Marxists believe that Central Planning and Public Ownership is necessary in the long run, yes. This centralism, however, derives its power from the masses, and flows from below. It isn't a cabal of all-powerful and unaccountable individuals in theory nor in practice. Anarchism, meanwhile, only has theory, and not yet practice outside of a few short periods. Anarchism at its core retains the ability for different cooperatives or communes to develop at different rates and allow the resurgance of Capitalism on the basis of those differences, Marxism does not.

Most people want to be left alone with the fruits of their labor

Most people in the West want that, thanks to the prevailing ideologies surrounding individualism under Capitalism stemming from liberalism. In different modes of production, this is not the standard.

Anarchism is more likely to accomplish this.

Why? On the contrary, it seems to me that it's less likely to accomplish anything, so far. Anarchists do great work, and many are excellent comrades, but to proclaim Marxism as "authoritarian" and Anarchism as "more likely" to do anything is a failure to recognize the historic shortcomings thus far of Anarchist theory and praxis.

We don't have to debate, but I do think you should give this more thought. If you want to learn more about Marxism, I made an introductory Marxist reading list you can check out. Open for feedback!

I happen to believe in a little something called "The Truth." I don't believe that everything I say should have to serve an immediate strategic purpose. In fact, I don't think it's at all sensible to even set a strategic purpose until you have first clearly identified and laid out the truth. Even if the truth is inconvenient or counterproductive, I'm not really interested in a political project that's based on ignorance or deception.

If the truth isn't enough to get people to back your political project, then perhaps your political project isn't worth backing. Regardless, it's likely the truth will come out eventually, at which point you will lose credibility to the opposition. And if the left doesn't speak out for fear of hurting the democrats' chances, then the only opposition will be from the right.

Furthermore, people having correct political ideas and a clear understanding of the world is more important than any election, which is of secondary concern. A person's political actions (or lack thereof) do not end at the ballot box, and when a person has correct ideas they are more likely to participate in productive actions and avoid harmful ones. Collective action, boycotts, protests, etc have more capacity to effect change than a political system designed by slaveowners explicitly to subvert the popular will.

When one side says their candidate is the Messiah, and the other side says their own candidate is deeply flawed, where does that push someone on the fence?

Probably the one that admits to their candidate's flaws. The side claiming that their side is the Messiah can only reach people who are willing to believe that narrative. It tends to be very alienating to the average voter.

What's baffling to me is that there seem to be a lot of people on the democratic side who simultaneously believe all kinds of contradictory things. Trump voters are all blindly devoted to their cult leader, but if we just shift a few more degrees to the right, that will win them over, somehow. Or, the key to winning elections is by winning over moderate swing voters who don't feel attached to either party, and the way to do that is to demand blind devotion to our candidate while screaming that the other side is Hitler and anyone who even considers them is a fascist. It's absurdity. And yet, no matter how many times these strategies fail, people refuse to learn from them.

I happen to come from a conservative family, and that made it immediately obvious that even the best attempts by someone like Biden or Harris to win over the right were doomed to fail, and the Dick Cheney strategy was absolutely not even close to "the best attempt." The reason is that Biden and Harris look and sound like typical, mainstream democrats, who their entire political identity is built on opposing. Of course, my parents are always going to vote Republican, but the one person on the Democratic side I've ever heard them say they respect is Bernie Sanders. DNC strategists and their loyalists cannot comprehend this.

So many people adhere to this overly simplistic ideological model as if it's just a truism - that the things people support are more or less innate characteristics randomly developing from birth and the combination of those things makes everyone fall someone on a one dimensional spectrum from left to right, and everyone votes according to who's closest to them ideologically. And so the only way to win is to assume the far left votes will fall in line behind you while you move right to appeal to the centrist swing voters. But that whole model is bullshit, and it has been proven to be bullshit time and time again.

