This is the opportunity for democrats running in the mid-terms to start their own town halls.
Elected dems do hold town halls like this article talks about. If you are referring to dems not in office, they’re starting to do stuff like that. For instance:
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R) refuses to hold a town hall in NJ-07. So next Thursday March 13 in Summit, NJ former Rep. Tom Malinowski will hold a town hall meeting to discuss the current moment and what citizens can do to protect democracy. RSVP link here (or use the QR code): https://forms.gle/RcSVhWpsrLCfT9w67
https://bsky.app/profile/njindivisible.bsky.social/post/3ljww6godzc23
Bold of you to assume we’ll be allowed to have mid-terms
Edit: that’s just me being snarky. Keep fighting the good fight. Vote in every fucking election that you can, at every level you can - federal, state, and local (and, if you’re an investor, shareholder - that, I think, is an under emphasized vector here). Be an activist in every way you can, through every path available to you.
Elections are run at the state level including for federal offices. There have already been >48 state and local elections this year since January alone. Elections are way more than just the midterms and they are still happening. See https://ballotpedia.org/Elections_calendar
Normalizing the idea that elections wouldn’t happen is just playing directly into Trump and Musk’s hands
They want us to be so cynical we stop fighting back. They want us not to vote. They want us to not protest. They want us to not boycott. They want us too tired to fight
Don’t give in, we can still win these fights
Oh, I’m not giving in. I was just being snarky. All I’m trying to do with comments like that is to get more people to take the situation more seriously. I know we’re not cooked yet, but the hot plate is getting pretty fucking toasty.
Comments like that unfortunately do the opposite - they make people defeatest which makes people stop paying attention to the situation at all
Fair point.
I admit I’ve been feeling pretty fucking bleak about things lately. I also admit I sometimes use this space as a pressure-release valve for myself. It’s fair and correct to point out that the vibe I’m introducing is counterproductive. I shall try to do better. Cheers, friend.
Wait, wait you can have productive discussions like this on the internet? (Thank you for being receptive - we need more people like you)
Same comment to both of you guys so you both see it. I can’t say it made me happy, but this thread did make me feel a little bit better. Thanks for being a decent human, even if just for these few comments.
Honestly, I’ve had a lot more interactions like this on lemmy since I joined a couple years ago than I ever had on Reddit. It’s one of the reasons I actually kinda like this place.
Good. Yell at them, too
We need people telling at them, and we need people politely approaching them with the same policies.
A game of good constituent/bad constituent, if you will.
People probably won’t need to yell at them if the Democrats actually are listening to and engaging with the voters.
Democrats do not listen to or engage with voters. The last time we told them to listen. their response was ‘I’m speaking.’
Let go of that crap now. Heckling and interrupting a speech was NOT the right thing to do. Neither was staying home on election day just because Harris didn’t voice the exact right opinion on Gaza. We’re in an infinitely worse situation now.
Anyone that doesn’t see genocide as a red line isn’t entitled to an opinion on politics. Especially if they claim ‘lesser evil’
It absolutely was the right thing to do. Legitimizing that asshole by respectfully listening while he barks out lies and bullshit and craps all over America is what’s unacceptable.
Waggling fingers and sternly frowning and politely protesting well out of everyone’s way while not inconveniencing anyone will get us absolutely nowhere.
Anyone that doesn’t see genocide as a red line isn’t entitled to an opinion on politics. Especially if they claim ‘leser evil’
100%.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
-Martin Luther King Jr
Been thinking about this quote a lot lately.
If democrats think that auction paddles are gonna solve this, they still need to be yelled at.
If they engaged with their voters, we wouldn’t have any democratic representatives over age of 65. Anything past that is just posturing and self enrichment
Edit: wow I left a generally agreeable comment and fucked off for the day and apparently a lot of people want representatives older than 65? Yet no one can say why that’s a good thing they only bring up Bernie who’s an independent and not a democrat. Some of you don’t know what you want other than to shit on people online and it’s laughable
What’s with the ageism? I want Democratic representatives of any age, as long as they have the right policies and they are of sound mind. People over the age of 65 will be just fine with me, thanks.
I want Democratic representatives of any age, as long as they have the right policies
The party has selected against candidates with the right policies for decades. Any boomer democrat in party leadership isn’t going to have the right policies.
Sure but age limits are in place in a million different institutions. If it’s not ageism that you can’t run for office when you’re 16 then it’s not ageism when you have an age limit for representatives. My point is representatives should represent the general population and should be able to at least understand the issues of the current age. Meanwhile the aging congress struggles with basic internet understanding so we don’t have regulations that should have been standard since the fucking 90s. It’s 2025 a person who can’t comprehend internet basics like email encryption has 0 chance of making an informed choice on crypto currency or government backdoors and their implications.
