#b-b-but trump bad because abortion!!

[procastersleep]

stupid us election rant below

struggling to maintain empathy for american liberals right now when all i am seeing is them blame and whinge and whine about "third-party voters" and evil leftists 😠😠. saw someone genuinely blame chappel roan for trumps win. HUH???? HUHHH??? pigs will fly before they accept that their special, girlboss, slay queen party are a bunch of pro-war, neoliberal grifters who could not actually give a single shit about most americans in this election because they were too busy holding hands with the Cheneys and sucking the toes of any republican voter they dreamt MIGHT vote for them. the harris campaign was an abysmal failure that the entire world now has to pay the price for and american liberals are too busy shouting at this imaginary mass of leftists to realise that the tiny percentage of actual leftists are the only people who are trying to fix this. like they are arguing with THIN AIR. THIS MASSIVE INFLUENTIAL LEFTIST VOTER BASE DOESNT EXISTTTT. i WISH it fucking did oh my god maybe then we wldnt b in this position. i get he's their president, but we all have to fucking deal with the consequences and people will die GLOBALLY. like shut the fuck up unless you're mad at the democrats, educate yourselves, join a union and most importantly organise with your community jesus christ

[xhais]

Bad news. KOSA advanced.

Continue calling your representatives and tell them to vote no on KOSA. It passed the Senate Commerce Committee, not the full Senate, we still have time.

STOP KOSA NOW.

Edit: July 29: The full Senate is voting on KOSA TOMORROW! Please call your representatives and senators to vote no! PLEASE!

Edit: July 30: Senate passed KOSA! The House vote is next. Contact your representatives to vote no now! PLEASE!

Edit: August 1st: KOSA IS DEAD! For now. It may pop up again. Be on the lookout, if it does pop up again, tell your senators and representatives to vote no!

Edit: September 13: KOSA MIGHT RETURN! Follow the instructions on this post PLEASE!

Edit: September 20: KOSA PASSED THE HOUSE COMMITTEE AND ONTO THE HOUSE FLOOR!! This happened on September 18th, I am a bit late and for that I'm sorry. But it’s not over! FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS ON THIS POST, PLEASE!!

Edit: September 27: THIS ENTIRE POST STILL APPLIES! THE FIGHT IS NOT OVER, WE STILL HAVE A CHANCE TO FIGHT! PLEASE CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES TO VOTE NO! PLEASE!!

Edit: October 6: @the-vampire-fish-queen said, “Do want to point out Congress is not in session right now but come back around 11/12/24. Also, the Republican leadership is fighting over the bill.” WHICH IS VERY TRUE!

FOR REPUBLICAN REPS:

FOR DEMOCRAT REPS:

Edit: October 25: The Heritage Foundation KNOWS that Kosa will REMOVE Pro-Abortion and Trans content IF Trump wins. It has also come to my attention, that from what people have heard from the House of Representatives, Kosa will MOST LIKELY not move on. The keywords there are most likely, keep fighting!

[centrally-unplanned]

Something reinforced by my dive into partisan conservative media: what would you do if you learned Harris had taken sweeping bribes, or committed an assault? I would certainly lower my opinion of her; and I would absolutely support any path the Democratic Party would realistically take to replace her on the ballot. But we all know the latter wouldn't happen, not at this stage.

So I'd still vote for her, right? Her opponent is A: way worse on the character front, and B: a way more serious threat on a host of policy fronts. You don't get your ideal choice, and Trump is super awful - you do in fact have to swallow a lot of pills in politics, and this would be just another round.

Harris in reality has her sins but they are all pretty small bore; but you can definitely see this dynamic at play in the Trump camp. It is a very common dunk to be like "how could you vote for this person just because they support X", but that is somewhat unfair. Most people have strongly-held, high-stakes (to them) policy issues motivating them, and voting for someone diametrically opposed to those issues is an extremely tall order. I personally find the election denialism to be a red line that would invalidate any candidate for me, and I would absolutely vote for a normie Republican over a Democratic Trump - but there is an entire edifice of thought on the right explaining how that didn't happen. Not that many on the right don't know one of Trump's sins - passionate supporters will say things like "yeah he did probably take some bribes here or there but..." - yet since they don't believe all the others it is enough to give him a pass. And if I believed what they did, they would be right to do so.

I explain this because I think people believe the "solution" to these kinds of dilemmas is elections, but it really isn't. Elections are an awful place to punish bad character, because it is incredibly bundled with other things. You are never asked "do you want the criminal or not" but instead "do you want the criminal who will protect abortion rights or not", which sounds like a way more reasonable bargain. In a two party system this is a very harsh dynamic, but even in multiparty systems I don't think it is much better - after all, you have a bundle of issues you care about yourself, and two parties are unlikely to equally match them (not to mention how frequently multiparty systems coalesce around 2-3 major parties).