A large part of Trump's appeal is that he's able to present himself as an outsider. Moving right and shaking hands with Cheney, trying to be like, "See, the whole political establishment hates Trump," merely reinforces Trump's credibility as an outsider while also tying Harris to the disastrous policies including the War on Terror. The failure of the Bush administration is a part of why conservatives turned to Trump in the first place! It's insanity.

If you wanna win by peeling off Trump voters, the best way to do that is by targeting people with libertarian values and running on isolationism and staying out of foreign entanglements. But that would require actually doing that, or at the very least, it would require not painting everyone who disagrees with your interventionist policies with the same brush of being a "Russian bot." Alternatively, you can say, "screw Trump voters, we'll win by mobilizing the base," but that would require adopting popular leftist policies that would hurt their donors' profits.

So, being unwilling to actually play the game, all that's left is to put forward the same platform of interventionism and neoliberalism that has simply outlived it's moment and does not have enough adherents to win.

Don't listen to the Palestinians who correctly observe that they're being exterminated with a democrat in charge.

I listen to both. Neither party will end this. One party will expand and accelerate it. Both things are true. That's what they have been saying, that Biden's policies, and by presumptive extension Kamala's, were horrific, but Trump would be even worse. And you claim the voices saying that are a rhetorical fabrication. Erasing victims of genocide in an impossible situation pleading to mitigate the damage, because that conflicts with your Internet argument. Who is the bloodless ghoul?

I'm watching what you actually do and what happened the last 4 years when you got what you wanted.

You don't know the first thing about what I actually do and what I want. I don't want the Democrats. I just want MAGA even less, and no one else has 80 million votes.

You distributed aid with one hand and you voted for their extermination with the other.

I voted to keep out the greater evil, but sure. Pretend that if Biden lost and Trump was in office on Oct 8, Palestine would be better off. One thing is true, the genocide would have ended much sooner. Get out of your Internet bubble.

To win an election, you have to convince the conservatives that it is in their best interest to vote for the progressive candidate.

I disagree with you, to win an election, you need to convince voters to vote for you. That's it. Democrats have tried to win over conservatives in at least 2024 and the start of the 2020 campaign (before Biden worked with Bernie's campaign to run on more progressive stuff).

And they keep losing. If what everyone on Lemmy keeps saying is true, roughly 1/3rd of the country voted Dem, 1/3rd voted Rep, and 1/3rd didn't vote. And if we're to believe people who say "both parties" genuinely feel that way, and those people are likely to belong to the 1/3rd who don't vote...

Why are Dems trying to win over the conservatives at all? Show the 1/3rd of the populace who doesn't vote that you're not both the same. No, you're never going to get 100% voter turnout, but if 77 million (Trump's popular vote count) is 1/3rd, that means there's roughly 77 million people that can be won over to vote.

So the Dems need to go after them, and they need to start running on actual progressive policy and positive change for the average American. They need to stop letting Republicans control the narrative for them on their ideas and policies. Obama won on the message of Hope, Biden won on the back of Bernie's progressive policies, and Trump has won twice now on change.

The common denominator is change, the current system isn't working for the average American, and people aren't going to support the status quo. We can sit here and insult Magas and conservatives and comment on how empty their brains are or how selfish they may be or ignorant or incestual or whatever. I get it, I've done it, but I bet you at their core, they want something in this country to change for the better.

So they gambled on Trump in 2016, and regardless of your opinion on it, Trump spent four years showing people that you can change things, you can get things done, you just have to break all the rules and norms to do it. Biden gave people hope in 2020 (plus the COVID handling by Trump) so they rebuked Trump.

After four years of the average American seeing no material improvement to their lives (that's all I'm arguing here, not whether or not Biden actually got anything done), and the Dem candidate running on "I'm going to maintain the course," people stayed home. They showed the Dems in 2020 that progressive policies win, and yet the Dems still tried to win over voters from the other side as opposed to winning over the roughly 77 million who stay home.

