Why Isn’t the Left Winning? with Bhaskar Sunkara - 258
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- čas přidán 23. 04. 2024
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The term "socialism" has gained prominence in today's political discourse, yet it hasn't fully entered the political mainstream apart from moments like the Occupy Wall Street movement or Bernie Sanders' 2016 presidential campaign. Unlike the fervent following of MAGA, there's no socialist movement of comparable size and far-right politicians outnumber their left-leaning counterparts a hundred to one. Why is this the case, and does socialism actually have a shot at shaping future policy? To answer these questions, Adam is joined by Bhaskar Sunkara, founder of Jacobin, president of The Nation, and author of "The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality."
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Shut up.
I signed up for delete me a while back and they actually have done an excellent job.
@TheAdamConover What's funny about you mentioning Bernie could have beaten Trump is that, according to the Mueller Report, Russia's preferred presidential race in 2016 was Sanders vs Trump.
I think there are many issues why Bernie Supporters didn't really take over the Dems the way the Trumpers took over the GOP
Money in politics is the big issue and media being trash/corrupted by money interests too. You think they can talk about climate change with old energy companies paying their bills via advertisements?
Also, the issue with Bernie supporters not overtaking the party is in part because Bernie was more spineless than Trump. Bernie shoulda threatened lawsuits after 2016's DNC shenanigans. And the fact the DNC is a different beast to controlling/rigging the party than the RNC. If Bernie was as aggressive/threatening to the Dems as Trump was to the GOP, we might have seen Bernie's supporters have a bigger hold on the Dems.
The other issue is, Trump's supporters are all ages, Bernie's are far more younger and the younger generation is not nearly as established into the political scene as the boomers. We need more political activity from the young (voting in ALL elections, running for all positions up and down the political sphere, etc).
You can't argue about the primary shows for the general when the primary is SO VERY RIGGED. I think you need to look into it and see. It's rigged a lot. Horribly so.
Jumping in as a Canadian union member, the union could win: sick leave, vacation leave, maternity/paternity leave, structured salary, pension, etc as the union did not have to worry about obtaining basic health care for its members - we already had that.
Plus I did not have to worry about losing my health care whenever I changed jobs, or if I became self-employed!
Unions are formed by people who generally hate change, maybe they just weren’t comfortable to change their games too much.
@@sebastianwei7721unions are the most successful way for workers to acquire enough power negotiate seriously with companies.
What unions win help other workers that aren't in unions.
It has nothing to do with "change", whatever you mean by that
@@TedSpider2023 I agree just working at a union election today. 🫡✊🏼
@@TedSpider2023 i was commenting on unions not backing universal healthcare in the US. Am currently at a union election, we‘ll close shop in 5 min.
@@sebastianwei7721 That's the problem among elected leadership and old-school, non-working membership who haven't been convinced of the benefits of UBH. "Don't touch what I worked so hard for! I may lose everything!" Education is the only challenge to that and sadly, that takes time and having a message so clear that a 6th grader can easily follow it.
It baffles me why American leftist activists aren't fighting tooth and nail for voting system reform. The lack of preferential voting is crazy. If you had multi-member proportionally selected electorates and exhaustive preferential voting across the board, the left would win every time.
If you want a synopsis as to why - actual active leftists make up >0.02% of the population. Liberals on the other hand tend to fundamentally side with pro corporatist policies once they've been dressed up in enough "acceptable language"
That requires power... And we live in a right wing nation. Owned and operated by the rich, who own the government, as well as everything else. The political class don't even hear anybody below the top 10%.
Right wing will shut it down as they're really good at that despite being the political minority. They know they'll be doomed which is why they're always finding ways to restrict voting despite the already low voting rate
No, the left wouldn't win every time with rank voting; look at Maine's senators. Besides you shouldn't promote that idea because it makes the GOP fight even harder against it. If anything you should promote libertarian and 3rd parties that take votes from the GOP because that makes them support it; otherwise, if there is green etc they won't simply because it comes down to them getting power and really nothing else matters (trump is proving this.)
I do think we need a better electoral system like the one you say but I have grown far less convinced of it solving our political problems than I was before. Other countries like Germany do have what I would say is the ideal electoral system; multi member proportional representation. Yet these countries are still facing the same problems that we do when it comes to the rise of the authoritarian right and a weak left wing movement. The main problem with our politics is something else.
Watch “A Terrible Guide to The Terrible Terminology of U.S. Health Insurance” by Brian David Gilbert. Easily the most comprehensive and easy to understand guide to selecting health insurance in our terribly broken system.
absolutely
Haha that video is great
I work for health insurance. That video is accurate. when he gets to the section on obfuscation, he is telling the truth.
No one need to watch a video, we need universal single prayer Healthcare. Health insurance is a f****** scam that only benefits the providers.
The right holds “respecting authority” as one of their core tenants. That is why it is so much easier for them to unify and push a single agenda.
They're also easily united because they all hate the same people (leftists, BIPOC, LGBTQ people, women's rights, and the (urban) poor).
I think the complete lack of any job security is a message the left can win on. It is not fair or healthy for all of us to have to perpetually live in fear of losing our jobs. There’s a reason so many people want government jobs and it’s to have some peace of mind.
Well certainly how the left historically won elections in my country is by campaigning about job security and healthcare. Even called themselves the Labour Party.
That's why the culture war game will always be an existential threat demagogues from the *d**t industrial complex will forever be fear mongering about.
And why it will NEVER be an allowed discussion on the captured media.
Fear of losing healthcare when we lose our job is leverage over the worker. We will never have universal healthcare, too much of an advantage would be lost.