The way you "typically" police this is non-democratically - through courts for provable crimes, and through political elites for ones that don't meet that bar. These people are tossed out of political orgs, impeached, blacklists, etc, by insiders. Most of the "selection" of a candidate happens before anyone votes, after all; deselection works the same way. But that only works if parties have the capacity to actually do that! It is a capacity they have lost harshly over the years - Trump clearly a strong indicator of that. But it is a capacity democratic systems in fact rely on; non-democratic institutions are load-bearing in any liberal system.

Certainly this is another bout of me getting on my "technocratic strong parties" bullshit, but I do consider this to be election-relevant. A lot of voters are being very dumb, buying lies about immigration or tariffs or inflation. But others are in fact being pretty rational within their worldview about these things; and due to that you can't rely on voters to bail you out from the failures of the governing institutions.

[ghirahimbo]

Okay, so I am probably going to get hate for this, but I voted for Trump, and I am shocked at how upset people are about his re-election. As a Republican, we have constant allegations of being racist, homophobic, xenophobic, fascists, against women (the list goes on and on). We have been silenced and abused for over a decade, and yes it hurts. I am genuinely curious how Trump is any of those things listed above, despite there being no evidence shown through his actions, besides clips spread by the left-wing media taken out of context or a joke being blown way out of proportion. (Building a wall to keep millions of people from pouring into our country illegally without any screening not counting as racist). It's clear his personality isn't for everyone. His rhetoric is masculine, he obviously is not sensitive, politically correct, or polished, but despite this, millions of other people from all walks of life support him, including MILLIONS of people from so called marginalized groups. I highly doubt that over half of the people in this country are filled with hatred and violence. If anything, I have felt physically unsafe as a conservative around far leftists. (For example, once at a music camp I heard people say that they would volunteer to shoot conservatives into a ditch like the Naz*s did to the Jews, and everyone was like "YASSS QUEEN.") They thought it was hilarious, but I was terrified. Another thing that I noticed was the only concrete thing Harris really talked about in her campaign was abortion. I think it should be available for incest and rape, (there is also so much you can do before it gets to that point too, unless you're a helpless child, like go to the hospital for plan B) but I find it sick how that was basically the only thing focused on in the Harris campaign. I highly doubt that anything will change as far as "women's rights" since it's up to the states now to decide their abortion laws. It's obvious that many people certainly felt scared during his first term, and I am not denying that racism sexism etc. does exist, but to me, it's evident that the scale of the fear had completely been blown out of proportion. There were no wars, no boys in girls' sports, transgendersism being preached to underaged kids in school, and the prices for everything were better during Trump's first term to name a few things. I certainly felt happier and safer. I was scared of my brother being send overseas for WW3 if Harris was elected, so I am very relived. I don't know your personal beliefs, but why do you think so many people are hysterical about his re-election? I really admire you and your work, so I say this in all respect.

For context, I received this ask a few days after the election, and worked on my response off and on over the next few weeks before dropping it altogether because rehashing it all was putting me in such a bad mood, and then honestly… I forgot about it. Having rediscovered this in my ask box, I figured I might as well post what I’d already written since I really did put some time into it, and then try to wrap it up with some sort of ending. It’s long. Here goes:

Hi! You seem to be reaching out in good faith, so I’ll do my best to respond in kind. There's a problem in this country where people seem to be experiencing two very different versions of reality, and I've been grappling this week with the question of how to break through the cycle of outrage and fear that so many of us are trapped in. Maybe this can be a start to that. 

I can also speak to you from the perspective of someone who grew up conservative and shifted drastically leftward throughout my 20s, and who remembers struggling early on with some of the same things you're struggling with. Particularly, I remember grappling with the accusations that people like me were racist/homophobic/etc. because I didn't feel any such way.

With that being said:

When you speak of feeling unsafe, this is due to beliefs that you hold—and beliefs, while an important factor in determining who somebody is, are subject to change over time on both the small and large scale. If your social or political beliefs eventually shift, you will no longer feel threatened in quite the same way. When marginalized communities describe feeling unsafe, this is due to something intrinsic to their nature, whether that's gender or sexual orientation or the color of their skin. There is no way for them to alter themselves in a way that will make them “acceptable” to those who already hate them for who they are.

This is not to argue in favor of belief-based discrimination or to excuse the kids in music camp—young people exist on both sides of the political spectrum and they’re gonna say shit, and I heard the same or worse from people in my grounds crew in college targeted towards a more liberal population—but it's important to recognize that not all beliefs are created equal. Some are straight up incorrect (flat earth theory), some come as a result of undue influence (cults), and some beliefs are flat out dangerous (white supremacy). Where one person's beliefs interfere with another person's rights is the point where most people start to take issue—and all of that is to say that the beliefs of Donald Trump and his party trample on the rights of marginalized groups and others, and whether you personally align with every one of those beliefs simply doesn’t matter. Whether you personally think of yourself as racist, xenophobic, or anything else, by supporting Trump’s presidency, you signal your acceptance of everything that comes along with it, and those who feel threatened by that support won't care whether your acceptance comes out of ignorance or malice. You're going to face, and have already experienced, a lot of animosity due to your support of those harmful beliefs.