It almost feels like willful ignorance on the behalf of these so-called liberal elite. The simpler explanation, though, is probably money, and that's why people say "both sides are the same." It's because money: both sides of the aisle still insider trade despite it's unpopularity with Americans, both sides of the aisle still hold expensive campaign dinners with the wealthy elite, and both sides still accept billions of dollars in campaign funds from the oligarchs. My cousin supports Bernie with his heart of hearts, but will not vote because "both sides are the same, I want actual change."

Progressives need to take the helm from the liberals of the DNC and get PAC and oligarch money out of their organization (which will never happen). They need to show the American people that they not only believe in change, they will get it done, and it will benefit the people. They need to ditch this air of superiority and moral enlightenment and just get things done, stop condescending to your voting base, and make your constituency feel like you hear them.

Anecdotally, my dad and I were talking the other day about the election. He supported Trump in 2016 with some enthusiasm (just because Trump wasn't a politician and "I make more when Repubs are in office"). Him and I stopped talking for almost 2 years after the election. But the other day, he kinda surprised me by saying, "Y'know, I don't like Trump, I think he's an asshole, I didn't want to vote for him... But I just can't vote for those pompous Democrats."

I told him how disappointed I was in the DNC, and he said he liked Kamala, but didn't trust the Dems (I know, the irony is not lost on me). I asked him how he felt about Bernie, and surprisingly, he made a joke about how we'd all have to learn to talk with our hands if he won. But talking policy ideas, my dad supports all of Bernie's stuff, he just thinks the Dems are out of touch with blue collar folks like himself.

He doesn't care that you've written a letter condoning the breaking of precedent to the Parliamentarian, and through the process of Habeas Corpus and Secretariat, after 12 years maybe they'll acknowledge they did wrong. Doesn't make sense to you, right?

Well, that's because it's nonsense, which is basically what the average American hears whenever the Dems get on their pulpit and start finger pointing and blaming everyone but themselves about why they couldn't get things done. The average American living paycheck to paycheck, who doesn't have a college degree, and likely hasn't taken a civics class since high school, doesn't care about all of these little caveats and the intricacies of an arbitrary system of rules and norms that they created. They aren't going to sit down and research various political theories and then do a deep dive on the various roles and powers each different tiny figurehead amongst the federal government has and does not have, rounding out the night with a hefty portion of the history and precedent surrounding constitutional law.

They're just not, and we need to stop pretending they will, or that people will even do the bare minimum of understanding how a bill becomes a law. So run on things they understand, and then actually get them done.

But lying? Nah, look at the division Biden pardoning his son has caused on Lemmy, lying isn't the answer. They need to run on actual, positive change, and then work to actually make it happen, not these half-assed attempts we keep getting like the ACA.

This turned into a book, but I liked your write up.

Do you know what a union is? It's a worker coalition designed to give those workers a voice in their workplace.

Do you know what workers rights are? They're regulatory protections that mitigate a portion of the exploitation inherent to capitalism.

Do you know what capital gains taxes are? They are taxes that siphon a portion of capital from the bourgeoise.

These are all in conflict with the interest of capital. They don't go far enough, but they go farther than the other party. The other party opposes them. Capitalism + pro-worker social policies > capitalism - human rights. This isn't a difficult concept.

You can link all the Marxist literature you want, it won't get us closer to communism, or even socialism. This country will not vote for socialism anytime soon. If they're not going to fill in a bubble once every couple years, they sure as hell aren't going to take to the streets in armed rebellion.

These policies are the first baby steps in a larger transition. First it's unions and higher federal minimum wage, then it's more robust worker protections and socialized healthcare so workers have mobility, then it's enabling worker co-ops, then it's encouraging co-ops, then it's mandating exclusive employee ownership. One step at a time, gradually demonstrating to the proletariat that these policies improve their lives and empower them, until they're ready to support more dramatic change.

What's your plan to translate to Worker supremacy over Capital?