One side aligns with my views 70% of the time. The other actively wants me and everyone like me to die. I refuse to acknowledge the differences between them. I’ll actually deploy this lack of understanding as a weapon to depress voter turnout and make sure the second group gets to wield power!
Do you not care about GENOCIDE???
/s
i’m somewhat of a centrist so i think it’s gotta be somewhere between these two:
Those are both encapsulated at the bottom of the meme!
i mean not really, it’s not out of moralism that i choose not to vote for genocidal warmonger red/blue, in fact the moralism is thinking voting for genocidaires is ‘pragmatic’. not to mention continuing to votescold people over a year later lmao
organizing outside electoralism builds actual power. voting for slightly different managers of the same bloodthirsty war machine doesn’t
While organizing outside electoralism is great, electoralism is still the primary way power is apportioned in this country. Abandoning electoralism is ceding power to people who will use it for evil.
The stakes are the future of the world.
if the ‘future of the world’ hinges on genociding an expendible out-group and the system is powerless to change that, then i choose to walk away from omelas
Voting for neither is the same as voting for both.
Voting for neither is the same as voting for both.
if voting for neither is the same voting for both, then can we formally acknowledge that my vote makes zero difference and maybe people can stop votescolding?
Needs to be updated to add the Iranian flag to the GOP track. Man, do I wish there were a realistic way to choose that bottom track!
it’s simple, you just don’t vote for the genocidal warmonger party, then if enough people do that you win
blowing up/ derailing the trolly also works
it’s simple, you just don’t vote for the genocidal warmonger party, then if enough people do that you win
THAT’S NOT HOW VOTING WORKS!
People have to vote FOR the OTHER party, or else the genocidal warmonger party wins anyway!
You are saying shit that is both moronic and factually untrue.
you know there’s a non-genocidal warmonger party which could also be voted for.
I voted for them last election and don’t regret it
you know there’s a non-genocidal warmonger party which could also be voted for.
No there fucking wasn’t! Not one that could win! You’re a goddamned liar and you are helping the fascists!
And there’s no viable way to do that under the current system, which is why the track isn’t connected.
i love how you concede that the system is so dysfunctional you can’t even oppose a genocide under it and simultaneously expect me to to believe that individuals voting (or not) is somehow making a meaningful difference in the outcome
EDIT: RIP Master of All Science, apparently.
funnything in rick and morty, the very same episode supernova says"what is is-rayel" referring to israel, rick and morty and FAMILY guy are 1 of the 2 shows that poke fun of the ridiculous of hte gaza/palestine conflict.
Can you explain this to me like I’m dumb? Cause I am. Is this making fun of the people who choose someone who’s literally not connected to the track?
Genocide Joe!
Making sure the party that continually starts new wars in the Middle East gets elected will surely help my cause!
<Trump and Bibi plan a resort where Palestinians will be removed from their homes and likely largely killed>
“Yeah but you support GENOCIDE!”
You say ‘Genocide Joe!’ like he didn’t actually support and enthusiastically aid a genocide.
Good thing he wasn’t on the ballot then
Good thing the candidate that was on the ballot wasn’t associated with him or his administration in any way and also vigorously denounced genocide at every opportunity! Right? … right??
<sigh> A condition of Biden dropping out and Kamala taking the reins was that she was not allowed to publicly differ from the Biden administration on policy.
You probably also don’t know that Kamala was the only one who could legally step in once Biden dropped out.
But sure, blame her for the handcuffs that were placed on her. Fuck that bitch.
Right, Harris sucked. So glad I didn’t vote and Trump won instead. That has worked out so much better for Iran and the rest of the world, too. Could you imagine even trying to justify voting in the last election?!?!
Oops, that damn goalpost keeps moving around! Better tie it down!
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Took 6 comments to loop right back around to the meme
More like supported and slightly reluctantly aided.
I expect there were guardrails that Israel was careful not to cross. You know, like completely flattening Gaza and demolishing southern Lebanon.
It’s still AIPAC fueled genocide, but I definitely preferred the slower version to what we have now.
“If it hadn’t been for Genocide Joe, I’d been married long time 'go…”
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Yes. We must bring genocide to the U.S. and maintain the genocides overseas!
So, actually that question though? Genocide used to be a really, really bad thing, and here you’re making light of it. I feel like people have lost the plot a bit if they talk about an actual genocide like this. “Yeah, sure they committed a bit of genocide, but have you seen the other guy?” I feel like I’m losing my mind
Yes, genocide is bad. You know what’s worse? MORE genocide. That’s what we got from people not voting because of it.
If you market yourself as being against fascism, maybe don’t vehemently support a different fascist regime and shout down anyone who questions it.
The fact that people like you are spending your energy getting pissy with the voters and not the fucking Democratic party who refused to change their stance is fucking insane.
surprise: I can hold two thoughts in my head at once
Thoughts, sure. You’ve chosen to spend your time attacking those who wanted change, not the ones who refused to not back the systemic murder of an entire people.
Priorities.
I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t realize I’m a different person.
The two thoughts I hold are “on election day, it’s self-gratifying not to vote for the outcome with the highest lows, raising the floor” and “before and after election day, do whatever you can to make the lives of politicians who fail miserable and support better candidates, up to and including civil unrest”
Not voting is categorically ineffective. There may be plenty of things more effective than voting, but not voting isn’t one of them.
People love to present this scenario like it’s a lever with three positions: candidate A, candidate B, or civil unrest. But it’s not. It’s one switch with two buttons (candidate a, candidate b) and another separate button for civil unrest. You can do both
The only ones making light of genocide are the ones who helped make more of it happen through their refusal to vote for harm reduction.
No, it’s the people like you who are going: people should have voted for some genocide to prevent more genocide, instead of saying something sane like: maybe the fucking Democrats shouldn’t have been promoting a fascist in Israel while running on being anti fascist
instead of
LIAR! Of fucking course the Democrats shouldn’t have been doing that! Nobody’s disputing that! You are inventing a false dichotomy out of thin fucking air!
