#also I didn't fucking vote for trump

[zh0re]

To add on, the fact that you view pregnancy as a rightful “consequence” to a hypothetical woman’s sex life is so misogynistic to the point it borders on evil. Women aren’t refusing to have sex right now because they’ve realized the error of their harlotry, they’re refusing to have sex because the men who surround them do not view them as autonomous human beings.

Because it is a consequence. It's what happens when you carelessly have sex without protection and with a man you don't see a future with (and yes, seeing yourself being married to a man you're sexually active with, helps). It's not misogynistic, it's biology lol. If you are not ready for a baby, no matter the reasons, don't fucking have sex or make sure you have access to contraception, both regular and emergency. Sex requires responsibility, these are things that you need to be thinking over before you consider it.

Oh I know they're not withholding sex because they've woken up LOL but they're still proving that abstinence was the answer all along, regardless of their intent behind it, regardless if they're doing it because men don't see women as human. Whatever reasons you can think of doesn't matter because it's going to yield the same results. They're not "owning men" by barring access to their bodies, they're doing the right fucking thing. Y'all are doing exactly what conservatives have been begging you to do for years.

Also, adding this in case you want to have a look:

[thejilyship]

I walked into work this morning after crying at a convivence store because the woman behind the counter said she liked my RBG sweatshirt and she hoped I was okay. I wasn't expecting it. I live in a very red part of Michigan and her kindness and gentleness made me cry.

I told myself when I woke up that I wasn't going to cry. I stared at my phone for twenty minutes, dread pooling in my chest because even though I let myself get hopeful yesterday, I knew what I was going to see.

I said I wasn't going to cry.

And when I got to work, one of the other preschool teachers walked into my classroom, and she didn't say anything, we just looked at each other and I started to cry. I had parents who I knew were happy with the results about to drop off their kids and I couldn't start crying, but I did.

I only have nine kids in my class, I only had to get through seven drop offs today. I only had three parents that were devastated. I cried about that too.

I had two little girls in my class today, and they got into an argument, as two years old's will do, and they both got upset and started crying. One of them laid on the floor next to me, and one of them collapsed onto my chest, and I cried with them too.

During group time today, I cried while reading a book about kindness. "What does it mean to be kind? Being kind means standing up for those who are less fortunate than you." I had to stop reading for a minute. My assistant teacher looked at me from across the room and I couldn't meet her eyes.

I stayed off social media all day, but when I caved and opened tik tok, the first video I saw was of women in other countries governments saying that they were standing with us through this hard thing and I cried again.

I think I'm gonna keep crying. At least for today and the next couple of days.

And tomorrow (which may not actually be tomorrow) I'll figure out what comes next.

[m-a-d-e-l-e-i-n-e]

This is why I hate group projects

[funkle420]

Don't fucking blame Palestinians and the people who support them for this. Don't blame people who couldn't bring themselves to vote for a genocide-loving centrist for this. Even if all of them voted for Harris it wouldn't have changed the outcome.

The blame you put on the people belongs on HARRIS for refusing to explicitly promise an end to weapons and money to Israel, and end to America's enthusiastic support of the genocide. She refused to listen to the bipartisan majority of Americans who want an end to the genocide! This is not democracy, there is no choice and the people don't have enough leverage over our president if every single election is a choice between the rapid end of the world and a slightly slower end of the world.

[rabbithaver]

every so often i will see a post from a leftist on this website that is so egregiously ableist that i remember that like. oh yeah the userbase of leftists on this website is violently anti-disabled people and will jump at any chance to demonize any of us for any reason. i just forget that fact because i'm extremely dedicated to curating my space

i'm paraphrasing here but i saw a post that said, "every time i see an American [disabled person] mention being scared about the election because they're afraid of losing their benefits i have to laugh. anybody who wants blood-soaked money from the US government deserves to starve" which. like. goodness that's a lot to unpack. i think we should burn the whole suitcase instead !

[endlessfuckup]

Watching this debate has me like this rn

[ze-dominant-demon]

[eisthenameofme]

kind of hard to take a lot of the people claiming to be antifascist anarchists seriously when a solid chunk of them seem to think not wanting the state to exist means they are no longer in the reality where it currently exists.

[cuntwrap--supreme]

What is it about me that makes old white men think I'm a conservative? I need to know so I can change that.

