A majority of one particular demographic voted for Trump in the past three elections which PoC and I assume anyone reading this is acutely aware of.

… the school shooter wasn’t voted class president by the students.

Nah, the pigs might be incompetent cowards but they aren’t as complicit as dems

I know, you don’t ever gotta give it to them, but still

Edit: Wait, if I remember correctly (easy to confuse these things when there’s so many of them), they stopped people from doing what they themselves should be doing, right? Nevermind, it’s perfect.

sudo apt get *

You don’t do that in America (if you want to win). You take an existing party and push it in your direction. That’s how the party of Reagan is embracing tariffs.

Just meet me at the

The dems are one of the only groups in the US who (legally) had the power to:

• reduce voter suppression
• fix the electoral system in general (e.g. remove the broken FPTP system)
• stop sabotaging popular candidates
• not choose a senile dementia-sufferer to remain the country’s leader for years
• support the worker class instead of the owning class and get their votes (too many things to list)
• support US citizens instead of imperial interests in countries half the population can’t plot on a map

For most of these things, they should have been doing this long, long ago, before even Obama’s terms. The Democrat Party clearly had the power of the state for more than enough time to make them look like an alternative rather than a complicit ally of the Republican Party. Why should they not be seen as at fault?

In this analogy, the Republicans are the shooter. Not sure how you can draw the conclusion that anyone is blaming the Dems there.

I’ll be the first to call out people for solely blaming the Dems when that’s the case. I’ve been banned from so many Reddit subs for that very thing, which is how I ended up here at Lemmy in the first place. But that’s just not the case here. What this image is saying is that the fault of the action (the shooting) lies with the Republicans, and the Democrats (the Uvalde cops) are too cowardly to do anything to stop it. It’s a pretty damn accurate description of American politics.

did you not read the text in the pic? did it not load for you? lemme transcribe.

“My roommate described Republicans as the mass shooter and Democrats as Uvalde cops, and I can’t get it out of my head”

maybe, if you want people to vote for you, you should try fighting for them. maybe, if you want people to vote for them, you shouldn’t sacrifice them and sell them out at every opportunity. maybe, if you want people to vote for you, you should take office when you win the election(2000) not betray every promise and ideal that has ever come out of your mouth (2008) and not be a thug who uses the threat of a worse thug to gaslight and collectively abuse a nation being indistinguishable politically from the guy you rolled over for in 2000 (2020).

maybe you could try some sort of harsh fingernails-and-teeth parliamentary resistance? more than one guy, and try not shunning him for it (like you did literally last week). maybe organize armed groups to fight the nazis in the streets? I know, wishful thinking; you would never fight your work friends.

but, you know; you could do something for us. if you want us to vote for you. hell, maybe try just not spending our tax money on murdering children for OTHER nazi shit heads for literally no benefit to us? maybe spend it on building bridges instead. or stimulate the economy by hiring a bunch of local sex workers and partying every night; whatever.

So many of these clowns can’t be bothered to vote but will still blame the dems.

I agree. The Trusk team has got the ball rolling for some of trump’s base, but we have to figure out a way to separate the rest from him. I really don’t know how at this point. Common sense doesn’t work and they never see the people making fun of them because they live in a bubble. It’s starting to be too late.

Right. But you can’t have unity/be in coalition with someone who is actively committing a genocide against your family.

Which is part of why democrats lost, especially in Michigan. With its fairly sizable Arab population. Even if they’d managed to win the other swing-states that would have lost the democrats this election.

Why should we not have unity with the Arab People of Michigan?

Please try to keep in mind pointing out the fact that Trump also isn’t in unity with them is not an answer to this question.

If you want to not kneecapping the left, you could start by not slurring progressives as “a fucking opp.”

Exactly. Division got us here. Only unity will get us out.

There are steps that need to be taken to get third parties.

First and foremost is the adoption of a voting system that can not only support third parties, but help them grow.

TLDR; Fight for Approval if you just want third parties to exist and occasionally win, Fight for STAR if you want third parties to grow and become powerful.

Now for the long part, talking about the problems with first past the post voting, and how that shapes the political discourse. Or you can watch this video.

Also, before anyone breaks in with Ranked Choice or IRV as it’s called, you might want to read up on the flaws section here.

And I’d write more, but the dog wants a walk, and that’s more important right now.

Every US election is called the most important election. All of them. At some point I think the only way out is to make someone lose because of their support of FPTP.

I think “we” realized it from day 1.

And, yet, here we are.

Yes they (most, not all) are bargaining with the lives of countless Americans, but not themselves or their families.

Fuck every one of them doing this on purpose.

They’ve been fighting tooth and nail for years

I’m not old enough to really have much memory of the clinton. but after he did so much for racial equality and ending the drug war, I can’t begrudge the man a blowjob.