Who’s lying? You, right here in this thread, are ragging on the voters. Not the genocide supporting Democrats who refused to stop supporting fascist Netanyahu.
You have decided to spend your energy not attacking the corrupt shitbags, but the people who are stuck STILL asking them to change their stance. What the fuck are you fighting for?
You are cherry-picking only the things I said in this thread to try to crucify me for being on-topic. That’s disingenuous bullshit and you fucking know it.
And besides that…
Not the genocide supporting Democrats who refused to stop supporting fascist Netanyahu.
What part of “of fucking course the Democrats shouldn’t have been doing that” did you not understand? I did, in fact, criticize genocide-supporting Democrats right in the very comment you replied to!
And moreover, EVERY SINGLE OTHER COURSE OF ACTION SUPPORTED FASCIST NETANYAHU EVEN MORE.
You have decided to spend your energy not attacking the corrupt shitbags, but the people who are stuck STILL asking them to change their stance. What the fuck are you fighting for?
I’m fighting for you to quit being delusional accelerationist dipshits who cause more genocide, among countless other catastrophes, through your sheer stupidity!
I ALSO fight for replacing the genocide-supporting Democrats with something better, IN OTHER TIMES AND CONTEXTS WHERE IT’S ACTUALLY APPROPRIATE! And fuck you for telling lies, falsely claiming I don’t!
We have had years of constant video footage of it happening. Being desensitized is bound to happen.
I don’t know what kind of person could look at parents being handed the remains of their child in plastic baggies and at any point in their life go “oh wow are they still going on about the genocide?”
That isn’t what they were saying tho.
No, no one is saying those words exactly. But I see the sentiment be expressed in threads like this over and over, and it just doesn’t compute.
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One side aligns with my views 70% of the time
False.
One side SAYS they align with their views, and then do the same shit as Republicans, and kind of just expect you to swallow excuses. Meanwhile we’ve watched Donald act unilaterally with near absolute power for two years, so we know objectively that the lack of power was (and is) never the problem. It was that they didn’t actually support what they said they did.
You don’t know his views, he could be really into fracking, small business owners, and war.
That last one for sure.
What do you think I include in that 30%?
Still, this is very obviously the worse outcome. Democracy isn’t make a wish. You grow up and vote for the least shitty option to prevent the even more shitty options like an adult. Or you can keep crying about not getting your will like a child in the toy isle.
See you say the same shit as repulicans but thats literally what the post is about. Democrats were never going to repeal abortion rights or the voting rights acts.they were never going to start an oil crisis or a trade war and tank the economy the same way. They were never going to support ice the same way (they actually just held out on a partial government shutdown and exceeded my expectations in doing so). Saying that they do the same is a straight up lie. And I’m not saying dems are perfect. The bar is in hell. But they aren’t doing the same.
Democrats were never going to repeal abortion rights
Roe v Wade was repealed under Biden
By republicans. Clearly you’ve never had a civics course or you wouldn’t say stupid shit that shows you don’t understand how the US federal government functions.
The point is that Biden could’ve made it unrepealable, but didn’t
How? By what mechanism could he prevent the supreme court from overturning established legal understanding? Because that’s not a thing the president gets to do, like what the fuck are you even talking about?
Court packing, among others. Something the Democrats, who controlled both houses and the Presidency, chose not to do.
I’m well aware of how the US government functions, dipshit. You’re saying that because the results of your failed strategy are apparent.
Clearly you don’t.
You don’t ‘reinforce’ a law when there is established legal precedent because, there is legal precedent.
That’s like making more laws saying murder is illegal.
You accellerationists have such a chronic lack of understanding how this government functions.
You’re the only one bringing up an idea of “reinforcement”.
On the other hand, you do absolutely legislate law when abortion protections only had a SCOTUS case protecting them, especially since it was one that they’d been nibbling at for decades. Which is part of the reason that it’d been a topic for decades, and a campaign promise of Obama. One he decided later to just forget about.
a chronic lack of understanding how this government functions
It’s always funny to see the shitlibs show off the fantasy they construct to protect their sad worldview.
Look around at the US. This is your doing. You guys won. You drove the politics since the 90’s - and this is the result. None of this was a surprise to anyone but you.
You’re really showing off that “understanding” too. Keep it up comrade.
I’ll argue democract are ineffective to a fault, even ineffective in a weaponizable way to punish their consitutients for straying from the center. Again, the bar is in hell. But they did not repeal abortion rights directly and never would have.
No, they simply refused to do anything to stop the repeal, of course.
Why are you saying this like it conflicts with anything I’ve said?
I’m not. I’m saying the difference is meaningless in results though.
Donald acting unilaterally is not just a matter of a color map on the senate chart. It’s also a matter of a well-funded cult of worship that can never allow any dissonance.
Imagine a Democrat, in a majority, introduced a bill to make streets safer and add bike lanes. Imagine two Democratic senators rebutted “Hey, I don’t like that. I enjoy my F-150.” They probably wouldn’t be instantly kicked from the party and have their homes threatened to be burnt down. They’d have people gently try to negotiate with them.
On the other hand, let’s say a Democrat wanted a bigger change like jail time for use of a Nazi swastika, or the death penalty for ICE agents, or deploying troops to assist Ukraine. They wouldn’t really have a guarantee that every single senator in the Democratic aisle would stand against an impeachment action, because they don’t have that religious following; just general shared motives.
Democrats are allowed to disagree. It’s often a good premise that prevents all-out corruption or oligarchy, but it’s a notable weakness to account for when pushing landmark legislation off what people call a solid majority. Other comments have pointed out the original VRA passed with the help of Republicans because some Democrats stood against it.
It was never about lack of power, but upending the democratic process.
Any president could plow through using executive orders, but no sane person would want that, and the fact that Trump is using that kind of power virtually unopposed because the GOP controls both senate and congress, should terrify everyone. Instead, here we are, asking why his predecessors wouldn’t resort to despotic measures.
should terrify everyone.
