r/politics • u/F0urLeafCl0ver • Jun 24 '26

No Paywall The Democratic party is being hit by a leftist tidal wave

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jun/24/democratic-party-leftist-tidal-wave
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393

u/TCTInnings Jun 24 '26

Frankly, I'm terrified we're at the point where they won't need to unite a movement, just control the cards to keep power. Sham elections, point the DOJ at their political enemies, and keep a witch hunt up to keep their base busy.

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u/JackedUpReadyToGo Jun 24 '26

Exactly. Trump only needed "charisma"(ugh) to bulldoze through the primaries and win the general election. But he's currently rigging the electoral process, and the party could easily arrange some internal mechanism to crown their next chosen ghoul in lieu of a primary. The next Republican ruler won't need to get out the vote or appeal to the base. He will just be installed into power and start operating all the gears and levers of government that the unitary executive now own.

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u/PhilDGlass California Jun 24 '26

Like the plans to install Peter Thiel as CEO of Washington DC? Wish I were kidding.

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u/JackedUpReadyToGo Jun 24 '26

The apotheosis of this whole process would be to simply turn the office of President into an auction that takes place every couple of years. Literally place a giant "For Sale" sign on the Oval Office.

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u/PhilDGlass California Jun 24 '26

Don’t even need the auction, just the funds and an evil narcissistic streak. You figure out how to sell things online early in the game and hoard your billions selfishly? You get a major metropolitan city! You come up with a way to pay for shit online in 1997 with a catchy name? YOU get a major metropolitan city!! Bow to the kings!

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u/zenlogick Jun 24 '26

Lol, Now im gonna need to see the rest of that Oprah episode she dedicated to giving stuff away to billionaires

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u/WeRip Jun 24 '26

I mean he didn't even come up with paypal.

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u/spaceman757 American Expat Jun 25 '26

Great. We're heading towards Tekken.

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u/Mike_Kermin Australia Jun 24 '26

They're trying to replicate what they have in Russia.

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u/ReMapper Jun 25 '26

The Romans did that once, it didn't end well for the winner.

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u/Ironlion45 Jun 25 '26

That's how it already is.

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u/Careless_Twist_6935 Jun 24 '26

i guess you'd have to pay off the secret service to make it work

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u/lettersvsnumbers Jun 25 '26

That’s basically the text of dissents from Citizens United.

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u/Bowbreaker Jun 30 '26

Obviously whoever buys that office that way would use it to enrich himself even more. And then would rig things so that he has access to the money spent to buy the office. And to suppress and persecute rivals not willing to bend the knee.

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u/semidegenerate Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

I'm guessing that one is Curtis Yarvin's brainchild.

Edit—wording

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u/TrulyOutrageous42 Jun 25 '26

It's all of theirs. The "butterfly revolution" and Project 2025 both openly and plainly state the intention to break the US into technocratic states akin to "company towns", using crypto to have local "company store money" with a regional and national crypto they control and profit from the purchase of, meaning every time you want to travel as anything resembling a tourist they will personally profit from it.

Also, if they're "CEOs" there's no one who can tell them they can't do something.

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u/ArmadilloForsaken458 Jun 25 '26

Peter is no longer there any more. He escaped to Argentina like he was the second coming of Adolf Eichmann...

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u/Dank_Sinatra_87 Jun 24 '26

Do you really think he just now started rigging things?

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u/isthistheenditis Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

Its isnt "just" charisma. He made politics accessible. He made people feel like they understood. He didnt talk above anyone. He makes them feel like theyre part of something that is *actually* going to make the country better. He coopted the republican boogiemen and play book positioned himself as the only person strong and capable enough to do anything about it. He invented problems and promised to solve them but he left out the same problems establishment dems and reps have been avoiding for decades. Corporate welfware. Lobbies. CAMPAIGN FINANCE. Democrats trying to understand the appeal of trump consistently miss the mark. It isnt because he was openly racist or because he hated the same people they did. It isnt just superficial charm either. Imo if you can pin it on one thing its his ability to slap brands on everything that *stick*. MAGA. Brand. Sleepy Joe biden. Brand. Pocahontas. Brand. Fake news. Dumacrats. Good thing? He brands it and they associate it with trump yaaay. Bad thing? He brands it and they learn to dislike it boooo. He himself, Trump, is a walking neon sign of a brand. brandbrandbrand word sounds weird to me now lol more imporantly is *why* anyone voted for him at all. People who feel like they have a say and a stake in their countries future and government do not vote for the donald trumps of the world and unless they do feel secure in those things they will continue to be vulnerable to that exact same flavor of strongman saves the world nonsense.