Of course, this is the point where we’re going to have to backtrack because you've already mentioned not understanding how Trump is anything negative other than rough around the edges. As bewildering as that statement is when held up against my own experience, you're not the only person I've seen saying something similar—but then, our country's perception gap (how people from each political party view each other) and the effect of echo chambers and algorithms on the information we're exposed to are both well-studied phenomena at this point. You also stated that Trump's first term as president was fairly positive from your perspective—no wars, a stronger pre-Covid economy, and a general feeling of safety. These two points seem related to me, and I’ll address them together.

I guess first of all, whatever information you've been exposed to thus far, I do want to assure you that Trump has clearly demonstrated the content of his character beyond the need for embellishment or anything pieced together out of context. In fact, the old classic “grab ‘em by the pussy” is made much worse by its context: “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I’m automatically attracted to beautiful — I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”

I just… simply don't have the energy to pull up all the receipts on Donald Trump of all people, but if you're inclined to do some research, look into all the contractors Trump stiffed in previous construction deals, causing bankruptcies and destroying small businesses in the process. Read up on the scam that was Trump University and the predatory tactics used to sell expensive “courses” specifically to vulnerable people. Consider whose best interest Donald Trump has ever and will ever look out for. All of this was well known (I think?) during the 2016 election, but not enough to keep Trump out of office, which is maybe why it's simultaneously treated as common knowledge and never brought up anymore.

Leading into Trump’s first term, I think it’s fair to assume that neither you nor I are in a demographic that was most obviously affected by the worst of Trump’s acts as president, but I do still remember the Muslim Ban: straightforwardly xenophobic, promised first on the campaign trail and then later put into effect during his presidency despite findings from the Department of Homeland Security itself that people from the seven nations affected by the travel ban posed no increased terrorist risk. It sure did fan the flames of hate among those who were already afraid of our Muslim population, though—and consider that according to an FBI report, hate crimes rose by 20% during Donald Trump’s term as president. Consider the wave of racially motivated harassment and texts spurred by the most recent election and realize that whatever Trump’s own views may be, he has always emboldened and empowered the worst of us. I don't care if Trump is personally racist when his policies and rhetoric directly affect minorities. I don't care if he's homophobic when the politicians he places into power alongside him specifically and explicitly want to dismantle hard-won rights for LGBTQ people.

I remember the nuclear pissing match Donald Trump got into with Kim Jong Un on Twitter, and the fear of World War III that lingered for weeks after—a fear famously memorialized in John Mulaney's “Horse in a Hospital” bit which, if you watch it, might explain exactly how that first Trump presidency felt for many Americans. Did that not seep through to the right wing media? 

More than anything else, I remember the “zero-tolerance” anti-immigration practice that came in the form of the child separation policy—and yes, I remember the wall. The wall that Mexico was going to pay for, though of course only US funds were ever used for its construction. The wall that research from the Department of Defense determined would not prevent a substantial portion of immigration—but it sure did make a handy mobilizing symbol, didn’t it?

The lies. There's just something different about the way Donald Trump lies—something that makes you feel a little crazy. Most of them are just so easily disproven that you wonder how he could possibly get away with it… but then he doubles down, and his rabid fan base believes him without question, and the far right media treats it as fact, and suddenly you have to treat his most ridiculous statements seriously because they have serious, real-world consequences (I think I’ve seen this described recently as “sanewashing”). Donald Trump says with no basis in fact or reality that Haitian immigrants are eating your dogs and cats, and a woman in Springfield calls the cops on her Haitian neighbor because her cat has gone missing.

And then poke around a bit. Look up some facts. Research. You've asked me to help explain why so many people are scared of Trump’s re-election, and I've already put literal hours into this response because I'm hoping it might do an ounce of good and I don't know what else to do… 

In fact, do me a favor: go to the Wikipedia article titled “False or misleading statements by Donald Trump”, really internalize this warning:

…And this is where I lost steam when I was initially writing this response because honestly, there’s an essay that could be written to refute every point you’ve made, and I just can’t do that. Political analysts across the country have tried to take apart and analyze voting demographics and campaign strategies and just about everything else related to the election, to varying levels of success—so I’m just gonna wrap this up with the strong suggestion that you can’t see the racism/xenophobia because it’s coming from inside the house, and a plea to you to recognize why you are being led to fear the “other.” 