LOL
People can’t pay their grocery bills, rent, get an abortion, and are being criminalized for being homeless and I’m still hearing people talking about norms as if that is the important issue.
It is a massive negative that Democrats, having had the power to change the (air quotes) “democratic process” at least twice in the last 20 years, across multiple economic calamities for workers, chose not to do so. (Conveniently while increasing their own wealth exponentially in the process.)
I want to understand what your playbook looks like here, because any executive order can be erased just as easy as it was signed.
But even more importantly, I want to know what the appeal is of a “Trump of the left”. Do people really think that a guy who believes that he has authority to hold both executive and legislative powers, is going to do better this time?
Someone that actually wants to disrupt the ills of the system could have tried effectively using the DOJ to imprison every pedophile, traitor, and corrupt politician currently in office, that would leave a nice heap of missing seats in the senate, getting a majority would be much easier. Remove the filibuster and pack the courts with a fresh set of folks like KBJ.
While you’re at it, use the DOE to enforce radical a climate agenda that disrupts the power of oil. You could even use the climate emergency to justify massive reductions in military presence around the world, letting the military budget go towards jobs programs for local green development. They could actually follow leahy laws and cut all military aid to Israel.
I would have hoped from the Trump presidency, more folks would realize the rules are largely built on biased interpretations and that you can bias those in other directions to make the country better. Now maybe you think I am absurd in my views, but maybe we can compromise a bit further than spending months with websites and means testing to slowly roll out partial student debt relief while giving all the time in the world for the right to send court cases against it. Put simply a Trump of the left would have done the effective thing of simply abolishing the debt unilaterally and giving the courts the much more difficult task of reinstating debt, rather than moving slow enough that it’s stopped before it starts.
Congrats on not being brown, or from a third world country
Republicans destroying USAID is expected to kill how many millions of brown people in third world countries? How many children unvaccinated and uneducated?
But both sides apparently are the same
USAID killed more brown kids in third world countries than most US programs. It was built by the CIA to destabilize countries and foment dissidence towards unfriendly governments (that usually aren’t able to provide for their citizens because of US sanctions anyway). Let’s not pretend it is bad for the world that this is gone; it is just amazing there are no longer any intelligent republicans that understand US foreign policy and allowed it to go away.
Both sides aren’t as similar anymore, as in Republicans literally stopped paying attention to the intelligence community and what they do to project US military imperialist power across the world and accidentally are helping the rest of the world break free from US imperialism; but ‘both sides’ want the exact same thing, ones just no longer intelligent enough to hide it behind doublespeak.
Seriously pretending USAID was a good thing is like pretending the NED promotes democracy or the US has ever been the victim in any conflict.
Missed your username, naturally you think feeding the hungry is an evil CIA plot.
Not that you actually care about the lives of brown people in 3rd world countries except as a way to generate outrage, but 92 million lives saved is the estimate.
‘Feeding the hungry’ is an evil CIA plot when the US State department made them hungry.
And yes, as a brown person now in a 3rd world country (technically second world, but anything not white is third world to you people), I do care about the crimes the US does to the country I’ve been adopted into; including what USAID has done.
Pretending any thing the US has ever done has been done out of benevolence is, at best, pure willful ignorance. Ask someone in a country that has been affected by USAID why USAID was necessary sometime. Go on.
The US messed up most of Latin America. USAID makes things better. Removing USAID makes things worse. It doesn’t matter whether it is out of benevolence (the real reason is that making Latin America better means the US doesn’t have to deal with a migrant crisis). What matters is that it’s better than the alternative.
They don’t do it for benevolence. They do it for the soft power that appearing benevolent gives them. Fucked up motives but still a net positive.
technically second world, but anything not white is third world to you people
Then maybe you shouldn’t keep using that language. You’re the one that introduced it during your first comment
Don’t need to trust them. You can trust the literal CIA when their staff says USAID helps them achieve in the open what they used to do covertly and thus freeing resources from the agency (to REALLY focus on the unspeakably evil shit)
USAID caused more damage than help, I am glad trump destroyed it, altho for the wrong reasons.
“Yay for more starving children, yippee!”
Ghoul.
Less debt traps, coups, lobbying, etc as well.
Watch this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APLJle95iZI
Personally, I’m not seeing the us do less coups. Just weaker excuses for the coups they perform.
I am both brown and from a third world (both in the original unaligned sense and in the newer impoverished sense) country. You fucked us over with Trump.
The slaves didn’t care that Lincoln said in his debates with Douglas that whites were superior to blacks and that he supported an Illinois law against miscegenation. They cared that he removed them from bondage. Smart people take whatever progress they can get.
One side aligns with my views 70% of the time.
That’s an optimistic percentage, and yet still not an excuse to avoid voting for them.
If I know somebody who agrees with the Dems 70% of the time they’re basically the white dudes from Get Out.
Never change ml, never change. Mostly because you’re too myopic to be capable of it in the first place.
no sane person agrees with democrats 70% of the time lmao, maybe like 25% at best
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Athens was a slave state that only allowed the men to vote.
Last time we had true democracy was probably before we did the whole agriculture thing
it is propaganda method by the right, like your vote doesnt matter. thats how we end up getting schumers and hakeems of the congress, when less people vote, more conservative candidates are elected, this includes the DINOs. maine is currently fighting with susan collins, mills and platner 2 of them are conservatives.
Let’s grant your premise. I don’t think if I had a friend who liked 70% of the same shit as me but I found out the other 30 they’re assaulting kids, killing minorities, sending money I gave them to genocidaires, doing unspeakable atrocities to ALL of the people outside our shared neighborhood, and being buddy buddy with the other dudes who do that shit 100% of the time, I would just not want to hang out with that guy.
Maybe I’m built different tho.
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Wait, who does the left want to die?
Um, the right obviously! I want everyone on the opposite side to die so obviously the other side must feel the same!
Genuinely hard to not be black pilled by this constant bullshit like as if there are genuinely elected officials making comments about “MAGA hunting” or some shit. Literally only one side wants to eat the other. One wants death the other wants brunch. Fucking hell.
