The Democratic Party is Our Enemy, and Set the Table for a Neo-Fascist Trump Administration

Yes, that's right. In its current iteration, the Democrats are the enemy of the 99 percent. To help you understand why, let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time there was a center-left party that held power for many years, until they squandered it by abandoning whatever principles they had, and betrayed working people and unions, in order to serve the capitalist oligarchs, wealthy elites and militaristic elements in their country.

The name of that party? The Social Democratic Party of Germany, known in Post-WWI Germany by the name Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, or SPD for short.

Right from the get go, the SPD, as the largest party in post-war Germany, were dedicated to preserving their power against any challenges from either the right or the left. Indeed, their initial response to left wing political movements was to attack and suppress them, if not eliminate them all together.

The political vacuum was filled in November 1918 when the leaders of the Social Democratic Party (Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands, abbr. SPD) and of the left-wing Democrats formed a Council of People’s Delegates. It was headed by Friedrich Ebert, a moderate politician who rejected the idea of a Soviet-style revolution and advocated the establishment of a parliamentary democracy [citation omitted].

... The new Constitution bestowed on the President extensive powers. Article 25 gave him the right to dissolve the parliament, and the infamous Article 48 allowed him in case of emergency to take all the “necessary measures” to restores order. Furthermore, he could deploy the armed forces and suspend constitutional rights [...]

Friedrich Ebert [the first SPD President of the Weimer Republic] made use of Article 48 in order to crack down on radical leftist movements or to dissolve local governments he deemed dangerous [citation omitted].

In the end, however, the SPD lost power by continually moving their "center" further to the right. Thus, they created the conditions for a an extreme right wing party led by a charismatic ideologue (who never won the popular vote!) to take power. Here is their story, in brief:

The SPD were the political party that identified most with the Weimar Republic. They committed themselves to defending the republic “from attacks by both left and right”. The party had already shown its readiness to crack down brutally on the radical left after the November revolution in 1918 and the ensuing civil-war-like battles around local revolutionary councils. At that time the SPD had allied with the old economic and military elites of imperial Germany to defeat the revolutionary upsurge and establish a democratic republic with some social reforms, but also ensured that capitalist property relations remained untouched. Because of this historic compromise, the Weimar Republic found itself burdened with a broad layer of military officials, judges and government clerks opposed to the republican reforms. It was precisely this layer that was open to fascist politics and moved closer and closer to the Nazis after 1929.

The SPD’s identification with the Weimar Republic became increasingly problematic for the party as the crisis deepened. As the majority of the population increasingly lost hope in capitalism and the republic, millions searched for a political alternative. Because the population identified the SPD with the republic it proved impossible for it to capitalise on this widespread radicalisation, let alone channel it in a socialist direction. The Social Democrats became victims of the economic, social and political crisis that racked the Weimar establishment and were dragged down with it.

The SPD participated in a governing coalition with bourgeois and conservative parties from 1928 to 1930. From 1930 to 1932 they tolerated the authoritarian, right wing government by decree of Heinrich Brüning as a sort of lesser evil opposed to the Nazis. Brüning’s solution to the economic crisis was austerity and deflation. He savaged the welfare state, raised indirect taxes and pushed down wages. These measures spelled untold suffering for the millions of workers who supported the SPD.

Now I understand that the SPD's history within the context of the Weimer Republic is not a perfect analogy for the Democratic Party in the late 20th and early 21st centuries in the Post-Reagan era. However the SPD's actions bear some striking similarities to how the Democrats responded to what they considered the greatest threat to their hold on political power - Ronald Reagan and the GOP control over the business donor class. Here's my short list of the measures the Democrats took that are evocative of how the SPD responded to the threats it faced.

1. Abandoning the Working Class and Unions to Court Corporate Donors.

I don't believe anyone with knowledge of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC), among whose founders and leaders were the Clintons, can argue about how the DLC moved the Democrats away from supporting their traditional base of support, unions and the working class, in order to curry favor with wealthy elites and multinational corporations. The proof is in the pudding as they say. Both the Clinton and Obama Presidencies fundamentally altered the values and principles of the party away from support for unions, the working class, consumers and the poor, despite their rhetoric to the contrary. Just read this article "Thomas Frank on How Democrats Went From Being the ‘Party of the People’ to the Party of Rich Elites," if you wish to dive into all the gory details of this betrayal.

