- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- progressivepolitics@lemmy.world
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22407219
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What we need to be asking is, if everyone wants healthcare, better wages, and cheaper housing, then why are we fighting about trans and not having absolute agreement on every other detail?
We’re SUPPOSED to fight amongst ourselves. Per the corporate buyers of both the DNC and RNC. Dance puppets dance. And we do.
It’s a difficult issue. As someone on the left, I didn’t just arbitrarily choose to take up the fight for trans rights. Without external motivation, I would be happy to consider trans issues a non-issue for me, as a cisgender person.
But the right has targeted the trans community with hatred and violence. They want to pass laws that limit free expression.
I can’t just ignore the attacks against trans people because I think healthcare, wages, and housing are more important. If I don’t fight for trans people, I am allowing them to be oppressed.
Ask the Republican fascists why they keep making trans people their biggest fucking issue. They’ll just gaslight you, or course, but the answer is that it’s easier to unite their uneducated voting base with fear and hatred than it is to make any real promises about improving the American quality of life, because the latter will never be possible without deprioritizing the wealthy who own their campaign finances.
Don’t blame the left for standing up to the right’s bullying. We fight for trans people because the right is fighting against them. We’ll stop when they stop.
Yeah but my daughter lost a volleyball game so fuck you
You do realize they literally did the social equivalent of throwing spaghetti noodles at walls to see what would stick, right? Granted this whole angle of the conversation is more for the right than left.
They started with bathrooms. Impractical, rather meh, and we already have single bathrooms in restaurants and such, that are unisex. No one has died, so we’re good there. Nonstarter issue. Besides, what are you going to do, but a genital checker on the door?
They/them, eh, whatever. At the most you’re getting an eyeroll. Again, non-starter.
Sports. Let’s face it, this is real. If you’re born with a male body, you totally have male strength advantage. I own a handgun because I lack that advantage (but that’s another debate.). They found their mark. Easy outrage, with a, well damn, we’ll have to give you that one, from many on the left. While some sit silent out of fear of not showing support elsewhere. And so they run on it.
And, congratulations Right voters, you just took the squirrel! bait, intended to draw your focus away from higher wages, healthcare, and taxing the rich at 22% like the rest of us paycheck to paycheck people.
Bonus, now we get to watch you guys fight about it instead of joining in solidarity to fight us. Dance puppets dance!
Republican and Democrat both end in flaming death ball 2060. I guess we’re gonna be on fire and racist, instead of just… on fire.
I still voted Dem, because it’s falling with style, not, dive-bombing headfirst into the concrete, but don’t think we really had a better future, just a softer crash.
Scientists at MIT predicted 2040 to be the year of societal collapse… so much sooner than you’re expecting. I don’t imagine it will be overnight either. It will be this gradual slide. A decade from now you’ll be boiling twig stew before you have to report to your 16 hour shift at the lithium mine that is all but dried up.
Just goes to show Democrats (in general) either don’t know or don’t care about all that imminent danger they kept going on about. Their privilege insulates them in both cases, and they don’t care that we will run towards theocracy and authoritarianism—with the rest of us bearing the brunt of it all.
I don’t think both parties are the same, but I do think Democrats are complicit by failing to do anything substantial to prevent this slide into fascism, naively acting like “playing fair” with people using guerilla tactics and chasing moderate voters on the right was viable strategy.
I blame the voters, not the campaigns.
I am tired of all blame going to the marketing, and forfeiting any concept of agency in each individual voter’s decisions.
The depressing thing is, I’m aware of how unrealistic it is to yell every voter into making better decisions for their, and others’, lives.
Bullshit.
The democrats could have easily passed electoral reform and given 3rd parties equal access to the electoral process in the states they controlled. Then there would have been multiple attempts to defeat the republicans each election.
Democrats would prefer the nation fall to authoritarianism over having to compete for your vote on a fair playing field.
Party over country, till the day the country dies.
Politics has never gone well when it’s been a game of determining who exactly is pointing their gun at the puppy by being obstinate over one thing. It’s basically being a single issue voter.
