"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, Thälmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. Thälmann famously said that ‘some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest’ of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called ‘social fascists.’
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitler’s orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."
There’s a lot you can say about how broken US electoralism is, but using this as an example is just not accurate.
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Hitler wasn’t elected by people, he lost to Hindenburg in 1932 and was appointed Chancellor later.
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The Nazis who appointed him Chancellor had the majority, meaning more than every other party combined. Meaning third parties didn’t syphon the Hitler vote
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Hindenburg didn’t want to appoint him, but meetings with industrialists made him change his mind
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Hindenburg then gave Hitler more powers after the Heischtag fire.
If anything, it’s an example of what happens when you reach over the aisle and compromise with nazis.
Number 2 is wrong. The nazis never had a majority, only a plurality. If the other parties, the social democrats, the communist party, and the Centre party had banded together instead of fighting amongst themselves, he wouldn’t have been made Chancellor.
Banded together and all refused to have a Nazi Chancellor? They could have done that, this just happened in France but this time the left had a majority. Centrists are more likely to join the Nazis than the communists though
I’m gonna assume you’re still talking about the Nazis since that was your original comment so let’s look at the reichstag breakdown of the election prior to Hitler being appointed Chancellor.
The Social Democrats won 121 seats in November 1932, the communists won 100 seats. The Social Democrats were socialists and the communists were communists. The nazis had 196 seats in the 1932 election. So if the socialists and communists had combined they would have had 221 seats which is more than 196. And those were leftist parties who were bickering. So if the leftists had combined they would have kept Hitler from being chancellor when he was appointed that in January 1933. But what about the centre party? Well, they had 70 seats and had a significant wing that was left and wanted to work with the social democrats. Now if we are conservative about it and say just 25 of those 70 were leftists, that would bring the 221 up to 246. And if the other 45 went to the nazis, which all of them never would because it was a big tent with diverse view points, that would have brought a nazi coalition to 241. So not as big of a majority but still a majority for leftists.
So yes, again, if the socialists, communists, and leftist wing of the centre party had combined their powers and hadn’t been bickering, hitler wouldn’t have been chancellor.
Basic source for the election results of November 1932. There’s more pages for the parties and stuff on there so go ahead and poke around.
The Social Democrats won 121 seats in November 1932, the communists won 100 seats. The Social Democrats were socialists and the communists were communists. The nazis had 196 seats in the 1932 election. So if the socialists and communists had combined they would have had 221 seats which is more than 196. And those were leftist parties who were bickering.
The problem here isn’t “leftist parties bickering”, it is self-evidently “the SPD aligning themselves with liberalism and fascism”. It’s not like the KPD refused to form a majority with other parties.
As an aside, “socialist” and “communist” are generally interchangeable terms and the SPD were neither by conventional definitions, but were instead (being very charitable to them) what we would call DemSocs.
No, that still incorrect. First, KPD, SPD and Centre did not have an outright majority together. Second, it is the Chancellor that is in charge of forming coalitions, they can’t just form a coalition if they had an outright majority anyway in the Weimar system and at no point did Centre try to form a coalition and was turned down by the KPD. The entire point of Hindenburg appointing Franz Von Papen was that he thought that he could convince both the Nazis and Centre to form a coalition with the conservative and monarchist parties. And the reason later to appoint Hitler as chancellor was to form a Nazi led coalition.
The only part that is wrong is that Nazis did not have an overall majority, it was because of Hindenburg, monarchists, conservatives, and right-wing liberals deciding to side with the Nazis.
The real lesson, I think, is that fascists take power when the mechanisms of liberal democracy crumble away.
I have great reason for concern on this in modern times, even if the details are different.
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Blaming progressives for not aligning with centrists instead of blaming centrists for siding with Nazis to lock out progressives is a weird take.
That’s historical revisionism. They would have easily created a coalition government to oppose Hitler, but without the support of the communist party, the conservative block ultimately held onto control, and Hitler was appointed chancellor by Hindenburg.