They want me dead… I want them to have single payer healthcare.
No I absolutely want fascists to die. A world where we allow fascists to live is a world that will fall to fascism, because fascists don’t play by the same rules as the rest of us.
Yeah. I get the SPIRIT of the idea, but MAGA has committed WAY more than enough heinous crimes where I’d ACCEPT them being thrown of out power, but in my heart of hearts on my extended wishlist I’d like to see them all drawn and quartered.
Hell yeah, like most authority, do as I say not as I do is huge with orange dingleberry and his bootlickers.
Nazis, slavers, and unrepentant pedophiles mostly.
So nobody important, got it.
Au contraire, for example any and every member of Congress fits the description.
That might be a bit hyperbolic.
Bernie Sanders has his faults, for sure, but I don’t think he’s a nazi, a slaver, or an unrepentant pedophile.
So nobody important, got it.
I mean I see conservatives say it all the time they believe liberals want them dead. Like nah just dont be fucking assholes and pedophiles lol
Mostly it’s, GTFO of my personal life that doesn’t affect you. Practice some of that liberty you like to pay lip service too. Admit there is a gun proliferation issue and address it.
It’s always projection. The right is happy to murder death kill (see slavery) so they assume everyone else is too.
Plenty of them do. People like tucker Carlson and Alex Jones have audiences. And for God’s sake /r/conservative, and practically all of reddit is a conservative hatefest now.
Edit: nevermind, I misunderstood this comment originally.
Fascists.
I’m fine with them not being fascists anymore. But yeah, if they refuse, fair point.
Adapting to the level of discourse here: the left wants successful and lucky people to die
Just when they don’t pay their fair share and/or use their wealth to buy legislation.
Bruh, there are people who think that way actually exist unfortunately
I’m a progressive pragmatist and I think we need ranked choice voting. Ranked choice voting allows people to vote for multiple parties with multiple choices
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You’re right.
I should give Democrats credit for all the times they held power and still didn’t do jack shit about the VRA except wring their hands and pretend to be powerless to stop the judicial repeal of it. (2006, 2013, 2021, etc. etc. etc.)
After all. Actually doing stuff requires effort, and it’s unreasonable of me to expect the opposition party to actually oppose things.
Democrats: Pass landmark legislation to give minorities political power, eventually lose power
Republicans: Gain power, strip minorities of political power
You: “Why aren’t the Democrats doing more?”
Every time the GOP burns the house down, they’re politelt excused and Democrats get blamed for not bringing enough water. Explain exactly why you think the Democratic Party wanted the VRA to die.
Democrats: Pass landmark legislation to give minorities political power
This is some wild erasure of impact of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s on pressuring Democratic politicians, including LBJ himself, who was more worried about pissing off southern Democrats than passing the VRA. It wasn’t until the threat of mass civil unrest was upon them that that it was passed with bipartisan support, with 20 of the 32 Republican Senators at the time (not a typo, Dems held a supermajority of the Senate) cosponsoring the bill to prevent southern Democrats from filibustering it. It also passed the House with bipartisan support and a 333–85 vote (Democrats 221–61, Republicans 112–24).
As always it is the people, not politicians, who get the goods.
And let’s not forget that Strom Thurmond, the man whose hatred for black people gave him the demonic fortitude to filibuster the Civil Rights Act for 24 hours and 18 minutes was a Democrat, until he and his ilk decided to all gather in the Republican Party.
I don’t think liberals will ever quite understand why it was so easy for him to switch parties like that. Or why Trump made the same switch after being a Hillary supporter in 2008.
Not only was he a dem, he was personal friends with the Clintons. All that racist shit libs know he’s been saying since the 90s? His buddies were pushing for the Crime Bill at the time
Or why Trump made the same switch after being a Hillary supporter in 2008.
I’m mean that one is easy. He just picked the voters easiest to fool. Or maybe just the vocally evil ones. I don’t think he could have said half the shit he did and have won a dem primary.
I see. So if our ideal candidate isn’t possible anymore for the next election, we should always vote for the worse candidate, to drive people further towards public outcry, until civil unrest can get the real goal accomplished.
Makes perfect sense
we should always vote for the worse candidate,
The point is that it doesn’t matter who you vote for, and pretending otherwise is a bit absurd. All we get are neoconservative politics no matter who we elect. The difference is one side pretends to be powerless and just lets the bad shit happen. (Except for genocide and poverty, which they enthusiastically aid and support.)
Your only power is local unless you’re willing to commit a dramatic act of vigilantism.
You may wish there were a third track, but taking your hand off the lever gives up power.
Saying it doesn’t matter is a naive position of privilege. Of course it matters. This is a “they’re no different” argument that is just so obviously a false equivalence.
but taking your hand off the lever gives up power.
You’re saying that voters should have no power and have to accept whatever the Democrats nominate. You don’t seem to understand what power is.
No, not being allowed to rewrite history doesn’t mean that at all. You don’t get to erase the incredible violence faced by average people that was ultimately behind the passage of the VRA, or the cowardice of the politicians who wouldn’t act until the mob was literally on their doorstep.
If you think anything I’ve said about the VRA is inaccurate you need to go read a history book. Anyone telling you to be grateful to the Democrats for passing it out of the goodness of their heart is at minimum too ignorant about the actual history of the US to listen to, or they’re trying to con you.
I never said any of that? I said you can do both. They are not mutually exclusive
The masses have never convinced the wealthy to something they haven’t wanted to do. The publics desire for change has never been a motivating factor for policy.
If you have evidence that the Civil Rights Movement and civil unrest had no impact on the passage of the VRA please present it, because that is not current historical consensus.
The civil rights movement was a story I was taught but the reality of the government engaging in a slow burn genocide against minorities with the War on Drugs is my modern reality.
So was the appeasement of civil unrest and subsequent backlash again VRA and the Civil Rights Movement a net positive. Was it just appeasement or did the government actually bend to the will of the people. What do you think Martin Luther King or Malcom X would say about the state of things now considering the US has destroyed millions of minority families in the last 40 years.
