I literally do blame the Democrats for Trump, and if you don't, you weren't paying attention.
Plenty of us were critiquing Clinton's campaign on those merits and were consistently talked down to in shocker the same way we're being talked down to now. Shocker, she lost. I remember saying a few weeks before the election "We're about to get Brexited." I put my vote down for Clinton, because Trump is fucking insane, and that was clear before he was President. It was clear in the fucking 1980's.
Being able to critique our leaders is supposed to be what is the difference between us and conservative voters. They're the cult who unquestioningly believes all the bullshit that comes out of Trump's mouth and diapers. I find it weird that people think we should be more like them in regards to our leaders like that would be a good thing.
Who's saying it's good? First of all, there is no "your own guy". You don't have a guy. There is no "your own guy" anywhere here.
Not helping "the other guy" is an indispensable condition in maybe getting the "this guy" to acknowledge that the whole thing is not working and to stop pretending this is buisness as usual as opposed to a slow moving coup that needs deep reform to prevent.
I don't understand how these conversations are the same as in 2016, or in 2001, for that matter. In Germany it took some minor electoral increases and a leaked mention of "mass deportations" and they set off thousands of marches country-wide, involving hundreds of thousands of people. Trump is openly talking about mass deportations to an adoring following, Stephen Miller is planning mass concentration camps and Texas is actively trying to kill migrants.
And we're talking about whether it's ok to be more or less rough with what you say of Biden online.
I say this from a place of profound worry and fear. What the hell, man?
I totally get it. Trump is evil and we need to elect Biden. And that being too hard on Biden or saying "I'm not gonna vote" is being incredibly risky with the lives of the most vulnerable among us.
But there is something deeply wrong with our system if it allowed things to get to this point. Ever since I became politically aware in the 90s the Republicans have been a threat to rights and life. When is that gonna end so we can have a real conversation?
Yes. There is.
Holy crap, are people only realizing this now? This is endtimes stuff. Fall-of-the-Roman-Empire stuff. This is the period people will read about in history books about when the era of the last Cold War superpower ended and the post-liberal democracy era started.
This ends when the US passes a new Constitution. If you're very, very lucky there won't be a massive violent conflict, a full-on dictatorship or a Mad Max-style postapocalypse to go through first.
It's the boiling frog that I can't get over. The fact that people are still talking like this is an election cycle. It's not. You can't have an election cycle with just one candidate when the other guy is actively running for supreme fascist ruler. There is no working democracy in the US, and given the state of the GOP there won't be one again until the US gives itself some form of multiparty parliamentarism, or at least a heavily reformed electoral system.
If the conversation is not in these terms... well, see my "worry and fear" comment above.
I think I'm further along than you are, because I remember being terrified like that. Now I'm resigned to it, and planning for a time when I might have to feed myself and help around my community. And reading a lot of history to help with the idea of falling empires being a bad thing.
Still vote. It's better than the alternative. But this is the end times and things are changing faster than our government is capable of dealing with.
Fucking "interesting times."
Lead, follow, or get the fuck out of the way.
Your moping isn't going to help my people if fascism wins and they see fit to start killing me and my people.
Okay, but it's not the fall that's a problem. Empires end all the time.
It's what comes in between the fall and the next thing.
Because it can be a consensus that things need to change and a rational breakdown of how. That's more or less how it went last time for the US. That happens. That's an option.
Or it can be a big messy fight, which is more or less how that went immediately after that for the US.
Or it can be total domination from the fascists, at which point it's no longer a US problem and one starts wondering if there is a "next thing" at all.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of even more bad news, but hitting rock bottom is a lot of work. You don't get to relax and enjoy the ride, I'm afraid.
I'm not worried. I'm sure you'll get there. You can't keep this up.
Oh, you can. For decades. Because if you don't, a time will come when you don't get a choice at all, and that can last for decades, too.
And no, I won't get over it. The more disinterest and lack of urgency I see from people the less I get over it, in fact.
I think there's a lack of remembered trauma, perhaps. It certainly doesn't sink in to many Americans. That's why the Germans immediately went out to protest, but the American frog is calmly simmering. You do you, but I find it irresponsible to keep everybody else in the splash zone.
In any case, I think the question has been answered.
It couldn't be something like Americans were involved in literally the largest worldwide protests ever leading up to the Iraq War and it did nothing to stop the war. It couldn't be that Occupy Wall Street being ushered out of the park by armed police had nothing to do with it either.
Just get out and protest guys! Don't forget you can't leave the Free Speech Zone!