You’re disingenuously conflating the conservatives that ceded power to the Nazi party (that had only taken about 30% of the vote) with the center left that reached out to the communists in an attempt to stop them. A decision by the head of the communist party that directly led to the murder of millions of people, including himself.
We are talking about a parliamentary system. The communists could have formed a coalition government that had a majority, but they refused. Without their support, no party won a majority or were able to form a majority coalition government, and the Nazis were able to take control from the conservatives in power (or more accurately, they gave it to them freely).
I’m not a historian, so someone correct me if I’m wrong.
That comment was not referring to literal nazis. They were talking about the American right wing.
Ok. Then I was explaining why it’s not a “weird take.” Because, you know… History.
It may not have been a weird take in the early 20th century. It’s a weird take now.
It’s literally an equivalent scenario.
Ah, of course. America’s communist party should be trying to form a coalition government in Parliament this year. Literally equivalent.
Essentially, yes. Bernie Sanders caucuses with the DNC.
No, at no point did the Centre try to form a coalition with the KPD, but were turned down. In the Weimar system, it is the Chancellor that is in charge of forming coalitions, so even if the KPD, SPD, and Centre had enough seats to form a majority (which they didn’t), they couldn’t just form a coalition. This is why Franz Von Papen was appointed by Hindenburg, since he was expected to be able to convince the Centre party and Nazis to form a coalition with the conservatives and monarchists. And why when that failed and there was a failure to form a ruling coalition that Hindenburg appointed Hitler as chancellor to create a Nazi lead coalition.
Huh. Thanks for the correction. Sounds like Hindenburg sold Germany out big time.
We could avoid this with ranked choice voting.
Unless you would otherwise vote for Trump. Then definitely vote for a Third Party.
If you don’t care if Trump wins, sure…
He’s saying instead of voting for Trump (if you were going to do that) vote 3rd party so you don’t vote for Trump… It’s a joke
Vote for who YOU want to be president, regardless of if they have a chance to win or not. I wasn’t going to vote for Biden (or Trump) no matter what. I see people saying if you vote 3rd party you’re waisting your vote. You aren’t. You are supporting the candidate you like.
Hitler didn’t win because he beat Hindenburg after Thälmann split the vote. He lost to Hindenburg, the center-right candidate endorsed by the social democrats, then won anyway because Hindenburg appointed him Chancellor.
The social democrats were the ones who refused to back Thälmann, the only anti-Hitler candidate in the race. And the same way that the communists called them “social fascists,” the social democrats used similar rhetoric, frequently saying that the communists were no different from the Nazis, that there was no difference between the far left and the far right.
But also, we don’t have to keep rehashing 100 year old grudges from another continent.
Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932
The mistake Ernst Thälmann made was not throwing his support behind checks notes Paul von Hindenburg, the man who ordered the police massacre of the Spartacus League?
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested.
Who elevated Adolf Hitler to the Chancellorship in 1933?
It’s not old Junkers like von Hindenburg that they’d ally with. It’s other slightly different leftist factions and a few centrists.
The centrists were aligned with Hindenburg. Friekorps were just as avid commie-bashers as any National Socialist.
The main problem Ernst had was affiliating himself with the Russian Revolution and advocating for more of the same in Germany. That made him an enemy of nationalists during a period in which “International Jewery” was the boogie man under everyone’s bed.
The idea that he could just strike up common cause with people who wanted him dead is absurd.
Particularly, there was huge overlap in membership between the Freikorps and the Stürmabteilung. So it is important to note that the Freikorps was a direct precursor to the Nazi brownshirts.
The mistake Ernst Thälmann made was not throwing his support behind checks notes Paul von Hindenburg, the man who ordered the police massacre of the Spartacus League?