I think this also gets at the perspective that things are getting progressively better. While some metrics such as poverty have shown some amazing progress with billion of people having access to fresh water and electricity, actual human rights have not faired so well.
I think you can take historical consensus and drop kick it off a cliff for what it is worth.
Democrats have never made a single significant improvement that wasn’t under explicit threat of violence from the organized masses, and even then only after dragging their feet and heavily negotiating it down.
Off the top of my head ,Obamacare, green energy investments, gay marriage, ending non-competes, antitrust, not ending lifesaving aid to the global south are all pretty neat.
Do you remember the armed militias organizing so Adam and Steve could get married? I don’t. IG there were a lot of guns at the last Buck-and-Buck party I went to, but it was a hick town so…
Almost all of your examples are exactly what they mentioned
Obamacare - shitty mild reform forced after literal decades of working class begging for drastic reform. The essential “meat” of it in terms of progress was ending the ability of insurers to deny for pre-existing conditions. The cost of this was the individual mandate, forcing everyone to buy (still privatized and ridiculously expensive) insurance, which was ultimately a huge win for insurers. They sold a significantly higher amount of shit coverage high deductible plans, especially to young people, who generally never meet the deductible. So now they had the monthly premiums for those people while essentially paying $0 in coverage. In turn many of those people became extremely resentful and saw the gop as saviors when they eventually removed the individual mandate to pander to them. Romneycare, the original bill, did nothing to address the huge administrative overheads that plague our system (5-10x the rate of other countries), no regulatory controls for price gouging, etc because it was designed to look like something was being done while ultimately serving the corporate monopolies involved in health insurance, which the democrats were happy to adopt because they are corporatist in nature
Green energy investments were paltry and pathetically low considering the scale of the issue. Americas grid is not even 25% green energy. Meanwhile China has 3x the capacity of Americas entire grid in green energy alone
When has significant antitrust action occurred? Honestly? The last real movement was breaking up the telecoms in the late 80s/early 90s. Even that was pointless as the telecoms eventually re-convened through mergers and acquisitions over the next 10-15yrs and have reemerged as Internet monopolies with price fixing and everything. Monopolies exist everywhere in the USA - obviously in tech to an almost unprecedented level, health insurance through companies like Aetna and Cigna, mass media is overwhelmingly owned by 6 indicates/companies, even shit like the major music record labels have dwindled from like 14 to like 4 from 2000-now because no controversial merger is ever blocked. Even fucking grocery chains and food brands that have been demonstrably shown to price fix are either given a slap on the wrist fine or nothing at all
Gay marriage was not codified in a way that prevents repeal at any point, similar to abortion rights. As a result it is in a precarious situation where the republican evangelicals are actively funding court battles to challenge it
Aid abroad was to generate “soft power”, eg “I did you a favor so you now owe me the world”. While aid is good it was extremely often exploited for imperialist motives like perpetuating the military industrial complex
Every single one of these is an example where the democrats presented idealized progressivism, watered it down to something tolerable for the donor class (and sometimes even beneficial), and still went into it kicking and screaming (the complaints people have about fetterman, that they had about manchin and sinema, were about Lieberman in the ACA days). Neoliberals eat it up because it feels like progress with marketing and the democrats then leave the issue behind forever as “solved”, eg “we did the absolute bare minimum to appease enough of the masses to continue to secure power”
Green energy investments were paltry and pathetically low considering the scale of the issue. Americas grid is not even 25% green energy. Meanwhile China has 3x the capacity of Americas entire grid in green energy alone
So we should instead empower those that would end all green energy investment?
I’ll never understand “give me everything I want or I refuse to participate voters”. It’s like ensuring nothing gets better only worse.
Gay marriage was not codified in a way that prevents repeal at any point, similar to abortion rights.
There’s basically no way for that to be done in the current system. Firstly democrats have not held a 2/3rds majority to make that an amendment, and even amendments can be reversed see prohibition.
It is not “give me everything”. It is “give me an option that actually gives a realistic path forward for change and doesn’t just give households with $70k/yr income or more enough comfort to turn a blind eye to all the rot that Trump laid bare”
As an outsider, I feel like while democrats have done many things that you might be vocal about, the biggest factor of deteriorating quality of life wasn’t sufficiently addressed.
That isn’t anything close to what I said.
But okay. If it makes you feel better. 🤟😎
Cool beans bud, great talk. 🤡
This is the highest of liberal thought. No retorts, just acting smug.
I know, right? Ya ask the kid to defend a stupid assertion and ya get an emoji dismissal. Pretty weak sauce!
Here’s an outside perspective: Regardless of who is in the White House, the U.S. forces other countries under its thumb - using the tools of predatory capitalism, which is represented by the political parties in the U.S. no matter who’s in office. For the rest of the world, the only difference is whether this happens openly, as it does now, or is nicely disguised, as was the case with an eloquent president like Obama.
So there is just as little of an alternative for the world as there is for US citizens. Of course, we would like to see someone in power in the US with whom one can at least somewhat reason, but in essence it makes hardly any difference.
This is the reality for the world and also for US citizens.
Naturally, in this system, the logical response is to vote for the Democrats because they are the lesser evil.
However, that does not solve the fundamental problem for anyone. The problem lies in the fact that the US is by no means a democracy, as it is portrayed through Hollywood and all that.
The US is an oligarchic system very similar to today’s Russia. These are simply facts.
Posts like this don’t change the facts: If US citizens want a life worth living, there is simply no way around overthrowing the existing system.
It’s that simple, because even the U.S. Constitution, which was drafted with slave-holding states in mind, stands in the way of democracy.
What I’m saying here is simply reinforced by the fact that in the richest country in the world, there are no social benefits whatsoever, as are more than common in all democracies.
