Trump speaks not just for himself. A substantial section of the ruling class is convinced that it confronts a massive social movement of workers that poses the greatest danger to its wealth and privileges.
It was Democrat DA Sherry Boston in Georgia who charged 22? environmental protestors with domestic terrorism for being present at protests in vague proximity to where a police car was burned.
It was Democrat Mayor Andre Dickens, and Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff & Raphael Warnock, who remained silent when the Atlanta City Council passed funding for Cop City after 90%+ of public testimony urged them to vote against it. Although the Senators had no problem implicitly supporting the state’s narrative that the protestors are violent terrorists, while waxing poetic about “sacred constitutional rites”. They’ve also all been silent, as far as I’m aware, about the police firing 57 rounds into Tortuguita / Manuel Paez, an environmental activist who had his hands up at the time of death according to an independent obituary. The first environmental activist killed on US soil - which, as an act of politically motivated violence, would actually fit the definition of terrorism - with the full complacency of the Democratic Party.
It was Obama who passed the Trespass Bill allowing federal authorities to designate certain areas as, essentially, “1st Amendment does not apply here” zones. He also signed the NDAA, which, as the ACLU explains: “…[codified] indefinite military detention without charge or trial into law for the first time in American history. The NDAA’s dangerous detention provisions would authorize the president — and all future presidents — to order the military to pick up and indefinitely imprison people captured anywhere in the world, far from any battlefield.”
It was all presidents, Democratic and Republican, who decided not to exercise the unilateral authority granted to the executive branch to end the wildly unpopular Drug War which especially targets poor and/or marginalized people, particularly black people. (Based on rates of arrest vs rates of self admitted use.) All presidents have the ability to reschedule any substance at any time without any approval from any other branch of government. The Drug War, or just cannabis prohibition even, could end tomorrow if Biden wanted it to.
Not to mention they may not be taking away your rights, as an American, but the Democrats might be taking away the lives of your parents, siblings, or neighbors as acceptable collateral with the wars they champion overseas. (Speaking less about Ukraine as the whole nuclear disarmament in the 90s is a special case, and more about, for example, our unjust occupation of oil fields in Syria or Obama’s illegal strikes in Libya).
Vote 3rd party, because you’re doing something worse than throwing your vote away when you vote Republican or Democrat. Both teams have largely the same corporate ownership.
I will not risk voting third party when a Republican president will do everything in his power to take away my rights and the rights of my trans friends. It’s easy to do that when your rights aren’t on the line, but mine are.
Please note that I don’t disagree with you. I fucking hate democrats. It’s a garbage party full of garbage candidates with garbage ideas and garbage officials with no spine.
But these are my rights we’re talking about. This is my actual life. The rights of my friends and loved ones to exist. Right now, right here. I can’t risk that.
I also don’t really think it’s fair to both-sides this. I don’t disagree with you that democrats are awful (see above) but they’re orders of magnitude less awful than Republicans. At least they’re not trying to turn this country into a theocracy.
I’ll happily vote third party when my loved ones and I aren’t one election away from a fucking death camp.
Then why would did the Democrats not use their brief supermajority to codify protections for abortion, for trans people, etc? Could it be that they don’t actually care about you at all and just need a narrative in order to hold up a sign that says “If you don’t vote for me, look what will happen!”
They’re playing their role in the Ratchet Effect, and Republicans are playing theirs. All to benefit the same people.
Also worth mentioning that more people died of COVID during Biden’s administration and police killed more people in 2022 than any other year. While Biden insists we need to “fund the police” and Democrats champion Cop City - are those not just components of a decentralized, country-wide “death camp”?
It’s not “both sides-ing”, it’s insisting that they are the same side. One actor playing two roles in the same movie.
I mean I already said they’re garbage spineless people. Nowhere did I say that they were any good or had any redeemable qualities.
I don’t think they care about me. I vote for them because they’re not christofascists. They’re not trying to make a literal fucking list of all trans people in the state. They’re not calling me a groomer or calling for the “elimination” of my friends.
If a third party was a viable option and they had better candidates, I’d vote for them. As it stands, it’s not an option, and telling people who vote D to vote third party instead is a terrible idea, because all it’ll do is increase the likelihood that the Rs will win.
In fact, telling democrats to vote third party is a known right wing tactic. Very well known in fact.
Voting for them for who they are not, while ignoring the fact that they don’t fight back in any meaningful way, is doing your part to enable the ratchet effect.
I don’t care what the right wing does. I care what’s right. I’m not voting for anyone whose campaign donors profit from overseas murder, just because they’re not vitriolic about trans people at home.
