I mean, if you don’t care about trans people, or gay people, or women, or unions, or having the possibility of making better choices in the future without having to resort to large scale violence then sure, they both have similar economic policies, I guess. It must be nice to not care about horrible things happening to most people. It makes it so much easier when you don’t care about people, right?
Not an American, so no real stake in this but, could you tell me what the Democrats have done in the past four years to protect trans rights? Since you’re all so clearly concerned about them an’ all.
Okay, can you be more specific about what they did to minimise damage? Like, did they make trans people a protected class, or relieve the bureaucracy around transitioning, or what?
I didn’t say that at all. I said they voted against bills by Republicans to make things worse. Things like bathroom bills or outlawing transitioning. I don’t think what they’re doing is enough. I want them to actually make things better, and I try to support people in the primaries who I think are actually willing to fight for those causes, but mainstream Democrats aren’t there yet. At least they aren’t making things worse though, which is absolutely what will happen if the Republicans gain power.
I guess there’s some small comfort that they’ll at least pay lip service to trans rights then.
The labour party won an election over here and one of the first things they did was stop access to puberty blockers. During the election I was told by a lot of liberals preaching harm reduction that, as a trans woman, that I had to vote for them 'cos the Tories would be worse.
I’m worried about trans people over on your side of the ocean being in a similar position where the elections are between trans exterminationist and transphobe.
Fair. It’s not quite that bad here… sort of. Republicans are pretty similar to the Tories on trans rights, but the Democrats are just too cowardly to take a stand. They’re not transphobic, they’re just really shitty allies. They at least won’t make things worse though.
Huge problem imho, is that a lot of these people who rattle on about voting for harm reduction candidates go home after voting on election day and then don’t get involved politically until the next election cycle.
In these bourgeois “democracies” political parties are always going to move to court wealthy donors and thus shift right wing. If you lot over in America can’t mobilise enough people out in the street to fight for these causes, to grind your country to a screaming halt if needs be, then the Dems will be where labour is soon. Maybe not this election, but check back in with this comment by the midterms.
Oh absolutely. I will be doing everything I can to prevent that, but the possibility of things maybe getting worse if we don’t do enough over the next couple years is still better than things definitely getting worse. Which is the choice we have right now.
Do you seriously believe that the entire population of Rafah wouldn’t already be dead if it were up to Trump? Just because I’m being realistic about the choice in front of me doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. It will absolutely be worse for Palestine if Trump wins, and that matters to me. Does it matter to you?
After all the Palestinian have been murdered under the watchful eyes of Biden and Harris, what ethnic or minority groups are you okay with exterminating in 2028?
You vote for the people responsible for the current Palestinian genocide.You’re not just okay with it, you’re cheerleading for Team Genocide. And the cherry on top is your scolding of Nakoichi, a real-life activist, while throwing a tantrum over voting for the blue face of the American Capitalism Party.
And you’ll happily let things get even worse in Palestine to feed your smug superiority and wonder why socialists are irrelevant in America. But hey, I want the less bad option, so that means I want the bad. Sure, sure.
I think the thing that most impresses me about this post is how you just completely neglected to mention forgein policy in your list of things like at all. The Democrats and Republicans being the same regarding supporting the US Empire (besides one side or the other pretending to be anti-war while being in the opposition sometimes, but not following through on that once in power) is a huge factor here lol. Really shows your priorities and that you just do not give a single shit about the global south.
Why don’t you care about any of the people in America? If you think the parties are the same on foreign policy but the Democrats are better on all the thing I mentioned, doesn’t that still mean the Democrats are less terrible? I agree that they’re terrible on foreign policy and bad for the global south, and I would very much like to have an option that wasn’t, but I don’t, do I? I have to chose between the options given, and as bad as they are they’re clearly the less bad option.
You could just choose to shut up do whatever you want. I have been doing actual political work and mutual aid work and defending my local comrades from pigs and liberals as well as fascists for over 20 years so kindly just quit this smarmy self important crusade you are on nobody gives a shit what you think.
They already are. Under Biden. They did under Obama too. When are you liberals going to get over your great man theory and learn that it’s not Trump and it isn’t just Netenyahu. The US and Israel will be the same regardless of which party is at the helm.
You don’t give a shit about any of the things you mentioned because Democrats don’t either.
Oh for fucks sake I can think fascists are bad and want to defeat fascist leaders at every opportunity with believing great man theory. There will be more after Trump and Netanyahu, and I will fight them as well. I will fight every fascist at every opportunity every time. Why won’t you?
There will be more after Trump and Netanyahu, and I will fight them as well. I will fight every fascist at every opportunity every time.
Why aren’t you fighting the other half of the exact same fascist machine then? Instead you insist on carrying water for the fascists that put on a civil facade. That’s not fighting fascism, that’s aiding it.
Why won’t you?
Oh fuck OFF. Nakoichi just fucking told you they have been doing REAL work to fight fascists for over 2 decades, but you completely ignore that. Such obvious bad faith.
Over, and over, and over, and over I have said that the lesser of two evils is still evil, but it’s less evil, and that matters, and now you just barge in here a dozen comments deep to make the same stupid argument that completely ignores everything I’ve said? What exactly did you hope to accomplish?
Fascism isn’t just a mean name for people you disagree with. It’s an actual political ideology with an actual meaning. The Republican party is currently being run by their fascist wing. The Democratic party doesn’t even have a fascist wing. Yes, their stupid shitty corporate pandering made the rise of fascism in America possible, but that doesn’t make them fascist, and it doesn’t mean the fascists are impossible to defeat. Don’t try to sell you giving up to me as moral superiority.
Why don’t you care about any of the people in America?
As a disabled person living off federal benefits, with a transgender girlfriend living in a red state, I’m literally got skin in the game personally, so don’t tell me that I don’t care about people living in America. The problem is there is an active genocide going on and the Biden adminstration, including Kamala, are supporting it.