2. Cracking Down on Populist Movements from the Left.

Has anyone forgotten the actions of Obama's Department of Homeland Securoty (and its plethora of law enforcement and intelligence agenies) who coordinated with and supported state and local governments and police agencies around the country in order to brutally put down and destroy one of the largest mass movements for economic justice in the last half-century, Occupy Wall Street? I haven't. The proof is out there (link takes you to a 2012 TOP diary by c99's own joe shikspack) for all to see who wish to look. There's a lot more I could put here, but this should more than suffice to show you where the Dem's real priorities lie when it comes to protecting civil liberties and the right to dissent.

3. The Dems Dismantling of the New Deal Era Laws and Regulations that Prevented Corporate Consolidation.

Two prime examples are all I really need to show this (though there are many more):

a) "Telecommunications Act of 1996" which led to "more media concentration, less diversity, and higher prices.” It also has done great damage to our democracy:

The act dramatically reduced important Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on cross ownership, and allowed giant corporations to buy up thousands of media outlets across the country, increasing their monopoly on the flow of information in the United States and around the world. [...]

Twenty years later the devastating impact of the legislation is undeniable: About 90 percent of the country's major media companies are owned by six corporations. [...]

[M]edia companies have dramatically increased efforts to wield influence in Washington, with a massive lobbying presence and a steady dose of campaign donations to politicians in both parties - with the goal of allowing more consolidation, and privatizing and commodifying the internet.

and

b) The Repeal of Glass-Steagall under Bill Clinton, which arguably was the single greatest cause of the financial crisis of 2008, for which so many are still suffering the consequences. As Bernie Sanders noted, repealing the last major piece of New Deal legislation that prevented Wall Street from consolidating the financial industry (mortgage lending commercial banking, insurance and investment banking) all under one roof "led to the formation of banks that became “too big to fail,” contributed to the financial crisis in 2008 — and will lead to another crisis without corrective legislation." It should come as no surprise that the biggest backers of the Obama and Clinton Presidential campaigns all came from Wall Street and the Banksters.

4. The Promotion of Neo-liberalism that Exacerbated Economic Inequality.

Examples abound regarding how the Democrats took positions that led to the largest income and wealth inequality since the Great Depression. These include pushing globalization through trade agreements (NAFTA, CAFTA, and the attempt by Obama to to implement the TPP, TTIP, etc.) that preference transnational corporate profits over national sovereignty, worker safety, unions and environmental protections.

They also include attacks on our social safety net such as Clinton's welfare reforms, and Obama's efforts to curtail Social Security benefits (some successful and some not). And who can forget the Dems' promotion of austerity policies for the poor and welfare for the rich, including backing the privatization of social security, and other traditional governmental functions such as education and prisons.

5. Support for the Military Industrial Complex and the National Surveillance State

To be brief, the military budget expanded under Obama and increased our military interventions overseas through the deployment of special ops forces in hundreds of countries, and Obama's Drone Assassination Program. He also expanded national surveillance of American citizens by our intelligence community and prosecuted a record number of whistle blowers as to abuses by the military and intelligence community.

When you add to this the fact that Hillary Clinton used her control of our major media outlets to practically handpick her GOP opponent, while her campaign and the DNC illegally worked together to undermine the Sanders' campaign, the only truly progressive candidate running for the nomination of either of our two major parties, it's easy to see the parallels between the SPD during the Weimar era in Germany, and the Democrats. Over the past three decades in the United States, the Democratic party desperately attempted to hold onto to power by any means necessary, but especially by throwing their base supporters under the bus to accommodate the rich and powerful. In the end all the Democrats achieved was to hand deliver to Donald Trump, and his extreme right wing, neo-fascist inner circle, the keys to the most powerful nation on earth and the ability to further destroy what little is left of our so-called representative democracy.

