“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,”
Ma’am, with the greatest possible respect, Trump is as much a communist as the Nazis were socialists.
Fucking hell did she really need to throw in the red scare bullshit?
So the headline is misleading at best but i still feel like the ambiguity raised by inserting a term like that was just piss poor form and just about par for the course on both journalism and the messaging clarity of the DNC.
“We used to compare the strength of our democracy to communist dictators. That’s what we’re dealing with right now in Donald Trump.
It isn’t that ambiguous.
Her calling a fascist capitalist a communist shows how she is not equipped to deal with America’s problems though.
Completely agree
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.
She’ll say anything but criticizing Israel. That’s why she lost.
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.
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.
How the hell is Trump a communist? What is she smoking damn.
The support for capitalism over all else is expected, neoliberals do little else, but this level of delusion? Worrying.
He did nationalise 10% of Intel. Without paying for it, even, if I understand correctly.
The is some argument to be made to compare him to Stalin with all the industrial policy, trade manipulation, attacks on civil liberties and rule of law, and purges of those disloyal to him. But he hasn’t committed genocide in the US yet.
Give him time. This is just the first year of this term.
Americans use the word communism as pejorative without having even slightest idea what it actually means. In this case she is speaking language that majority of Americans will understand
Americans understand the word “dictator” even if you don’t put “communist” in front of it. This was a choice that doesn’t make any sense. It only annoys the minority of people who understand what words mean.
Whatever fingers you want to point regarding Harris’ (and Democrats’) relationship with voters to the left of them, this is simply antagonizing. Politicians will tell enormous lies to court the right, but won’t tell the truth to court the left.
Americans understand the word “dictator”
Yeah lol half of them are into this shit right now, and think it’s a good thing. Half of another half thinks it’s a funny movie with that borat guy with no political undertones whatsoever. You’re underestimating the gripes “red scare” still has on the median voter. And slightly overestimating their literacy.
Most Americans confuse “communist” with “Bolshevik”.
they are better known than Marxists, though.
Propaganda against socialism and communism still going strong in the usa
Never went away, never will.
The country is founded on personal gain, it’s the foundation that it was bloodily built on from the very beginning. It would undermine everything that our current beneficiaries of this legacy stand for to even remotely embrace socialism.
The idea was to pump “rugged individualism” until there were no communities left, and then everyone who managed to shave off the most cash can fuck off to other countries or their own yachts in the ocean.
Hell, half the KKK story on Jews is about stopping Communism
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.
Democracy sustains capitalism. Capitalism thrives in a democracy
Exactly what a neoliberal would say.
Really it’s the exact opposite. Capitalism is antithetical to democracy. How could it be otherwise when wealth and power is concentrated in the hands of the few.
She isn’t wrong she just fails to mention that capitalism is parasitic. Cancer thrives. Diseases thrive. They thrive by destroying, consuming and exploiting.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Harris is certainly well educated enough to know that Trump is not a communist; presumably these dipshit comments are for right-wingers, because she’s trying to appeal to them again.
Goddamned neoliberals
They literally exist just to kill leftism in the united states now. No other benefits offered
hilarious to hear Americans use terms like Socialist, Communist, Fascist even at the levels of supposedly highly educated and clearly they have no idea what they are talking about.
Fascist
weeeeelllllll… If you’re in a place where you could throw a rock and hit one, maybe? /s BTW
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.
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.
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?
I dont think we’re trying to constructively critisize or reform the nazi party currently
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.
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.
It’s smart messaging
Trump is Statist, which is something loathed by both conservatives and libertarians
Words mean nothing anymore.
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.
LMAO
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.
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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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
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…
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.
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
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.
It’s government control which MAGAS equate with “commie”
Ya gotta meet people where they are
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
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.
She has to start losing 2028 at some point
/s
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???
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.
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
That’s what’s called “crony capitalism”, in this case. Communism is something completely different.
Some would say he’s a commie fascist tankie dictator.
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.
hes sewing chaos that means hes actually a anarchist
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Well. That tells me all I need to hear. The DNC had decided to lose. Again.
Good luck. You’re gonna need it.