The fall to MAGA is tragic, but it’s: “THE VOTERS would rather prefer the nation fall to authoritarians”.
I will also point out: Ballot measures for ranked choice voting, independent of candidates, failed in some states. So it’s clearly not as popular as you think it is.
Yeah, there are lots of people doing everything they can to abdicate themselves because they stayed home, or voted third party in protest (and then spent hours on Lemmy telling people why voting for Harris is actually just as bad for Palestine)…
And that means blaming everyone but the voters themselves. They can’t take personal responsibility, because that would involve admitting the role they’ve played (and are about to have played) in the extermination of the Palestinian people (among every other horrific thing that happens domestically).
I dunno who you’re referring to. Everyone i know voted for Harris, even the anarchists, because they recognize the value of building a coalition of change from relative safety over what we are about to get.
I do think terminally online people are trying to find one single group to blame, and I agree that that’s wrong. It was a failure on multiple levels, but given the amount of capital they have, the in-built ability of both Biden and Harris to reach the people by virtue of their current jobs, and the fact that it’s Democrats’ literal job to lead and inform the public, and it begins to strain credulity to think they just lost by chance, that the planets weren’t aligned, or something.
Democrats should be held accountable for how they ran their campaign; to say they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory would be an understatement. Most people vote off of general vibes, with the last month being the most important, and people are and were scared, angry, and lost.
Men would never be superstitious, if they could govern all their circumstances by set rules, or if they were always favoured by fortune: but being frequently driven into straits where rules are useless, and being often kept fluctuating pitiably between hope and fear by the uncertainty of fortune’s greedily coveted favours, they are consequently, for the most part, very prone to credulity. The human mind is readily swayed this way or that in times of doubt, especially when hope and fear are struggling for the mastery, though usually it is boastful, over - confident, and vain.
—Spinoza
Democrats didn’t give people a reason to hope, so people went for the easy authoritarian option. Things feel broken to a lot of them, so surely, he’ll change some things
and totally not exacerbate the existing causes.If Democrats can’t guide people’s feelings, if they can’t run somebody exciting, who promises and exudes hopeful change, they’re going to continue to lose ground to Republicans who are able to stoke the fires of fear and promise sweeping (authoritarian) changes to ameliorate that fear.
TLDR I think personally I am still in the wait and defend myself camp. That seems to be a more useful strategy. It seems like labeling the Democrats as complicit goes against that. If the Democrats are complicit does that mean we would support them, Biden specifically, in a civil war? That’s not a rhetorical question by the way.
Can someone or a political party for that matter be said to be complicit through incompetence? The Democrats are definitely incompetent. Their reaching for moderate Republicans strategy is a useless failure that isolated their progressives base.
Biden, the Democratic consultants, and the Democrats in general seem more comparable to British PM Neville Chamberlain or German President Paul von Hindenburg than a Nazi collaborator like French civil servant Maurice Papon. Chamberlain and Hindenburg thought they could curb Hitler’s worst impulses and policies. They were wrong where as Papon actively helped Hitler.
We can’t live in a house made of good intentions. But is it useful to raise incompetence to the level of collaborator(which If I’m not mistaken is what complicity implies)?
At the risk of getting my ego involved, I’ll use myself as an example. I spent my time trying to get a Biden-Harris ticket and then a Harris-Walz ticket election win this cycle. My incompetence is different than the democrats, but it is incompetence none the less. Am I complicit in my own destruction since despite my best intentions and efforts the fascists took power? I did everything I knew how to do given the time and resources I had at my disposal.
The Democratic consultants are payed to be incompetent, but I’m not convinced they realize that. Merrick Garland could have moved faster to take punitive action against Trump. Biden could have appointed someone else or when Garland dragged his feet kicked him out and got someone else. Mitch McConnell and senate Republicans seem to think they can curb Trump’s worst impulses and policies.