If you think the parties are the same on foreign policy but the Democrats are better on all the thing I mentioned, doesn’t that still mean the Democrats are less terrible?
I dont think they are materially better on the things you mentioned on the federal level as I mentioned in another post. The best they’ve done is nice sounding words. Another thing you forgot to mention btw is immigration, on which Biden has somehow managed to be materailly worse than Trump lmao. So theres that too.
and I would very much like to have an option that wasn’t, but I don’t, do I? I have to chose between the options given, and as bad as they are they’re clearly the less bad option.
You have options that aren’t that and they all involve doing literally any political thing other than voting. I literally don’t care if you decide to vote for Kamala, especially if you live in a swing state. Just please, god, take your eye off electorialism because it won’t save us.
Doing other things than voting doesn’t stop you from voting. It takes 5 minutes every couple years. It is literally the least you can do. It doesn’t magically prevent all other action though. And serious, how can you not understand even after RvW that doing nothing is still better for you than what the Republicans will do. You’re right, at the national level if the Democrats gain power they won’t do anything at all, and that is massively better than the alternative. It’s not rocket science.
And serious, how can you not understand even after RvW that doing nothing is still better for you than what the Republicans will do.
The republicans do it anyway!! The republicans do what they want, the democrats allow them to while raking in donations by telling everyone how mean the republicans are! It’s not that the democrats are better because they don’t do bad things but republicans do, it’s that they are both parts of the same machine that does these things, playing their respective roles! How can you be so fucking blind as not see the blatant “good cop/bad cop” routine for what it is?? And yet you are calling other people morons (ableist language by the way, asshole) for trying to get this very obvious reality through to you!
It is correct that the Democrats raking in the money for doing nothing by pointing out what the Republicans would do if they gained power. They’re not wrong though. Republicans would do those things, and as long as we don’t let anyone who is actively threatening to do them win an election they won’t happen. If it happens for long enough eventually the Republicans will either get sick of losing and give up on those things or fade into irrelevance and the Democrats will split. They don’t care what we want, but they do care about power, so making the things they want incompatible with gaining power is the only way to defeat them. Don’t feed me defeatist do nothing bullshit and call it activism.
Doing other things than voting doesn’t stop you from voting. It takes 5 minutes every couple years. It is literally the least you can do
Voting for someone abetting a genocide (Biden, Harris) is endorsing that genocide. If the democrats win an election after funding a genocide, what kind of mesage is that sending all politicians, whether you like them or not? It’s telling them that they can commit genocide without repercussion, they can commit genocide and still have the support of the voting public. Voting for genocidaires (let alone defending them and trying to get others to do the same) makes you complicit in the current genocide as well as the ones that are sure to follow due to green light given to those who perpetrate them. You’re telling Democrats and any other politicians “as long as you give lip service to the things I care about - no need to follow through on them btw - then you can go ahead and murder entire nationalities and ethnic groups the world over, it’s ok, I’ll still vote for you.” Fucking disgusting.
What a stupid take. Do you think politicians give a shit what I think? Trust me, I’m so far outside the Overton window that I may as well be random noise to them, but I’m not so far up my own ass that I don’t care about the consequences of my actions. More people will die if Trump wins, and that is all that matter to me. If you think that’s supporting genocide then you can take you sick bizarro logic and shove it up your ass.
What a laughable deflection. Politicians give a shit what the voting public in aggregate does, dipshit. If they don’t give a shit what you think, why are you advocating for one half of them? Why are you trying (and failing so bad it’s funny) to argue that people should vote for one team of them that you think are “less bad”?
but I’m not so far up my own ass that I don’t care about the consequences of my actions.
Like, do you really not care that you completely contradict yourself from one comment to the next, or hell, from one sentence to the next?
More people will die if Trump wins, and that is all that matter to me.
Meanwhile Biden & Harris fund a literal, undeniable genocide. You are such a clown I’d think it was impressive if it weren’t so disgusting.
If you think that’s supporting genocide then you can take you sick bizarro logic and shove it up your ass.
Yeah, refusing to vote for genocidaires is “sick, bizarro logic” but sending them your approval by voting and stanning for the genocidaires is “fighting fascism.” Nah, you can take your sick, twisted, fascist-apologist illogical rationalizations and shove them up your ass, you sycophantic loser.
or having the possibility of making better choices in the future
How’s that working out for you if you look at the past few elections? Did you manage to push Biden left? Have they prosecuted the American war criminals? How far is Genocide Joe from your ideal? Is Copmala gonna be better, improving material circumstances?
Can’t you see that neoliberalism had literally the opposite effect - pushed everything even more right and extreme?
Americans have this weird view of Russians and Putinists and liberals think that the Chinese are a brainwashed hivemind— but you look crazy from the outside when you argue for voting Mussolini against Hitler.
Democrats supported genocide and their brinkmanship with Russia got us closer to Nuclear Armageddon, fuck y’all
Oh yeah, how’s being a douchebag on the Internet working out for you as a replacement for democracy. It’s easy to criticize the flaws. It’s a lot harder to come up with something better. I never said it was working well, for the record. I said I’d like to keep the possiblity of it working open for the future, because let’s be real, if you have the resources to remake America, you have the resources to win an election. The fundamental problem with leftists is that we’re mostly smug assholes who refuse to work with anyone we disagree with, and until that changes we will remain completely irrelevant.
The fundamental problem with leftists is that we’re mostly smug assholes who refuse to work with anyone we disagree with,
I’m not American - I’m saying you are worse than what liberals say Russian and Chinese are
anyone we disagree with,
Economically they are neoliberals - leftists are opposed to neoliberalism
Their foreign policy is brinkmanship, genocide and bombing allied infrastructure
This is 0/2- how are they not enemies rather than “someone I disagree with”?
until that changes we will remain completely irrelevant.