Yeah, but Gaza! I think I’ll sit it out again to show them!
/s cuz apparently even dems online don’t understand sarcasm
Avoiding constituents is peak cowardice—if you can’t face voters, you shouldn’t hold office.
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
I guess I’m an ignorant fuck because I thought that these town halls were required by law in some way. It’s insane they can just be like “nah, not gonna show up”. It should be an instant impeachment by law.
yeah the law should just automatically depose cowards who don’t face their constituents.
unfortunately we sort of have a “who watches the watchers” situation here. expecting lawmakers to make laws to police themselves is ridiculous. idk what can be done for that honestly. the French had some ideas back in the day though.
The American Revolution inspired the French Revolution, hopefully the French Revolution can inspire an American Revolution.
Nice! Where was the turnout during the nationals?
I’m tired of these news, of we follow what’s shared here we would have destroyed the Republicans, and they are useless and everybody hates them…
But here we are.
Yeah, realy opened my eyes to how much of an echo chamber this is.
lol. I don’t know if anyone will even see this comment.
Apparently questioning a NotTheOnion “Kamala Harris terrifies flailing Trump to the point of incoherence” story was enough for some lemmy instance to ban me, which I only accidentally learned about from another ban. All that because I dared to ask a question in a “Russia vs. Ukraine” meme thread and bring a dose of reality to a discussion.
So I learned quickly to not bother discuss simple reality, let alone anything else, with uniparty followers.
Many of the election season posts have been scrubbed of btw. Very organic!
I looked at your two links. The threads and your posts in them paint an entirely different situation to what you’re presenting here for what occurred. I see why you were banned and it had nothing to do with “bringing a dose of reality to a discussion”. You know that too though.
Reading trough your comments, I think your and my idea of what kind of echo-chamber this is are quite different. Or they are not. I don’t know.
I agree with many positions posted on Lemmy, they aligne with my world view. Some don’t. I try to be aware that this is a left space and the opinions about topics here are very different then from the right.
In my experience they are much more based on facts tough. The right seems to belive what ever the talking points are they are beeing fed and then just reproduce them. I don’t see that so much here, albeit it can happen in regards to some topics.
You have voiced opinions that don’t aline with the gebral opinions here. Since you don’t back those up with any evidence what so ever I understand why that got you banned.
bring a dose of reality…
I mean, Russian talking points are reality for a certain subgroup, I’ll give you that.
This is good to highlight how the cons are hiding out from their constituents.
My Democratic rep has had two town halls, huge feisty crowds for both.
All the Republican bravado and they are all whiny insecure cowards
OTOH I’d want to know which dema sat it out as a virtue signalling exercise, and now act all indignant blended into the crowd now the rest are up in arms (figuratively, of course). It’s like oh yeah, back then it wasn’t such a big deal to take control of your govt, blame the system blah blah blah.
I bet the Democrats are using the momentum to send a stern message. And the press will proudly feature articles of how the Democrats SLAMMED the white house!! And the White house will barely notice, and go on doing what they are doing.
Exactly. Anyone who thinks the Dems will save them is delusional. It’s time to move beyond a two-party system, and especially a system in which the two parties are right wing and ultra-right wing.
Great. Now the Democrats can have everything lined up to take over during the midterms and…change nothing.
We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas.
Implying we’ll have a midterm
I worry about this too
We will. It will not matter. Congress will likely be powerless by that point. Or a large portion of the Democratic party will align with the fascist policies by then as their donors place more pressure on them. We know how much democrats love to “reach across the isle”.
Keeping up the illusion of democracy is the one of the most important things for the bourgeoisie to maintain. They will go through the charades for sure.
It’s more important that people see through the charades of our system. I’m hoping that starts happening more.
I feel like everyone is waiting for a “moment” to get them off their couch. By the time that moment happens it’s already too late.
@Sunshine Hopefully they will turn out as much at the voting booth
Hopefully they’ll have something worth turning out for. Let’s see if you become hostile to the suggestion that democrats need to become better in order to appeal to voters.
Everyone is like “where were you!”, but I’m just happy that people are becoming more politically active. I don’t think we can win overnight, but if people can push their communities in a better direction then they deserve some credit.
I dont give a fuck about democrat shows.
I give a shit about them stopping voting with republicans to enable trumps fuckawful shit.
This is the equivalent of Elon Musk listening to his workers.
Nothing will change.
I see a room full of people looking to find someone else to blame. They are fools who voted against their own interests again. Now they are mad at the GOP -THEY voted into office AGAIN. A room of fools