Transphobia, for example, is not only written between the lines of your ask but soaking it all the way through. I saw enough political ads leading up to the election to know that “transgender panic” was one of THE issues pushed forward by right wing media (right alongside immigration), and if you’re pretty young, which I think you are, then you might not realize how much of a recent development this is culturally? Not transphobia in general—not at all—but the panic part. When I was roughly as old as I suspect you are, it was gay panic, and “think of the children,” and the reaction against Proposition 8 and “I don’t care if they’re together, but why do they have to call it marriage?” And before that it was the satanic panic, and woven all through our country’s history is anti-immigration rhetoric against various groups and ethnicities, because demonizing the “other” keeps your focus off the people who are actually, tangibly making your life worse through the corruption and policies they enact that you don’t notice because they’re pointing the finger elsewhere. It's an old song. And I just scrolled up to look at your ask again, saw that you’d written that “it's evident that the scale of the fear has completely been blown out of proportion,” and burst out laughing because that’s what it is! 

And like, I could link you to some sources that I think do a good job of debunking everything that the “trans panic” is built on (there’s an episode of the podcast Maintenance Phase that has some of the best gathered research I’ve found so far), but you probably wouldn’t find it particularly palatable—and that’s part of the problem, isn’t it? 

Anyway, I don’t think I can stomach reading all this through again right now, but I do wish you luck and a happy new year. I hope this response did any good at all, and I hope my fears for the upcoming presidency prove to be overblown. Can’t say I’m feeling too optimistic, though.

Peace ✌️

[odinsblog]

Look closely enough and you’ll find that Eric Johnson was always a Republican, or at least very susceptible to becoming one. Conservative “Democrats” are one bribe or one hurt feeling away from switching parties.

This highlights the significance of how much more important primaries are, because after the primaries are over, then it becomes an endless chorus of, “vote for the lesser evil” and “vote blue no matter who,” and we have more than enough bad examples of where that can lead to, right??

Honestly, always vote for the most leftist, progressive candidate you can in the primary elections, before it comes down to voting for a Republican vs. Republican-lite in the general election.

I don’t think there are primary elections for mayoral races, but I still love the idea that if a candidate switches political parties (any time after the primaries, I’d suggest), then they should A) not be allowed to hold the office they ran for until they run + win as a member of their new party, B) pay heavy fines from their personal funds, C) they should be forced to resign, and D) the election should be re-done.

The Democratic Party needs to tighten up and make some rules regarding who can and cannot run as a Democrat.

Literally months before SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade, Nancy Pelosi was backing a homophobic, anti-abortion, “Democratic” 🙄 candidate named Henry Cuellar, saying that a candidate’s stance on abortion wasn’t important. And Cuellar’s opponent was a young pro-abortion, pro-LGBTQ immigration attorney named Jessica Cisneros! And it was a relatively safe blue district, meaning that whichever Democrat the DNC backed, they were likely to win and a Republican hadn’t won that district in forever. AND before that, Pelosi and the DCCC threw their weight behind another openly homophobic “Democrat” named Dan Lipinski.

Could you even imagine Mitch McConnell or Kevin McCarthy openly throwing their support behind a pro-abortion candidate who wanted gun control? No? So why tf does Democratic leadership constantly foist GOP-lite candidates onto the Democratic Party when other viable options exist?

Just a guess on my part, but if you want fewer anti-abortion laws getting passed, then you should probably back fewer anti-abortion candidates. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

“Vote blue no matter who” has bitten Democrats in the ass wayyy more than any converse slogan has bitten Republicans. Because Republicans actually vet their candidates and make sure that those candidates want the same deplorable things that their deplorable base wants.

And just for clarity, because I know how the internet works and how sycophants love twisting words: I am NOT saying don’t vote for Biden in 2024. I’m not even saying to support a third party candidate. I want Trump and all Republicans gone in the next few election cycles. What I am saying is, once the election is over and hopefully Trump/DeSantis have been vanquished, we need to seriously rework how the Democratic Party has been run. Losing Roe v. Wade is indicative of how poorly it’s been mismanaged.

Anyway, new laws can be made, so especially after the Supreme Court has ignored and undone so many standing legal precedents, I don’t wanna hear jack shit about “pie-in-the-sky” or “be realistic.”

This centrism bullshit ain’t working, yo.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal Constitution

* * * *

As once-in-century hurricane heads for Florida, major media is silent about Trump's disaster relief lies

Hurricane Milton threatens to hit Florida on Wednesday as a once-in-century storm. FEMA and the National Guard are already stretched thin in their response to Hurricane Helene. And Trump continues to spew his disinformation about their response in North Carolina—creating an aura of distrust and the potential for vigilante violence by misguided storm victims who believe Trump's lies about the disaster relief.

The good news is that many responsible Republican elected officials have criticized or condemned Trump's lies. The bad news is that the criticism hasn’t stopped Trump. He as at it again on Monday. See The Guardian, Fema chief warns ‘dangerous’ Trump falsehoods hampering Helene response.

While the major media outlets are rightfully focused on the potential damage from Hurricane Milton, they have already lost interest in Trump's disinformation campaign. It has disappeared from their platforms—even though Trump has not relented. His lies continue unabated.