[roryfrommybabysittersavampire]

the state of American politics TERRIFIES me because what do you fucking mean you're choosing to THROW AWAY YOUR VOTE in the name of activism when the result will be the other guy winning and the thing you're protesting Getting Worse, along with worse lives for already oppressed people in America. a lot of people are giving away how narrow minded they are right now. I'm sorry, but there is no third option until we rally and fight for one, and no one is fighting. not voting for Biden won't end the genocide. you need to be fighting for Palestinian people, but you need to be able to seperate that from the immediate threat of Trump winning. our system is broken, and we need to start fucking fixing it but that process will not be finished before the election ends, and the election WILL end, and if you don't vote for Biden our president will be Trump. you Can Not Let The Need For Change Distract You From The Present

[kalashtars]

sometimes I truly genuinely forget nuance is dead on the internet and then I have to read people who should be on the same side argue about politics on the internet and I start wanting to bash my head into a wall.

[ariaste]

Yes yes, I too am very sad and annoyed that Trump is not dead, I got all breathlessly excited and queued up "Ding Dong The Witch Is Dead" to be ready for a great announcement, and then I didn't even get to play it. It's a huge bummer.

However, step two of this huge bummer is NOT "Oh no and now his fandom will be EVEN MORE ANNOYING, we have basically already lost :((((" That is the devil speaking. Step two is to say "Ah heck, his fandom is going to be even more annoying, better FUCKING VOTE AND MAKE SURE EVERYONE I KNOW ALSO VOTES" Stop your worthless defeatism, stop your stupid pessimism, stop trying to GIVE UP AND SURRENDER just cause one weird thing happened.

GO VOTE, IDIOTS

[beemovieerotica]

struggling with how to word this, but putting it out there anyway:

i can fully understand the posts on here from a lot of americans being tired of "vote blue no matter who" posts when the #1 thing that people are constantly (and sometimes only?) addressing is how the republican party is going treat trans/queer people if elected.

it's part of an unfortunate pattern of prioritizing the effects on a demographic that includes white + upper class people, when people of color and those in the global south are actively and currently being killed or relegated to circumstances in which their survival is very unlikely

it is genuinely exhausting to witness this, and i was also on the fence about even participating in voting because i a) felt like it didn't matter and b) every time i voiced being frustrated with the current state of the country, white queer people would immediately step in with "but what about trans people!" -> (i am mixed race trans man)

and i say this with unending patience toward people who do this, because i know that it's not something they actively think about. but everyone already knows how the republican party is going to treat queer people. you are probably talking to another queer person when you bring up project 2025. the issue is that, for those of us who aren't white, or for those of us who are but who are conscious of ongoing struggles for people of color worldwide, the safety of people around the world feels more urgent than our own. that is the calculation that's being made.

you're not going to win votes for the democratic party by dismissing or minimizing these realities and by continually centering (white) queer people.

very few people on here and twitter are actually talking about issues beyond queer rights that concern people of color, or how the two administrations differ on these issues instead of constantly circling back to single-issue politics. this isn't an exhaustive list. but these are the issues that have actually altered my perspective and motivated me to the point of committing to casting a vote

the biden administration has been engaged in a years-long fight to allow new applicants to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program that allows undocumented individuals who arrived as children to remain in the country) after the Trump administration attempted to terminate it. the program is in limbo currently because of the actions of Trump-backed judges, with those who applied before the ruling being allowed to stay, but no new applications are being processed. Trump has repeatedly toyed with the idea of just deporting the 1.8 million people, but he continues to change his mind depending on whatever the fuck goes on in his head. he cannot be relied on to be sympathetic toward people of hispanic descent or to guarantee that DREAMers will be allowed stay in the country. biden + a democratic controlled congress will allow legal challenges to the DACA moratorium to gain ground.

the biden administration is open to returning and protecting portions of culturally important indigenous land in a way that the trump administration absolutely does not give a fuck. as of may 2024, they have established seven national monuments with plans to expand the San Gabriel Monument where the Gabrielino, Kizh / Tongva, the Chumash, Kitanemuk, Serrano, and Tataviam reside. the Berryessa Snow Mountain is also on the list, as a sacred region to the Patwin.

i'm recognizing that the US's plans for clean energy have often come into conflict with tribal sovereignty, and the biden administration could absolutely do better in navigating this. but the unfortunate dichotomy is that there would be zero commitment or investment in clean energy under a trump-led government, which poses an astounding existential threat and destabilizing force to the global south beyond any human-to-human conflict. climate change has caused and will continue to cause resource shortages, greater natural disasters, and near-lethal living conditions for those in the tropics - and the actions of the highest energy consumers (US) are to blame. biden has funneled billions of dollars into climate change mitigation and clean energy generation - trump does not believe that any of it matters.

i may circle back to this and add more as it comes up, but i'm hoping that those who are skeptical / discouraged / tired of the white queer-centric discourse on tumblr and twitter can at least process some of this. please feel free to add more articles + points but i'm asking for the sake of this post to please focus on issues that affect people of color.

