I actually agree #ObamaWasBetterAtEverything. when he was running an insurgent campaign against the establishment candidate hillary clinton, he pulled no punches, didn't play nice, didn't do bullshit civility politics. instead he did this and won:
here's more of obama just brutally mocking hillary clinton, calling out her hypocrisy and lies, her fakeness
remember in that debate in 2016 when bernie was asked point-blank by hillary to name one example of a vote she changed due to donations and being corrupt, and bernie didn't say anything while we were all shouting: "THE BANKRUPTCY BILL!!!". obama said it:
oh ok, but surely hillary clinton accused obama of being a sexist for saying all this, right? how did obama respond to that? did he cower in fear? did he profusely apologize and thereby accept the bullshit premise of the smear? no, here's what he did:
meanwhile some on the "left", pathetic, weak and fickle as ever, are having a discussion about how they weren't kind enough, weren't empathetic enough, have to talk more about "systems" and less about individuals. just admit you are afraid of power and want perpetual opposition
here's kautsky, known at the time as "the pope of marxism" and revered by lenin, decades before his reformist turn laying out clearly what he and many of the left later forgot: "the system exists only in persons, and I cannot attack it without attacking persons"
bernie's decision to not do this w/ hillary in 2016 and biden in 2020 was disastrous, as was corbyn's decision to not do it with may, johnson and the internal saboteurs in the labour party. there were people begging them to fight, pleading with them, but they took the "high road"
I don't consider leading your movement voluntarily to slaughter like little lambs to be "taking the high road". it's the opposite of that. it's a betrayal, it's cowardly, it's weak, it shows fear of power rather than the willingness to take it and save countless lives by doing so
and if the left and its future leaders aren't going to learn this lesson from our defeats over the past decade, something that those with power or desiring to take it from the right and center like obama and starmer know intuitively, it's going to keep being mercilessly destroyed
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