Edit: Since this comment is once again being downvoted simply for stating the facts. The answer is not violence, but mass civil disobedience by U.S. citizens. Together, they would have the power to put a stop to their billionaire rulers. Tomorrow, there is even a symbolic one-day general strike planned - but unfortunately, that is not enough: there must be a general strike by the citizens that lasts until the oligarchy is overcome. This is not utopian, but feasible, if only enough people understand that the U.S. system logically leads only further and further toward what it is constitutionally designed to do.
the US is by no means a democracy
Fuck off. Tell that to New Yorkers who beat the entrenched elites and elected a genuine democratic socialist.
The only thing you’re doing is agreeing with the people who do not want it to be a democracy and convincing people you mostly agree with to not vote and let the worse candidate get into a position of power.
Obviously things could be a lot better. But quitting the whole system and letting it become worse is counterproductive as hell.
If the U.S. had a majority voting system, it would never be possible for the U.S. to have the government it does. Unfortunately, however, this is a fact. So I can only say: Fuck off - I obviously know more about how the U.S. political system works than you do - and I’m not even a U.S. citizen.
Please don’t get me wrong: It’s great that New York has the mayor it does. But put that in a global context: In Europe, Mamdani would be a moderate centrist politician, by no means a radical leftist.
We’re getting pretty close to an effectively popular vote-based system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact
That was a city mayoral election. I guess NYC is indeed a democracy. The United States of America is not.
NYC still has a ton of money in politics. NYC still uses first past the post for its general election of their mayor.
Systemically, there are parallels to the rest of the country. The same shit could happen at the national levels.
Its a deeply flawed democracy, with mechanisms to strengthen land owning and wealthy. But it still holds real democratic potential
How do piefed comments always manage to be worse than .world comments lol
Please leave the internet and come back after you grow up.
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democratic socialism is moderate wing of fascism. Mamdani hasnt spoken a single word about palestine after becoming mayor, he calls cuba and venezuela dictatorial regimes to justify invasion. Fuck him.
I unfortunately learned all of this after I voted for Harris and with what I know now I regret my vote and should’ve went with PSL
Pumpkin spice latte?
should go for greens, atleast they have a shot even tho I dont like some stuff about them.
i like the perspective. the system favors the wealthy class and the U.S is just too big. if it were the size of nyc or texas, maybe. but the coordination required is impossible for the “rebellion”. the U.S is becoming a straight up surveillance state and it’ll be more difficult as time goes on.
it also politically divided in 2 camps by design and by troll farms, thats why you cant have the whole country do an uprising unlike most other countries. when you have one side that is totally complicit(republicans) turns out Rs dont like to ruffle the feathers so to speak thats why they dont protest, or make noise to enact change.
All I get from this post is that you’re a Russian bot account, copaid by the Chinese government, to foment a grassroots movement in favor of Trump on the highly influential and much sought after (in intelligence circles) platform “Lemmy”. And that you think that both sides are the same.
highly influential and much sought after (in intelligence circles) platform “Lemmy”.
LAMAO
You say the only difference is openly or not, but there is very clearly a huge degree of severity difference to this problem with anyone else vs Trump. And a notable one between Democrats and Republicans.
not really if you are outside of america, no
Being outside america doesn’t suddenly make republicans better or democrats worse.
their foreign policy is literally same
Yes all presidents burn bridges with allies and start wars with literally zero plan.
Literally all presidents damage the global economy recklessly
Literally all presidents threaten to invade an ally on the regular.
Yeah great point tankie.
Read your own comment.
Your problem is “zero plan”, “reckless”, etc. Just vindicated my point.
And being tankie is the logical position, liberalism has killed thousands of innocent people in imperialism. Liberalism is a genocidal illogical ideology.
Apparently you don’t understand sarcasm. And no there’s nothing logical about embracing an authoritarian government, quite the opposite.
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You may not have the best “both sides” argument if you need to go back over 50 years
The US needs a new constitution and a new model
The existing model assumes politicians will play fair, it never accounted for parties gaming the justice system, presidents ignoring the constitution or politicians being bought by foreign interests. There are no checks and balances if they can just be ignored. It’s a platform for fascism.
The only independent branch of the US that could possibly make the changes necessary to remake America is the military at this point. Political financing means democrats have too much to lose to re-orient the system back to the people.
Citizens united should have triggered it but trump has made it an immediate priority.
The billionaires behind trump should be completely asset stripped so none of them every try another business plot
“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” - George Washington
Should have diluted the influence of political parties by getting rid of First-past-the-post voting and making 3rd parties viable without a spoiler effect.
Dont worry blue conservatives, you’ve will get the opportunity to earn your incremental change. When we become a one party state, you can still compete in Republican primaries! Shouldn’t be a problem right?
Found him.
Im glad it’s so easy. Thanks for writing it down. We all appreciate it.
The US system was designed by the wealthy, for the wealthy. This isn’t unusual though as the rest of the world is run this way as well. Giving lip service to the population while doing whatever they want is a consistent theme across all of Europe and the entire world for that matter.
I think you can look at the wealth gap as the greatest indicator. Every single country is currently increasing this gap. The wealthy are in control.
If US citizens want a life worth living, there is simply no way around overthrowing the existing system.
It’s that simple
And which party being elected would have made this “overthrowing” easier?
Naturally, in this system, the logical response is to vote for the Democrats because they are the lesser evil.
Malcolm X said:
I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. 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.”
MLK said similar things. The longer I live, the more I feel this sentiment. The genocide in Gaza cemented this. Never, ever, mistake a liberal for an ally.
That WAS a MLK quote.
Malcom X said liberals are like foxes. They look like they’re smiling but then they’ll backstab you.
Malcom X said things more like this:
Brothers and sisters, I’m here to tell you that I charge the White man. I charge the White man with being the greatest murderer on earth. I charge the White man with being the greatest kidnapper on earth. There is no place in this world that that man can go and say he created peace and harmony. Everywhere he’s gone he’s created havoc. Everywhere he’s gone he’s created destruction. So I charge him. I charge him with being the greatest kidnapper on this earth. I charge him with being the greatest murderer on this earth. I charge him with being the greatest robber and enslaver on this earth. I charge the White man with being the greatest swine-eater on this earth, the greatest drunkard on this earth.