Unlike myself, all of these elected politicians have power. Biden in particular has, in theory, sweeping immunity thanks to the Supreme Court. However, if Biden stopped the peaceful transfer of power and sent Trump to Guantanamo Bay there would be domestic terrorism at best and civil war at worst. Are we saying Biden, at this point, is complicit if he does not do this? Are we saying we would side with Biden in a civil war or in suppressing civil unrest?
To put it bluntly if Biden stopping fascism through executive action is what morality demands of him are we going to be riding with Biden? Because without popular support Biden isn’t lasting long with such a move. These are the questions that come to mind when I see the statement the Democrats are complicit. To be clear, the statement in question is not that they should be shamed, Democrats should be shamed, but that they are complicit.
So my non-rhetorical question is, is it useful rhetoric to say the Democrats are complicit in fascism? Are we prepared to argue that Biden should preemptively arrest this incoming administration? If that happened would you report strangers, neighbors, friends, family, and/or a spouse to the FBI if they said they were going to rebel against Biden?
Biden is complicit in genocide. I was still willing to vote for him and told people to vote for him. There were people on lemmy who were not willing to vote for and/or argue for Biden’s second term. I’m sure many of those people will agree with your argument that the Democrats are complicit in fascism. I doubt those people would be willing to fight with Biden in a civil war. They seem to want to the US to burn to the ground along with the 340 million people who live here.
I am an American and I would like to see my country and the people who live here survive. Whether we in theory took a proactive approach to stopping fascism or reactive approach to defending against fascism, it seems like a bad time. If Biden cracks down on MAGA and the rightwing infosphere it seems like everyone will turn on him. If Biden doesn’t and Trump takes power it seems like everyone will wish Biden had, but it will be too late.
This turned into more of a rant than I meant too, but I think these questions are worth discussing in the time before January 20th, 2025. I see people relying on legal arguments, on youtube, to argue that Trump’s second term wont be that bad. I don’t want to name names because I respect those people and what they do is critical to counteracting the right-wing infosphere. But, again, they seem to be relying on the idea that the fascists wont be able to enact fascist policies because the law will stop them. Or at least limit the fascists. The law hasn’t stopped Trump and MAGA so far. And it seems like with each small step the law will limit the fascists less and less.
People have already had to defend themselves against the fascists in the MAGA movement. More of us are likely going to be put in a similar position. It seems like we’re better off defending ourselves after Trump gives the order to send us to the camps. All the evidence from recent conflicts seems to show that the aggressor loses popular support quickly. However it seems like with this peaceful transfer of power next January we are about to test the limits of what popular support can do. Especially if Trump can drone strike the population into submission with immunity. But despite that, that risk seems unlikely, and thus waiting and defending ourselves is the more useful strategy.
Saying the Democrats are complicit seems to argue against that strategy. Because there doesn’t seem to be anything else Biden or the Democrats could do at this point to stop Trump that doesn’t involve relying on Presidential immunity. Democrats in Congress would need Republicans to use Section 3 of Amendment 14 to block Trump and there doesn’t seem to be any chance of that happening.
They’re complicit through willful ignorance. You can’t beat the drum of fascism, parade Project 2025 around and rightly point out that it’s a theofascist manifesto and blueprint, then run the campaign they ran. I wanted to vote for Kamala, and I had to pump myself up by the end. They took a gigantic wave of enthusiasm and pissed it away by playing it safe. That wasn’t Prosector Harris going against felon, rapist, fraud Trump. That was Biden’s shadow by the end, and they let Republicans tie her to Biden’s actions as president.
They weren’t trying to win; they thought, “Surely, Americans have sense and won’t vote for that guy.” Credulous fools.
To your other questions: would I be on Biden’s side in a civil war? Probably, yes. But I’m not hoping for a civil war or for Biden to do anything authoritarian—what I want is for him and the rest of the Democrats, not just the handful of firebrands, to collectively represent our pain. If they can’t say the quiet part out loud because of “decorum,” then they are failures as leaders.