I DO remember during the brooks brothers riots, where they kicked the shit out of those fascists. I remember the guy with the full back tattoo of nixon’s face, being stepped on a bunch. I remember it was kinda controversial when president gore pardoned the people who did it, but it was obvious self defense; the cameras caught it all. I’m glad they fought that shit in the supreme court, and put those bastards in their place. they could’ve done some real damage to society if left unchecked, before we got rid of the reagan appointees.

fuck the gore administration was good. you remember those guys who tried to blow up those decrepit shit hole buildings in new york all those times? and the boondoggle of demolishing them that lead to that weird gay-coded-but-not-gay musical theater real estate failson from the home alone movies being elected governor of new york in 2018? that was so weird. glad he got what he deserved. kind of annoyed people didn’t make a bigger deal about all the rape he did.

I remember what president gore did for climate change, the scandal after energy was too cheap to meter for a couple years, and then we had to start metering it again because of that cryptocurrency nonsense, even though it was still cheaper than it had ever been at any point in the 20th.

I remember how the democrats in congress kept us out of that dumb fucking war the fascists tried to get us into in 2001 with their bullshit lies. I bet it would’ve killed or crippled like half the guys I went to high school with, and the first girl I ever kissed-maybe not directly, but she was the kind of uncritical heroic idiot who’d have rushed into some shit over her head, come back with horrible PTSD, and eventually killed her dumb ass over it-we still talk sometimes. I know without the democratic party, I probably wouldn’t have my dumbest friend. I remember when the dems in congress swept in and put a stop to all that subprime mortgage nonsense in 2006, stopped anyone from losing their homes, and locked up all the coke addled wall street goons who tried to con us all.

Al gore was a pretty great president, and with so many good people in the deliberative branch, how could we NOT have stopped global warming in its tracks? lol, tracks, like all the trains. I can go basically anywhere in the country on maglev. giving the japanese a run for their money, at least in the midwest. kinda disappointed the HSR in california uses traditional overhead wire on steel rails, but I can go from san diego to san francisco and hang out in the bay then come back home for dinner. I remember when it used to take that long to drive there-and that was really the only way-from sacramento, one way. I grew up walking and biking everywhere, imagine how many scars and broken bones I’d have if I had tried doing that shit for my entire adult life in a nation that still worshipped cars? I bet I’d look like fucking frankenstein’s monster by now.

I remember when they went after white supremacist terror groups being funded by our tax dollars during the gore administration, like the lynwood vikings, the moment they found out. WHOO! LOCAL WIN! that was pretty cool of obama to do. I remember the press release. I actually lived nearby at the time. seeing FBI snipers take out local cops, then pull off their LAPD uniforms to expose all the nazi tattoos and hang them on la brea avenue? that was fucking wild, man. there was a whole arc in the punisher comic books where he had like a crisis of conscience and became an FBI agent and it was weird, and he felt like an asshole when he had to quit but kept respecting them; it felt like it could have been realistic, I honestly felt something similar at the time, but it was so fucking badly written. fucking marvel comics, man. they could have made such good movies; you can tell by how popular the DC comics cinematic universe got under whedon (creepy bastard).

I remember when they were gonna ratfuck the wildly popular candidate for an arrogant hack who wouldn’t even have remembered to register everywhere she could have, but then decided not to, and won the 2016 election in a historic landslide, breaking the whole ‘red state/blue state’ paradigm. that was one of the best administrations we ever had, like a perfect whatever the reverse of a black mirror is of the reagan administration. the other guy was all “make america great again!” but president sanders actually did it. plus, cuban rum and the lung cancer vaccine. yesplz.

I remember after the “UNITE THE RIGHT” rally where the nazi in the car killed that lady? the one with all the tiki torches and polo shirts? where the ATF had been waiting on like a perimeter, and took a lot of flak for not charging in and killing those bastards sooner. I hear some of the surviving nazis ended up in gitmo. it wasn’t perfect, but it was ordered directly by a democratic cabinet officer. I hear president sanders was in the loop, he took some heat for letting that lady die, but honestly it could have gone so much worse.

I remember on january 7th, 2021, after the insurrection, when the white house lawn was covered in gallows of the nazi insurrectionists. the ones that didn’t get mowed down by machine guns day-of. the dems did right that day.

I remember when the weird guy from home alone 2? that guy kept insisting he was president and lead that shit, after they impeached him from the governership and kicked him out of office, they locked him in the darkest cage they had. I hear it was somewhere in syria. got blown up during the trouble there. some of his followers insist he’s still alive, but LOL, no fucking way. that guy wouldn’t live ten seconds in a war zone.