Um…no? Von Hindenburg was the conservative. They’d have thrown their support behind the centrist, Wilhelm Marx, who lost by about 3%, thanks (in part) to the 6.3% Thälmann took. The rest of the blame lay with the BVP when they protested against the Social Democrats by siding with von Hindenburg.
Who elevated Adolf Hitler to the Chancellorship in 1933?
Von Hindenburg, with the help of the governing coalition formed by the Nazis and DNVP, all of whom were conservative.
What point are you trying to make?
They’d have thrown their support behind the centrist, Wilhelm Marx, who lost by about 3%
The Catholic Centre Party was in open - often violent - conflict with the largely atheist-leaning German Communists. The German Catholics were terrified of a repeat of the Spanish Civil War, where Spaniards were revolting against a religious dictatorship and burning down churches.
Von Hindenburg, with the help of the governing coalition formed by the Nazis and DNVP
Wilhelm was aligned with the DNVP as far back as 1923. He was the one who pushed through the Enabling Act of 1923, which the Nazis would ruthlessly exploit a decade later, with their help. And he continued to govern in coalition with the DNVP through 1928, when he was dismissed from the Chancellory by…
Von Hindenburg, with the help of the governing coalition formed by the Nazis and DNVP
So, to answer your question
What point are you trying to make?
My point is that blaming Ernest Thälmann for his minority party position in the German government through 1933 when it would make much more sense to finger Alfred Hugenberg and his DNVP, which abandoned Wilhelm in '28 and aligned with
Von Hindenburg, with the help of the governing coalition formed by the Nazis
So, first, the way you copy+paste that response is difficult to follow, counterintuitive, and unnecessary.
Second, yes the KPD were often in violent conflict with the centrist parties. Violence had been reciprocal, unfortunately. And I’m not sure why Marx (a centrist) aligning with the DNVP years before undermines the broader point that it wasn’t Marx who elevated Hitler to the chancellorship. Sometimes US Democrats have negotiated with Republicans, but that doesn’t mean they’re responsible for everything Republicans have done or will do.
In this case, Thälmann and the BVP share the blame for not seeing Hitler and the conservatives as a bigger, more existential threat. Whatever threat Thälmann perceived from the SPD, BVP, and Marx’s former allies (the DNVP), they obviously dwarfed in comparison to the threat of the Nazis. Not saying their fears were unjustified, mind you, only that they obviously chose wrong by not looking at the bigger picture. Maybe they thought they were doing the right thing in holding true to their principles and not joining forces with the SPD and BVP, but it’s obvious now that they should have taken strategic influence more seriously, for all of their sakes.
Edit: Looks like the .ml brigade showed up in force today.
What point are you trying to make?
Muddying the waters. That’s the point these shills are trying to make.
I feel like we need something like the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact that is aiming to eliminate the electoral college, but for Ranked Choice.
Passing this federally is too hard. We need do to this state by state.
Until I can vote for a third party with RCV, then I might as well be saying that I have zero preference about the GOP and DNC options on the table.
Rightwing Dems that get to the primary off corporate donors in the primary will never let RCC take over
The only reason they win in generals is the only other option is Republicans.
To fix anything on the federal level we need the Dem party onboard and all on the same page, then heavy majorities, then fix the system
Dems are not letting that happen.
I’d argue that you don’t need it in every state. You just need it in enough states to make a 3rd party candidate viable.
Look up the Moral Majority. They wrested control of the GOP from Nelson Rockefeller et al by showing up at every local Republican function with enough votes to make sure they got heard. They started out putting their sheriffs and county clerks on the ballots.
Alaska does it (assuming they won’t repeal it in nov). Oregon is going to try and do it, if it hopefully passes. If we get two states proving it works and isn’t a problem, that momentum can snowball.
Please help support the RCV effort in Oregon if you can. https://www.oregonrcv.org/
I heard this a couple of days ago, and the more I’m looking into it, the more I find the green party a joke at best.