And that’s why they lost. Fuck decorum. They haven’t given anyone reason to hope in a long time. People voted for Biden, because they created their own hope by voting for not-Trump, but Biden himself didn’t give the average person reason to hope, a reason to be excited for the future of the country (despite actually doing some good domestically).
Trump, on the other hand, gives his faithful reason to hope. He’ll (allegedly) crush their nebulous enemies and punish those they feel are deserving. He’ll restore some vague time when queer people “didn’t exist,” women didn’t work, and there were only two legal genders. Christianity will be used to indoctrinate children in public schools, and every busybody with spare time will get to decide what books we’re all allowed to read and which bathrooms we get to use. Like, he’s gonna make good on at least some of that, all while plundering taxpayer money before their very eyes, and they’ll let him, because he did the other things they wanted.
So yeah. I don’t expect them to start a civil war, but they are complicit by regularly and frequently failing to treat the threat Trump poses seriously, and they are squandering yet another opportunity to build their base by mirroring the pain the rest of us are feeling.
ETA: and I can only assume that’s because their privilege gives them the ability to not care that much.
what I want is for him and the rest of the Democrats, not just the handful of firebrands, to collectively represent our pain. If they can’t say the quiet part out loud because of “decorum,” then they are failures as leaders.
Thank you for speaking to this. That hits the nail on the head. It speaks to the general callousness of the Democrats as they cling to norms.
The way Harris told us to keep fighting, look over there at the stars, and then fucked off on vacation. And the way Biden was all to happy to meet with Trump like he was any other president elect.
Maybe they think this is their way to prove Trump wrong, that our elections are free and fair. It’s like they care more about meeting the bar Trump sets for them than they care about the American people. Maybe it’s their privilege. I’m guessing they’ll be singing a different tune when Trump has them in court.
I’m guessing they’ll be singing a different tune when Trump has them in court.
This is the part that honestly scares me. SCOTUS gave him broad immunity, and with the jackals he keeps in his orbit, I don’t doubt for a second he/they could contrive “creative” ways to punish anyone that speaks ill of him, resists his efforts, or otherwise tries to speak truth to power.
What about the scientists and teachers just trying to do their jobs? What about the environmental activists? What about the charities trying to help Haitians or Mexicans or Queer people? What about the legal orgs fighting to keep Christianity out of public schools? They don’t have the money to fight the government, and all are potential targets if the right lobbyists convince him it would be more profitable if he were to make them “go away.”
What do you suggest they do?
Why does your job exist? Why is it important? What does it look like when your job is done well? These are basic things that government workers should be occasionally telling the public, and they should certainly be telling the public loudly and clearly prior to a transition into lunacy.
If you think things aren’t going to be okay, get on national TV and say that. Tell people what you think is going to go wrong so that they can prepare. Give them a heads up.
They have been…
A few have. But then there’s these…
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/15/centrist-democrats-chair-dnc-00189933
…who think that becoming essentially Republicans Lite is the path forward. It’s not about doing what’s best for people, it’s about retaining power and keeping people placated so they don’t gaze upward. Like I said above, they’re not the same as Republicans, but if they’re gonna keep chasing these right-wing votes and adopting their policies, that “still a better option than them” margin will be vanishingly small to the point of irrelevance.
I see that same sentiment on lemmy.ml a lot. Where they repeat Russian talking points about Ukraine.
I don’t share their ideology. They tend to be a bit more hyperbolic, calling Democrats and Republicans the same, which they aren’t. I would much rather have a Democrat in charge right now, because that’s a much safer environment from which to enact the sort of progressive change I personally want. Plus, Ukraine would stand an obviously better chance.
But my critique still stands. Some Democrats would rather become Conservative than do the work to convince people to join them on the left. They’re gonna chase a vanishingly small number of people and just expect the rest of us to fall in line, and this last election very clearly demonstrated that that’s not a viable strategy, despite everyone I know voting for them.
I am usually an optimist, but I do not have faith that people will come to their senses and realize that voting for the least-objectionable candidate is in their best interest. If Democrats don’t start running progressive populists, they’re gonna continue to lose, and Republicans are going to continue gerrymandering and changing the rules to the point that Democrats’ efforts become just for show.
