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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/22407219
What we need to be asking is, if everyone wants healthcare, better wages, and cheaper housing, then why are we fighting about trans and not having absolute agreement on every other detail?
We’re SUPPOSED to fight amongst ourselves. Per the corporate buyers of both the DNC and RNC. Dance puppets dance. And we do.
It's a difficult issue. As someone on the left, I didn't just arbitrarily choose to take up the fight for trans rights. Without external motivation, I would be happy to consider trans issues a non-issue for me, as a cisgender person.
But the right has targeted the trans community with hatred and violence. They want to pass laws that limit free expression.
I can't just ignore the attacks against trans people because I think healthcare, wages, and housing are more important. If I don't fight for trans people, I am allowing them to be oppressed.
Ask the Republican fascists why they keep making trans people their biggest fucking issue. They'll just gaslight you, or course, but the answer is that it's easier to unite their uneducated voting base with fear and hatred than it is to make any real promises about improving the American quality of life, because the latter will never be possible without deprioritizing the wealthy who own their campaign finances.
Don't blame the left for standing up to the right's bullying. We fight for trans people because the right is fighting against them. We'll stop when they stop.
Yeah but my daughter lost a volleyball game so fuck you
You do realize they literally did the social equivalent of throwing spaghetti noodles at walls to see what would stick, right? Granted this whole angle of the conversation is more for the right than left.
They started with bathrooms. Impractical, rather meh, and we already have single bathrooms in restaurants and such, that are unisex. No one has died, so we’re good there. Nonstarter issue. Besides, what are you going to do, but a genital checker on the door?
They/them, eh, whatever. At the most you’re getting an eyeroll. Again, non-starter.
Sports. Let’s face it, this is real. If you’re born with a male body, you totally have male strength advantage. I own a handgun because I lack that advantage (but that’s another debate.). They found their mark. Easy outrage, with a, well damn, we’ll have to give you that one, from many on the left. While some sit silent out of fear of not showing support elsewhere. And so they run on it.
And, congratulations Right voters, you just took the squirrel! bait, intended to draw your focus away from higher wages, healthcare, and taxing the rich at 22% like the rest of us paycheck to paycheck people.
Bonus, now we get to watch you guys fight about it instead of joining in solidarity to fight us. Dance puppets dance!
Just goes to show Democrats (in general) either don't know or don't care about all that imminent danger they kept going on about. Their privilege insulates them in both cases, and they don't care that we will run towards theocracy and authoritarianism—with the rest of us bearing the brunt of it all.
I don't think both parties are the same, but I do think Democrats are complicit by failing to do anything substantial to prevent this slide into fascism, naively acting like "playing fair" with people using guerilla tactics and chasing moderate voters on the right was viable strategy.
What do you suggest they do?
Why does your job exist? Why is it important? What does it look like when your job is done well? These are basic things that government workers should be occasionally telling the public, and they should certainly be telling the public loudly and clearly prior to a transition into lunacy.
If you think things aren't going to be okay, get on national TV and say that. Tell people what you think is going to go wrong so that they can prepare. Give them a heads up.
They have been…
A few have. But then there's these...
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/15/centrist-democrats-chair-dnc-00189933
...who think that becoming essentially Republicans Lite is the path forward. It's not about doing what's best for people, it's about retaining power and keeping people placated so they don't gaze upward. Like I said above, they're not the same as Republicans, but if they're gonna keep chasing these right-wing votes and adopting their policies, that "still a better option than them" margin will be vanishingly small to the point of irrelevance.
Why does your job exist? Why is it important? What does it look like when your job is done well? These are basic things that government workers should be occasionally telling the public
you want to address people who can't understand why to wear mask during pandemic and lot of the jobs are just beyond the intellectual horizon of most of these people. even if it were, it still doesn't change the fact that orange cheeto will put some incompetent rapist in the director chair of every institution he saw on tv. so maybe the best defense is to stay off the tv, then the idiot is probably not going to know they exist 😂
i am pretty sure that professionals below any cheeto appointee will offer as much resistance as humanly possible, and... unless they are willing to murder someone, that is all they can do 🤷♂️
Why does your job exist? Why is it important? What does it look like when your job is done well? These are basic things that government workers should be occasionally telling the public, and they should certainly be telling the public loudly and clearly prior to a transition into lunacy.