Alaska has a number of things. A population of conservationists amoung the general population who are likely disaffected. An environment that is being exploited harder than most states. Now ranked choice voting. Most people would see them as the environmentalist party. How much good could they do towards that cause if they got into that state legislature? What if they could take the congress seat or a senator? If they took the electoral votes it would be harder since the ranked choice only seems to be for the states choice, but they could prove they could win at some level. How many candidates are they running in Alaska? One, jill stein. How much effort are they putting in there for her? I can’t tell. The main criticism of them does not exist there, but they aren’t even trying. They can accomplish many of there goals there more easily than anywhere else. It’s the perfect storm for them. Pathetic.
I wish it were different, but the Green Party sucks in the two countries I’ve lived in. I want to vote for environmentalists, but they seem to be Russian shills in the US, and they’ve had literal stasi members in Germany, where they were so opposed to nuclear, that the country still uses mostly coal.
Problem is that RCV will only have a chance in deep blue states, and all it would accomplish is reducing the blue representation in congress.
To put it bluntly, all it would accomplish is more in fighting and contributing to the reputation that Dems are ineffective. Except, it would be the “blue aligned coalition” instead of “Dems”
The only real path to making this change is to give Dems a super majority so they can amend the constitution.
And, well, the minority of Red voters have a majority of power thanks to the electoral college, so a super majority is absolutely impossible for the foreseeable future.
Edit - it’d also cause disruptions in States that don’t adopt RCV, as “progressives” protest vote 3rd party and sandbag the Dems
These posts are always missing the point. Voters will vote third party. Your moral claims won’t change that, but your candidate’s policies could. Also, most of us don’t live in swing states. Don’t pretend our vote matters when it never did.
Not a single party on the face of the earth is gonna switch to an alternative voting system. Democracy devolving into 2 parties is a problem in nearly every country and unfortunately the ones who can make the change are the ones who benefit from first pass the post voting
No “democratic” party is gonna switch to STAR or a similar voting system unless the citizens start being very loud.
On other hand, radicalizing people to support alternative voting is also very hard, because it is hard to explain and hard to understand for majority of people and its often viewed as if the supporter is trying to benefit from the said change and trying to sabotage democracy, when in reality, they are the ones who want real democracy
„Democracy”
Even where there is no prospect of achieving their election the workers must put up their own candidates to preserve their independence, to gauge their own strength and to bring their revolutionary position and party standpoint to public attention. They must not be led astray by the empty phrases of the democrats, who will maintain that the workers’ candidates will split the democratic party and offer the forces of reaction the chance of victory. All such talk means, in the final analysis, that the proletariat is to be swindled. The progress which the proletarian party will make by operating independently in this way is infinitely more important than the disadvantages resulting from the presence of a few reactionaries in the representative body. If the forces of democracy take decisive, terroristic action against the reaction from the very beginning, the reactionary influence in the election will already have been destroyed
Karl Marx 1850
Marx didn’t live long enough to see just how ineffectual that line of thinking actually is.
Same capitalists trying the same failed tactics of voter suppression.
Every one of his perspectives of capitalism and it’s bourgeoisie governments still rings true.
Rings true, isn’t true in actual practice.
Rings true in practice
Sounds a lot like the Trumpers decide if something is true to me.
Is the US Socialist? Has Socialism been brought about by establishment parties anywhere in history?
Nope, which is part of the problem.
Yep, which is why Socialists answered the Reform or Revolution question in Marx’s time quite definitively. The answer is Revolution.
careful what you say to jordanlund. he’s a mod and despite his supposed love for socialism (and chaotic good t-shirt), he likes to ban accounts that promote violent revolution.
If my relatively tame comments defending the basics of Marxism get me banned, then they will be doing me a favor.
Admins and mods in the West are walking a fine legal line, and servers can be seized. Not saying I agree with it, but that I do recognize it.
FDR has entered the chat.
Look up the New Deal.
Hell, look up the 1956 GOP Party platform.
Yes. Look up ‘the New Deal.’