Welcome to what every other country outside northern Europe feels. Spoilers, flooding the system with government aid doesn't fix the issue. It can help Some people in need, but unless you achieve an stable and growing economy, people won't have financial security.
@@jorgemiranda2375 you can, as long as the people aren't just doing nothing. There is a TON of work to do. Infrastructure, housing, healthcare teaching that is not getting done. We can tax the companies not paying their fair share, get our country back to good condition and improve people's lives.
It's quite simple, really: If you take the high road you can't lie, cheat and bribe.
Nothing is stopping your opposition from doing exactly that, though.
Being a politician of the people for the people is inherently a handicap because of the way the game's referees are absent.
Well you can still lie tbh and left could do that. But it is very hard to fight the super rich since they hold the media and can propaganda and manipulate simple people very easily sadly 😔
An unsolvable issue with the human condition. It explains why a disproportionate amount of ceos and executives are sociopaths - according to various studies.
Those willing to do anything and everything will always end up at the top, since they can use any means to succeed. Ans these people will have the strongest pull in law-making and influence.
I really don't see a clear solution. We live in an indifferent universe. It's the survival of the fittest not survival of the most ethical.
The Democratic party has funded far right politicians in the hopes of winning (it only works sometimes). There have been logs of this found, it's been a thing for a while.
It's the entire reason Trump won, he got billions on free advertising.
So no, the left isn't "above" that.
You haven’t been paying attention the last 4 years. Dems have taken the pendulum of power and destroyed our liberties
Why is healthcare tied to your job? At the rate we’re losing decent jobs in this country we are going to be dying in there streets. And heaven forbid you get really sick even at a job because the insurance co’s deny everything so you go bankrupt
It was decoupled by Obamacare and has been phasing in for a decade. Portable HSAs with employeer contributions triggered to preventative services, minimum mandated coverage for larger corporations that are mirrored in the exchanges, and cheeper pooled high-deductable plans for smaller companies has decoupled health-care from employer for the vast majority of younger people. Eventually, that'll be the norm for everyone.
Unions basically. It is a long and convoluted history but basically government healthcare in Europe was originally tied to those working. In the US when we started to develop unions they wanted government healthcare but since this developed after those in Europe people were worried that "government healthcare" was too communist/socialist. Therefore, the unions and public sentiment tied healthcare to being a part of the union. Later non-union jobs started offering healthcare in order to pull people from unions/stop them from forming one.
Yeah, almost as if once we are no longer providing profitable labor, we are worthless under capitalism. No inherent worth as a human.
I think one of the most important problems with the left as whole is that we always fight with each other and never in the end agree on anything, and we always extremely divided.
Another very important issue is that the left fails to promote and act more on its economicopolitical side and always fight shallow wars on mostly cultural problems (which are very important, but also very dividing among the general population). We should promote more left and socialistic economic policies and people will follow!
I heard recently the right entire playbook is to keep the left ideas from being heard
This comment needs to be amplified. The left eats its own and factionalises itself into irrelevance. The judgemental, ideologue students in colleges and universities with their focus on ideological purity puts ordinary people right off. The narrow target "strategy" of small and symbolic victories over concerns that the average workers care nothing about is maddening. The clownish fashion and posturing in ways that alienate ordinary people is disgraceful. There's no big vision for economic justice and a better society, just micro-issues. The right have a malignant vision, but they have a vision that is galvanizing their base. The book Trigger Warnings: political correctness and the rise of the right by Jeff Sparrow is a great read on these issues. In it he pleads for the left to look back at the patient grass roots organising that went on in the 60s. Organisations grew by taking on all kinds of people and accepting them where ever they were on their journey of learning. Instead of castigating people for their ideological faults they would assist on raising their consciousness gradually and patiently. Compare that with the current crop of coloured hair lunatics and imagine those clowns trying to appeal to solid, stoic workers who have families to raise
Yeah I'm tired of random people questioning how leftist I am and why am I not radical enough, or that I must be a liberal because I don't think we can build an anarcho communist utopia by refusing to vote. We should all find our common causes and leave the nitpicking for when it's actually relevant, if ever
I see a lot of leftists argue over political leaders that mostly agree on the same things.
"Option A's policies I agree with 100%. Option B I only agree with 98%. So Option A or nothing!!" *Option A loses to Option B* "Guess I'll stop voting then!!" *Left loses.*
@@Yardnoc3103 this is the more fair version of the first comment. the truth is, we need to promote both economic leftism and social progressivism. I don't care if you think some social issues like trans rights are divisive, they need to be a part of our platform alongside the wealth tax and green pledges. the broad church is a two way street.
The only party we have is a corporate party that refuses to embrace progressives.
No one voted in 2016 because of it.
We're sick of the industrial military complex, we're sick of the working class being the only ones paying taxes, we're sick of struggling to make ends meet even when we're highly educated.
We're sick of lip service.
That said, this week has been a banger for unions and workers.
How come progressives don’t take over the party the way MAGA hasn’t taken over the republicans?
So vote or rebel. Doing neither is only helping the enemy.
didn't nearly 67 million people vote for Clinton? I agree the democrats aren't perfect, but a lot of people plugged their noses and voted for the candidate who could get some change done, rather than the unhinged screaming klansman-lite.
@@lizardguyNA i vote and look where we are we need REFORM
@lizardguyNA I vote on every election.
I watch progressives get attacked by Dems.
I hear dems beg every election, like you are now, to vote blue.
But when it comes time to return the favor, and vote progressive, the answer is nope.
We'd be in Sanders second term right now. Or first with Buttigeig as VP.