Never before and never again in the history of our Republic will we witness a presidential candidate leverage the lives and safety of victims of natural disasters into pawns in a campaign. Kamala Harris condemned Trump's statements on Monday—and the major media yawned (except for The Guardian). Harris said, in part,

People are in desperate need of support right now and playing political games at this moment, in these crisis situations – these are the height of emergency situations – it is utterly irresponsible and it is selfish and it is about political gamesmanship instead of doing the job that you took an oath to do, which is to put the people first.”

And I cannot stress enough to all the folks in Florida in the Tampa area, please listen to evacuation orders. Please listen to your local officials because I know a lot of folks out there have survived these hurricanes before; this one is going to be very, very serious and I urge you to grab whatever you need. The other point I’d make is there’s a lot of misinformation being pushed out there by the former president about what is available, particularly for the survivors of Helene. First of all, it’s extraordinarily irresponsible. It’s about him, it’s not about you. The reality is Fema has so many resources that are available to those who desperately need them.”

Trump is subordinating the lives and safety of hundreds of thousands of Americans to his partisan political interest. That is a scandal unmatched in American history—and it is missing from the front pages and websites of nearly every major news source. Shameful!

Florida threatens local news stations with jail time for running political ads supporting ballot initiative

If you want a view into what a second Trump presidency would look like, check out Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to prosecute local news stations for running political ads in support of the ballot initiative to protect reproductive rights in Florida. The threats are plainly unconstitutional, but the fact that the state is threatening jail time for political speech is beyond the pale. Let’s hope that all Floridians are outraged by this abuse of power and government overreach—and motivated to turn out in massive numbers on November 5. See Talking Points Memo, DeSantis Threatening Jail Time for Running Abortion Rights Ads in Florida.

Again, the fact that the major media has not come down on DeSantis like a ton of bricks bespeaks an inexplicable quiescence in the face of an onrushing fascist threat.  

[Robert B. Hubbell Newsletter]

[qqueenofhades]

as a woc (who is south asian, so i share that with harris), it's deeply upsetting to me that......nothing she could do would be right. i see people wondering why she isn't doing more, but then she does something, and then those same people pick that thing apart and tear her to pieces and it really does go to show that nothing we ever do will be "right".

i have yet to see criticism of her specifically that doesn't boil down to racism or misogyny (or a combination of both), and it's frustrating, especially in leftist spaces, because i do want to think critically and have conversations about what she's doing right and what she (and the administration as a whole) could improve upon, but i feel like i can't start or participate in those conversations without dealing with that same racism + misogyny. and this isn't even getting into the gop, this is about people who call themselves progressive/leftist/whatever. so much effort goes into maintaining the idea that they're better than the right, but i don't see nearly as much effort put into.....being better tbh

Unfortunately, among all their other problems, Online Leftists are a) often just as likely to be racist and misogynist as the GOP, and b) to strenuously deny that they are, weaponize that language in bad faith against people or candidates they dislike, and otherwise parrot abstract "social justice" talking points and Progressive Jargon while being absolutely noxious to the real, actual people that are involved. They do, as you say, assume they are Morally Righteous, and then don't actually interrogate that or question it in any way. So.... yeah. Yeah, pretty much. As I've said before and will say again, they are an absolute failure as any kind of practical or effective opposing force to right-wing fascism, and often inadvertently or even deliberately enable it in deeply disappointing ways.

It's funny that in all my posts/answers on the topic, I stated multiple times that if people could provide me an actual reason that made empirical sense as to why they didn't like Kamala, I was happy to have that discussion. Instead I got a lot of weird angry asks from people clearly still trying to justify their Hillary Clinton Derangement Syndrome (I only answered one of them because I have better things to do with my life), accusing me of being "emotional," "angry," "trauma-dumping" and God knows what else. And like. I'm sorry that pointing out a clearly verifiable fact (misogyny is what doomed HRC, anti-Obama backlash/racism was what enabled Trump) triggered y'all to that degree, but I think that fact is pretty illuminating on its own. And no, actually, I don't have to "get over" HRC's loss or "just accept" that people had "reasons" (conveniently never articulated, but they were real! They totally weren't misogyny! PEOPLE HAD REAL REASONS FOR NOT LIKING HER WHY WON'T YOU BELIEVE ME AND ACCEPT THAT!!!) for disliking her and/or not voting for her when her opponent was Donald F'n Trump. Like, I know they live in the magical realm of the Permanently Online where the real world suffers no consequences from their bullshit and the argument about why 2016 was not their fault changes daily, but that's not the case with us here on Earth. And yeah, we're pretty mad.