If you think things aren't going to be okay, get on national TV and say that.
That’s not how national tv works at the moment, but I’d like to see it do that.
Personally I think Biden should drone strike Mar-a-Lago into a smoking crater.
He should just invite Trump over and shoot him in the face. The SC said he could.
Ah, but drone strikes could rid us of a bunch of his cronies as well if you time them to coincide with big meetings.
Are you suggesting we have our own insurrection party?
I told my SO we need to do our version of Tea Party. Only it’ll be the Espresso Party or something.
We had it; it was called Occupy Wall Street.
The difference is, the Tea Party got backed by right-wing billionaire ghouls and took over the Republican Party, while OWS (being explicitly anti-corporate) got brutally suppressed by the owner class instead.
Ows was no where near as organized as the tea party was. Also the tea party was an actual attempt at a party and got involved in politics. While I supported ows it was mostly a protest movement.
It was almost the occupy wall street movement. Remember that before it was crushed by boots?
TLDR I think personally I am still in the wait and defend myself camp. That seems to be a more useful strategy. It seems like labeling the Democrats as complicit goes against that. If the Democrats are complicit does that mean we would support them, Biden specifically, in a civil war? That's not a rhetorical question by the way.
Can someone or a political party for that matter be said to be complicit through incompetence? The Democrats are definitely incompetent. Their reaching for moderate Republicans strategy is a useless failure that isolated their progressives base.
Biden, the Democratic consultants, and the Democrats in general seem more comparable to British PM Neville Chamberlain or German President Paul von Hindenburg than a Nazi collaborator like French civil servant Maurice Papon. Chamberlain and Hindenburg thought they could curb Hitler's worst impulses and policies. They were wrong where as Papon actively helped Hitler.
We can't live in a house made of good intentions. But is it useful to raise incompetence to the level of collaborator(which If I'm not mistaken is what complicity implies)?
At the risk of getting my ego involved, I'll use myself as an example. I spent my time trying to get a Biden-Harris ticket and then a Harris-Walz ticket election win this cycle. My incompetence is different than the democrats, but it is incompetence none the less. Am I complicit in my own destruction since despite my best intentions and efforts the fascists took power? I did everything I knew how to do given the time and resources I had at my disposal.
The Democratic consultants are payed to be incompetent, but I'm not convinced they realize that. Merrick Garland could have moved faster to take punitive action against Trump. Biden could have appointed someone else or when Garland dragged his feet kicked him out and got someone else. Mitch McConnell and senate Republicans seem to think they can curb Trump's worst impulses and policies.
Unlike myself, all of these elected politicians have power. Biden in particular has, in theory, sweeping immunity thanks to the Supreme Court. However, if Biden stopped the peaceful transfer of power and sent Trump to Guantanamo Bay there would be domestic terrorism at best and civil war at worst. Are we saying Biden, at this point, is complicit if he does not do this? Are we saying we would side with Biden in a civil war or in suppressing civil unrest?
To put it bluntly if Biden stopping fascism through executive action is what morality demands of him are we going to be riding with Biden? Because without popular support Biden isn't lasting long with such a move. These are the questions that come to mind when I see the statement the Democrats are complicit. To be clear, the statement in question is not that they should be shamed, Democrats should be shamed, but that they are complicit.
So my non-rhetorical question is, is it useful rhetoric to say the Democrats are complicit in fascism? Are we prepared to argue that Biden should preemptively arrest this incoming administration? If that happened would you report strangers, neighbors, friends, family, and/or a spouse to the FBI if they said they were going to rebel against Biden?
Biden is complicit in genocide. I was still willing to vote for him and told people to vote for him. There were people on lemmy who were not willing to vote for and/or argue for Biden's second term. I'm sure many of those people will agree with your argument that the Democrats are complicit in fascism. I doubt those people would be willing to fight with Biden in a civil war. They seem to want to the US to burn to the ground along with the 340 million people who live here.
I am an American and I would like to see my country and the people who live here survive. Whether we in theory took a proactive approach to stopping fascism or reactive approach to defending against fascism, it seems like a bad time. If Biden cracks down on MAGA and the rightwing infosphere it seems like everyone will turn on him. If Biden doesn't and Trump takes power it seems like everyone will wish Biden had, but it will be too late.