I’m not the one telling people how to vote though. You’re the one doing that, and you’re doing it in a very Jill Stein 2016 sort of way. And on a brand new account, which has only replied to my comments. Forgive me but you’re giving off some very strong vibes at the moment and they are not good.
Anyway, you can vote for whoever you want, I don’t really care. I’m just not gonna sit here and let you use my comments to spread this “both sides are the same, vote third party” nonsense. Not on my fucking watch, friendo.
People aren’t allowed to have opinions on new accounts? On a website seeing a massive influx of new accounts? Am I going to be a Russian bot next? My other account is @[email protected] , but that’s an account for a video game group I run, so I don’t feel using it for my personal politics is appropriate.
I’ve already very clearly articulated the many ways in which they are the same, friendo. If you’re comfortable voting for tangible murder overseas and by US police in the name of preempting persecution of a specific population, that’s your prerogative. But similarly, don’t expect me to tolerate your “Democrats aren’t taking away our rights” nonsense when I’ve provided multiple verifiable examples of them doing exactly that. Just not the rights you’re currently worried about.
Yeah I didn’t say any of that. I said an account that’s one hour old and has only responded to my comments essentially using a common right wing tactic from 2016 is pretty suspicious. The fact that you have another account is completely irrelevant. It’s registering a new account to say this specific thing that’s suspicious.
Anyway, you’re trying to twist my position/words and I don’t appreciate that. I very specifically said “our rights” as in, the rights of trans and gay people. I never said they weren’t harming other populations, in fact, they are harming other groups that I also happen to belong to (I’m Latino, for one thing) or am closely related to (Jewish family, black and brown relatives and friends, disabled husband). Don’t talk to me about police brutality. You don’t know what I’ve been through.
And besides all that, if your third party candidate won, we’d still have congress which would most definitely lean either D or R, and the Supreme Court with its lifetime appointments. There’s a less than zero chance that a third party could win the presidency and the House and Senate. So we’d end up with a president that can’t do shit to help anybody anyway.
You say I’m only worried about my own rights to the detriment of others. Okay. What exactly do you think you’re doing? You’re also choosing a particular set of rights to the detriment of others. When you vote third party, you make it more likely that a Republican will win, and a lot of people will get hurt if that happens.
If you’re comfortable with that, that’s your prerogative. But don’t expect me to tolerate your performative kindness, friendo. If you really gave a shit about helping people, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Edit: you just declared that this conversation was over because I didn’t reply within a couple of hours, lmao. People have lives, buddy. I have other things to do.
Also, again and for the last time: I never said I liked Biden or any democrats, or that they were good people. Jesus Christ. Stop wasting my time.
No, it’s not suspicious to make a new account and then use it. Especially when there are many new accounts being made on the website. Attack the merits of the conversation, don’t default to this lame routine of “you are doing something which I have decided resembles the actions of a widely disliked group despite you having very clearly different values from that group”.
Your exact quote was “I vote for democrats because they’re not actively working to take my rights away”. You have rights besides the right to express your gender identity as you please. Those other rights, as I have very clearly expressed, have been and still are being taken away by Democrats. I don’t need to know what you’ve been through to talk to you about the reality of police brutality in the world and the way which Democrats enable it.
Yes, the progress towards a third party would not be instantaneous. So we shouldn’t bother starting anywhere, and should just concede defeat to the oligarchs who demonstrably own both parties?
What I’m doing is deciding that I’m not willing to endorse, by vote, continued murder both overseas and at home in the name of possibly preempting further persecution of a marginalized group. I believe the greatest “net good” for humanity should be the priority (second only to the preservation of nature), not a localized “net good” for communities I identify with or for my nation.
It’s not performative lol, you don’t even know who I am, what could I possibly have to prove here? Don’t assume to be able to ascribe motives to me, and don’t tell me I don’t care about helping people just because I’ve decided bullets and bombs and for-profit murder are the more urgent evil than laws and vitriol and bigotry.
They already said they don’t like the Dems, just that they dislike Republicans more. Which is absolutely valid. One is not doing enough to protect them, the others are actively trying to remove their rights. Both sides are not the same.
In a different system, I would definitely encourage everyone to vote for a 3rd party. Not being from the US, I do.
But in a FPTP system, that’s just not viable. It’s not a vote for the other party, but it’s the same as not voting, or worse if your 1 democratic state is the only one to go 3rd party.
Until a primary candidate of one of the established parties runs on a platform to change the electoral system, there’s just very little you can do. Which I can only imagine how frustrating it is. I’m not from the US, but I’m invested enough and have close friends living there that I want to see a change as well.