Just ask yourself why Dems never enshrined abortion into law or why they embrace the defense of marriage act.
Im sure this comment section will be super healthy😂
Everyone loses under capitalism.
You're rich, mission accomplished.
Except some very few. The big lie is, that you and me could be one of them.
The bigger one is that you might achieve that by hard work. That will realisticly only help the big Boss who already has more money than he can ever spend (inherited)
@@fmailaender if you don't create a family, you're setting yourself up for failure. It's a system designed for family privilege.
@@zacharythomas8617 and thus queer people, and those in asymmetric or non-nuclear monogamous families, are disadvantaged.
@@zacharythomas8617 , Hey look, another moneywalled privilege. You ain't rich enough to have kids.
Oh, want a marriage? Yeah, that's only for people with money too...
The numbers don't lie.
You're life is sh*t and it's gonna stay sh*t.
How come there are so many people who call themselves "left-wing" and they call socioeconomic rights and labor rights "entitlements"?
Because they're liberals they're not left.
Once you understand it's not about of you're left or right but whether you're capitalist or socialist. That's the big fight coming that keeps the rich awake at night. They've feared the poor rising against them since the age of feudalism and since then they've given us enemies to focus on, because once we don't have a defined threat we'll look to improve our lives and more often than not it ends with rich people being stolen from or put on a pike. It's kind of natural really, we're not exactly good with mundane things.
Because they are, and we're not interested in rewriting the dictionary. For decades Republicans have been, largely successfully, trying to redefine "entitlement" as "something you get for free" or more accurately, "something you get for free that you don't deserve and that we should take away."
Social Security is a great example. They want people to think of Social Security checks as free government money going to indolent retirees. But those retirees paid in to the Social Security system their entire working life. Those Social Security checks are their entitlement because they are entitled to them in the same way that if I give McDonald's money, I'm entitled to a hamburger.
Republicans would go nuts if they gave McDonald's money and then McDonald's said, "Well this hamburger is an entitlement and you don't deserve it so I'm not going to give it to you." They'd rightfully accuse McDonald's of stealing their money. Killing off Social Security would be the government stealing all of our money because we've been securing Social Security entitlements for ourselves via Social Security taxes every pay period.
Labor rights are entitlements because our labor enriches our employers, and in trade for that we are entitled to fair pay and fair treatment. Socioeconomic rights are entitlements because members of society contribute to society via taxes, and are therefore entitled to enjoy certain aspects of a society that takes their contributions, such as clean water, decent housing, etc.
@@shadowfaxcrx5141 It remains a bad term to use. To quote Mike Lofgren:
"How do they manage to do this? Because Democrats ceded the field. Above all, they do not understand language. Their initiatives are posed in impenetrable policy-speak: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The what? - can anyone even remember it? No wonder the pejorative “Obamacare” won out. Contrast that with the Republicans' Patriot Act. You're a patriot, aren't you? Does anyone at the GED level have a clue what a Stimulus Bill is supposed to be? Why didn't the White House call it the Jobs Bill and keep pounding on that theme?
You know that Social Security and Medicare are in jeopardy when even Democrats refer to them as entitlements. “Entitlement” has a negative sound in colloquial English: somebody who is “entitled” selfishly claims something he doesn't really deserve. Why not call them “earned benefits,” which is what they are because we all contribute payroll taxes to fund them? That would never occur to the Democrats. Republicans don't make that mistake; they are relentlessly on message: it is never the “estate tax,” it is the “death tax.” Heaven forbid that the Walton family should give up one penny of its $86-billion fortune. All of that lucre is necessary to ensure that unions be kept out of Wal-Mart, that women employees not be promoted and that politicians be kept on a short leash."
@@shadowfaxcrx5141 so short answer, Republicans have made the term "entitlement" a curse word. Yes, we are fucking entitled to basic human rights. Yes, we are fucking entitled to adequate compensation for our labor. Yes, we are fucking entitled to have lives outside of work that engender a cohesive society. Yes, we are fucking entitled to oppose those who think their profits are more important than any of these things.
This reminds me of George Carlin. “Because this is the best we’ve got!”
47:40 years of working for different companies has taught me that sometimes the control isn't a byproduct, it's the point. The profits are thr byproduct and justification.
Jeff Daniels's character in The Newsroom said it best: "If liberals are so f********* smart, how come they lose so god****** always?"
The answer is is that the DNC is a corporation; when the enemy wins, their revenue goes up. Their strategy has always been to balance policy wins with political losses.
The answer is also that Democrats and Liberals are not The Left. The Democratic Party is a center-right political party. They only seem otherwise at a glance because the Republicans are far-right and pushing further. There is no meaningful left-wing political representation within the United States.
There is also a large divide in values in the DNC. The core of the establishment is centre-right. But since national politics in the US is a duopoly anything to the left of them has to either integrate with them or end up competing against each other in the face of a more consolidated right wing.
Liberals aren't Left-wing, they are still capitalist mainstream types.
Because most liberals don't realize they aren't as left wing as they think and real left wingers are constantly fighting an uphill battle.
people keep telling me i am wrong when i say we are in a completely different economic model. and we need to figure this out.
Trust. Plain and simple we have many reasons to suspect one another and we are slow to trust. The lack of faith in each other keeps us from coalescing into real solidarity.
Very curious to see how this episode goes, because I've been wondering this exact same question for so long.
As a Western European living in NA, Bhaskar's comments on how America is better on progressive views, immigration etc. feel like total nonsense, speculation built on NA media coverage of the EU (the same way EU media coverage biases the EU vs NA). Unfortunately it makes me question the basis of other things he says.