This turned into more of a rant than I meant too, but I think these questions are worth discussing in the time before January 20th, 2025. I see people relying on legal arguments, on youtube, to argue that Trump's second term wont be that bad. I don't want to name names because I respect those people and what they do is critical to counteracting the right-wing infosphere. But, again, they seem to be relying on the idea that the fascists wont be able to enact fascist policies because the law will stop them. Or at least limit the fascists. The law hasn't stopped Trump and MAGA so far. And it seems like with each small step the law will limit the fascists less and less.
People have already had to defend themselves against the fascists in the MAGA movement. More of us are likely going to be put in a similar position. It seems like we're better off defending ourselves after Trump gives the order to send us to the camps. All the evidence from recent conflicts seems to show that the aggressor loses popular support quickly. However it seems like with this peaceful transfer of power next January we are about to test the limits of what popular support can do. Especially if Trump can drone strike the population into submission with immunity. But despite that, that risk seems unlikely, and thus waiting and defending ourselves is the more useful strategy.
Saying the Democrats are complicit seems to argue against that strategy. Because there doesn't seem to be anything else Biden or the Democrats could do at this point to stop Trump that doesn't involve relying on Presidential immunity. Democrats in Congress would need Republicans to use Section 3 of Amendment 14 to block Trump and there doesn't seem to be any chance of that happening.
They're complicit through willful ignorance. You can't beat the drum of fascism, parade Project 2025 around and rightly point out that it's a theofascist manifesto and blueprint, then run the campaign they ran. I wanted to vote for Kamala, and I had to pump myself up by the end. They took a gigantic wave of enthusiasm and pissed it away by playing it safe. That wasn't Prosector Harris going against felon, rapist, fraud Trump. That was Biden's shadow by the end, and they let Republicans tie her to Biden's actions as president.
They weren't trying to win; they thought, "Surely, Americans have sense and won't vote for that guy." Credulous fools.
To your other questions: would I be on Biden's side in a civil war? Probably, yes. But I'm not hoping for a civil war or for Biden to do anything authoritarian—what I want is for him and the rest of the Democrats, not just the handful of firebrands, to collectively represent our pain. If they can't say the quiet part out loud because of "decorum," then they are failures as leaders.
And that's why they lost. Fuck decorum. They haven't given anyone reason to hope in a long time. People voted for Biden, because they created their own hope by voting for not-Trump, but Biden himself didn't give the average person reason to hope, a reason to be excited for the future of the country (despite actually doing some good domestically).
Trump, on the other hand, gives his faithful reason to hope. He'll (allegedly) crush their nebulous enemies and punish those they feel are deserving. He'll restore some vague time when queer people "didn't exist," women didn't work, and there were only two legal genders. Christianity will be used to indoctrinate children in public schools, and every busybody with spare time will get to decide what books we're all allowed to read and which bathrooms we get to use. Like, he's gonna make good on at least some of that, all while plundering taxpayer money before their very eyes, and they'll let him, because he did the other things they wanted.
So yeah. I don't expect them to start a civil war, but they are complicit by regularly and frequently failing to treat the threat Trump poses seriously, and they are squandering yet another opportunity to build their base by mirroring the pain the rest of us are feeling.
ETA: and I can only assume that's because their privilege gives them the ability to not care that much.
what I want is for him and the rest of the Democrats, not just the handful of firebrands, to collectively represent our pain. If they can’t say the quiet part out loud because of “decorum,” then they are failures as leaders.
Thank you for speaking to this. That hits the nail on the head. It speaks to the general callousness of the Democrats as they cling to norms.
The way Harris told us to keep fighting, look over there at the stars, and then fucked off on vacation. And the way Biden was all to happy to meet with Trump like he was any other president elect.
Maybe they think this is their way to prove Trump wrong, that our elections are free and fair. It's like they care more about meeting the bar Trump sets for them than they care about the American people. Maybe it's their privilege. I'm guessing they'll be singing a different tune when Trump has them in court.
I'm guessing they'll be singing a different tune when Trump has them in court.
This is the part that honestly scares me. SCOTUS gave him broad immunity, and with the jackals he keeps in his orbit, I don't doubt for a second he/they could contrive "creative" ways to punish anyone that speaks ill of him, resists his efforts, or otherwise tries to speak truth to power.