It was Democrat DA Sherry Boston in Georgia who charged 22? environmental protestors with domestic terrorism for being present at protests in vague proximity to where a police car was burned.
It was Democrat Mayor Andre Dickens, and Democratic Senators Jon Ossoff & Raphael Warnock, who remained silent when the Atlanta City Council passed funding for Cop City after 90%+ of public testimony urged them to vote against it. Although the Senators had no problem implicitly supporting the state’s narrative that the protestors are violent terrorists, while waxing poetic about “sacred constitutional rites”. They’ve also all been silent, as far as I’m aware, about the police firing 57 rounds into Tortuguita / Manuel Paez, an environmental activist who had his hands up at the time of death according to an independent obituary. The first environmental activist killed on US soil - which, as an act of politically motivated violence, would actually fit the definition of terrorism - with the full complacency of the Democratic Party.
It was Obama who passed the Trespass Bill allowing federal authorities to designate certain areas as, essentially, “1st Amendment does not apply here” zones. He also signed the NDAA, which, as the ACLU explains: “…[codified] indefinite military detention without charge or trial into law for the first time in American history. The NDAA’s dangerous detention provisions would authorize the president — and all future presidents — to order the military to pick up and indefinitely imprison people captured anywhere in the world, far from any battlefield.”
It was all presidents, Democratic and Republican, who decided not to exercise the unilateral authority granted to the executive branch to end the wildly unpopular Drug War which especially targets poor and/or marginalized people, particularly black people. (Based on rates of arrest vs rates of self admitted use.) All presidents have the ability to reschedule any substance at any time without any approval from any other branch of government. The Drug War, or just cannabis prohibition even, could end tomorrow if Biden wanted it to.
Not to mention they may not be taking away your rights, as an American, but the Democrats might be taking away the lives of your parents, siblings, or neighbors as acceptable collateral with the wars they champion overseas. (Speaking less about Ukraine as the whole nuclear disarmament in the 90s is a special case, and more about, for example, our unjust occupation of oil fields in Syria or Obama’s illegal strikes in Libya).
Vote 3rd party, because you’re doing something worse than throwing your vote away when you vote Republican or Democrat. Both teams have largely the same corporate ownership.
I will not risk voting third party when a Republican president will do everything in his power to take away my rights and the rights of my trans friends. It’s easy to do that when your rights aren’t on the line, but mine are.
Please note that I don’t disagree with you. I fucking hate democrats. It’s a garbage party full of garbage candidates with garbage ideas and garbage officials with no spine.
But these are my rights we’re talking about. This is my actual life. The rights of my friends and loved ones to exist. Right now, right here. I can’t risk that.
I also don’t really think it’s fair to both-sides this. I don’t disagree with you that democrats are awful (see above) but they’re orders of magnitude less awful than Republicans. At least they’re not trying to turn this country into a theocracy.
I’ll happily vote third party when my loved ones and I aren’t one election away from a fucking death camp.
Then why would did the Democrats not use their brief supermajority to codify protections for abortion, for trans people, etc? Could it be that they don’t actually care about you at all and just need a narrative in order to hold up a sign that says “If you don’t vote for me, look what will happen!”
They’re playing their role in the Ratchet Effect, and Republicans are playing theirs. All to benefit the same people.
Also worth mentioning that more people died of COVID during Biden’s administration and police killed more people in 2022 than any other year. While Biden insists we need to “fund the police” and Democrats champion Cop City - are those not just components of a decentralized, country-wide “death camp”?
It’s not “both sides-ing”, it’s insisting that they are the same side. One actor playing two roles in the same movie.
I mean I already said they’re garbage spineless people. Nowhere did I say that they were any good or had any redeemable qualities.
I don’t think they care about me. I vote for them because they’re not christofascists. They’re not trying to make a literal fucking list of all trans people in the state. They’re not calling me a groomer or calling for the “elimination” of my friends.
If a third party was a viable option and they had better candidates, I’d vote for them. As it stands, it’s not an option, and telling people who vote D to vote third party instead is a terrible idea, because all it’ll do is increase the likelihood that the Rs will win.
In fact, telling democrats to vote third party is a known right wing tactic. Very well known in fact.
Voting for them for who they are not, while ignoring the fact that they don’t fight back in any meaningful way, is doing your part to enable the ratchet effect.
I don’t care what the right wing does. I care what’s right. I’m not voting for anyone whose campaign donors profit from overseas murder, just because they’re not vitriolic about trans people at home.
I’m not the one telling people how to vote though. You’re the one doing that, and you’re doing it in a very Jill Stein 2016 sort of way. And on a brand new account, which has only replied to my comments. Forgive me but you’re giving off some very strong vibes at the moment and they are not good.