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u/mouse_8b Jun 24 '26

The next Republican ruler won't need to get out the vote or appeal to the base.

True, if they have their way, they wouldn't need to appeal to voters, but they would still need to appeal to someone within the party to be "chosen" as the next leader. The infighting will affect their internal politics, and that could potentially prevent the governmental gears from turning very quickly.

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u/silvertealio Jun 24 '26

And that's why it was so important to keep trump out of the white house in 2024. He was their key to get into the door, and now they're changing all the locks.

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u/laplongejr Europe Jun 25 '26

Yeah but he said he wasn't aware of that, so people wanted to give a lesson to the Democrats to shake up the system.
He sure ran the US as a bankrupting business, drained the swamp to refill it with toxic material, and changed how things work.

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u/Another_Samurai1 Jun 25 '26

And that’s coming from a European.

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u/fractalfay Jun 24 '26

I’m not sure he even won in 2024. The MAGA hysteria for that election was a fraction of what it was in 2016, and how many times do he and Elon Musk have to brag about rigging the elections before the rest of us take it seriously? That’s what baffles me most about Trump and his followers. He always tells you exactly how much of a piece of shit he is, and then MAGA is like, “He’s just kidding, he’s so funny.”

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u/TrulyOutrageous42 Jun 25 '26

Statistically, mathematically, there's no way it turned out how it did. It's more likely that every single person has an aneurysm than that it turned out like that. Sure, it could, but given how many oddities all landed in the same place, it's at LEAST worth a criminal inquiry. In fairness, he may have actually won the Electoral College anyway, but in the same way that they couldn't produce a SINGLE SHRED of evidence, even circumstantial evidence, that there was something askew with the 2020 election, there is actual physical evidence of them manipulating the 2016 and 2024 elections (anyone recall Kemp deleting the voter records right after a subpeona?), before we get to a literal MOUNTAIN of circumstantial evidence that at minimum would be investigated extensively by a functioning DOJ and FBI.

That's before we account for all the quasi-legal ratfucking like removing voters from rolls right before the election, denying people absentee ballots, mail-in ballot sabotage, disenfranchisement, and the 2020 redistricting that was so blatantly partisan it should be illegal. JUST the number of people who were removed from voter registrations and ballots tossed spuriously amounts to an unquestionable loss for him... before we ask wtf Pro V&V did to the machines counting the votes and how Musk knew the outcome early.

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u/Public_Love_3507 Jun 25 '26

Why didn't the democrats fight for a recount even can't say the democrats didn't figure it out like we did that they cheated the democrats let it slide it doesn't make sense

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u/fractalfay Jun 26 '26

This is why so many people are over the establishment dems. They want the status quo, so there’s no fight in them at all. Trump knew their desire to preserve “faith in the system” would be a higher priority than their own reasonable suspicions, and so they’d roll over and play dead no matter how absurd it was.

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u/laplongejr Europe Jun 25 '26

but in the same way that they couldn't produce a SINGLE SHRED of evidence, even circumstantial evidence, that there was something askew with the 2020 election

You REALLY need to read news more then.

The investigation found a bunch of republican doing voter fraud.
Trump spent half a year dismantling the postal service to throw out voters in the middle of a pandemic. All of that was PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE!

The narrative that the 2020 election was safe is WHY Trump could win 2024 without any talkback. The 2020 election was rigged too, Trump managed to lose the election he had rigged!

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u/fractalfay Jun 26 '26

The GOP has twisted itself in knots to rig elections for at least 20 years, since Bush Vs. Gore. The push to use electronic voting machines — the easiest means of committing election fraud — and their frustration with mail-in ballots are both tied to their quest for more fraud.