You will remain irrelevant because you’d vote D whatever they do. It seems like you represent the Dems as a project whatever they do, rather than they represent the voter base, earning votes.
Which is ass backwards.
Who said anything about supporting them. I’m willing to take on my enemies one at a time starting with the worst of the lot.
By the way, I already gave a list of things that I think the Democrats are better than Republicans on at the very start of this whole conversion chain, but I guess you can’t remember that long ago when it doesn’t suit your narrative.
Who said anything about unconditionally? You’re just making shit up. They are clearly, objectively least terrible viable option right now in 2024. If that changes I will be glad to dump them, but for now I have to live in the real world. I hope some day you can join me here.
Whether you like it or not they don’t see your vote as an endorsement of the marginal differences, they see it as an endrosement of everything they’re doing, including that genocide thats going on.
I don’t think Harris will do what I want. I’ll try to put as much pressure as I can on her if she becomes president, but I don’t really expect much in the way of results. I just want the option that will result in the smallest number of innocent people dying and the least rights lost for those who live over the next 4 years. That option is clearly Harris, even if the differences are marginal.
If genocide doesn’t change the calculus in your mind, then nothing ever will. And genocide is only like the tip of the iceberg in terms of problems with the democratic party.
The Biden admin has single handedly fucked my budget despite me living in europe by bombing the nordstream and the shit they pulled with project Ukraine.
They are actively trying to drag humanity into world war 3 on like 3 different fronts. That’s not getting into the shit the Biden admin is probably pulling in Africa and Latin America (which I am less knowledgeable about).
Jesus fucking Christ how fucking stupid are you? I don’t get the option I want. I’ve never gotten the option I want. I don’t want any of these options. All of the options are bad, but some bad things are worse than others. How can you not get such a basic concept? I can’t actually believe you’re really this stupid. It can’t be real. Why the fuck are you in here telling me your farts smell like roses? What the fuck is this bullshit?
Uh huh. I notice you didn’t actually bother to name any. There are certainly lots of ways that democracy could be reformed for the better that have been shafted by the Democrats and Republicans, and I would love to see any of them get implemented, but it’s not going to happen in the next 3 months. We’d actually have to get more of us to keep pushing for it between elections and start at smaller scales than national elections for it to ever make any progress. As for options for something that isn’t democratic at all, every alternative I’ve heard is just even worse.
There were plenty of mildly progressive candidates that could have done things in power were modern America not a neoliberal hellhole. Beanie, AOC, the squad, Jill stien, Claudia de la cuz. Those are the current ones. Going further back, people like gore or nader could have played the role. But all of these people either got shafted through institutional factors or got cooped and forced to water down even their milquetoast radicalism. Many of these people were neutered by the Democrats.
On the movement level, the Democrats coopted, neutered then mutilated the corpse of the BLM social unrest in 2020, which could have been used to otherwise fuel a lot of progressive changes. Instead, the dems not only killed it, but poured salt on the wounds by increasing police budgets nationwide and even helping to build cop cities and expanding surveillance now!
The fact that the Democrats are less rabid than the Republicans does not make them easier enemies to deal with, but more dangerous. They have more patience and play the long game.
Don’t you fucking dare use Trans people as a shield when dems don’t give a single fuck for the safety of Trans and queen spaces. This sort of behavior is not going to ingratiate you to anyone facing oppression right now under Biden or potentially Kopmala.
For fuck sake she literally forced Trans women to be jailed with men and deliberately kept people jailed for cannabis charges after it was decriminalized. For the sake of civility fuck your smug bullshit. I would say hell of a lot meaner shit to you on hexbear.
Oh fuck you. If you think Republicans won’t be even worse your a fucking moron. More likely you’re just a liar trying to make excuses for you do nothing bullshit.
YOU don’t do nothing! You’d unconditionally vote for the party committing genocide RIGHT NOW, their new candidate is not even a pivot, she’s the current VP of the administration supporting genocide!
You just float along the shit river… whatever the Democrats do, you’re there supporting them.
This is exactly why everything is getting more right wing.
Hah! You know a lot about me for someone on the internet who knows nothing about me. You’re just making bullshit because I’m willing to participate in harm reduction so you can feel morally superior about letting people die for no other reason than that it won’t save everyone.
You think letting the guy who said Netanyahu should “Finish the Job” win will make things better? At least Biden pressured him into avoiding a full scale invasion of Rafah. They’d all be dead now if Trump were in charge. But you don’t really care about Palestinians either, do you?
The Democrats literally gave a standing ovation to Netanyahoo a couple of days ago, and Kamala gave out a statement against the Pro-Palestine protesters
in other words, what the fuck are you talking about?
You are simply deluded, you live in an alternate reality
I didn’t say they were good. I said they’re less bad than Trump, and those are the only options we have this November. What’s so hard to understand about that? You can absolutely choose the lesser of two evils for the short term while also working toward something good in the long term. But I guess you don’t care how many people die as long as you get to pontificate about how virtuous you are.
The Democrats literally gave a standing ovation to Netanyahoo a couple of days ago,
Err, I mean, I’m on your side in the overall here and think the lemme moron youre arguing with is an idiot. But roughly half of congressional Democrats were not even at the speech, so just saying lets keep our counterpoints in the realm of what actually happened. To be clear, pretty much all the skips announced reasons that were pretty weaksauce so I’m not particularly impressed by most of them. But still, the congressional Democrats did not, as a group, all give a standing ovation to Netanyahu. Thats just inaccurate to say.
What’s your plan to save as many innocent people as possible over the next 4 years then, genius? Oh, that’s right, you don’t give a shit about people. You just pretend that when everything fails and everyone is dying your grand I told you so will magically make everyone agree with you suddenly.
will magically make everyone agree with you suddenly
The true feelings of a liberal - it’s better for people to agree with you than being right.
when everything fails and everyone is dying
Everyone is dying in Gaza, that’s the whole discussion here. I know libs have memory issues (every next election is the most important ever) but that’s pretty poor mate.
