Yea, no disagreement. I more am curious if the federated nature is what helps mitigate that risk, or if there is some other systemic distinction that has helped.

I also just don’t know what the others were like long-term - did they peeter out? Would I realize it if lemmy was in the same decline?

Yes, famously anti-capitalist Liberalism…

This article is excellent, even if many here will be offended by the headline and refuse to read further.

This part struck me:

In the United States and elsewhere (think of French President Emmanuel Macron’s disastrous electoral machinations), the liberal centrism or ​“progressive neoliberalism” that casts itself as the bulwark against fascism is proving to be anything but. Not only has it contributed to the social miseries upon which reactionary politics feeds — mass incarceration, predatory finance, imperialist war and the rollback of social welfare have all been bipartisan projects in the past half-century — but it stands revealed as a failed brand, kept alive primarily by the investments of party elites and donors, but also by what historian Adam Tooze calls its profound narcissism. This delusional conviction that it is a historical force for progress, sanity and the good makes elite liberal politicians slip easily into paternalism and condescension—something many voters find more offensive than direct insults.

Edit, Jesus what a banger. The last paragraph is perfect, too

An anti-fascist politics does not require constantly decrying the fascism of your opponent (which may prove numbing or alienating) but it certainly has to cleave to a different logic than that which ​“depends on the moment” or on electoral calculus alone. It needs to discover ways to not just make emancipatory ideas popular — fortunately, many of them already are — but to weave them into a project rooted in everyday needs. To this end, liberal centrism is not just useless, it is an obstacle. It demands endless moral and political sacrifices from leftists and progressives, while not even serving as a decent vehicle for the kind of reformist compromises we might expect from representative politics. When existential issues are on the agenda, from genocide to the mounting climate catastrophe and the manifold crises it will bring, betting on liberalism is a fool’s errand.

I’m not actually sure comments get sorted by vote tally by default here.

I’ve always just ignored downvotes - I know when my opinion is unpopular, I don’t see the votes as validating. I’d be fine if there were no visible votes at all

If i could do this without my wife noticing, I’d be golden.

Unfortunately, she took to lurking some reddit communities right as I was exiting

I wonder if anybody here has tried some of the other failed reddit alternatives like Voat for a long enough time to be able to speak on how lemmy has fared relative to them.

I tried a few during other reddit exoduses, and they all felt… bad. Lemmy is the first one I’ve managed to actually stay on comfortably without being tempted back to reddit.

Least islamaphobic liberal.

I’m not much for word games, thanks.

not protest, that doesn’t work

Civil disobedience works too.

If all you do is vote then you’re a big part of the problem.

OK now do Iran

And this is why libs are made fun of for their feckless electoralism.

Try organizing and building mutual aid networks instead of just sitting on your ass and watching.

Maybe in 4 years you’ll be better prepared.

I just want to hear you say that votes cast not for your party aren’t legitimate votes

Never what I said, nor intended

voting for a 3rd party doesn’t count

Whoomp, there it is.

I just want to hear you say that votes cast not for your party aren’t legitimate votes

Hmmm

I voted third party.

Read it again.

So did OP.

It worked for some democratic voters, but not for the 14 million others.

They absolutely were compelled by his opposition to international conflict and intervention - which was a huge part of Clinton’s legacy as SoS.

People forget that nationwide elections are ordinarily determined by infrequent voters to begin with.

It wasn’t high-propensity voters voting for trump, third party, or abstaining, it was ordinary non-political americans who didn’t see a point in voting for a status-quo center-right candidate.

People have been screaming at democrats since at least 2008 that they need more progressive, more radical policies, and they’ve repeatedly avoided addressing those concerns. Trump ran in 2016 as a moderate. He came out on the left of fucking hillary clinton on the war in Iraq and interventionism. She lost to trump because he maneuvered to the left of her, and democrats still have not fucking learned.

Democrats need to let go of their moderate progenitors and re-build their base from the bottom left. They’re leaving millions of voters on the table because they keep hamstringing themselves on a bygone era of popular neoliberalism, and there’s nobody left to blame now but the party itself.