[maizixie]

something something history repeating itself

[pirefyrelight]

Ive been at my new job for a couple weeks now and it's good I'm settling in right. At first my only complaint is my line lead is one of those 'I listen to anything' guys who controls the speaker and what that actually means is he plays country but doesn't seem to know who Marty Robinson is so yaknow it's whatever. ("I'm proud to be an American!" Oh man I wish I could be)

But now, it's clear he's a flat earth transphobe etc etc. Today he and the opening server had a way too long conversation about how Elon musk is an idiot, not for any of the reasons you would expect, but because 'he's trying to break the firmament and flood us all with the water held above it with his pointy spacex rocket' to paraphrase. He's also trying to use the bible as proof of these claims but also trying to say that all the religions that Christianity stole traditions from were the real ones? I don't fucking know.

Before he got into all that he started the conversation by going "whelp, I guess I'm not watching the Olympics anymore!"

And I got this dread feeling in my gut, because I don't know what happened but he's also said some mildly transphobic stuff before already, a la 'I don't care I just wish they wouldn't shove it down our throats' yaknow, tolerable. Not a statement I really agree with tonally, but tolerable. 'I have gay friends' etc.

So today I asked him, "Oh no, what happened?"

Then he goes on this fucking rant about men being allowed in women's sports, and how a male boxer was allowed to punch a female one who quit because it wasn't fair, and how all these guys are allowed to set all these records in girls sports, and so on and so forth. Full transphobia that I don't know how to actually start countering, so I just kinda nod along and say things like 'damn that's crazy. Yeah you know there's the idea that instead of being separated into male and female it should be sorted like weight classes. Or a third category for Trans people.' And he goes 'Yeah like for the mentally ill.' And I'm like ooh that is not what I meant but ok.

Well now that I'm home and I can look up what he was talking about, Imane Khelif is a cis female boxer, whose opponent dropped out after less than a minute in the ring with her. I don't know exactly where he got the idea she was trans but there is apparently established controversy about her gender. Which is just- wow. Can we stop being trasphobic as a whole but especially to the cis women? Can the transphobes at least Try to be coherent.

this was before the server came in and they went on about how it's impossible to go to space and we aren't spinning at millions of miles an hour, and the sun zooms out?? I don't even know what that last one is. Something about multiple portals? That the sun goes through? New flat earther model unlocked I guess.

Also apparently Russia's not socialist and because there's foreign involvement/corruption in Ukraine they deserve to be invaded. Anyone who supports Ukraine's sovereignty is suspicious. She asked me who Ukraine was with before now, and I said I know it wasn't always with the Soviet union/Russia as much as they want to say it was, and she kinda backpeddled? 'You know how many Labs are in Ukraine?' As if that erases their right to sovereignty.

[qqueenofhades]

I think its genuinely fascinating how Biden has somehow become the bad vibes sin eater for the party. I'm seeing people who were doing the whole "voting doesn't matter both old men are the same" pivot hard into voting as harm reduction. The anti voting rhetoric has COMPLETELY lost The Youths on tiktok. People suddenly remember the good things the Biden administration has done but don't associate Harris with any of the things they didn't like. In my swing state volunteers are signing up in droves. People feel ENERGIZED, the vibe shift pre and post Biden dropping from the race has just been insane

Y'know, that is a... good way of putting it. It's also why I'm quite sure that Biden has probably been planning it for a while. I don't think he was intending to step down, and didn't want to be forced out at the drop of a hat, but after he realized that the circus was never going to stop until he did, he did the honorable fall-on-his-own-sword thing and definitely, DEFINITELY spent some time choreographing this behind the scenes. Because while the roll-out has been very smooth, it could just as easily (as many of us were expecting) have been a total disaster, and that doesn't happen without SOME planning. It's also entirely possible that the campaign staff flipped from Biden to Harris are superhuman, to come up with a massive online roll-out, new branding, new signs (they had plenty of 'em in Wisconsin yesterday), new everything, but I'm guessing it's a combination of both. Biden has spent his entire political career being underestimated, and after we literally made a meme out of Dark Brandon juking the Republicans out of their shoes, we should definitely give credit where credit is due in how masterfully he pulled it off.

Because we have had eight years defined by the central question of Whether The President Is a God King Who Should Serve For Life (the MAGAts obviously think yes), the sheer idea of a president willingly giving up his power BEFORE he had to is also novel and admirable. It's sad that this is the case, but so be it. The Republicans also got a heaping helping of Be Careful What You Wish For that was undoubtedly brilliant; they've been yelling for years that Biden is old and frail and can't serve and should step down. Biden went "lol okay" and gave it to them, and now they're fucked.