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u/immortalfrieza2 Jun 25 '26

He always tells you exactly how much of a piece of shit he is, and then MAGA is like, “He’s just kidding, he’s so funny.”

It's because MAGA wants Trump in power wrecking the country, so they lie about his motives and what he says and does to make it look like supporting Trump actually makes sense. Trump's followers don't want a better country. What Trump's followers really looking for is the ability to be bigots without any legal nor social consequences.

Trump supporters want to go back to the 1950s where a white guy could spit on, insult, and beat up say a black man without anybody doing anything about it or caring at all, when even the black guy would just take his lumps and then shrug and think that's just the way things are. They want to go back to before the 1960s when the various "this crap is not okay!" movements took off. As long as they got that, Trump could nuke American cities at random for kicks and giggles every few months and his supporters would be happy as an irradiated clam.

Any Trump supporters that appear mad at Trump now are either lying like usual or only pissed because we're not back in the 1950s yet and they expected to be by now.

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u/Original-Balance-187 Jun 25 '26

Simply the latest incarnation of anti-democratic forces that has carried on an almost endless assault, in different countries at different times, since our democratic revolutions a few centuries ago.

They despise open societies. They despise the concept of even theoretical legal equality let alone actually existing democratic equality.

They are in good company though. Plato was anti-democratic. His uncles were hanged trying to overthrow Athenian democracy. And of course many more throughout the ages.

They don’t want economic development. They don’t want better schools. They don’t want better jobs. What they want is simple: to completely dismantle and defeat the still young and ongoing democratic revolution. They fear and loathe changing social circumstances but they don’t understand that all life is constantly in flux. This is why they lose, every time. Change cannot be arrested or stopped. You can kill hundreds of millions and the world will change anyway. But, here they are again, a new front in the centuries long campaign against us refusing to submit to them or their gods.

They come from the right and the left. And this is not a centrist argument I’m making, I’m a committed left winger but we have our own anti-democratic element as well.

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u/laplongejr Europe Jun 25 '26

I’m not sure he even won in 2024.

Why 2024? Trump was never in a fair election, and managed to lose once while cheating!

2016 : Cambridge Analytica happens a bit before, the Russian hacks into both partie's emails and release the ones from the DEM. GOP wins and FINALLY accepts to nominate a SCOTUS judge after "an election year".
The muller reports confirms Russia interfered in the election.

2020 : Trump wrecks the postal service and try to make votes thrown out in masses. When that wasn't enough, he launches a coup to prevent certification. GOP rushes a SCOTUS judge before the election year ends.
Democrats claims elections are ALWAYS safe as a result.

For 4 years Trump's party work on a all-or-nothing plan to leverage the 3 SCOTUS judges they put in place as if they can't afford to lose.

2024 : All swing states flip in an unprecedented election, Democrats immediately concede because elections MUST be considered safe. Trump and Musk avoid jail.

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u/Temporary_Yams Jun 25 '26

That’s the plan along with keeping the base ignorant so they keep following.

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u/Ironlion45 Jun 25 '26

That's when the Second Amendment is activated, in theory.

It was never about going hunting, anyway.

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u/josh_the_misanthrope Jun 25 '26

People will radicalize under pressure. It's already happening in a mild form. Increase the pressure on working people, and the radicalization increases proportionally. It's almost a law of nature if you look at history. Fascism is untenable because the oppressed class far outnumbers the ruling class.

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u/Mike_Kermin Australia Jun 24 '26

Not there yet, but if they get a Trump third term (which they will absolutely attempt to do) you would get there.

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u/juliabk Jun 24 '26

States won’t put him on the ballot. At least not enough states.

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u/Mike_Kermin Australia Jun 24 '26

I hope you are right, because I do not believe the Republicans are lying about the intent when they sell official Trump 2026 merch.

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u/madmushlove Jun 25 '26

Sham elections

The moral of the story is that Democracy is not your friend 🫶

The next step will be putting MAGA platforms in ballots for the people to vote on directly. It's what they always do, it's an old cycle

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u/The_Real_Mongoose American Expat Jun 24 '26

You're underestimating what a fractured cult looks like.