Facts as well
“Not all etc. etc.,” but I have a hard time disagreeing with him.
Barbary slave trade says hello
He said the White man is the greatest [bad thing] on Earth, not the only one.
Excusable given circumstances, but Martin Luther King Jr’s message is both much more powerful and much less racist, and the best ideal for a society to achieve along with the most correct blame
Malcom X himself mellowed out when he got older. But I totally get his anger.
Well that’s an uncomfortable truth
MLK said that exact thing. That quote is from his “letter from a Birmingham jail,” not anything Malcolm X said.
I feel ill inclined to someone who mistattributes such a famous quote ngl
liberalism is a disease. Read Lenin ffs.
What he described is a conservative, not a liberal.
Something tells me I’m going to be bombarded with messages that, well, are pretty much exactly what the meme is about.
*Also, a conservative masquerading as a moderate/independent/politically homeless/fiscally responsible? I’m shocked. Shocked!
Could you imagine what they would have said about the minority genocide err I mean the War on Drugs.
Definitely kicked the hornets nest with this one OP lol
There’s entirely too many people who let perfect be the enemy of better in this thread
I can’t tell whether bots/foreign agents are starting to substantially infiltrate Lemmy or if there’s just that many dumbass “both sides” dipshits on this platform.
There are absolutely that many dipshits on this platform.
Time to go back to BBS and telnet…
Eh, there are dipshits on every platform. The world is full of morons with a full range of technical ability
Then we’re doomed.
Always have been
True, but also you have to remember that a lot of us are folks who got kicked off Reddit for saying too many things that pissed people off there.
Yeah, I’m one of them lol
They absolutely are. They were happy to do it on their own instances until world defederated from them, and now they figure they have to be active on the normal instances to ensure their manipulative machinations reach the right eyeballs.
And they still use the same excuses. B-b-but the libs and Israel… Like that justifies trump and Israel, trump and Iran, trump and ICE, trump and Venezuela. Seriously, fuck off and stop acting like your hands are clean. They could’ve protested one president being a douche about Gaza but instead allowed another to perpetuate it, bomb Venezuela, starve Cuba, bomb Iran, strangle the world for energy, starve kids, and build a massive Sturmabteilung at home among many other things. They’re the “buttery males” of non-voters.
Yup. Their concern about Palestine was never about Palestinians, or they would have voted for the candidate that was clearly least destructive to Palestine. It was always about their own self gratification. Stroking themselves, if you will.
All their purity test did was hurt Palestinians more. Idiots.
how was harris less destructive to palestine?
Biden had conditions on how Netanyahu could act. Trump has removed all limits on Netanyahu.
Seriously? Israel carried out most brutal genocide when biden was in the office.
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I can’t tell whether bots/foreign agents are starting to substantially infiltrate Lemmy
I mean, a little bit of common sense goes a long way here.
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One is a good cop, the other is a bad cop. But the good cop enables the bad cop. So both are still pigs.
The elephant in the room is that they’re mostly bots or bad actors. They’re written almost exactly the same and in the same format. When you call them on it, you are downvoted almost instantly and buried. We usually don’t qualify to get the really good ones in here, but that’s a good thing imo.
Did you know: blocking all posts and comments from .ml makes the fediverse experience way, way better!
I don’t engage with .ml
I just downvote everything from there and move on.
I prefer to see the patterns, I don’t take it personally at all anymore. I’m a reddit veteran when they were 100x worse.
Welcome to a tutorial on how to block .ml on your personal account.
In the top right corner of the top of the page, there are 3 horizontal white bars. Click it.
This will open up a drop down menu. At the bottom of that menu, you will see your username. Click it.
This will open another drop down menu with 3 options. Click “Settings”.
At the top of your screen you will see 2 tabs. Click the one that says “Blocks”.
Here you will see “Block user” “Block community” and “Block instance”. Click the down arrow below “Block instance”.
This will open up a search bar. Type “lemmy.ml” and click it after it shows up. That’s it! You’ve blocked .ml and will never see content from the instance.
But wait, we aren’t done yet in this menu. Click the down arrow under “Block user”. Now type “UltraGiGaGigantic” Make sure you select my .ml account as the other ones I no longer use. Thanks, appreciate it.
Someone having a different ideology other than your own isn’t being a “bot” or a “bad actor.” Saying that just shows you don’t know anything about US politics.
Interesting a .ml user who defends China multiple times in the first few comments in their history says this. Pikachu face!
Hell yeah I do China is amazing
Unless you think basically any of the problems worsening under the trump administration, which they’ve had for decades, matter at all.
Geez, I wonder why baselessly accusing people of being bots would get you downvoted.
mostly bots
Where are these bots targeting lemmy coming from you think?
I don’t know if they are bots. But I would imagine Russia. Russia loves to have a weak US with Republicans in power and Trump subordinate to Putin, and one way to get that is to have people not vote for Democrats.
Average lemming when 6 conservative Catholics appointed by Republicans gut voting rights: I can’t believe the leftists did this!
How did those 6 conservative Catholics get there?
appointed by Republicans
Maybe try reading the rest of the sentence and you might find out!
Read? Who told you I know how to read!
I totally missed that part, lmfao
Are you trying to equate Democrats with leftists? Or are you saying the average Democrat blames leftists for the things the Republicans do? Because one is correct and the other is unhinged, and the Democrats are not left in any way.
Or are you saying the average Democrat blames leftists for the things the Republicans do?
Correct. A large portion of Democrats have no move except punching left when they lose elections.
My standpoint is this: I feel betrayed by the betrayals, I’m frustrated by the things Democrats didn’t do when they were in power. I accept as an unfortunate reality, at least some 1-15% of the Democratic party (can absolutely be more!) is corrupt and cares only about the NASDAQ, themselves, or Israel and ethnostates. That bloc will vote hard against anything pro-American like healthcare, defunding ICE, or defunding Israel. They might even pretend to support those things at times when no vote will pass.