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The post-WW1 situation in Germany is new to me and it's scary in how close it is to our times. I agree that the Democratic Party under those who now control its apparatus is surely not the friend of the majority - the laboring class.

Walter Reuther left the steering committee of the AFL-CIO because the RW craft unions had abandoned the commitment to an egalitarian society. Ronald Reagan is the only president to have been a union president. The AFL unions actually benefitted from McCarthyism because the industrial unions came under sustained attack from capital which included the Republicans and a growing majority of Democrats.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

@duckpin imposing financial burdens that undermined the Republic right from the get go. The level of War reparations caused Germany to default generating the Dawes Plan..then the Young Plan until Hitler maintained his pledge to ignore the treaty entirely.

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if you move far enough right then someone will just walk around you and mess up what you took for granted as your base [unions/working class].

Now the Democrats cant even be bothered running candidates at State level in fly over territory [inc Florida] and if the keep doing it Republicans will gain the few seats [50ish? needed to be able to amend the constitution without involving Democrats at all.

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@LaFeminista I am very fearful of a runaway constitutional convention.

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"The justness of individual land right is not justifiable to those to whom the land by right of first claim collectively belonged"

sojourns's picture

@duckpin n/t

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@duckpin We might not make it that far. If they successfully impeach Trump, we'll more likely be looking at widespread riots and, in response, an expanded police state. With Mike Pence at its head.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

snoopydawg's picture

@LaFeminista let this happen?
There should have been no reason for DWS to keep her job as head of the DNC unless she was doing what she was supposed to be doing by losing over 1,000 seats across the country and so many states governorships.
As you stated, they can't bother to get behind any progressive candidates because that would interfere with their plans.
We watched as Obama continued to work with the republicans even after they stated they wanted to make him a one term president. And he didn't offer any decent legislation that would have helped the working class until the republicans were in the majority and he knew that they would block anything he wanted to do.
Why did he wait until he was almost out the door before he offered the mortgage legislation that wouldn't be in effect until he was out of office and that gave Trump the chance to roll it back.
And now we see the democrats voting for the worse people unqualified to be in those positions.
Anyone read Warren's excuse for why she voted for Carson to run HUD?

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

@snoopydawg

pitiful excuses for Democrats that they were. But he was going around them to hang out with the Republicans.

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gendjinn's picture

@LaFeminista But I fear that during the fight to displace the Dems we risk giving the GOP 38. Can't stop us, but we do need to keep an eye on it and try to prevent it as we move forward.

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@gendjinn You should be more worried. They have 33 states locked up right now. (Govenorship, and the houses). They need 34 to start the ball rolling.
I read an article that laid out the math and logic and concluded that the Nazi's needed only 27 total more seats, governorships and state and federal offices. (I didn't bookmark it and haven't 'refound' it, shoulda bookmarked it *sigh*)
3/4 is needed to ratify an amendment passed by congress.
You only need 2/3's to call for a convention or establish state created amendments.
There's a few paths available to the Nazi's and they have long stated their intent to do so.
Here's a few links that talk of this danger.
http://therightscoop.com/dems-lose-one-state-legislature-gop-push-consti...
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-republican-constitutio...
This Post link is too optimistic to my mind.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/16/no-republicans...

They want this to happen. They've been working toward it for years.
google 'how close are republicans to a constitutional convention'.

I've been watching this slow motion train wreck for years. Watched and wept as our leaders sold themselves, and then sold us.

When they tell you who they are you should believe them the first time.
Same thing for when they tell you what they are going to do.
***************************************************************************

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

@dennis1958

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

gendjinn's picture

@dennis1958 I looked it up and sighed a breath of relief that it needed 38 states to pass an amendment, forgetting about the convention option.

OK, worry level adjusted upward again. yay..... Jennifer Government here we come!

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@gendjinn

Another issue: how far can any Dem be trusted to act in protection of the American people over their donors/prospective/under-the-table employers?

Especially since even the most blatant of electoral cheating has again been left 'to be fixed next time' and now Homeland (In)Security has taken over elections, out of any chance of independent/citizen oversight?

