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1. Embed this notice
   Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:18 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

   in reply to

   • myrmepropagandist
   • Alon
   • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

   @vidar @Alon @futurebird

   No, it shows a profound absence of understanding with regard to politics.

   In parliamentary systems, you get to vote for your faction and it forms a coalition with other factions in order to rule.

   So even if (or in your case, when) you vote for some idiotic fringe, they retain only proportional influence, not rule.

   In FpTP, you get two major parties via Divurger’s, and you vote for faction in the primaries but for the party in the general election.

   The idea of “lesser evil” is based on the mistaken notion that a system that lets you cast a vote for an extremism is somehow good. Or, worse, that compromise is “evil”.

   Didn’t I just link to https://truth-sandwich.com/2023/06/12/in-defense-of-the-inevitability-of-the-two-party-system/?

   • Embed this notice
     Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound (vidar@m.galaxybound.com)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:19 JST Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon

     @TruthSandwich @Alon @futurebird

     It's the only sane framing. You have exemplified it over and over in this thread by focusing on how pushing for what people think is good is damaging your change of getting something that can pass in terms of UHC for example.

     This is *only* a problem because of your effectively two-party system. It's a discussion that hardly never happens in places with proportional systems.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:20 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @vidar @Alon @futurebird

     No, “least evil” is the dumbest possible framing.

   • Embed this notice
     Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound (vidar@m.galaxybound.com)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:21 JST Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon

     @TruthSandwich @Alon @futurebird

     The US system doesn't remove the power of the fringe groups, it just shifts them inside the big parties and turns it into a "least evil" contest. The US system is fundamentally undemocratic (as it is in the UK, and France) because of how it effectively makes it untenable for a huge proportion of voters to actually vote for the representation they want instead of against the one they fear.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:22 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     Short answer: because it gives the fringe groups parties.

     Longer answer: https://truth-sandwich.com/2023/06/12/in-defense-of-the-inevitability-of-the-two-party-system/

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:23 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Why not? It means there's none of the royalist cult of the president seen in France or the US.

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:24 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Yeah, there's a reason Die Linke is polling at the electoral threshold and AfD is polling at 21%. There's no communist alternative to European democracy, but there is a fascist alternative, with new washing machines even...

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:24 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     I don’t envy your parliamentary system.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:25 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     And Putin, in turn, loves the AfD and any other right-populist org.

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:26 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird The center here isn't apathetic. It likes the gas deals with Putin. The more left-wing a member of SPD is, the likelier they are to support Ukraine - but Die Linke is tankie. On the right, Armin Laschet is pro-Assad, whereas more right-wing pols like Markus Söder and Friedrich Merz are better on this and right-wing media is *very* pro-Ukraine - but AfD loves anyone who'd bring back Nazism, like Putin.

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:27 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Yeah, I'm aware, re Ukraine. But I'm making a separate claim here: that the Intercept specifically has these takes that aren't just horseshoe theory anti-NATO, but also anti-BLM and anti-Antifa (whereas on Guillotine the takes have been pro-BLM, just occasionally lamenting that it was a nonviolent movement).

     P.S. in Germany we don't have a horseshoe but an M-curve: far left, far right, and center love Putin; mainline left and mainline right support Ukraine.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:27 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     In a sense, we have that here, except that the center right is so beaten down that it’s hard to even tell.

     The far left and far right loves Putin because he pays their bills. The center is apathetic about foreign policy and generally opposed to spending money outside of our borders.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:28 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     You can be forgiven for thinking the far left’s anti-liberalism is right-wing, because it uses so many of the same talking points, but it’s not. It’s just that the far left is barely distinguishable from the far right due to their shared populism. This is the horseshoe that you’ve probably heard about.

     The far-left Justice Democrats are anti-Ukraine as is the far-right Republican Party. It’s the liberals who are pro-Ukraine.

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:29 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Yeah, Guillotine specifically is very special and keeps running those Ukraine's-Jewish-president-is-a-Nazi articles. They are also not Bernie Sanders. (The Intercept is a mixed bag, because a lot of its anti-liberalism is just outright right-wing, like those "antifa kills grandma" pieces. And then separately there are all the people there who want the place to be more normal and less Greenwaldian.)