Kamala has, in my view, been doing a perfectly fine job as the vice president. She has been able to give a few powerful and relevant speeches about race relations, gun violence, abortion, and other topics. I occasionally see news articles from "anonymous sources" who "don't like her" or want to cause trouble for whatever reason, which I treat with the usual degree of skepticism that I employ when reading anything the mainstream media writes about Democrats (which is then repurposed and reused in the Online Leftists' "Democrats Terrible!" screeds in equally bad faith). Yet again, I repeat my offer for anyone who wants to complain about her for an actual and clearly articulated reason to explain what that reason is and why it's not a double standard, why it's not attributable to racism and misogyny (even and especially the unacknowledged sort), what they expect she should be doing differently, and why this is any kind of big deal for the actual mainstream electorate. But judging from previous experience, this will just trigger another round of anonymous WE HAVE GOOD REASONS FOR NOT LIKING HER!!! whines with cheese, and to that I say, yeah, don't even waste your time.

[gryficowa]

Leftists have been trumpeting the return of fascism for years, but people ignored it and called it "What you can have in your own opinion" or told us that we are the problem

It started with trans people, and all the way to entire LGBT+ groups, feminists also got hit and there was no reaction because "They could have stayed quiet and not done it" (When they were on strike)

In addition, using September 11 as an excuse to harass people of Arab origin all over the world (although they live in my country and it's more white people who do shit here), dehumanized people, but it's the Arabs' fault that one crazy person flew a plane into two towers , True?

Fascism was reborn at the beginning of this century, but with Trump and Rowling it became more and more visible, but people thought it was nothing bad

2020 was also the point where fascism became acceptable (In my country, there was a campaign against LGBT+ people and women on strike after the ban on abortion on a damaged fetus, and then the dehumanization of people at the border who were deceived by Lukashenko, but as you said, it was was, then they called you under the propaganda of Lukashenko or Putin, yes, being a good person means being a traitor, I'd rather be a traitor than their "Hero")

It's no better abroad either, tik tok has become the only place, which has caused a lot of damage, including the resurgence of pro-ana, the destruction of the postivi body and the acceptance of autism

In 2024, many people's eyes have been opened, when anti-genocide strikes are attacked and people fighting for a free Palestine are called anti-Semites (Even if they are Jews), unfortunately, as before, people woke up to the genocide and the awareness that it is taking place, the holocaust was not stopped either and people were terrified only when it all came to light, now we can try to stop it, but there might not have been a genocide if we had reacted earlier when Israel used segregation to separate them from the Israelis

I'm born in 01, i.e. a zoomer, I used the Internet only for flash games, although I preferred DVD games (I watched as many cartoons from CDs, I watched them on TV when they were on, but that didn't mean I liked them as much as the DVD ones)

I watched Mini Mini while others were watching CN, hence I was considered immature by people in my class (10-14 years old)

It is possible that it was cartoons that helped me develop empathy (I have ASD, and it is a myth that autism does not have empathy), although I was never able to show it, and being a scapegoat did not help me much

I encountered LGBT+ at the age of 13, but thanks to the propaganda from religion classes you can guess what my approach was (Howrse, forum, censoring the word "Gay" as if it was a curse, WTF)

I don't remember when I realized that I was an aroace, because I was always an aroace, but I didn't know, for me the word "Love" didn't mean what cis hetero people consider love, for me it meant relationships where someone is close to you (Family, your pet, friendship etc…)

The first glimpses that something was wrong, I saw a certain Polish YouTuber explaining his transphobia (This was the moment when young and stupid me got a warning light, because if knowing being trans was an option for me, it doesn't change the fact that there was something wrong here yes, cognitive dissonance from cartoons I watched as a kid about that the most important thing is to be yourself and accept yourself, that others should also accept you, and then you come across this, even if you don't understand, you know that this creator's thinking is bad)

I became more interested in politics in 2020, when President Andrzej Duda (Rapper of the Year) said "LGBT+ is not people, it's an ideology", then I already knew that I was LGBT+ (I didn't use "Aroace" then, but "Asexual" and "Aromatic" )

Then I realized how many bad people there are and how they hate someone for their very existence. I can't blame myself for not being interested in politics before, because I was a child (Although pedophiles will probably say that "You weren't a child, you were a teenager", shut up!)

I had Twitter for a year because they blocked it, classic for "Inciting suicide" (But pedophiles and fascists can go unpunished, Twitter standards, they complain that Elon Musk destroyed it, no, he didn't destroy it, he was always fucked up)

I feel like I've grown up too quickly, and I've come so far in my development that it turned out that many people I trusted turned out to be bad, well, maybe loneliness isn't so bad, I have a cat, a dog and my own third party liability insurance, maybe not people (Or real ones…), but it's better than fake friendships, right?