Uhh it depends on what countries you sample for your data. Places like Hungary are really, really bad, like 1940s bad, but then you have places like Switzerland that are quite alright. I think as a whole it’s about the same, but the federal government in the US is a big reason why broadly you could argue the US is better because there’s not necessarily an authority like that in the EU, or an importance placed on the constitution as the highest law in the land.
I interpreted it to be about some EU countries being worse than others. It's obviously way too complex so this is a huge oversimplification, but for example trans rights are horrible in most of the EU, and Islamophobia is also horrible in many places. My SO got attacked on the street by an old man when they were 13 because they were wearing a headscarf so yeah. That was in a European capital. Obviously it's way more complicated than that but the EU has shown insane levels of hypocrisy with its treatment of refugees and its tacit support for neocolonialism (just look at France). The EU doesn't seem as a whole to be particularly worse than the US as a whole or anything like that, but some of its members are downright fascist with seemingly no repercussions (like Hungary, which was mentioned above).
Edit: also look at the treatment of Roma people across the EU, especially in countries like Hungary, it's heartbreaking
@@MaryamMaqdisi I think you accurately covered my issue. Citing a more specific example would be fine, like you and the other commenter mentioned I would never try to defend the behaviour of Hungary, and if he had cited something specific like that I wouldn't have commented. But as you said for Europe on the whole the comparison has no real weight which got my heckles up and made me wonder what else is being generalised by the guest that I don't know enough about the subject to know is inaccurate (I'm here to learn, I just want to learn accurately!).
I totally see that with regards to the Roma people when I was growing up. Nowadays I am equally horrified by the treatment of the native population in NA (both feel a bit like hatred is directed towards them by parts of the public just because they don't necessarily live the same way of life).
Especially since he emphasized West-EU.
i can tell you for a fact that you are likely not experiencing any significant amount of normal americans lives and opinions. you're a well off euro, which means you only interact with other well off people. aka less than 1% of the population. maybe you should start by humanizing everyone who isnt wealthy already, and understand that just about everything you believe is some falsely painted judgement of americans. always a european around to dehumanize 99% of the human species for not being born well off :D
I live in Tampa FL, and since the first of this year there have been plenty of Mobilize events, but none of them were done by DSA. As far as I can tell the group is doing NOTHING in the most important year we have ever had. I am not happy with them.
Let me guess, he wants to scold Occupy even though they created a space for Bernie to grow. Who remembers the sh*t he had to say behind a screen about David Graeber?
The left falls in love, the right falls in line.
Explain Democratic voters then
Explain why right wingers are 7 times more likely to have children and get married?
@@BrodyAleksander-YOBthat's because of societal pressure, not love.
Conservatives are more likely to have unhappy marriages and unhappy or abused children.
They are conditioned by conservative ideology to seek those things, tradition and all that.
@@eemoogee160they are liberals. Also the left is not a majority in the democratic party. In fact, some lefties are calling Bernie and AOC sellout because they don't say exactly what they want them to say at any given moment.
Have you people ever just tried not being souless demons? You cant rail for human rights then suddenly flop flop on a dime.
To quote The Scorpions ' Our pride has built a wall so strong that we can't get through."
"Your pride has built a wall
So strong that I can't get through" is the actual lyrics and really hits different.
Song name?
@adamcorfman573 "Still Loving You"
If you really think about it, we pay so much in taxes and get almost nothing for it at this point. If we paid an extra 5 to 10% overall of our taxes, we would get healthcare, better education, safer food, cost controls, all the social safety nets, and everything else that you can get in most other civilized nations in the world. But we don’t do that because all these corporations buy our politicians & they won’t let it happen.
Frankly if we pay so much, we should already have that without paying more. Why are our taxes funding genocide instead of schools and roads?
That dog don't hunt here in the States. No one is going to agree to more taxes. Now, the drum you want to beat is that universal healthcare doesn't actually cost more. It more than pays for itself. Under a single-payer system, everyone would pay thousands less a year for medical coverage, and get more care out of it.
@@Nerdsammich People don't equate premiums paid to a company and taxes paid to the government. If you can make more people understand that there is no difference who you pay for your healthcare, we might get to universal healthcare. What I find most frustrating is that we almost had universal healthcare in the 1950's, but Truman had to back off on that to get his military funding for the Korean War.
@michaelmaiara4770 That's what I'm saying, we have to keep repeating that everyone will pay less for better care.
I'm trying real hard to get through this, but I'm frustrated because it feels like this misses the (to me) obvious problem that winning the presidency without any infrastructure in the rest of government to support that president isn't very productive. It was pretty clear that all of the business interests in the democratic party were good with anybody but Bernie running, and so much of what we judge the president on is what legislation he gets passed. I feel pretty confident saying Medicare for All couldn't have gotten through the 2016 or 2020 congresses, leading him to be written off as a failure. I think the messaging and popularizing of a more leftist analysis was invaluable, and that it's going to take a lot of work to build the structures of a leftist movement such that winning the presidency results in real leftist change.
Also - Bernie vs. Trump is such a red herring. Trump wasn't challenging any of the ideas of the party, mostly just the tone in which they were delivered (was Romney's "self-deportation" any different from the way Trump harassed immigrants out of the country? What policies did Trump support or enact that Paul Ryan, or Mitt Romney, or any of the other chucklefucks in the 2016 republican primary wouldn't have?). Also, he's a billionaire, also he was on the apprentice for over a decade so he was incredibly well known, also he got a ton of free air time pushing for Obama's birth certificate and from having wildly entertaining, if deeply upsetting rallies - the man can deliver eyeballs.
