Jentu

Mix in some red food coloring and you’ve got yourself a good time

There's something to be said about how interconnected a lot of major issues in the world are. Many solutions to specific issues don't solve the underlying reason why that issue came about in the first place, laying the groundwork for the same issue to pop up again in a few years, which is why people push to fix systemic things. (Though I do think for the sake of accuracy and humor, the last line of the comic should be "No, that is too big of an issue to possibly change").

We just have to accept that some people are "give a man a fish" people and others are "teach a man to fish" people. I think the world needs both for things to actually get better. Then there's another group of people who just don't like hearing the cries of the less privileged when they themselves are perfectly comfortable with how things are (shown in the comic) and who often wears a mask imitating the "teach a man to fish" person. The "teach a man to fish" people and "please stop complaining" people might both target their complaints towards the "give a man a fish" people, but that doesn't mean that those two groups are the same or have the same goals. Pay no attention to bad actors who will try to prevent any movement towards a better world when it costs a bit of their own comfort.

Murder is already acceptable if you're a cop.

God, I need to log off. I saw that this chart has a "presentation" axis and immediately got defensive in the same way I get whenever people complain that I don't look "androgynous enough", but then I read the chart lol 😅

Some people's lives are so bad they would rather focus on personal survival than electing the good cop over the bad cop, both of whom would likely make their lives either a little or a lot worse every single year. "Our country is at stake" only really matters if you have systemic benefits from this country- otherwise, it just seems like it's a plea for victims of this country to take your comfort into consideration above anything else. Sure, we're on the precipice of a fascist takeover where even the white people in gated neighborhoods could start feeling even fractionally as bad as people of color currently do, but it might be worth considering this perspective isn't just some petty or ignorant thing- it's a rotten system created by racist white men that might not be worth participating in because even if the system is perfectly fixed, there will always be people on top and people on the bottom. At least with Kamala, there is a hope of traveling farther away from that "racist white man who begs me for votes and never delivers on promises" trope, so it doesn't surprise me one bit.

Yes, but not only is it better than what we current have, but it goes against the whole "That’s a problem no matter how government officials are elected, and therefore irrelevant." claim you made earlier.

As opposed to the 50%+ we have in office now?

If your chance of winning hinges on your opponent suddenly not being there anymore, that conclusion is kind of anti-democratic in nature. If (for example) someone says "Things will eventually start getting better once all the boomers are gone", they've already decided who their enemy is and that there's no use trying to have discussions with them about how to fix things. The world around them slowly becomes less about different people with different ideas and it metastasizes into a country where half of their neighbors want them dead and because of that, they'd see half their neighbors dead as well. This doesn't go away if trump is defeated in November. Civil war will be right around the corner until people start talking to each other again. The militarism of both parties and the fascism of republicans will, over time, be seen as a less necessary weapon against "the enemy" and divisive politics will ease up. That being said, don't waste your breath on literal armed Nazis/white supremacist groups. They're an artifact of the fears and stresses of this current system and have decided the best course of action is the most harmful. They will be less of an issue once society at large isn't gasping for air and don't have to blame their woes on one particular group.

My point is, we don't solve the issue of rising fascism within our borders by waiting it out and hoping it all blows away with time, only coming out from your shelter one day out of the whole year to do political action. Embrace democracy if you believe in it and talk to people who disagree with you(preferably in-person) about why you think the things you think and why it should be changed. Show up to town halls, get to know your local government, join local activism groups. If you want things to change for the better, you can't just keep doing the same thing that got us into this mess.

And the situation we're in will continue to get worse as long as long as we're playing the hand that's been dealt to us instead of taking an active roll in improving things around us.

God I love Derry Girls. It's about time for a rewatch

Yes, yes. we all know republicans are worse. But democrats could've entirely prevented this, which they didn't. They enabled it. Being better than republicans doesn't mean the situation is better with democrats. In fact, it's getting so much worse every single year.

My state is ruby red and even the fairly large city I live in is red. Begging people to vote specifically for biden in situations like ours only makes people more apathetic since they know Biden has no shot. But if you tell people how to be more politically involved outside of voting, they'll be more empowered to want to vote just so they can get people more aligned with them in their local and state elections. It's the state government in red states like ours that will enact awful policies that we will actually feel. Pushing an unpopular president as the main reason to show up to the booth will only make them stay home instead.

Tangential: Covid is still killing a ton of people every month (though it gets better in warmer weather). This past January had over 10k covid deaths that were largely ignored by Biden and pretty much everyone else who are desperate to show how "good" things are now. But also, I'd caution against being hopeful for another pandemic that would wipe out conservatives since it's tiptoeing on fascism, which you're trying to be distinctly different to, eh? If a huge portion of Americans are fascist, America will be a fascist nation. I've heard conservatives wish that CA would sink into the ocean and that NYC would get swept away from a hurricane and I hope to god we haven't ratcheted so far that now democrats are wishing and hoping for the deaths of their political enemy.