2020 was a turning point for everything, entering politics and discovering how many people were actually mocking you and weren't your friends (Wasted years, even when they started a separate group to mock me and made a remake of my photo from 2013, where they stuck my face into a drawing of a penis… And yet I forgave them + I blamed it on myself, that I reacted badly to everything, when they pointed it out to me, that I was "exaggerating", I left groups, they added me again and so on endlessly)

It doesn't make it easier that in high school I had a toxic support teacher who controlled and criticized me (and laughed at me) at every step, and called my "meltdowns" aggressive and turned them into a note for the diary

So I've been in toxic relationships in real life and online, and this realization is killing me...

But coming back, we had the return of fascism and now people were hit with the realization that "Not an opinion" is "Fascism", the question is how long this approach will last and everything will not return to the status quo

[torque-witch]

LONG POST - election topic

Anyhow I ended up talking to my mom about the election results for a little bit the other day and it was some good (considering) and some bad.

My dad voted for orange man. He’s totally bought into whatever Muskrat is touting after decades of AM radio listening. Because he owns a business probably, but he does not make over 400k if my mom is concerned they’ll lose the house over an $800/month mortgage plus whatever mortgage he has at his building. He’s the only employee, for reference. Just a one-man show. He doesn’t socialize. He doesn’t have friends. He just isolates in his photo lab and comes home for dinner maybe and then sometimes sleeps at work.

My mom voted for Kamala, which is nice but she’s still conservative. She’s been trying to subtly or un-subtly get my dad to read non-right wing media on things like tariffs because he doesn’t understand how it will affect his business.

She also acknowledges that both me and my sister would be at risk, but moreso my sister because she is on disability and can’t work. If she can’t get her meds but is forced to work, the cycle of her being homeless will continue because she becomes violent without meds. She could be thrown in jail again.

My dad just wants economic benefits and I guess forgot about his only daughters.

My mom isn’t great though. I’m still not able to tell her all my beliefs because she’s not a safe person at the end of the day, even though I don’t think she would not speak to me or anything.

She thinks abortion is disgusting - BUT agrees that ectopic pregnancy shouldn’t be a part of the conversation because there is no “baby.” Almost had it haha.

She also made her and my dad leave their current church because they were turning into vocal Trump supporters, which she rightly doesn’t think belongs in church. She also was pretty upset that trumpers at church and the Christian school she teaches at are calling liberals “satan worshipping trash” because I and her sisters/extended family are liberal. But ALSO

So my dad sent me a text about Musk’s $200 incentive to sign a petition or whatever - he also sent it to my sister, who is not mentally stable for a good portion of the time. I just said thank you, didn’t sign it and went on with my day. As my mom said, he conveniently didn’t send it to her because he knows she would shut him down.

Anyhow - this text caused a whole breakdown with my sister because she’s on disability, she can’t accept money without it affecting her benefits. She signed up for it. Hasn’t received money obviously. But she as afraid if she did receive money what would she do? What if she won a million dollars? And my mom had to talk her down and explain that she wouldn’t even get the full million, she could just rip up any check and that she shouldn’t accept money from Elon Must under any circumstance.

And my dad just…didn’t think ahead about how the potential for a large sum of money might mentally affect someone with a) grand delusions and b) on disability and c) always threatened with homelessness.

My mom KNOWS he’s just dumb as bricks and under a LOT of propoganda … SO JUST LEAVE HIM.

I feel like if she left him (she won’t because divorce is a sin in her eyes) and moved to the city she would probably learn that she’s actually liberal and highly educated too (she has a masters degree) but the threat of hell is strong for her.

I get it. But I don’t. And I’m grappling with how much I can interact or should because I’m also the executrix of the (paltry) estate. Do I want that future labor? Prob not. But also if it helps us in the future idk.

Idk if it’s worth it to keep holding on because she’s been learning a lot, but at the very least I’m glad that I live 6 hours away. I can’t be doing that kind of socializing anymore.

[lookninjas]

You know, it's interesting to me that I saw an article as I was scrolling through my dash this morning that (supposedly) blames the U.S. for being deeply involved in a genocide in Sudan. You might think from such a description that we'd be talking about U.S. military aid or boots on the ground or the CIA or something like that, and not just the Trump administration tanking our diplomatic efforts and Biden's administration not making the best decisions to right the ship. You might also think that such an article would not include a section like this:

David Satterfield, who replaced Feltman as US special envoy to the Horn of Africa and who has since resigned, said that Washington did not have anything but bad choices in Sudan, and therefore had to strike deals with the Sudanese military. According to Satterfield, “If there is ever an opportunity to return to a path towards restoration of a civilian-led government, you’re going to have to talk to the military then as well.

You also might not think that such an article would outright reference Russian involvement in Sudan, which it does.

