The Russian embassy in Ireland is on Orwell Road. Simple and fitting.
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Cake day: August 16th, 2023
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1·5 days agoEven Reagan left some regulations be.
Comrade, the only people who are for complete nonintervention are right-“libertarians”.
To call the Democratic ideal a mixed market is kinda wild. Nearly everything that could be privatized already is, besides perhaps the post office.
I will not pretend that the current programs are not significant or that cutting them will not kill people. But the fact of the matter is that it’s peanuts compared to the social-democracy that reigned in Western Europe for most of the Cold War or even the social-liberalism of the pre-Reagan US.
I am not sure what your talk of the Republicans has to do with this. I am certain they’re not really neolibs though. They’re fascists, or close to it.
The ACA is not that different from Romneycare or the old Republican HEART bill that was proposed in opposition to Clinton’s attempts at passing universal healthcare. It remains a market-based solution.
The establishment of the CFPB, like the passing of the ACA, was a stripped-down pro-market version of what could have been.
In terms of foreign policy, the Democrats have enthusiastically supported and continued to support the globalisation of capital through such agreements as NAFTA and continued various imperialist adventures (Obama’s use of drones is legendary).
In terms of workers rights, a lot of the bullshit from the Reagan years is still alive and well, unquestioned by the mainstream of either big party (it is frequently said on Lemmy and elsewhere that nearly everything wrong with modern America can be traced back to Reagan). Antitrust measures remain largely unenforced.
Stuff like this is well within the preview of other neoliberal parties like Fianna Fail/Fine Gael or the CDU. They too have limited market-based “solutions” to social problems. Just tax carbon emissions and the market will fix climate change. Stimulate more housebuilding and homelessness will be solved. This pattern continues.
Only during Biden’s term was there some deviation from the old formula, in the form of stimulus checks and more investment in infrastructure, along with some support of trade unions. These were good steps in a shift towards the social-liberal wing of the party. Kamala leaned into this early in the campaign but then towards the end she decided it was better to get the endorsement of people like Dick Cheney.
Neoliberalism, obviously. Kamala probably wouldn’t be in favour of people being abducted off the street and shoved into unmarked vans.
The Democratic platform is a far cry from proper safety nets and regulations.
Every Democratic president since Clinton was a neoliberal. Now that Trump is going with protectionism, they are in essence more neoliberal than the Republicans.
In the most recent elections, Kamala talked good shit initially, until her corporate allies talked her down, and like the good little neoliberal she is she started sputtering out market-based “solutions” to everything.
The point is that socialism cannot be achieved by electoral means. At best, if the masses in the street really pressure those in power, you get social democracy. That being said the choice for Americans was neoliberalism or fascism. The reasons for fascism winning go deeper than “the left was to whinny”, but that’s beside the point being made here.
Because liberalism is a hypocritical ideology.
The USA built itself off genocide and colonialism and has spent the last three centuries expanding its empire to every continent (and has long-since been an attack dog for Israel).
France endorsed liberty, equality, and fraternity at home and horrors abroad in Haiti and Algeria.
To the credit of the Liberal Party, they were much less imperialist than the Whigs they derived from or Tories. This is not to say that they were truly opposed to imperialism. Cecil Rhodes was a Liberal.
In all of these cases, the colonial adventures did not occur despite liberalism but were justified by it. We must bring enlightened civilization to the savages, you see. Locke and Mill, two foundational British figures of liberalism, were both supporters of colonialism.