There’s also more than a few timid, ineffective Democrats that are only voting for obvious wins, and won’t vote against any appointments because they don’t want attention on themselves.
A lot of that, ultimately, doesn’t matter. That type of opportunistic traitor, or coward, doesn’t get much of a mechanism in a supermajority, where their choice to stand against Democrats doesn’t even buy them anything; when over 50 seats in the Senate are NOT bought out by corporate interests.
By all fucking means, pick out the betrayals, watch people’s individual voting records, vote in primaries, and raise a stern eyebrow anytime a voter tells you they “vote blue, no matter who”. But don’t pretend you can’t look past nuance. We’re dealing with a mammoth ®ogue political party, which is the unfortunate reality, and even cutthroats could decide they benefit from taking credit in its destruction.
funding israel and starting wars is actually pro american, that benefits america.
Specifically your political and financial apparatuses. Not Americans in general.
american imperialism does benefit americans in general.
Nooo the country isn’t rotten to the core, it’s not like, based on pillage and exploitation of other nations and peoples or something ahaha. We just have to vote right and name more warships after famous gay people, just one more progressive warship I swear. Maybe an autonomous one?
I don’t get it.
Most of the people complaining here would be the first to raise hell if their lifestyles took a hit. They are dependent on their cheap food, spacious homes, short work weeks, and good healthcare. They claim they are revolutionaries, but they would rise in the streets if their privileged existence was replaced with a fair and just society.
You’re right, I do want labubu matcha more than liberation
fuck outta here with your baseless, unprompted, undesired armchair psychoanalysis
spacious homes, short work weeks
lmao where?
funding israel is supporting Israels aim, while israel doesnt need use thier own cannon fodder to throw at the ME, they know how unpopular it is for thier own troops to suddenly die because thier own population would turn agains them, so they usea proxy, which is the UNited states via AIPAC and jewish billionaire backers.
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I got curious to see when the last time the democrats held power. We all know a single two year term isn’t long enough to accomplish anything before policy gets reverted.
House and Senate control history
The last time it was two 2 year consecutive terms was the 110th and 111th session. (2007-2011;Bush2001-2009/Obama2009-2017)
Prior to that, there was a four 2 year consecutive term streak 100th to 103rd. (1987-1995;Reagan/Bush-HW/Clinton)
The longest control was 13 terms; 84th-96th session from 1955-1981.
You say that but it seems like the current administration has made a lot of change in less than 2 years when the entirety of the party is in lock-step.
Imagine if instead of ACA we got medicare for all, meaning Republicans trying to touch it would’ve effected every single citizen akin to social security that they still haven’t successfully gutted because of the political suicide it would cause for them.
Yes: If more than 50 Democrats were religiously unified around one person or cause, they would get it done.
We’ve been trying to rally that effort behind ideas, like universal healthcare. The idea of rallying around a president, who claims they want universal healthcare, is there but it has serious risks: That person could lie, could pivot, could serve their own interests.
That is, in many ways, the lesson that MAGA members are getting; they were promised lower taxes, better jobs, and could see that with a willing supermajority, they have the power to get that. Only…that supermajority isn’t working in their interests, because they rushed to “have power”, when it’s really their politicians that have power.
And remember, that supermajority doesn’t even have to be one political party. It can be reps/senators from both parties that all were voted in on, and legitimately want to fight for, a certain idea. Long, long ago, D/Rs negotiated with each other and passed bipartisan bills, but that’s been gone a long time.
I think if you would understand that Democrats chose to keep funding Israel and Ice instead of getting more votes, you would understand why this meme doesn’t mean jack shit for the undecisive voters.
Unless of course, you want to say that it wasn’t worth it in terms of voter count for Democrats.
ICE is literally not funded today because Democrats wouldn’t fund the gestapo. Thank you for your input, low-information nonvoter.
There’s a clear continuity of ICE policy between Obama, Biden, and Trump. Today’s ICE and its severe fascist escalations would not have been possible if Democratic administrations had not poured so much resources into it.
But I guess bothering to remember anything that happened more than one presidential cycle ago makes one a “low information voter”.
Policy yes, behavior no, or do you wanna show me all the public executions of American citizens ice did during the Biden years? Don’t be disingenuous.
Democrats have carried out multiple genocides, what makes you think they wont fund the gestapo?
Reality is so inconvenient for .ml’s and hexbears.
We have documents full of links pertaining to reality as it is, as it was, and most importantly, receipts for how libs pretended it was otherwise.
Y’all treat it as proof of being bots or spies or whatever the fuck you need to tell yourselves to refuse to engage with the evidence. I smell a projection tbh.
But not as inconvenient as it is for liberals~.
That’s why Piefed removes accounts that prove you wrong. Reality sucks for fascists.
Either I agree with and endorse your exact definition of socialism or I’m a fascist? Cool. That’s a really mature and reasonable way to look at the world.
Every Democrat government official since the creation of ICE has kept them funded. They didn’t just suddenly pop up in the last couple years. Obama and Biden could have easily destroyed them, but Dems like killing Nazis about as much as they did after WWII when we kept too many of them alive and free.
when we kept too many of them alive and freeInvited them to work in senior positions of the federal government.
I forgot that you guys have long term memory issues:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/8/30/kamala_harris_cnn_interview_policy_shift
As she touted her support for hard-line border security and asylum policies, Harris positioned herself as tougher on immigration than Trump.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/deportations-by-ice-10-year-high-in-2024-surpassing-trump-era-peak/
This one honestly speaks for itself. And hey, Obama appears as a cameo, too!
Real talk, if anyone genuinely believes this meme, they’re a fool. The parties in the US, and anywhere else, for that matter, are substantially different from one another.
Namely, Democrats only support Genocides in the middle east MOST of the time, whereas Republicans support it ALL OF THE TIME.
Ml and hexbear have entered chat
Maybe Dems should try standing for something more than the status quo.
JFC the amount of people in this thread who want a more palatable tyrant to be the next president, is concerning.
Good thing most of these never leave their parents’ basements though.