FDR was a Social Democrat, not a Socialist.
Slow motion is better than no motion.
It’s pointless to argue over who is a ‘real’ Socialist. I can come up with arguments about anyone you care to name to prove they weren’t ‘real’ Socialists. What are the policies that actually improve people’s lives?
FDR was okay, then his safety nets were stripped away. They were only ever temporary concessions because Capitalists were always the ones in control, and they still are. In this manner, it was eventually no motion.
Almost as if the point of socialism is to strip away the the means of production from the capitalists in order to install a dictatorship of the proletariat, and not simply apply social safety-net band-aids so that capitalism can continue to function.
American liberals are so exhausting in their selective application of definitions.
then his safety nets were stripped away.
Almost as if it’s important to get out and vote in every election.
Ronald Reagan sabotaged Jimmy Carter’s Iran policy and squeaked in with the help of spoiler John Anderson.
You yourself said it; there were good policies in place, the Right hated them, and used a lot of dirty tricks to get rid of the good policies.
Having good government is like controlling diabetes; you have to be vigilant all the time.
If it wasn’t for his Secretary of Labor, Francis Perkins, who was socialist, none of the things that he passed would have ever come to fruition. He gets way too much for credit for the ideology of a female socialist
I don’t think “ineffectual” is the word you’re looking for there.
Are you doing a lot of things exactly the way they did in 1850?
Politics is
So, things like social media and votes for women [to name two] are meaningless?
I agree entirely, in regards to politics in 1850’s Germany with its diverse multiparty political ecosystem.
As for current American politics, where we are deeply entrenched in a societal tug-of-war in an ostensible two-party system, where third parties can swing policy in a largely undemocratic direction by spoiling the vote in close elections, I disagree completely. Third parties serve no purpose in a two-party representative democracy.
If we can break the two party political duopoly, then I will never complain about another fringe party voter ever again. Until then, you better fucking vote for the lesser evil, because letting the greater evil win, as we learned in 2017-2020, is really fucking bad.
If anything, letting Democrats win the next few major elections could spell doom for the Republican party as a whole, and give us a chance to introduce some actual competition to the Democratic party.
I wish that I could snap my fingers and have it fixed today, but that’s not how societies work. Accelerationism always requires violence, and violence isn’t how you should uphold democracy, unless you are defending its pillars against a direct threat. A two-party duopoly is something we the people need to defeat.
That means we need to abolish the electoral college, introduce universal mail-in voting, defeat all right-wing disenfranchisement efforts, and introduce ranked-choice voting to all elections. These are radical changes that will take a lot of work to accomplish, and that will face a lot of opposition.
Under Democrat leadership, these things are possible. Under Republican leadership, we’ll be lucky if we still have elections.
Your solution to defeating the duopoly is continuing giving them power and participating in it?
It’s not a way to defeat the duopoly, it’s a way to survive under it.
Voting 3rd party is also not a way to defeat the duopoly.
Would you like your vote to matter after November?
Then yes, I’m pushing the duopoly this time around.
So if they can’t vote for their views now, and we keep pushing the duopoly, when do we get democracy?
That’s the neat part… you don’t.
When you start doing things that actually work.
Look up the Moral Majority and Jerry Falwell. They would show up at every local GOP organizing event with enough voters to make sure their candidates for jobs like mayor, sheriff, and county clerk got the nod.
Gotcha, I’ll keep organizing outside the useless electoral system.
That’s a neat way to say “being too lazy to actually make a difference, but I don’t want to feel bad about it”.
What laws have you gotten passed?
That’s the thing, they never do. They have been pushing the lesser evil splitting the vote bullshit for over 150 years. The only people that benefits is the wealthy
Were the party system changes before then more due to
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a major party crushing the other major party, and then splitting, or
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a minor party growing and eventually replacing one of the two major parties?
Bonus points if anyone has a source on this.
October Surprise comes to mind.