You can be right all you want, but if you can’t convince anyone, everything you believe in will die in obscurity for nothing. I care about people believing me because I want the world to be a better place, not to be a smug asshole on the internet. Although to be fair I am also pretty good at that.
Way, way, WAY too many people are dying in Gaza, but it’s not everyone. Yet. Trump could fix that though.
It must be nice to not care about horrible things happening to most people. It makes it so much easier when you don’t care about people, right?
Sadly a question you can ask Kopmala and Biden themselves about why they’re not trying to earn back the people whose votes they lost given what Trump’s going to do, but I guess expecting two people to change course is probably infinitely harder than the many, many people who’ve decided not to bother voting.
But I guess those two must be kept safe from critical questions, seeing as no one’s even trying to pressure them into changing course (except of course for the protesters who most likely count among those who won’t be voting). Then again Biden himself isn’t all that concerned about whether or not Trump wins if we’re being honest.
Sure, I totally buy that Biden and Kamala want to outlaw trans people, abortion, birth control, end unions, end democracy, and otherwise just be totally as bad as Republicans. The fact that they do bad things mean that there cannot possibly be any distinction and therefore there will be no consequences whatsoever to letting the fascists win. Roe v. Wade certainly would have still been overturned if the election in 2016 had gone the other way, too, right?
There is like zero chance you or anyone else is going to apply any pressure or even this energy to Biden and Kamala to get them to change course, is there?
Absolutely ridiculous coming from someone not capable of understanding that the material conditions created by “harm reduction” neoliberal D governments of Clinton, Obama, and Biden actually accelerated the rise of fascism in the US
What makes you think I don’t understand that? I just care about the people who will be hurt by fascists if we let them gain power. Do you really think you can’t keep doing your work while also using the current system to slow the decline and give yourself more time? Because let’s be real for a minute. If it comes to the worst we will lose. There will be no popular revolution in America. Nobody’s going to join your side when it all goes to shit. If we can’t fix things while keeping this shitshow limping along the death toll will dwarf anything the world has ever seen. There is too much at stake right now. Too many things on the verge of going horribly wrong on global scales. It won’t be the end of humanity, but it will probably be the death of billions and the start of a new dark age. Also, it’ll just be more people dead and more rights lost over the next 4 years, but obviously you don’t give a shit about that part.
What, materially, other than nice sounding words, has Biden and federal-level Democrats in general done to counteract what is happening to trans people in red states right now? What indication is there that Democrats care to do anything for trans people on a federal level? On the state level, sure, there’s been some action to make blue states sanctuary states and such, but federally?
abortion, birth control,
Again, what have Biden and the federal level Democrats done about this? Did they codify Roe while they had the chance? Did they pack the courts so Roe couldn’t be overturned? Did they build abortion clinics on Federal land? Or did they just, yet again, say nice words?
end unions
Biden literally broke a strike lmao. Personally, by his own hands. One of the few proactive things he has done in his whole presidency is to actively break a strike.
end democracy
We already don’t live in a democracy. Youre choice is between outright facism and pretty damn close to fascism, and in most places in the country you dont even get to contribute to that choice.
and otherwise just be totally as bad as Republicans
On forgein policy and economics? Yeah pretty much. On social issues? Democrats will say nice words but, again at least federally, not materially do anything.
Roe v. Wade certainly would have still been overturned if the election in 2016 had gone the other way, too, right?
2016 is in the past and you learned the wrong lesson from it. 2016 taught us that running a shitty milquetoast war criminal neoliberal candidate that noone other than wine moms likes against fascism (and pied pipering him as the nominee because you think you can beat him in the process btw!!!) doesn’t work. And again, both Obama and Biden could have codified Roe and didn’t. And Biden could have packed the courts to prevent the overturn.
All in all, electorialism won’t save us. And the violent solutions you wanted to avoid in your first post are actually our only way out of this mess. But they need to be organized.
Oh, also, like holy shit I can’t believe I forgot this part, but are you seriously so delusional that you think you can defeat the US army with less resources, manpower, and popular support than it would take to win an election? That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life.
It’s not about defeating the us army lmao. It’s about striking and civil disobedience, even when illegal. That is the basic strategy to win concessions. On a long term basis, there needs to be more pressure on Democrats to maintain standards instead of just electing garbage candidates.
That’s not what I was talking about. I think all of that is great. It won’t be enough if Trump ends democracy though, which he just publicly promised to do yesterday, in case you missed the news.
You don’t have a democracy that can be ended. You haven’t had one from the beginning of your republic. America is an aristocracy and anyone deluded enough to believe that it ever had anything approximating a democracy simply hasn’t learnt anything.
Why would it not be enough? Do you think the purpose of striking is to convince more people to vote? No, it’s to force concessions directly.
That’s why building up dual power via leftist organizing is the key through-line of leftist thought, rather than playing into the game set up by the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie.
Because the fascists will start shooting people who strike. And we just don’t have what it takes to win that war. We will lose, and the world will be worse because of it.
First, after Biden broke that strike he spent the next year getting the Railroad union everything they asked for. It wasn’t as edgy or exciting, so it didn’t make the news, but he still did it.
As for the rest of it, Jesus Christ how hard is this to understand. The Democrats are fundamentally conservative. They want to keep things the same. The Republicans are actively fighting to make things worse. I don’t want to let the people trying to make things worse win. In what fucking world is that a controversial take? Seriously.
And really, your argument about 2016 is that I’m right and you don’t care because it isn’t perfect? Because that’s what I got from what you wrote. I don’t like Hilary Clinton. At all. I voted for Jill Stein in that election, and I still regret it even though she won my state anyway. I don’t believe electorialism will make the world a better place. I believe it takes 5 minutes every couple years and can stop things from getting worse while we try to solve problems in more practical ways.