Remember George Floyd, well all our protests resulted in *checks notes... The largest police budgets in the history of the US!
Give me a break.
Yeah, this may come as a shock, but the "largest worldwide protests ever" also happened in Germany. That's what the word "worldwide" means.
So no, it literally couldn't be that.
Also, the Iraq War protests absolutely did something. At least two involved leaders had their political careers end on the back of them. Not Bush, though. So yeah, the US frog simmers.
I'm not here to advocate that protesting fixes all problems. I will, however, advocate that if you think protesting doesn't fix anything, protesting on social media DEFINITELY doesn't.
It can demotivate people politically aligned with you enough to cost you an election, though, so there's that.
Why is the blame on me for talking about Democratic failures demotivating people and not... Democratic failures demotivating people?
Like, the actual action of their failure won't demotivate people? Just people talking about it? How does that work?
Because motivation shouldn't even be part of the conversation at all.
Again, end times. Fall of the empire. Looming fascism. Non-functioning democracy.
Because when you speak in a political campaign you're campaigning. You can do two things and you'll get no grief from me: campaign for fascists not to be in power or shut up.
The people campaigning against the people campaigning against fascists are the fascists.
You are in a restaurant that is on fire complaining that they mixed up your order. It's infuriating and extremely your fault.
Wow, just wow. All right, good luck buddy, I really don't even know how to respond to "if you want to critique democrats for not fighting fascism hard enough, it means you're actually wish the fascists."
That's the second time today I've gotten the George Bush "you're either with us or you're against us" schtick. It would be really helpful if you understood how deeply you are channeling Republican attitudes.
(Which, last I checked, are fascist.)
No, hold on, I didn't say with us or against us.
First of all, there is no "us". That was my point up there.
But more importantly, I said you can shut up. Shutting up is an option. At least until after the election. This is entirely about the campaign. In the campaign there are three camps: there's the fascists, there's the other guys, who the fascists are campaigning against... and there's everybody else. Shutting up.
And then, after the campaign and the winning and the narrowly averting the end of liberal democracy and the descent into fascism, then go nuts. No three camps there. Absolutely go wild and protest and raise havoc to try to achieve structural change. Set the country on fire. Flip over cars. At least put the same energy into it than the fascists taking over the Capitol.
But during the campaign? You don't have to campaign for the Democrats, but you also don't have to campaign against them. And in a two party system there is only one type of people campaigning against them.
You literally just did it again! You can try to hide behind flowery description all you want, but in the end, the attitude is "if you're not with us, you're against us."
Just stop, this is sad. Admit to yourself that that's how you feel and go have a beer something for fucks sake.
No, stop it. You need to try to keep track of more than two things at once or we're not gonna get anywhere.
Three groups:
The fascists
The guys the fascists run against
The third group of people who shut up
And that's only during the campaign.
Alright? Following me there? The number three? This is important, it's not two, it's three.
So in a two party system there is only one type of people campaiging against the Democrats. The people who want the Republicans to win. That's all you're doing if you're actively campaigning against them. No other options. Nothing else that can happen.
And you can choose to be neither.
The fact that you're not even conceptualizing the notion of not actively involving yourself in the argument is kinda shocking. I don't know if it speaks to polarization, entitlement or what, but... this is a hell of a conversation.
The fact that you don't see your position as coercive and controlling, I don't know what to say, my man. You're literally telling me I can't talk about things I have valid concerns with. You used the term "shut up" which is a pretty unkind way to put it, no less. Can you admit to yourself you're being an aggressive asshole who wants to control when other people can talk and what they can say, and that this is a controlling attitude, or are you going to keep spinning in circles to justify a shitty opinion?
I am telling you maybe wait until it doesn't risk the rise of fascism. If you can hold it in a few more months.
Is this one of those where telling people to wear masks is an attack on their liberties? I lose track.
Look, you can obviously say whatever you want, and I obviously can't stop you, but I don't know what you're trying to achieve, and I'm increasingly doubtful that you do, either, honestly. You either want fascists in power or you don't. And if you don't then it's an absolutely astounding position to be saying that somehow venting your opinion on social media takes precedence over that goal.
And yet here we are. As always, the left is more concerned with their purity tests and their feelings of disappointment than with achieving any tangible improvement. I should be used to it by now, because man, it happens all the time. But nope, unlike what the OP suggested I'm not getting over it. At all.
It'll probably never feel like it actually ended, the kind of tectonic shift that would feel like a concise end to the days when we have to prioritise safeguarding our rights over holding whoever's in the watchtower accountable for their mistakes would take something like everyone currently in political leadership going thanos snap