Aside from that, on the most basic level, it's far, far easier to see the actual difference in the parties with Harris as the nominee, just because it shows that one party is willing to make progress and reflect the new demographic reality and social mores of America, and the other one is not. Now to be clear, Biden deserves an incredible amount of credit for coming out of retirement (he was ALREADY 77 years old when he became president and had had decades of a long and respected career in public service behind him) to fight, beat Trump, and deliver an incredibly successful presidency. He held the line against authoritarianism at home and abroad, he rescued the trashed American economy and managed a world-leading recovery from Covid, he stood up for democracy, he spent four years filling the benches with liberal judges to reverse even some of the Trump/McConnell hack job, he finally passed comprehensive infrastructure investment and the Green New Deal under the name of the Inflation Reduction Act -- and so on. Many of these priorities had been languishing for decades or were completely trashed under Trump, and he could not have done so much in just 4 years without all that age, skill, and experience. Hence why all the Ageism!!! was (aside from being a Republican/media smear job) dumb. He's able to do the job because he has had decades to study. Turns out that makes you actually pretty damn good at it.

Yes, Biden could not do as much as he wanted or originally planned, had to deal with MAGA Republicans and Joe Manchin/Kyrsten Sinema sabotaging him the whole time (lololol Manchin, possible possessor of the World's Biggest Ego and with Trump around that's saying something, popping out of obscurity to self-righteously announce he would not be willing to be Kamala's VP. YEAH ASSHOLE. LITERALLY NOBODY ASKED YOU. NOBODY WHATSOEVER. NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS AT LEAST WE WILL SOON NO LONGER HAVE MANCHIN IN THE SENATE). And yes, Biden made some serious mistakes of his own, because he IS from an older generation and a different style of doing politics/different beliefs that no longer resonate with the younger segments of the electorate. But this old white Catholic guy at the age of almost 80 still managed to be the most progressive president ever, coming in at a moment of incredible domestic and international crisis and getting us safely to the other side, and all cynicism, criticizing, and caveating aside, he deserves an incredible amount of credit for that. I mean that absolutely, and I am very grateful.

As I said, willingly relinquishing that power takes guts, and when Biden saw the writing on the wall that he had to sacrifice himself, he took his time, he didn't jump too early, and he didn't jump too late. On the most basic level, it becomes a hell of a lot easier to make the "both parties are not the same" argument when one is running a (comparatively) young brown woman and the other is still running their loathed felonious old demented orange traitor. Most Americans are not plugged into policy minutiae and details. They look at Biden-Trump, they see two old white guys. When you take one of those old white guys away (who goes in a self-sacrificially heroic manner and in sharp contrast with the coup-happy fascist) and put Kamala Harris in there instead, it generates an obvious jolt. People can see for themselves that there is a real difference that doesn't rely on closely reading news and tracking complex policy, because as noted, most Americans simply don't. The brown first-generation American daughter of brown immigrants is a quantifiably different story from "old white guy career politician," which for better or worse is how Biden was seen, especially the old part. We needed that establishment expertise to beat Trump in 2020; I still think Biden is the only one who could have done it, and as noted, we owe him a great debt for doing so.

However.... 2024 is not 2020, and it is not 2016. There has been this HUGE and unbelievable swing to Kamala because she represents the antithesis of what the last eight years of Trump-induced anger, fear, panic, chaos, and hatred has stirred up. That's why people are so ready to rally around her, just as they were (I daresay) around Obama in 2008, after the exhaustion, chaos, war, and mounting economic misery of Bush. Trump has been out of office for the last four years, but his shadow over the American political landscape has been omnipresent. Now people know that we finally have a real chance at getting rid of him forever, and just as Biden was uniquely positioned to capitalize on that in 2020, so Harris is now. Which is why, however tough it will be, she has a real shot at winning. I can guarantee the Republicans know that, and are shit scared. Because the Black Lady Army of Democracy has indeed arrived in force to Get This Shit Done and I don't know about you, but I found that incalculably comforting:

Yikes! All lined up for Kamala pic.twitter.com/Dt4OCDp7WX

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) July 24, 2024

This, at the most basic level, is what scares fascists the most, it's exactly what we need now, and what Harris is uniquely positioned to mobilize, along with her gangbusters appeal to young voters:

This is the energy we need. This is what Biden saw and planned for and which he launched us into, and where all that experience and age paid off. This is why people, even people otherwise disengaged, disillusioned, or checked out of the tedious and mind-numbering drudgery and depression of American politics, are responding to it. Because it's easy to understand, it offers hope, and it tells a very simple story that is nonetheless long overdue:

Thanks so much, Joe. Go absolutely waste that orange fucker, Kamala. We got your back.