What leverage exists for citizens when they truly no longer need your votes but can make up their own to suit their destructive corporate/billionaire paymasters?

Unless the people also drop the pretense - as evidently has the Two-Faced Corporate Party - of 'legitimate elections' and refuse to accept what's obviously been illegitimate government not even vaguely 'of, by and for the people'?

America belongs to the American people, not those self-interests and puppets in contravention of the principles of American law embodied in the US Constitution, which principles supersede all other law passed against the public interest, and which Constitutional rights and freedoms are so carefully guaranteed as being protected for all Americans in all American States.

Law-breakers cannot be permitted to write 'law' making the illegal 'legal', merely because breaking their oaths to uphold Constitutional law previously hasn't been permitted by such law-breakers to have them removed from public office for which they thereby are disqualified from holding, in order to utterly corrupt all branches of The People's government.

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Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.

A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.

divineorder's picture

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

SparkyGump's picture

It was that smug, self centered logic the democrat leaders used to turn themselves into the epitome of "limousine liberals". Maybe next time they'll campaign in Kansas.

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The real SparkyGump has passed. It was an honor being your human.

snoopydawg's picture

Excellent article js with lots of links to back up that Obamas's DHS worked with mayors all over the country to take down OWS. Brutally.
There are a lot of names from this diary that aren't there any more. I miss their voices.
And as usual when ever anyone criticizes Obama there is always someone who will jump to defend him.

change isn't immediate. it took reagan through bush to do this damage - neither obama or the democrats can change that immediately.
you are trying to lay the entire damaged system (by republicans) on the back of obama and the dems and that is foolish and foolhardy.

The fact that this happened while Obama was president went right over this poster's head.
And this person is one of Hillary's biggest cheerleaders over there.

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Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

sojourns's picture

They could release a pandemic anytime they wanted. Am I merely paranoid? I don't think so.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

@sojourns They've chosen their strategy, and it involves setting the people at each others' throats. Pandemic probably not needed. What they want is people who make less than 500K/year killing each other.

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

gendjinn's picture

@Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal No let's play a game of WE marching YOU up the steps to the guillotine instead?

That's about where we are heading at this point.

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@gendjinn @gendjinn

The usefulness of the Guillotine in political discourse
was NOT entirely in jest.

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU

gendjinn's picture

@sojourns remain in the realm of science fiction. We aren't there yet and it's a much harder problem than cancer to "solve".

Put it this way - every single base pair in a bacteria or virus is important in the disease process. We can barely figure out how proteins fold. The gap between where we are and what we need is still vast, too vast to span today or for another couple of decades.

Besides bullets are cheaper and don't shoot themselves back.

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sojourns's picture

@gendjinn I suppose it would be bad to rile the bullet makers.

If you remember, it was only a few years ago where a scientist published a paper on work that he had done in manipulating the avian flu so that it could be passed from human to human. It was not science fiction and caused a brouhaha as to the ethics of publishing a paper that could be used as a 'how to" manual. I think they are a lot further along than on may want to believe.

They don't have to create anything new to create utter havoc.

It is true what you say; protein string remain in the realm of magic.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones."
John Cage

Cant Stop the Macedonian Signal's picture

People's impatience with this sort of analysis lately has been one of the main sources of my discouragement. Here's hoping yours has an impact. 35 recs so far!

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"More for Gore or the son of a drug lord--None of the above, fuck it, cut the cord."
--Zack de la Rocha

"I tell you I'll have nothing to do with the place...The roof of that hall is made of bones."
-- Fiver

To understand where you are, you need to know where you've been.
Never Again means nothing if good men step aside.

I told my heart doc today that I felt certain that I felt like those who lived in the 1930's, in Germany, felt. He said 'Me too. We do'.
He's prolly Jewish I figure. When he said 'We do' it was as though confirming from personal knowledge. It was most NOT comforting.

Anyway, ...
There's a storm coming people.

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With their hearts they turned to each others heart for refuge
In troubled years that came before the deluge
*Jackson Browne, 1974, Before the Deluge https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SX-HFcSIoU