I remember when the FBI switched up their priorities and decided to go after domestic white supremacist terror groups, including foreign owned misinformation operations, like not-twitter and fox news, like they were black communists who’d just blown up a pipeline and sabotaged a logging operation. the killings were… I mean, it was kind of intense, and there was a lot of collateral damage, but they were nazis, you know? they would have done more damage if left alive, I bet. I didn’t even know how to feel while it was happening, I used to be an anarchist, and here was the fucking FBI, funded to hunt people like me like we were dogs, and they were killing nazis. real anti-hero hours, and if you’d told fifteen year old me I’d be cheering on the feds, I’d have laughed you out of the room, but they did good. I haven’t even seen a swastika in years, except when I replayed wolfenstein recently-kind of an irrelevant goofy nonsense game, but I played the old one when I was a kid. im glad we beat those bastards IRL back in the 40s.

god, getting gay marriage and trans rights in the constitution in 2010? fixing that loophole in the 13th amendment and ending private prisons? election reform? single payer healthcare? it’s pretty great. I like it here. I used to think I wouldn’t make it to 25 after my parents kicked me out. I used to think most of my friends were more doomed than I was. I was kind of a depressed edgelord I guess. but here we all are. all those old AIDS crisis survivors in the queer community sound silly, but the past is a foreign country, so let’s not judge our elders too harshly.

I guess I also remember the bad old days, when people would die unhoused outside empty houses. I remember the bad old days when so many people couldn’t get healthcare, and stores locked up dumpsters full of perfectly edible food. I remember the bad old days when people were afraid of the state. when people were afraid of the people paid by their tax dollars. when our tax dollars funded corrupt religious institutions, and taught their bullshit in public schools. I’m glad we’re past all that. I’m glad nobody thinks absurdist edgelord authors like bacigalupi are remotely serious anymore. it’s kind of ridiculous we ever thought otherwise, with leadership like this. when they defunded the local police after those killings, I became one of the emergency response social workers; it’s damn fulfilling work. Would you believe I used to be an anarchist? like, I’m still kind of a curmudgeon sometimes about bureaucracy and stuff, but with a robust safety net and amazing education and a world that pretty much works, with such a bright outlook for the future, I really don’t have much to complain about, and the complaints I do have all feel kind of petty. I used to think states couldn’t work, and america was an existential evil. I guess it’s still problematic sometimes, the international policies aren’t all great, but… I dunno; I feel like it’s a net good; just look at how we saved all those people by giving the world free vaccines during the pandemics. I guess I was proven wrong. I don’t know what to call myself now. just “democrat” i guess.

Things could go downhill, since they fucked it that last election. sanders was a tough fucking act to follow, especially that second term. I’m not worried though. they’re still fighting it in the courts, and they’re so loud in congress, the fascists can’t even finish a sentence. AOC proposed that bill to legalize dueling after bobo threatened to shoot her, and every republican voted against it; that was a really good one. filibustering everything, challenging everything. it’s honestly kind of funny to watch. fascists do not know how to adapt to that. I say fascists; they won’t admit it, but we all kinda know, right? DW; dems got out backs, no matter what, even if it loses them some rich donors. i dropped like fifty tubmans on a donation to my congressman last week; you should too.

so yeah, we should stand up for the democratic party. The same way they stood up for us so many times. we owe them that.

What world are you living in?

They had 4 years to fight Trump and make sure he was properly tried and sentenced for his crimes and they just didn’t because they didn’t want to look like they were going after political opponents. They have actually done next to nothing to fight him.

And the “mistake” they don’t want to interrupt is Trump deporting people to random countries, setting up a giant concentration camp in gitmo, cutting cancer research funding and making life he’ll for trans people. So maybe they SHOULD interrupt this mistake, with more than just signs.

If that were true, it’s a dumb election strategy to sit back and wait while your opponent puts an end to free and fair elections.

What even can they do?

This, for better or worse, is the will of the people. It’s not like nobody knew this was going to happen.

Kind of a suicide move. Like, they let the mass murderer in, so you’re letting everyone die to spite them.

We know that project 2025 is essentially a complete dismantling of democracy, so what the hell do they think they’ll get out of letting it happen? Aside from getting lined up against a wall?

I dunno, man, waiting until the last minute to start trying Donald when we all know how slow the wheels of justice grind in this country doesn’t seem tooth and nail to me.

Do you think the government controls the rotation of the planet?

…and they are failing miserably

really funny considering they’re the ones destroying our “tomorrow”

We had millions of tomorrows before governments even existed.

Governments are here to more strictly enforce social contracts. They do this with varying levels of consent, but that is nevertheless what they do.

Someone else posed it this way: The Democrats exist to solicit donors; getting elected sometimes is a side effect. Big money has wrecked their ability to oppose what is happening.

the government is not here to be your enemy.

“The government” as an abstract entity might not mean to be anyone’s “enemy,” but the one currently running the show absolutely views its own people as such.

I never set out to be anyone’s enemy. I want a peaceful life, like most people do. Yet, by doing no more than the radical act of “existing,” the current United States government has hand-picked me and others like me to be their enemies. Anyone who’s LGBTQ, female, non-white, foreign-born, science-minded, and/or financially poor is liable to be scapegoated (at best) or outright targetted by those currently in charge.

Make no mistake - “the government” might not be here to be anyone’s enemy, but this government definitely is.

That saying is really good when it’s not being actively destroyed

The government exists to govern you, exploit you, enslave you.

pleb is not in the sudoers file. This incident will be reported.