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:30 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Some are, yes. But the main of American left-populist media (say, the Prospect, which published Lee Harris's Putinist screeds for way too long) instead talks about greedflation.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:30 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     They do both.

     Intercept and Jacobin are probably the worst offenders, if you’re looking at far-left propaganda mills.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:31 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     The Sanders people here are embracing (a broken version of) MMT precisely because it promises the ability to print endless amounts of money without risk of inflation.

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:32 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird Can you not explain Sweden to a Norwegian and a former resident of Sweden? The truth is that the left *always* thinks the social safety net is under attack. One of the things that most infuriates me about the radical left today is that in a time of falling inequality thanks to full employment, it instead chooses to make Thatcherite arguments for why inflation is immoral.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:33 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     Everyone’s a critic. Don’t worry; my self-worth is not dependent upon the statements of Internet randos with a solid history of being wrong.

     Sweden’s commitment to strong social programs is under attack by right-wing populists, fueled by a hostile reaction to immigration.

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:34 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird It's a bad blog post and you should feel bad. So many words that could be summarized as "you can't have social democracy in a multiracial country." But that, too, is just false. For example, it's notable how the increase in inequality in Sweden in the peak era of neoliberalism happened *before* mass immigration. The voucherization of the school system did not come about because of racism; at the time, the Sweden Democrats weren't even in the Riksdag.

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:35 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @TruthSandwich @vidar @futurebird I'm not talking about the Democrats. I was @-ing Vidar, who's Norwegian, about neoliberal parties in the Nordic countries, like the Center Parties (originally farmer parties, since transformed into neoliberal ones), or the Liberal Parties (which are also neoliberal and generally to the right of the Center). Various compromises all over Scandinavia resulted in a system with low capital income taxation while keeping upper middle-class labor income heavily taxed.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:35 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     I have a shortish blog post about Sweden and why they were able to get away with the sort of social programs that are lacking in America. Maybe it will address your points.

     https://truth-sandwich.com/2021/01/09/why-arent-we-sweden/

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:36 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @Alon @vidar @futurebird

     American liberals are not neoliberals. Reagan was a neoliberal. Thatcher, too. We are modern liberals, which has nothing to do with neoliberalism, despite having that l-word in common.

     The DNC platform includes universal health care, but in a realistic form. Sanders is a populist, so he panders with empty promises, such as M4A and GND.

   • Embed this notice
     Alon (alon@mastodon.social)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:37 JST Alon

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @vidar @TruthSandwich @futurebird What are the features of Sweden and Norway that you're thinking of right now? Because (ignoring the existence of Anders Tegnell for a moment) I think of universal health care, free education, sectoral collective bargaining, high union density, and high taxes on the middle class. Main difference I see from Sanders is that he disagrees with the socdem-neoliberal compromises that cut taxes on capital income while leaving high labor incomes heavily taxed.

   • Embed this notice
     Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound (vidar@m.galaxybound.com)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:38 JST Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon

     @TruthSandwich @Alon @futurebird And yet what he doesn't actually push anything even close to as radical as Sweden or Norway.

   • Embed this notice
     Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷 (truthsandwich@qoto.org)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:39 JST Truth Sandwich 🥪🇺🇸😷

     in reply to

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon
     • Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     @vidar @Alon @futurebird

     Oh, please. I have no patience for the old “in EU, Bernie is a centrist” nonsense.

     He is, in his own words, a socialist. I’d call him a communist and he wouldn’t dispute that. With photos like the one below, he couldn’t.

     Sanders also loves to equivocate between social democracy (Sweden) and democratic socialism (Cuba), allowing him to be Heisenberg’s socialist.

   • Embed this notice
     Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound (vidar@m.galaxybound.com)'s status on Friday, 22-Sep-2023 23:51:40 JST Vidar Hokstad / Galaxy Bound

     • myrmepropagandist
     • Alon

     @TruthSandwich @Alon @futurebird

     It's quite telling when you first argue for regulated capitalism, and then get all worked up over someone who by European standards is a mildly centre-left (at best) social democrat.

     If you want to look at "somewhat functioning" capitalism, such as in Scandinavia, we all have economic systems far to the left of anything Bernie has pushed.