, and for example it’s something fascists like to do.
No need to compliment him by calling him a communist. He’s a dictator who operates a system built around a cult of personality where he delegates authority to sycophants not based on ability to do the job well, but on shared ideology, capacity to serve within the cult of personality, and his personal liking of them, alongside an economic policy built around society serving capital which serves the cult of personality. English actually has a word for such a system but it’s legally questionable to refer to the current regime using it at the moment.
She still doesn’t get it. Capitalism inevitably leads to fascism. It’s a core feature.
Capitalism leads to corporate monopolies leads to fascism.
Yes. I really don’t get it. Everybody has played monopoly but it seems like nobody has learned the lessons of the game.
No one ever finished playing monopoly. Everyone always quit in boredom and frustration before the end.
She was never a good pick for the role. She should have faded into obscurity after losing the primary in 2020.
Unregulated capitalism CAN lead to fascism.
It doesn’t have to.
Just like communism all around the world has similarly basically always led to fascism and dictatorship, but it doesn’t have to.
Humans are always the problem. Plans don’t meet humans well.
Fascism is a tool that capitalists use when capitalism is threatened by rising class consciousness. It’s not something that a society just “falls into.” Also, fascism is ideologically the opposite of communism. You can have a communist dictatorship, but you’re not going to find a fascist version.
And capitalism has killed millions more than the other ideologies too, even more than theocracies, all because people can’t afford food and medicine
No I don’t think your AND should be added to what I’m saying. You can say that elsewhere as it’s own standalone. Ty.
Just like communism all around the world has similarly basically always led to fascism and dictatorshipv
It hasn’t “led” to anything; Marxist-Leninism is explicitly authoritarian. That said, it’s not fascism, that is not what that word means.
Unregulated capitalism CAN lead to fascism.
We’re on our second run of capitalism leading to fascism across the Western world in the exact same way along the exact same fault lines.
Plans don’t meet humans well.
An economic system isn’t a plan; it’s the context within which economic activity (including said plans) take place.
This feels similar to what Biden tried to do (which failed spectacularly, btw) when he tried to outflank Trump on the border from the right, the summer before the election.
Its not clear understands what she’s doing here and is confusing the language of communism with that of authoritarianism. So she’s saying Trump isn’t capitalist enough? Like who is it she thinks this rhetoric is going to move? Who is this argument designed to work on?
No, she is actually correct. He has taken some very communist steps. The government has taken stake in Nvidia and Intel, as well as received voting shares in Nippon Steel. His government has literally started seizing the means of production. His supporters are usually very anti communist yet, here he is doing what communists would do. If the message was conveyed correctly it might work. However, coming from Harris it just sounds like a sore loser. Bernie has actually praised these specific moves and that should really rattle his base. Instead the DNC will probably use this as a way to attack progressives by saying they supported Trump.
Definitely not communism - these moves don’t have the intent or the effect of bringing forth (or supporting) a dictatorship of the proletariat. They are purely for the consolidation of power and wealth - the exact opposite of communist ideology.
State stake, ownership, or nationalization of companies isn’t new. Fascist regimes of old also participated in similar tactics.
This is a jab to get under the skin of fascist supporters - and it might work, I dunno - but it isn’t factually communism. And also, this is democrats repeating to fascists that they will smash lefties faces in along with them when the time comes.
“Dogs have ears. I have ears. Therefore I am a dog.”
So says the featherless biped.
What an incredibly stupid thing to say as one of the only public statements since losing an election to a bozo.
Trump is exhibiting classic dictator behaviors. Dictatorships are not exclusively right or left. History is full of dictators who use “communism” or fascism as a base.
This is where people conflate and confuse things like the FL Cubans who didn’t like Kamala because “she’s a socialist/Communist and I came from a country with a bad leader like that!”
They can’t distinguish a ruling style from the underlying governing structure.
A dictator is a dictator is a dictator.
And you can look at dictatorial regimes across the spectrum and it’s the authoritarianism and the dictator that is the common thread.
Because calling your enemies commie leftists is definitely not something fascists do.
I mean so close, I do understand what she’s trying to get across with things like Intel, yet absolutely dumb messaging.
Kamala going back to american basics: all communist = bad --> all bad = communist.
Yeah, completely overloaded and missed used term at this point that doesn’t reflect the realities of anything in today’s world outside of antiquated boomer speak.
She needed to grow a spine and say fascist.
Half this country was exposed to 30+ years of Cold War Propaganda; it’s a very powerful force to draw upon, especially when they are under the spell of the current propaganda. It’s useful to try to get one propaganda to overwhelm the other propaganda inside their brains. It’s like saying something about Palestine to your generation. Or about communism lmao. Over rides the thinking side of your brain even decades later. It’s just emotionally charged and full of false imagery that you perceive as an individual. But the fact remains is he very much running a Stalin like government. Calling him a commie and pointing to the 30 years of commie propaganda is useful politically. Ironically, it upsets, your keyboard communists.too which is magical.
They aren’t real people. When you compare election results to the popular political opinions on lemmy it becomes obvious there are bots in this echo chamber.
I mean they are real people. In the real world they are everywhere. Morons in echo chambers. A small town with a national radio outlet can become an echo chamber…. People seem to like it in there. Solace for those who can’t afford homes I guess
As much as I dislike it, this is the right messaging.
Anyone with half a brain will say “… This isn’t communism” but only the tankies who vote for Putin will really care.
But all the children of immigrants who fled horrifically evil “communist” regimes? The people who side eye the college kids wearing dictators on their chests? THIS speaks to them.
And… things are looking a lot like a 20th century “communist” dictatorship. So…
THIS speaks to them.
Or it’ll make them laugh. Probably will make them laugh. If this rhetoric worked it would’ve stopped Hitler.
If it worked… it would have stopped Trump and Republicans.
I mean… It has been a go to for the republicans any time a Democrat looks even slightly left.
Conflate functional government with socialism with communism and remind people of the horrifying bogeymen.
Speaks to me: commies hated free speech, they hated free markets, they had ample corruption, cronyism, and were full of contradictions and human rights violations. The USA government spent 50 years and billions of dollars on propaganda that disparaged everything trumps America is doing. Time to call upon it before the boomers die
commies hated free speech, they hated free markets, they had ample corruption, cronyism, and were full of contradictions and human rights violations.
That sounds like America these past few years.
Yes that’s the point in Kamala calling trump a commie: and yes our decaying empire went through the same stages the USSR did 30 years later with help from Putin: and YES. None of this is actually communism or capitalism it’s just stealing from people.
Why would this speak to them? They didn’t grow up under communism. All they know is that their parents say it’s bad, but they don’t actually know why it’s bad. Chances are they don’t really care that Trump is likened to a communist because they don’t understand the implied meaning behind the word. It’s the same with calling Trump a fascist. The average American doesn’t care because they don’t know anything about fascism beyond “it’s a bad thing”. It’s just a bad word which makes it the equivalent of calling Trump an asshole.
Even when attacking Trump, Democrats can’t resist taking swipes at leftists…
It’s too easy lmao look at these comments. I’m so disappointed in all of you commies I thought you had more fight in ya! Poor you! Utopia delayed!
She can’t say fascist because fascism is the merger of corporate and state power which is what the US has been building since forever.