Great interview. I'd never heard of this guy before but I love'm
Dragons, the super wealthy are Dragons.
Not the nice version either.
Makes one wonder if medieval tales of dragons scortching the earth and requiring virgin sacrifices were coded reference to some of the worst of the rulling class...
giving them way too much credit. dragons are cool. the ruling class are much closer to people deep into severe chemical addiction. allowing rich people to exist free of severe consequences is like expecting someone freshly into opioid addiction to be able to responsibly use a kiilo of heroin to keep themselves in homeostasis but never intoxicated. they are going to take too much every time until it kills them. which is what we are witnessing now. except instead of just one beings body being effected, its the entire species body and much of the rest of life on earth too. wealth is a limitless addiction that has no tolerance ceiling and no immediately harmful side effects for the user.
I think the contemporary term is "shape-shifting reptilians"
Another fantastic talk. Thank you!
I would love to see you talk to Gar Alperovitz, who founded The Democracy Collaborative which has actually created some big game-changers in local economics, building coops in networks with non-profit and public enterprises.
Alperovitz has argued for decades that we have a system that doesn't work for traditional left reform or revolution movements because it doesn't solve its problems but also doesn't collapse. In his view, the way to change this kind of system is by gradually moving its pieces into various forms of democratic ownership--worker-owned companies, cooperatives, community non-profits, etc--and he's helped create some extremely successful ways of doing this through what's called Community Wealth Building.
This has mostly been done one municipality at a time, but recently the Scottish government has adopted it as part of their national strategy. I bet you'd do a bang-up episode on it here.
@~6:45, Re: Sanders v. Trump popularity.
For our entire lives we've been told, "socialism is bad/tyrannical" so, a lot of people still have a negative knee-jerk reaction. My 7th grade history teacher, not only equated socialism/communism to despotism, but she also told us a story about how great it was to be a scab, crossing a picket line, still getting a paycheck, and her managers unlocked the vending machines so scabs could take whatever they wanted for free.
Socialism leads to communism. Greed sways all leaders no matter how hard you vote. We would all end up poor, and I don’t mean poor with an iPhone and DoorDash still being an option…
DSA does not have 100,000 members not even close. Their membership has been declining significantly probably they are about half that size
I just began the video, but to me it's quite simple. We agree on the problems, but we absolutely do not agree on the solutions.
And the people who profit from the problems have all the power.
Socialism is a bit of journey, like most things, I remember being pretty deep into being some form of socialist before I looked up and realized that the world around me was pretty blind to the truths I was seeing. Futhermore that said world was built around us, and that its actually pretty hard to shake off the conditioning of the only capitalist world you've ever known.
Idealism and real world reality don't mesh, morals and politics don't mesh, capitalism and human rights don't mesh, it's not that people are blind to your truth. They just don't want it
@@themasterofinfinityI mean they are blind to those truths. There's empirical data backing it up that they don't believe. They don't want it because they don't believe it exists in the way we say it does. That's quite an important distinction.
As someone who has lived in Connecticut almost my whole life, I appreciate the Connecticut references.
I'm going to be "that guy", and point out that the "Socialism" as defined in this discussion, is actually just Social Democracy.
That Overton windowsill is a slip and slide
Because the DSA doesn't really represent socialism
Thank you Adam!
I can't believe he says that about AMLO in Mexico. Is clearly not the case, the corruption skyrocketed and his politics are definitely not progressive or good for that matter.
Luv Bhaskar!
Thank you for an informative video.
Really good episode!!!!!!
Too many people still alive know what the extreme lead to for socialism. And the denial of such matter is reviling. Take me for example: my family is filled with people who lived under socialism during the 20th century. You’d be hard pressed one of us who wants to support DSA or Jacobin’s founder.
National guard 6 years and no deployments. And no VA benefits. .
damn my man upping the caliber
Great guest
Great topic. When i first heard that his name and that he is from Harlem i guessed African or Haitian. When they brought Africans they were spread all over the new world and thus had different experience which shaped their culture. Haitians jave winning independence in 1803 never had to deal with being lynched but did experience foreign interference....
When we see current fluctuations, it is always important to remember how thorough McCarthyism in the red scare was, and the degree of an uphill battle that we are looking at. Yes, seeing downturns is concerning and worth looking at, but also we shouldnt allow it to cause panic unless it is shown to be a sustained downward movement. I was particularly reminded of a conversation the other day with some family members, in which they were speaking about their conception that Cuba is still being supported by China and Russia "because their all communist", and how easy it is for so many to buy into that simply because our education systems and news media never actually address the old lies.
Before I watch:
Because the default Overton window is right wing. We don't have real left wing political infrastructure in this country.
As a poli-sci guy before jumping into the video this would be my response:
a) The Overton Window of what is considered normal vs extreme for any politician has shifted dramatically. Politicians are no longer viewed as upstanding members of society but are idolized for being ruthlessly partisan to a fault at least from the perspective of dedicated long time voters.
b) What is considered "liberal" or "conservative" is always up in the political framing of issues rather than the issue itself, such as the genocide in Gaza, which is distorted to support the national agenda. If you have a strong opinion on something as an active voter, two things are likely: you are old, and you were fed that information through a partisan media outlet. This is not to say that the media is wrong, but from how they have covered Gaza the least we should know is that they are inconsistent and flagrantly hypocritical. The left is slow to point out that hypocrisy when it benefits them and that has resulted in many voters feeling confused or disillusioned. America has not been progressive for decades now and the rise and playbook of authoritarian leaders in this country has been copied around the world by people like Marine La Pen, Lukashenko, and even by relatively less extremist conservatives like Sunak. America isn't the only nation to blame but if we get caught up is a local culture war on terminology then we're missing the bigger picture and condoning this type of leadership. Identifying as left or right or democrat / republican is a bullshit "stance" that should mean nothing, what matters is the policies you support, yet I have to use it for people to understand what policies I am talking about because without that context the general public knows shit all (I blame partisan media).