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It’s not like your vote matters now. Money has all the power in this country, voters have none. When 1 billionaire has more political influence than entire states you have no power. You’ve surrendered your power to the donor class.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/11/opinion/politicians-voters.html nyt. “Despite extensive public outreach…11%…” The NEW YORK TIMES, of all publications!
This is the epitome of why Democrats hate Trump. He says the quiet things out loud. He has said ‘I dont care about you. I just want your vote.’
This article confirms this, the Princeton study from 2012 confirms this. Several sources have confirmed politicians don’t care about us, only the monied class
Who do you think has a better chance of fixing that? Putin’s orange Fleshlight? The chick he had dinner with? Brainworm? Some other rando that gets less than 1% of the vote?
I hear you…it’s a problem…
Throwing your vote away this cycle ensures that your vote will never matter again.
The vote thrown away is the vote that’s cast out of fear. The dnc’s entire platform for the last few decades has been. We are not the other guy. You were casting a vote in opposition to the other guy, not in favor of policy or legislation, but not the other guy, that’s a protest vote
No…I’m voting for policy this time around. If I get the state exception for state taxes I get a point and a half back.
Trump’s tariffs should fucking terrify everyone…think shit is expensive now, wait until that goes through.
What’s the 3rd parties offering that has a remote chance of dealing with either of those problems?
Give me a reasonable alternative and I’ll take it.
You don’t name a candidate to vote for, just say we shouldn’t participate.
Who do you think scares Donnie more, Harris or your non-participation?
If anything, letting Democrats win the next few major elections could spell doom for the Republican party as a whole, and give us a chance to introduce some actual competition to the Democratic party.
This will never happen. The replacement party will be fascist. The Republican Party’s fascism doesn’t exist because of “brainwashing” or “conmen,” it exists because fascism rises from decaying Capitalism. If you don’t get rid of the Capitalism, the conditions for fascism remain.
That means we need to abolish the electoral college, introduce universal mail-in voting, defeat all right-wing disenfranchisement efforts, and introduce ranked-choice voting to all elections. These are radical changes that will take a lot of work to accomplish, and that will face a lot of opposition.
Under Democrat leadership, these things are possible. Under Republican leadership, we’ll be lucky if we still have elections.
The Democrats will never work against their donors. This will never happen.
Especially when their donors are the same donors to the GOP
That part. They know where we’re going, the only difference as far as I can see is some prefer it slower, to keep from spooking the populace, and others are willing to slaughter any part of the populace that resist.
One day, the lambs will stop screaming.
Absolutely.
So how’d that work out for him and Germany?
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The liberals fucking won that election and it was the liberal Hindenburg appointing Hitler to the Chancellorship that facilitated his rise to power, not anything the KPD did. This is disgusting historical revisionism that a search engine could dispel in 5 seconds, but you choose to warp history to make it look like Hitler actually won the election and make the liberals who enabled him seem blameless. It is, in effect, apologia for Nazi collaborators. Exactly appropriate for someone shilling for Dems while they gleefully subsidize genocide.
Gleefully?
No you’re right they’re super sad about funding the genocide
there sure seems to be a lot of Nazi apologia coming out of .world recently. wonder why that is 🤔
AIPAC, Russia, and CCP. Authoritarian polities unite. They’ve bought everyone.
No way it’s something connected to America, one of the most direct inspirations for the Nazis. No, the reason there’s this Nazi apologia must be the sissy pee.
I’ve seen a lot more come out of lemmy.ml.
Especially the Russian and Chinese kind, they apologise for all kinds of atrocities those fascist states make. Even apologise illegal invasions of sovereign nations.
He can write executive orders all day long but unless he’s repealing a previous order, it requires Congress to fund them.
And you might think he’ll just blunder along like last time, and I’d like to point out he did a lot of damage last time, but I believe he is FULLY aware of Project 2025 and I think he would try his best to enact much of it because it involves loyalty to him and enriching him. Either way, I’m not interested in finding out.