I mean, if you don’t care about trans people, or gay people, or women, or unions, or having the possibility of making better choices in the future without having to resort to large scale violence then sure, they both have similar economic policies, I guess. It must be nice to not care about horrible things happening to most people. It makes it so much easier when you don’t care about people, right?
Not an American, so no real stake in this but, could you tell me what the Democrats have done in the past four years to protect trans rights? Since you’re all so clearly concerned about them an’ all.
Mostly just trying to stop the Republicans from making things even worse, which isn’t enough, but it still beats the alternative by a country mile.
Okay, can you be more specific about what they did to minimise damage? Like, did they make trans people a protected class, or relieve the bureaucracy around transitioning, or what?
I didn’t say that at all. I said they voted against bills by Republicans to make things worse. Things like bathroom bills or outlawing transitioning. I don’t think what they’re doing is enough. I want them to actually make things better, and I try to support people in the primaries who I think are actually willing to fight for those causes, but mainstream Democrats aren’t there yet. At least they aren’t making things worse though, which is absolutely what will happen if the Republicans gain power.
I guess there’s some small comfort that they’ll at least pay lip service to trans rights then.
The labour party won an election over here and one of the first things they did was stop access to puberty blockers. During the election I was told by a lot of liberals preaching harm reduction that, as a trans woman, that I had to vote for them 'cos the Tories would be worse.
I’m worried about trans people over on your side of the ocean being in a similar position where the elections are between trans exterminationist and transphobe.
Fair. It’s not quite that bad here… sort of. Republicans are pretty similar to the Tories on trans rights, but the Democrats are just too cowardly to take a stand. They’re not transphobic, they’re just really shitty allies. They at least won’t make things worse though.
Huge problem imho, is that a lot of these people who rattle on about voting for harm reduction candidates go home after voting on election day and then don’t get involved politically until the next election cycle.
In these bourgeois “democracies” political parties are always going to move to court wealthy donors and thus shift right wing. If you lot over in America can’t mobilise enough people out in the street to fight for these causes, to grind your country to a screaming halt if needs be, then the Dems will be where labour is soon. Maybe not this election, but check back in with this comment by the midterms.
Oh absolutely. I will be doing everything I can to prevent that, but the possibility of things maybe getting worse if we don’t do enough over the next couple years is still better than things definitely getting worse. Which is the choice we have right now.
You are drowning in the blood of 200,000 Palestinians.
Do you seriously believe that the entire population of Rafah wouldn’t already be dead if it were up to Trump? Just because I’m being realistic about the choice in front of me doesn’t mean I’m happy about it. It will absolutely be worse for Palestine if Trump wins, and that matters to me. Does it matter to you?
You gasp for air, but all you get is a mouthful of blood – blood from the 200,000 Palestinians killed in a genocide you support.
Pfft. Now you’re just spouting edgelord poetry at me.
You don’t actually care about Palestinians at all, do you?
After all the Palestinian have been murdered under the watchful eyes of Biden and Harris, what ethnic or minority groups are you okay with exterminating in 2028?
None. Zero. I am not okay with any of this. I’m just not stupid enough to think it can’t get worse.
You vote for the people responsible for the current Palestinian genocide.You’re not just okay with it, you’re cheerleading for Team Genocide. And the cherry on top is your scolding of Nakoichi, a real-life activist, while throwing a tantrum over voting for the blue face of the American Capitalism Party.
And you’ll happily let things get even worse in Palestine to feed your smug superiority and wonder why socialists are irrelevant in America. But hey, I want the less bad option, so that means I want the bad. Sure, sure.
I think the thing that most impresses me about this post is how you just completely neglected to mention forgein policy in your list of things like at all. The Democrats and Republicans being the same regarding supporting the US Empire (besides one side or the other pretending to be anti-war while being in the opposition sometimes, but not following through on that once in power) is a huge factor here lol. Really shows your priorities and that you just do not give a single shit about the global south.
Why don’t you care about any of the people in America? If you think the parties are the same on foreign policy but the Democrats are better on all the thing I mentioned, doesn’t that still mean the Democrats are less terrible? I agree that they’re terrible on foreign policy and bad for the global south, and I would very much like to have an option that wasn’t, but I don’t, do I? I have to chose between the options given, and as bad as they are they’re clearly the less bad option.
You could just choose to shut up do whatever you want. I have been doing actual political work and mutual aid work and defending my local comrades from pigs and liberals as well as fascists for over 20 years so kindly just quit this smarmy self important crusade you are on nobody gives a shit what you think.
What’ll you do when the fascists come for your comrades in full force? Are you really so delusional that you think you stand a chance?
They already are. Under Biden. They did under Obama too. When are you liberals going to get over your great man theory and learn that it’s not Trump and it isn’t just Netenyahu. The US and Israel will be the same regardless of which party is at the helm.
You don’t give a shit about any of the things you mentioned because Democrats don’t either.
Oh for fucks sake I can think fascists are bad and want to defeat fascist leaders at every opportunity with believing great man theory. There will be more after Trump and Netanyahu, and I will fight them as well. I will fight every fascist at every opportunity every time. Why won’t you?
Why aren’t you fighting the other half of the exact same fascist machine then? Instead you insist on carrying water for the fascists that put on a civil facade. That’s not fighting fascism, that’s aiding it.
Oh fuck OFF. Nakoichi just fucking told you they have been doing REAL work to fight fascists for over 2 decades, but you completely ignore that. Such obvious bad faith.
Over, and over, and over, and over I have said that the lesser of two evils is still evil, but it’s less evil, and that matters, and now you just barge in here a dozen comments deep to make the same stupid argument that completely ignores everything I’ve said? What exactly did you hope to accomplish?