c) The only time that both sides of the aisle unite is when there is significant monetary interest (with some side interest like saving democracy
or providing aid) and public outcry. In a hyper capitalist society this means that politicians can claim that a tech company like Google or Apple is woke while still doing everything in their power to ensure said companies stay dominant players in the "fair" marketplace. The hypocrisy from democrats and republicans when it comes to what they preach vs what they condone speaks volumes.
d) Ultimately the left has no uniting figure akin to Trump for better or for worse. Personally I think the whole two party system in itself was a flawed concept to begin with but nonetheless with no uniting charismatic figure, the voters who support liberal / leftist policies have no one to put their faith in, and undecided voters who don't follow politics will remain forever apathetic and abstinent voters. I think Roosevelt and Obama (to a lesser extent) were the closest the left has ever had to someone like Trump.
e) If politics is a game that requires voter mobilization, and a good portion of moderate democratic voters have no idea who to vote for due the fragmentation within their party and the frankly cringe and tone-deaf comments often made by democratic politicians, then the lack of preferential voting means we will rarely ever put our support behind a winning candidate. This is even more true for the young voter base (i.e. anyone under 50), because even if they see their beliefs represented in the party they cannot be 100% confident that their candidate or the party itself will keep its promised agenda and actively work on improving it. You compare this to the republicans and even if you are against their politics and beliefs you cannot deny that if Trump asks for something there are many, many senators and business leaders (basically old, powerful people) working to implement that agenda through reforms and bans. If every Republican tells you to vote for Trump and 80% of the Democrats tell you to vote for Biden, you would be more hesitant to vote for Biden (even if you don't plan on voting red).
f) While we can debate how corrupt each party is, there is no doubt that both parties have bad actors and more often than not have some horrible ideas for how to run the country. Grassroots activism and civil service is no longer where politicians choose to look for their list of talking points. Instead they focus on verbally assaulting decisions that get the most national attention such as the breakdown of Roe. V. Wade (which I commend the extent of raising awareness on an issue) but rarely do they get in front of the cameras, the news, and the people on the ground, and do their part in working against the establishment or unjust policies even if that means breaking party lines. Why? Because they are mainly geriatric, men and women who's best days are behind them and they'd rather larp as a politician and gratefully shill for a cause rather than pass the torch to people who know what the country needs. And because people are so desperate to see their identity politics in another person, they are willing to ignore all other flaws in the candidate's moral compass or controversial past as long as that candidate agrees on the core issue and is donning the correct party colors. Sometimes it feels like there is no truly good, honest, hardworking person in charge because that is no longer what is necessary for the getting the job.
Ultimately this country is screwed until the left leans into its progressive, counterculture, antitrust roots and finds a leader / figurehead who is a match for Trump's charisma or until the geriatric establishment dies / realizes that their policy decisions were flawed because they chose the wrong battles and submissively bowed down to corporate interests over their own voter base. Do corporate interests and policy decisions often sit agreeably with the population? Yes, but only with sufficient public outcry and chaos. There are many more decisions that go unnoticed and unquestioned because the voter-base is conditioned to be in a reactionary coma where they only act when they see something they dislike on the news. So I ask that we all keep making a peaceful ruckus while also holding the government accountable for every failure it makes for the American people or anyone really regardless of how small the affected demographic is or who / what party is responsible.
lost me when he mentioned AMLO.
Mexican here, AMLO is socially to the right of Biden. He is s SINO…
@@InzidenzPanik How about economically?
Bernie isn't a socialist, bless his heart - I appreciated his campaigns because he said what nobody else would, but he does not talk about seizing the means of production. "Democratic socialism" just means more tolerable capitalism.😊
Waiting 4mo for a pediatric dentist appointment in Ohio.
Left don't lose...
ur on 🔝
Still at the beginning of the video, but I swear Adam Conover sound more and more like Bernie Sanders. I mean in cadence, obviously they have some of the same political beliefs, but i just can't help but feel like his cadence is similar. Maybe it is just the "angry at social injustice" cadence.
One of the core problems I see we have on the left is there is a lot of disperse groups that are focused on things that need to be addressed but they all want their issue fixed before the work coalitions with others...
Another major issue is the reality that we have a lot of ego projects but very few true social, economic, or political projects... and everyone's focusing on their own ego projects because that's easier than actually building coalitions with people you may not 100% agree with...
Honestly, we’ve already had Trump and we’ve had Biden, I really wish we can just have somebody new for once.
Thats the problem, the left wishes for everything. The right makes it happen.
In order to achieve a left leaning government, one must not use a fully fair system of government because that would lead to a centrist government. One solution if one wants to achieve a left-leaning government would be to repurpose the Senate. Currently, the senate promotes group equity with the groups being the different peoples of the states, but currently this gives the US government a conservative lean. To achieve a left-leaning government, the senate could be repurposed to give equity to a different category of group.
with these podcasts
I know that I'm not a fan of the DSA because my union debated giving them money for an event the occured the week prior to the assembly and then the local DSA published commentary on our debate at a closed union meeting. So if DSA wants to expand its membership then they should probably stop doing things that are anti-union because they didn't get exactly what they wanted. Just saying.