I would also like our politicians to be more progressive but I can understand why politicians try to be moderate. I live in a blue part of a red state and everyone I know has a mixed ideology. A progressive politician wouldn’t stand a chance of winning in my part of the country.
Also, with all the money that is now in politics because of citizens united it becomes much more difficult for someone to win when they are open about fixing income inequality. For that reason, I don’t think Bernie would stand a chance. I think a Trojan horse approach would work better.
I’m not an optimist but I’m confident that Trump won because of the inflation experienced during Biden’s term as a result of the pandemic. I’m hoping Trumps tariffs make things worse or there’s another crisis like the pandemic and it causes more people to vote blue next election the same way the pandemic got Biden elected.
Why does your job exist? Why is it important? What does it look like when your job is done well? These are basic things that government workers should be occasionally telling the public
you want to address people who can’t understand why to wear mask during pandemic and lot of the jobs are just beyond the intellectual horizon of most of these people. even if it were, it still doesn’t change the fact that orange cheeto will put some incompetent rapist in the director chair of every institution he saw on tv. so maybe the best defense is to stay off the tv, then the idiot is probably not going to know they exist 😂
i am pretty sure that professionals below any cheeto appointee will offer as much resistance as humanly possible, and… unless they are willing to murder someone, that is all they can do 🤷♂️
you want to address people who can’t understand why to wear mask during pandemic
No he doesn’t. Why do you assume he wants to address idiot MAGAs, as opposed to disillusioned non-voters? They’re two totally separate groups.
Why does your job exist? Why is it important? What does it look like when your job is done well? These are basic things that government workers should be occasionally telling the public,
Dude, millions of federal workers voted for Trump despite the fact that they plan on eliminating all of them (I don’t have exact numbers, but I’m certain this is true). They voted to eliminate their own positions.
Even many of the people doing the job itself are dumb enough to vote directly against their interests. And you expect, what, everyone else to understand or give a shit?
Why does your job exist? Why is it important? What does it look like when your job is done well? These are basic things that government workers should be occasionally telling the public, and they should certainly be telling the public loudly and clearly prior to a transition into lunacy.
If you think things aren’t going to be okay, get on national TV and say that.
That’s not how national tv works at the moment, but I’d like to see it do that.
Why would it ever in a profit-driven world? Especially since I’m sure the scant funding for PBS that still exists will be eliminated within the next two years.
A fair question.
I’d like to see it do that.
and i am sure there’d be hundreds like you…
Use the blanket immunity the SCOTUS handed to the president to stop it from happening for a fucking start. What an easy question to answer lmao
What an easy question to answer lmao
the problem is, unless you are dealing with really easy problem, the “easy” solution is usually the wrong one.
No, the wrong one is to do nothing.
But whatever I guess optics and decorum are more important than protecting citizens and the integrity of our democracy…
Insert padme meme here
Personally I think Biden should drone strike Mar-a-Lago into a smoking crater.
He should just invite Trump over and shoot him in the face. The SC said he could.
Ah, but drone strikes could rid us of a bunch of his cronies as well if you time them to coincide with big meetings.
Yep official presidential act. Fuck those goddamn filthy traitors.
Holy shit and you guys are the anti fascists LMAO 🤣
Yeah. Death to fascists. Purge them dead. If you dont play by the rules, noone has to with you.
Advocate for popular policy (like stop funding genocide)
For next time (if there is one) or before the transition?
are you bitching about democrats four years in the future, or are you just avoiding the answer?
Neither. I’m asking a very specific clarifying question. I’m not avoiding anything. You’re the one taking umbrage at an earnest question, which I posed to avoid talking about something you didn’t ask.
You said:
What do you suggest they do?
I said:
For next time (if there is one) or before the transition?
To which timeframe are you referring?
let my try it again.
WERE YOU BITCHING ABOUT DEMOCRATS FROM THE FUTURE?