Fascism isn’t just a mean name for people you disagree with. It’s an actual political ideology with an actual meaning. The Republican party is currently being run by their fascist wing. The Democratic party doesn’t even have a fascist wing. Yes, their stupid shitty corporate pandering made the rise of fascism in America possible, but that doesn’t make them fascist, and it doesn’t mean the fascists are impossible to defeat. Don’t try to sell you giving up to me as moral superiority.
As a disabled person living off federal benefits, with a transgender girlfriend living in a red state, I’m literally got skin in the game personally, so don’t tell me that I don’t care about people living in America. The problem is there is an active genocide going on and the Biden adminstration, including Kamala, are supporting it.
I dont think they are materially better on the things you mentioned on the federal level as I mentioned in another post. The best they’ve done is nice sounding words. Another thing you forgot to mention btw is immigration, on which Biden has somehow managed to be materailly worse than Trump lmao. So theres that too.
You have options that aren’t that and they all involve doing literally any political thing other than voting. I literally don’t care if you decide to vote for Kamala, especially if you live in a swing state. Just please, god, take your eye off electorialism because it won’t save us.
Doing other things than voting doesn’t stop you from voting. It takes 5 minutes every couple years. It is literally the least you can do. It doesn’t magically prevent all other action though. And serious, how can you not understand even after RvW that doing nothing is still better for you than what the Republicans will do. You’re right, at the national level if the Democrats gain power they won’t do anything at all, and that is massively better than the alternative. It’s not rocket science.
The republicans do it anyway!! The republicans do what they want, the democrats allow them to while raking in donations by telling everyone how mean the republicans are! It’s not that the democrats are better because they don’t do bad things but republicans do, it’s that they are both parts of the same machine that does these things, playing their respective roles! How can you be so fucking blind as not see the blatant “good cop/bad cop” routine for what it is?? And yet you are calling other people morons (ableist language by the way, asshole) for trying to get this very obvious reality through to you!
It is correct that the Democrats raking in the money for doing nothing by pointing out what the Republicans would do if they gained power. They’re not wrong though. Republicans would do those things, and as long as we don’t let anyone who is actively threatening to do them win an election they won’t happen. If it happens for long enough eventually the Republicans will either get sick of losing and give up on those things or fade into irrelevance and the Democrats will split. They don’t care what we want, but they do care about power, so making the things they want incompatible with gaining power is the only way to defeat them. Don’t feed me defeatist do nothing bullshit and call it activism.
Voting for someone abetting a genocide (Biden, Harris) is endorsing that genocide. If the democrats win an election after funding a genocide, what kind of mesage is that sending all politicians, whether you like them or not? It’s telling them that they can commit genocide without repercussion, they can commit genocide and still have the support of the voting public. Voting for genocidaires (let alone defending them and trying to get others to do the same) makes you complicit in the current genocide as well as the ones that are sure to follow due to green light given to those who perpetrate them. You’re telling Democrats and any other politicians “as long as you give lip service to the things I care about - no need to follow through on them btw - then you can go ahead and murder entire nationalities and ethnic groups the world over, it’s ok, I’ll still vote for you.” Fucking disgusting.
What a stupid take. Do you think politicians give a shit what I think? Trust me, I’m so far outside the Overton window that I may as well be random noise to them, but I’m not so far up my own ass that I don’t care about the consequences of my actions. More people will die if Trump wins, and that is all that matter to me. If you think that’s supporting genocide then you can take you sick bizarro logic and shove it up your ass.
What a laughable deflection. Politicians give a shit what the voting public in aggregate does, dipshit. If they don’t give a shit what you think, why are you advocating for one half of them? Why are you trying (and failing so bad it’s funny) to argue that people should vote for one team of them that you think are “less bad”?
Like, do you really not care that you completely contradict yourself from one comment to the next, or hell, from one sentence to the next?
Meanwhile Biden & Harris fund a literal, undeniable genocide. You are such a clown I’d think it was impressive if it weren’t so disgusting.
Yeah, refusing to vote for genocidaires is “sick, bizarro logic” but sending them your approval by voting and stanning for the genocidaires is “fighting fascism.” Nah, you can take your sick, twisted, fascist-apologist illogical rationalizations and shove them up your ass, you sycophantic loser.
How’s that working out for you if you look at the past few elections? Did you manage to push Biden left? Have they prosecuted the American war criminals? How far is Genocide Joe from your ideal? Is Copmala gonna be better, improving material circumstances?
Can’t you see that neoliberalism had literally the opposite effect - pushed everything even more right and extreme?
Americans have this weird view of Russians and Putinists and liberals think that the Chinese are a brainwashed hivemind— but you look crazy from the outside when you argue for voting Mussolini against Hitler.
Democrats supported genocide and their brinkmanship with Russia got us closer to Nuclear Armageddon, fuck y’all
Oh yeah, how’s being a douchebag on the Internet working out for you as a replacement for democracy. It’s easy to criticize the flaws. It’s a lot harder to come up with something better. I never said it was working well, for the record. I said I’d like to keep the possiblity of it working open for the future, because let’s be real, if you have the resources to remake America, you have the resources to win an election. The fundamental problem with leftists is that we’re mostly smug assholes who refuse to work with anyone we disagree with, and until that changes we will remain completely irrelevant.
I’m not American - I’m saying you are worse than what liberals say Russian and Chinese are
This is 0/2- how are they not enemies rather than “someone I disagree with”?
You will remain irrelevant because you’d vote D whatever they do. It seems like you represent the Dems as a project whatever they do, rather than they represent the voter base, earning votes.
Which is ass backwards.
Who said anything about supporting them. I’m willing to take on my enemies one at a time starting with the worst of the lot.
By the way, I already gave a list of things that I think the Democrats are better than Republicans on at the very start of this whole conversion chain, but I guess you can’t remember that long ago when it doesn’t suit your narrative.