The privatization of Medicare (medicare advantage plan c, prescription plan d, medigap, etc) needs to stop. I am on Medicare and I was lucky enough to have watched a video that explained it very well and warned about the push for privatization of Medicare. Its unbelievable how hard they try to push and scare new people getting on Medicare to get the privatized plans.
The moment that 20% of workers wake up to the potential of our organized power (and organize) the world will change.
Any American observation of AMLO is severely lacking (sorry) without mention of the fact that AMLO was carried to victory via a social movement that doubles as the party he belongs to and co-founded. Morena is organized and has a clear nation building project which is named and mentioned often / the fourth transformation. There’s just no such thing here in the US
Boom
Here's the thing. I have no issue with wealth inequality. What I have an issue with is an economy where some people are filthy stinking fucking rich, and others are starving and freezing in the streets. If every person on this planet has enough, I don't give a shit if some other people have a thousand times as much. I just think everyone is entitled to a certain baseline standard of living.
before I watch this video, If the answer isn't "because winning doesn't encourage campaign donations, and the easiest way to win is make changes that actually help people over corporations". Then you missed it.
Their name was the "Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers"? I see why they dropped that, it sounds like a slur for the homeless.
Fear
I think one of the biggest barriers for the left is money. Like Bhaskar mentioned, most of us are working class - and another decent portion are unemployed, homeless, and/or disabled. The right has the benefit of both broad levels of generational wealth as well as corporate backing. Even the "little groups" on the right, like the anti-abortion folks or the book-ban folks, they're all backed by wealthy political actors and their families. So while they can afford to astroturf their groups, we have to work against oppressive systems to build real grassroots movements.
Another huge barrier that Bhaskar was absolutely right about is our obsession with individualism and individualist ideas of success. Capitalists have done such a good job of making working class folks think that they're one good move away from finally accumulating wealth and not having to struggle anymore.
Regarding Israel, while it was a dividing point in the left (and mainly between the left and liberals), it also illuminated a giant blind spot for many leftists. It showed us an area where many of us were still holding onto George W. Bush era racism and Islamophobia, and also that many of us were still conflating Judaism with Zionism. It also put a glaring spotlight on our current government and how politicians on both sides are willing to aid Israel in genocide simply because of how much our politicians need Israel (for trade, for military training and research, weapons development, militarizing our police forces, for Israel's regional location and the strategic advantage of having a US-backed and controlled state in the Middle East). I think Bhaskar is right that it probably won't affect this upcoming election too much because of the shitty choices we have, but I do think it will play a major role in many leftists' decision-making and methods of political activism in the future, especially considering the fact that we've been expected to watch these atrocities and then return to work and keep quiet as if our taxes aren't paying for the weapons that cost Palestinians their lives.
New video 🥳
Pride
If you want things to change, join an organization and of there isn't one nearby start am organization.
Build a community, build social power, and change things
The Japanese snack food ad made me uncomfortable. Ooh. Mmm.
You can't argue about the primary shows for the general when the primary is SO VERY RIGGED. I think you need to look into it and see. It's rigged a lot. Horribly so.
The answer is simple: liberals have great ideas but we always assume everyone thinks on our exact wavelength. And because of that, we assume we can embrace more left-wing positions at will and not expect pushback before we've even implemented the most basic economic policies. We're overeager, so to speak - hell even the Gaza conflict is indicative of that.
Liberals are not leftist
@@TheJuggtron can we leave the name-calling to the private, I've been called liberal, socialist and communist by different people and it gets to the point where we're just arguing over stupid semantics instead of getting shit done
@@TheJuggtronthat distinction is really only made in leftist circles. I agree with the other commenter, it's just semantics at this point. You know what they mean
Libertarians are the new 'Liberals'
We on 'The Left' are Progressives,
Right-wingers are Regressives@@TheJuggtron
@MaryamMaqdisi that semantic decides quite a lot. It decides whether you're anti war or a war fanatic. It decides whether you believe in institutionalized racism. It decides whether you believe capitalism will doom our planet while making the rich richer and fascists more popular. Liberals have always sided with fascist throughout history
You should have Shawn Fain on Factually.
the more i listen to adam the more hilarious it gets. you notice that sometimes when he say "fucken" its so..weirdly placed. its not vulgar or anything-i don't care about french but its just funny to me. 🤣
The very idea that Bernie Sanders who ran on policies that were very popular by the way could lose a to Trump who was pretty much a man with no pulse he's at all.
Yeah - the problem is that you're speaking someone from the DSA. They've had a 50 year history of entreeism into the Democratic Party and it is pretty devoid of socialists at this point. They managed to become that which they were trying to replace when they started.
The YPSL does not have just 80 year old members - it was also a branch of another successor organization of the Socialist Party of America, the Socialist Party USA, and it, for only members under 30, dissolved only in November 2010.
Because it ignores class
Because the left has 100 different groups arguing for their own issue. All the right has to do is unite and say "we're against all of it".
So clearly you don't know your head from your a**.
Sean Fain for president!
Unless one studies money itself it is not possible to change the effects that it causes. But what IS money?
The question about the representation of value in economic interchange has certain basic understandings if a populace is going to use an abstract unit based system of doing that representation and keep records about the same.
The first understanding must address 'where is this value?' In the goods and services and the natural resources, and the visionary awareness of the society's full capacity, yes?
Then no representation of or record of those goods and services and/or resources is 'the value'. What we have yet to do is establish what are the requirements to represent and keep records about 'the value' such that our full capacity can be realized.