What about the scientists and teachers just trying to do their jobs? What about the environmental activists? What about the charities trying to help Haitians or Mexicans or Queer people? What about the legal orgs fighting to keep Christianity out of public schools? They don't have the money to fight the government, and all are potential targets if the right lobbyists convince him it would be more profitable if he were to make them "go away."
Until Republicans go full fascist and start locking up their political enemies, Democrats will keep taking their payoffs while watching the rest us suffer.
The side that lost in 2020 is the side that likes to resort to violence to solve what they see as the problems in society.
The side that lost in 2024 believes the things they say about civil behavior, adherence to the rule of law, and fucking democracy.
And just like last time, the second group willingly hands over power to the first.
The "paradox" of tolerance gets us every time.
Fascism deserves no quarter in civilized society, and as soon as we even pretend that it's a legitimate ideology, we give it power.
We need to learn from 1930s Germany. You don't just give your country to fascists.
Democracy only works if all (or at least the vast majority of) parties agree that the democratic system itself is more important than any one democratic outcome. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case . The right will go into full on election denial mode when they lose, and apparently most American voters are fine with that. Peaceful transfer of power, what that means and why it's important, well, that doesn't affect the price of milk and eggs so voters are apathetic to it. Democracy grants voters the power to kill democracy. Time will tell whether that's what they did (knowingly or not) in 2024.
Democracy grants voters the power to kill democracy.
Yeah, it's almost like a cycle... And it ends in some form of fascism or feudalism every time. And each time, the perpetrators are taking lessons from the previous cycles and tweaking things; Sabotage public education here, erode the separation of religion and government there, fire-hose of disinformation here, using the internet as a weapon and means of oppression there, etc.
This time they might've gotten it just right. I can only hope that I'm wrong.
Sure. Too bad that's all going to end.
Republican and Democrat both end in flaming death ball 2060. I guess we're gonna be on fire and racist, instead of just... on fire.
I still voted Dem, because it's falling with style, not, dive-bombing headfirst into the concrete, but don't think we really had a better future, just a softer crash.
Scientists at MIT predicted 2040 to be the year of societal collapse… so much sooner than you’re expecting. I don’t imagine it will be overnight either. It will be this gradual slide. A decade from now you’ll be boiling twig stew before you have to report to your 16 hour shift at the lithium mine that is all but dried up.
Also known as: "Surrender."
Would've been interesting if Democrats decided not to respect the election result and tried to hang on to power. Sorta reverse January 6 Capitol attack
We've been conditioned all our lives to believe that the American Democratic institutions of Checks and Balances will protect our Democracy from every threat, while we also know the Fascist re-elected President and installing a rogues gallery of disaster administrators specifically chosen to be unable to perform their missions. We are like zombies programmed to believe walking into the wood chipper will be fine in the end, and if you believe the general consensus, the American people purposefully chose this for our country in this last election. Biden could declare martial law, could imprison Trump on any number of charges, but won't. He's not that kinda dude. So we wait, and we see just how bad it will get, and I for one, believe that humanity hasn't seen the sort of chaos since the Fall of Rome or the rise of the Reich.
Lol Biden can't do shit. He would have to start purging the military and install loyal generals that would be willing to arrest trump, but he doesn't have time. He'd have to have predicted that trump would win and started doing that in 2021. And even then, the democrats in congress isn't gonna let him purge the military, and the supreme court definitely aint letting him.
The president doesn't have unlimited power. The supreme court only said the president and former presidents can't be punished for crimes, not that they have said power to commit such crimes. Biden would still have to find a yes-man to do his bidding. The military leans conservative, law enforcement leans conservative. What is Biden supposed to do? No one is gonna obey his orders to "arrest trump", aint happening.
He would have to start purging the military and install loyal generals that would be willing to arrest trump
WTF are you talking about about? The military leadership being willing to uphold the law and defend the Constitution should be the status quo, and have absolutely fuck-all to do with any sort of loyalty to Biden.
installing a rogues gallery of disaster administrators specifically chosen to be unable to perform their missions.
Why are you understating it? You're giving them too much benefit of the doubt: they are specifically chosen to sabotage their missions.