Who said anything about unconditionally? You’re just making shit up. They are clearly, objectively least terrible viable option right now in 2024. If that changes I will be glad to dump them, but for now I have to live in the real world. I hope some day you can join me here.
Whether you like it or not they don’t see your vote as an endorsement of the marginal differences, they see it as an endrosement of everything they’re doing, including that genocide thats going on.
I don’t think Harris will do what I want. I’ll try to put as much pressure as I can on her if she becomes president, but I don’t really expect much in the way of results. I just want the option that will result in the smallest number of innocent people dying and the least rights lost for those who live over the next 4 years. That option is clearly Harris, even if the differences are marginal.
If genocide doesn’t change the calculus in your mind, then nothing ever will. And genocide is only like the tip of the iceberg in terms of problems with the democratic party.
The Biden admin has single handedly fucked my budget despite me living in europe by bombing the nordstream and the shit they pulled with project Ukraine.
They are actively trying to drag humanity into world war 3 on like 3 different fronts. That’s not getting into the shit the Biden admin is probably pulling in Africa and Latin America (which I am less knowledgeable about).
Jesus fucking Christ how fucking stupid are you? I don’t get the option I want. I’ve never gotten the option I want. I don’t want any of these options. All of the options are bad, but some bad things are worse than others. How can you not get such a basic concept? I can’t actually believe you’re really this stupid. It can’t be real. Why the fuck are you in here telling me your farts smell like roses? What the fuck is this bullshit?
We had better options many times in history. They all got shafted by the dems or republicans.
Uh huh. I notice you didn’t actually bother to name any. There are certainly lots of ways that democracy could be reformed for the better that have been shafted by the Democrats and Republicans, and I would love to see any of them get implemented, but it’s not going to happen in the next 3 months. We’d actually have to get more of us to keep pushing for it between elections and start at smaller scales than national elections for it to ever make any progress. As for options for something that isn’t democratic at all, every alternative I’ve heard is just even worse.
There were plenty of mildly progressive candidates that could have done things in power were modern America not a neoliberal hellhole. Beanie, AOC, the squad, Jill stien, Claudia de la cuz. Those are the current ones. Going further back, people like gore or nader could have played the role. But all of these people either got shafted through institutional factors or got cooped and forced to water down even their milquetoast radicalism. Many of these people were neutered by the Democrats.
On the movement level, the Democrats coopted, neutered then mutilated the corpse of the BLM social unrest in 2020, which could have been used to otherwise fuel a lot of progressive changes. Instead, the dems not only killed it, but poured salt on the wounds by increasing police budgets nationwide and even helping to build cop cities and expanding surveillance now!
The fact that the Democrats are less rabid than the Republicans does not make them easier enemies to deal with, but more dangerous. They have more patience and play the long game.
Don’t you fucking dare use Trans people as a shield when dems don’t give a single fuck for the safety of Trans and queen spaces. This sort of behavior is not going to ingratiate you to anyone facing oppression right now under Biden or potentially Kopmala.
For fuck sake she literally forced Trans women to be jailed with men and deliberately kept people jailed for cannabis charges after it was decriminalized. For the sake of civility fuck your smug bullshit. I would say hell of a lot meaner shit to you on hexbear.
Oh fuck you. If you think Republicans won’t be even worse your a fucking moron. More likely you’re just a liar trying to make excuses for you do nothing bullshit.
YOU don’t do nothing! You’d unconditionally vote for the party committing genocide RIGHT NOW, their new candidate is not even a pivot, she’s the current VP of the administration supporting genocide!
You just float along the shit river… whatever the Democrats do, you’re there supporting them.
This is exactly why everything is getting more right wing.
Hah! You know a lot about me for someone on the internet who knows nothing about me. You’re just making bullshit because I’m willing to participate in harm reduction so you can feel morally superior about letting people die for no other reason than that it won’t save everyone.
THEY ARE SUPPORTING GENOCIDE IN GAZA AND THEY KEEP THE UKRAINE MEAT GRINDER GOING
You are literally describing yourself, fuck your harm reduction
I’m not American, but US policies have a material effect on me, and I hate liberals
You think letting the guy who said Netanyahu should “Finish the Job” win will make things better? At least Biden pressured him into avoiding a full scale invasion of Rafah. They’d all be dead now if Trump were in charge. But you don’t really care about Palestinians either, do you?
The Democrats literally gave a standing ovation to Netanyahoo a couple of days ago, and Kamala gave out a statement against the Pro-Palestine protesters
in other words, what the fuck are you talking about?
You are simply deluded, you live in an alternate reality
I didn’t say they were good. I said they’re less bad than Trump, and those are the only options we have this November. What’s so hard to understand about that? You can absolutely choose the lesser of two evils for the short term while also working toward something good in the long term. But I guess you don’t care how many people die as long as you get to pontificate about how virtuous you are.
Err, I mean, I’m on your side in the overall here and think the lemme moron youre arguing with is an idiot. But roughly half of congressional Democrats were not even at the speech, so just saying lets keep our counterpoints in the realm of what actually happened. To be clear, pretty much all the skips announced reasons that were pretty weaksauce so I’m not particularly impressed by most of them. But still, the congressional Democrats did not, as a group, all give a standing ovation to Netanyahu. Thats just inaccurate to say.
Like 80 percent of Americans don’t even live in a competitive state, stop wasting your time cheerleading for a sham democracy
What’s your plan to save as many innocent people as possible over the next 4 years then, genius? Oh, that’s right, you don’t give a shit about people. You just pretend that when everything fails and everyone is dying your grand I told you so will magically make everyone agree with you suddenly.
The true feelings of a liberal - it’s better for people to agree with you than being right.
Everyone is dying in Gaza, that’s the whole discussion here. I know libs have memory issues (every next election is the most important ever) but that’s pretty poor mate.