If a society remains engaged in the use of 'trade goods', that are perceived as useful to broaden its exchange (for whatever reasons - trust, etc.), it must then also accept that a portion of its primary activity will be 'spent' in acquisition of the trade good along with all the wasted energies protecting the goods themselves and rationalizing and adjusting the systems attempted to make it all work.
That seems to me to be a net loss of the society's full capacity.
And soon the society becomes fully preoccupied with the 'trade good' and literally fails to be able to acCount for or estimate or realize its full capacity.
So far as I have been able to determine all this digital currency stuff is still just more of the same old preoccupation with trade goods.
But few have heard anyone challenge the entirety of the thinking behind what we are doing in this arena called money. I started out, like many, reading about the present system and the players involved and their behavior, etc. I read monetary histories and papers and watched videos like The Money Masters and The secret of OZ and The Money Fix and Money As Debt, and many others. And All of these look at the behavior of some at the top of the system and make a moral argument that 'those bad guys' are screwing us....but none of that looks at the first question What Is Money?, and instead they simply assume that all the history we are told about how we got here must be true, and that the system is really ok and that it is 'the bad guys running it' that is the problem. Here's the problem: that is ALL bullshit. And it leaves most thinking that this is a problem of power dynamics.
Then I saw a paper by the guy in Spain, Marc Gauvin, whose analysis was completely different. His analysis shows that this is not a 'power' problem but a 'conceptual' problem. And the way we have conceptualized money, as both an item of trade (that has its own value) and a measure of the value contained in other things, is literally logically not true. And if it is not true then it cannot be made to work.
Without taking sides in a power game and without blaming 'those guys that are screwing us' [They are, sort of, but we are complicit, because we have not determined the emptiness of the core beliefs of the imposed systems.] we look at the solution to be one of educating the populace to the fact that Any item of value can only talk about its own value but cannot tell you one thing about the value of other things. This core truth in teaching people about their own monetary literacy is the main focus of the MSTA. And if we want to abandon the long standing mistake about how (some, most, but not all) humans have thought about money then we have the chance to abandon All the nonsense that that mistaken thinking has brought about.
Marc Gauvin writes that "solving money in society, cannot take place without first resolving the deep misrepresentation of money or more generally, value representation. Where this overlaps with the design of alternative money is in the acknowledgement of a valid logic to satisfy the generic problem of "value representation" common to any currency system proposal."
Search on "Money's misrepresentation" and find the page for Money Systems Transparency Alliance. There study and learn about the monetary illiteracy the world still suffer from.
The "underpinning" of money as it is conceived and done world wide is this misconception that the unit of acCount can be both an item of its own value (commodity) and still attempt the function of measuring the value contained in other things. In the awareness of this historical mistake one then sees that even the crypto vs. fiat 'debate' is NOT outside the historical conceptual error in thinking: that the abstract unit of measure (to annotate and keep records about the interchange of items and services of genuine 'value' within a populace) can also itself be an item of value.
So, the presentation by the MSTA is NOT some kind of additional alternate inside the present mistaken conceptual paradigm. And that is where so many do not see clearly what the MSTA is pointing to, because they are not considering that the MSTA is pointing to the fact that the very conceptual basis of money is wrong and has been since attempting to use a commodity (with its own value) to serve the purpose of representing, in the abstract, the value in other things.
McCarthyism is why.
Basically, yeah
The words socialism and Marxism are still boogeymen just like they were in the red scare era
YA, THE MAGATBOTS SEEM TO NEVER SHUT UP ABOUT WHATEVER YOU JUST SAID. DOUBT ANY OF THEM EVEN KNOW WHAT IT MEANS, BECAUSE OF THE INBREEDING I AM GUESSING
Giving up your pie so everyone can have some is not a solution. If every one either bought a pie or made one it would not be a problem. Even you are better with capitalism. Here you are with your show making money at your chosen pace. Being in love with the socialism idea doesn't prove it works. It will always fail.
33:20 you need to work on the lighting you use during the PSA break. It makes you look like a ghoul. A lovable ghoul, mind you.
I would consider my family lower middle class. We make too much money for government assistance. But we do not make enough money. Where I could casually go fix my truck. Or the giant leaking roof problem
Easy for the life of us we can't LIE.
Love this but for one thing - let's be clear: Trump is a dope. Steve BANNON was a good strategist who played the GQP like a barnyard bass. Trump spent his time on stage mocking war vets.
I read anxious generation, I'm a big fan of pre-coddling heidt.
It's unfortunately not really worth reading. It's basically a list of selective correlations and anecdotes.
Due to 3 years younger than me. No wonder he's one of the youngest members
860 represent
Dsa is such a disappointment. No bite not even a bark
I always thought the us deserved trump bc they didnt choose berny
Ubi will have bipartisan support within 10 years
In 10 years the Zoommers will have ended democracy. The pendulum swing to right that is coming is going to be intense
Duvergers law. Look it up.
The playing field is not level for anticapitalist candidates versus capitalist candidates as a matter of US policy, foreign and domestic. Communism/socialism is a boogeyman as a result of decades of business and government hostile action (Cold War, Red Scare, union-busting, blacklisting, exile, imprisonment, assassination, etc.) and the narratives they generated to support such action.
Trump-style politicians have low barriers to entry into institutional or public acceptance comparatively.
VOTE 4 NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE INTERSTATE COMPACT! Give the Republicans & Democrats who have a terrible track record. A 4year timeout from them lying to you, carelessly spending of your tax dollars or not holding police accountable.
Bernie is a Social Democrat, regardless of his self-labeling.
Yeah but when are you going to be in Australia?
Because the democrats are not left