No. That’s silly. Why would you think that?
because you presented silly dichotomy in order to avoid answering my question.
Are you suggesting we have our own insurrection party?
I told my SO we need to do our version of Tea Party. Only it’ll be the Espresso Party or something.
We had it; it was called Occupy Wall Street.
The difference is, the Tea Party got backed by right-wing billionaire ghouls and took over the Republican Party, while OWS (being explicitly anti-corporate) got brutally suppressed by the owner class instead.
Ows was no where near as organized as the tea party was. Also the tea party was an actual attempt at a party and got involved in politics. While I supported ows it was mostly a protest movement.
It was almost the occupy wall street movement. Remember that before it was crushed by boots?
Sure.
If Democrats are just gonna become Republicans Lite or continue doing more of the same “status quo” nonsense that lost them all three branches of the government, I’m down for something new.
This is bait
Until Republicans go full fascist and start locking up their political enemies, Democrats will keep taking their payoffs while watching the rest us suffer.
Change the first word to “while” and you’re right. It’s already a fascist party and the Dem leadership is still doing business as usual.
I don’t think both parties are the same, but I do think Democrats are complicit by failing to do anything substantial to prevent this slide into fascism
Wow. Tough room.
Could have expanded SCOTUS, could have had an actual primary, could have run Harris’s campaign as a populist option for change rather than Biden 2.0… Like, even just looking at the campaign, they had a wave of momentum and squandered it.
People are scared and beaten down; they know things are broken, and they’re looking for leaders who will shake things up. Unfortunately, most people are apparently too dumb to realize that simply voting for the “candidate of change,” that Trump represented, doesn’t mean it will be the kind of change they would probably want. Would that voters could have had two candidates of change to choose from, but alas.
And here we are, as Democrats are largely silent and a dyed-in-the-wool fascist takes over. They will continue to sit in their ivory towers, wring their hands, and learn all the wrong lessons from this utterly embarrassing loss to a fraud and a felon.
The first post-headline sentence of that article is absolutely true, just not in the way it was intended:
“Centrist” Democrats ARE revolting. Absolutely disgusting.
The side that lost in 2020 is the side that likes to resort to violence to solve what they see as the problems in society.
The side that lost in 2024 believes the things they say about civil behavior, adherence to the rule of law, and fucking democracy.
And just like last time, the second group willingly hands over power to the first.
The “paradox” of tolerance gets us every time.
Fascism deserves no quarter in civilized society, and as soon as we even pretend that it’s a legitimate ideology, we give it power.
We need to learn from 1930s Germany. You don’t just give your country to fascists.
Democracy only works if all (or at least the vast majority of) parties agree that the democratic system itself is more important than any one democratic outcome. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case . The right will go into full on election denial mode when they lose, and apparently most American voters are fine with that. Peaceful transfer of power, what that means and why it’s important, well, that doesn’t affect the price of milk and eggs so voters are apathetic to it. Democracy grants voters the power to kill democracy. Time will tell whether that’s what they did (knowingly or not) in 2024.
Democracy grants voters the power to kill democracy.
Yeah, it’s almost like a cycle… And it ends in some form of fascism or feudalism every time. And each time, the perpetrators are taking lessons from the previous cycles and tweaking things; Sabotage public education here, erode the separation of religion and government there, fire-hose of disinformation here, using the internet as a weapon and means of oppression there, etc.
This time they might’ve gotten it just right. I can only hope that I’m wrong.
Sure. Too bad that’s all going to end.
adherence to the rule of law
Both brands of usaian fash fervently support the violent control of people and things.
deleted by creator
Also known as: “Surrender.”
Remind me what war was it again?
Politicians work together to profit from the same evil slaver system. It’s not much of a change at all. They just say that during the elections. Then they continue working together pleasantly afterwards. People gotta be extra brainwashed to believe the myths of the state (eg. democracy).
Something…something…project 25.
But yeah, both sides are definitely the same.
Harris is gonna remove a really fancy latex mask and be resurrected zombie Reagan.