You can be right all you want, but if you can’t convince anyone, everything you believe in will die in obscurity for nothing. I care about people believing me because I want the world to be a better place, not to be a smug asshole on the internet. Although to be fair I am also pretty good at that.
Way, way, WAY too many people are dying in Gaza, but it’s not everyone. Yet. Trump could fix that though.
I’m glad the democrats have found an acceptable pace of genocide for you.
I’m not glad you don’t care if there’s more. That makes me sad.
Sadly a question you can ask Kopmala and Biden themselves about why they’re not trying to earn back the people whose votes they lost given what Trump’s going to do, but I guess expecting two people to change course is probably infinitely harder than the many, many people who’ve decided not to bother voting.
But I guess those two must be kept safe from critical questions, seeing as no one’s even trying to pressure them into changing course (except of course for the protesters who most likely count among those who won’t be voting). Then again Biden himself isn’t all that concerned about whether or not Trump wins if we’re being honest.
Sure, I totally buy that Biden and Kamala want to outlaw trans people, abortion, birth control, end unions, end democracy, and otherwise just be totally as bad as Republicans. The fact that they do bad things mean that there cannot possibly be any distinction and therefore there will be no consequences whatsoever to letting the fascists win. Roe v. Wade certainly would have still been overturned if the election in 2016 had gone the other way, too, right?
There is like zero chance you or anyone else is going to apply any pressure or even this energy to Biden and Kamala to get them to change course, is there?
Oh, I absolutely will starting in November. I’ll be loud about it. For now I need to beat the fascists first though.
This is what Democrats did this year.
No shit sherlock. Still better than 2020. Is your memory really that short?
Absolutely ridiculous coming from someone not capable of understanding that the material conditions created by “harm reduction” neoliberal D governments of Clinton, Obama, and Biden actually accelerated the rise of fascism in the US
What makes you think I don’t understand that? I just care about the people who will be hurt by fascists if we let them gain power. Do you really think you can’t keep doing your work while also using the current system to slow the decline and give yourself more time? Because let’s be real for a minute. If it comes to the worst we will lose. There will be no popular revolution in America. Nobody’s going to join your side when it all goes to shit. If we can’t fix things while keeping this shitshow limping along the death toll will dwarf anything the world has ever seen. There is too much at stake right now. Too many things on the verge of going horribly wrong on global scales. It won’t be the end of humanity, but it will probably be the death of billions and the start of a new dark age. Also, it’ll just be more people dead and more rights lost over the next 4 years, but obviously you don’t give a shit about that part.
You know, you would get killed in Russia for your need to use different pronouns.
What, materially, other than nice sounding words, has Biden and federal-level Democrats in general done to counteract what is happening to trans people in red states right now? What indication is there that Democrats care to do anything for trans people on a federal level? On the state level, sure, there’s been some action to make blue states sanctuary states and such, but federally?
Again, what have Biden and the federal level Democrats done about this? Did they codify Roe while they had the chance? Did they pack the courts so Roe couldn’t be overturned? Did they build abortion clinics on Federal land? Or did they just, yet again, say nice words?
Biden literally broke a strike lmao. Personally, by his own hands. One of the few proactive things he has done in his whole presidency is to actively break a strike.
We already don’t live in a democracy. Youre choice is between outright facism and pretty damn close to fascism, and in most places in the country you dont even get to contribute to that choice.
On forgein policy and economics? Yeah pretty much. On social issues? Democrats will say nice words but, again at least federally, not materially do anything.
2016 is in the past and you learned the wrong lesson from it. 2016 taught us that running a shitty milquetoast war criminal neoliberal candidate that noone other than wine moms likes against fascism (and pied pipering him as the nominee because you think you can beat him in the process btw!!!) doesn’t work. And again, both Obama and Biden could have codified Roe and didn’t. And Biden could have packed the courts to prevent the overturn.
All in all, electorialism won’t save us. And the violent solutions you wanted to avoid in your first post are actually our only way out of this mess. But they need to be organized.
Oh, also, like holy shit I can’t believe I forgot this part, but are you seriously so delusional that you think you can defeat the US army with less resources, manpower, and popular support than it would take to win an election? That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life.
It’s not about defeating the us army lmao. It’s about striking and civil disobedience, even when illegal. That is the basic strategy to win concessions. On a long term basis, there needs to be more pressure on Democrats to maintain standards instead of just electing garbage candidates.
That’s not what I was talking about. I think all of that is great. It won’t be enough if Trump ends democracy though, which he just publicly promised to do yesterday, in case you missed the news.
You don’t have a democracy that can be ended. You haven’t had one from the beginning of your republic. America is an aristocracy and anyone deluded enough to believe that it ever had anything approximating a democracy simply hasn’t learnt anything.
Why would it not be enough? Do you think the purpose of striking is to convince more people to vote? No, it’s to force concessions directly.
That’s why building up dual power via leftist organizing is the key through-line of leftist thought, rather than playing into the game set up by the Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie.
Because the fascists will start shooting people who strike. And we just don’t have what it takes to win that war. We will lose, and the world will be worse because of it.
First, after Biden broke that strike he spent the next year getting the Railroad union everything they asked for. It wasn’t as edgy or exciting, so it didn’t make the news, but he still did it.
As for the rest of it, Jesus Christ how hard is this to understand. The Democrats are fundamentally conservative. They want to keep things the same. The Republicans are actively fighting to make things worse. I don’t want to let the people trying to make things worse win. In what fucking world is that a controversial take? Seriously.
And really, your argument about 2016 is that I’m right and you don’t care because it isn’t perfect? Because that’s what I got from what you wrote. I don’t like Hilary Clinton. At all. I voted for Jill Stein in that election, and I still regret it even though she won my state anyway. I don’t believe electorialism will make the world a better place. I believe it takes 5 minutes every couple years and can stop things from getting worse while we try to solve problems in more practical ways.