Anyway, you can vote for whoever you want, I don’t really care. I’m just not gonna sit here and let you use my comments to spread this “both sides are the same, vote third party” nonsense. Not on my fucking watch, friendo.
People aren’t allowed to have opinions on new accounts? On a website seeing a massive influx of new accounts? Am I going to be a Russian bot next? My other account is @[email protected] , but that’s an account for a video game group I run, so I don’t feel using it for my personal politics is appropriate.
I’ve already very clearly articulated the many ways in which they are the same, friendo. If you’re comfortable voting for tangible murder overseas and by US police in the name of preempting persecution of a specific population, that’s your prerogative. But similarly, don’t expect me to tolerate your “Democrats aren’t taking away our rights” nonsense when I’ve provided multiple verifiable examples of them doing exactly that. Just not the rights you’re currently worried about.
Edit: I guess this conversation is over, so I’ll end it with a picture of Biden holding hands with an actual Italian fascist PM
Yeah I didn’t say any of that. I said an account that’s one hour old and has only responded to my comments essentially using a common right wing tactic from 2016 is pretty suspicious. The fact that you have another account is completely irrelevant. It’s registering a new account to say this specific thing that’s suspicious.
Anyway, you’re trying to twist my position/words and I don’t appreciate that. I very specifically said “our rights” as in, the rights of trans and gay people. I never said they weren’t harming other populations, in fact, they are harming other groups that I also happen to belong to (I’m Latino, for one thing) or am closely related to (Jewish family, black and brown relatives and friends, disabled husband). Don’t talk to me about police brutality. You don’t know what I’ve been through.
And besides all that, if your third party candidate won, we’d still have congress which would most definitely lean either D or R, and the Supreme Court with its lifetime appointments. There’s a less than zero chance that a third party could win the presidency and the House and Senate. So we’d end up with a president that can’t do shit to help anybody anyway.
You say I’m only worried about my own rights to the detriment of others. Okay. What exactly do you think you’re doing? You’re also choosing a particular set of rights to the detriment of others. When you vote third party, you make it more likely that a Republican will win, and a lot of people will get hurt if that happens.
If you’re comfortable with that, that’s your prerogative. But don’t expect me to tolerate your performative kindness, friendo. If you really gave a shit about helping people, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Edit: you just declared that this conversation was over because I didn’t reply within a couple of hours, lmao. People have lives, buddy. I have other things to do.
Also, again and for the last time: I never said I liked Biden or any democrats, or that they were good people. Jesus Christ. Stop wasting my time.
Edit 2: i spel gud & gramar are my pasion
No, it’s not suspicious to make a new account and then use it. Especially when there are many new accounts being made on the website. Attack the merits of the conversation, don’t default to this lame routine of “you are doing something which I have decided resembles the actions of a widely disliked group despite you having very clearly different values from that group”.
Your exact quote was “I vote for democrats because they’re not actively working to take my rights away”. You have rights besides the right to express your gender identity as you please. Those other rights, as I have very clearly expressed, have been and still are being taken away by Democrats. I don’t need to know what you’ve been through to talk to you about the reality of police brutality in the world and the way which Democrats enable it.
Yes, the progress towards a third party would not be instantaneous. So we shouldn’t bother starting anywhere, and should just concede defeat to the oligarchs who demonstrably own both parties?
What I’m doing is deciding that I’m not willing to endorse, by vote, continued murder both overseas and at home in the name of possibly preempting further persecution of a marginalized group. I believe the greatest “net good” for humanity should be the priority (second only to the preservation of nature), not a localized “net good” for communities I identify with or for my nation.
It’s not performative lol, you don’t even know who I am, what could I possibly have to prove here? Don’t assume to be able to ascribe motives to me, and don’t tell me I don’t care about helping people just because I’ve decided bullets and bombs and for-profit murder are the more urgent evil than laws and vitriol and bigotry.
They already said they don’t like the Dems, just that they dislike Republicans more. Which is absolutely valid. One is not doing enough to protect them, the others are actively trying to remove their rights. Both sides are not the same.
In a different system, I would definitely encourage everyone to vote for a 3rd party. Not being from the US, I do. But in a FPTP system, that’s just not viable. It’s not a vote for the other party, but it’s the same as not voting, or worse if your 1 democratic state is the only one to go 3rd party.
Until a primary candidate of one of the established parties runs on a platform to change the electoral system, there’s just very little you can do. Which I can only imagine how frustrating it is. I’m not from the US, but I’m invested enough and have close friends living there that I want to see a change as well.