Russia believes that its strong presence in Sudan will augment its status in Africa and the Middle East, which is considered an American redoubt. Since 2014, and with Moscow’s aspirations to exploit African mineral riches, the Kremlin has strengthened its ties to Sudan in order to ameliorate western sanctions following its invasion of Crimea, sanctions that became even harsher after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.16 In 2017, former Sudanese President al-Bashir visited Russia and met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The two countries agreed to establish a holding company run by the paramilitary Wagner Group to mine gold ore. Russia also signed a 25-year lease in December 2020 to build a military base at Port Sudan on the Red Sea that can receive nuclear-powered ships. It was also interesting that Hemedti headed an official delegation to Moscow on the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

And while we're talking about Russian involvement in Sudan, which is why I'm here in the first place, it's really really really interesting to me that this article was phrased as proof that the U.S. was heavily involved in genocide in Sudan, despite the fact that the Russian Wagner group (accused of war crimes in Ukraine) has been providing missiles and military training to the Sudanese paramilitary group RSF while smuggling gold out of Sudan to fund their own activities in Ukraine. Fun fact about the Wagner group: They're also heavily involved in social media misinformation campaigns.

Wasn't there a Russian misinformation campaign on tumblr leading up to the Presidential elections in 2016?

And despite the "mysterious" death of Yevgeny Prigozhin in a plane crash (a short time after his aborted march on Moscow), Russia is still working on bringing the Wagner organization back under their control. Because, you know, they still have that whole invasion of Ukraine they're working on. An invasion of Ukraine that would sure be a whole lot easier for them if they could convince Americans to stop providing military support to Ukraine. They're already doing pretty nicely with the Republican party, but the Democrats (and the American left in general) have been harder to get on-side.

It does kind of feel like tying American military involvement in other countries to active genocide would be a great way to discourage people on the American left from supporting continued involvement in Ukraine, wouldn't it?

We're slightly less than a year away from the next American presidential election. There is no reason to believe that the Russian propaganda machine, which has already been operating at full blast since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022, is going to slow down. This quote from the linked article is particularly chilling:

A particular challenge is that people tend to spread falsehoods “farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth”; this is particularly the case for false political news (Vosoughi, Roy and and Aral, 2018[7]). For example, one study found that tweets containing false information were 70% more likely to be retweeted than accurate tweets (Brown, 2020[8]). Another study found that false information on Facebook attracts six times more engagement than factual posts (Edelson, 2021[9]). In addition, feedback loops between the platforms and traditional media can serve to further amplify disinformation, magnifying the risk that disinformation can be used to deliberately influence public conversations, as well as confuse and discourage the public.

I think it's important to remember, especially now, that we are capable of spreading misinformation. The article about U.S. involvement in Sudan wasn't placed on there by an algorithm. This is fucking tumblr. That was one of my mutuals. Because they're concerned about American military intervention and they're against genocide and it sounded bad and they were upset and they didn't think to read the article. Because they didn't spend the time of Prigozhin's march on Moscow mainlining information on the Wagner group the way that I did, so they didn't go "Hey, Sudan? Wait a minute --" the way I did. Because misinformation that isn't targeted at your group is designed to be easy to spot, so you'll think that the misinformation that is targeted to your group will also be easy to spot, and it fucking isn't.

Because this culture of "If you care, you'll share" has gotten people to click that reblog button without thinking twice about it.

Don't keep falling for it. You don't have to spend an hour digging up sources and pulling out quotes for a ten-note post the way that I did. I'm like this as a human. It's fine if you're not. But if you're not even going to click the link to read the article and actually read it critically (or if there's no sources at all except a twitter screenshot, which I've also seen quite a bit of), then don't reblog it. Save it as a draft for when you have time to do the research, or just don't do anything with it at all. You're not obligated.

And if you have the relevant background to spot the disinfo, I mean -- again, look, you're not obligated to take that hour and search those sources. Even I don't do this all the time. It's hard, it's frustrating, and it will not spread the way the disinfo does. I'm gonna see that genocide post like five times at least on my dash, and I'm probably going to see it at least once from someone who has at least liked this post (if not reblogged it as well). But if you can. If you have the energy and the time. Try to put a little info out there. It might help someone.

That's all. Be good. Be skeptical.

[moeitsu]

This shit-post is dedicated to my weird ass friends and the most out of pocket things they've said that I've written in the quote book I've kept in my notes since 2019. Enjoy:

The mayonnaise did wonders for my hair. -P

The Holy Spirit does not want to suck your balls. -E

That's the scariest thing about Halloween...young women. -N

You can put long pasta in there! -E You mean spaghetti? -M

I don't know what blood type I am, is there an app for that? -G

You already said you wouldn't eat my ass -E

What's your major? -K Oh, I'm American. -G

I'm gonna shit in that trash can. -G

Are we about to exchange insurance cards? -J

I'm pretty sure I don't wanna warm my pussy by the fire. -M

Ugh, I don't wanna be a femboy! -M

If you're so worried about the angles then just stick your fingers in the hole. -M

I wish I could be off the grid. -M Like homeless people? -E

Who needs bleach when you have discharge. -J

Why are there panties in your hat? -G

I think I'm mentally disabled. -M No, you're just mentally ill. -E

It could be a deer with down syndrome. -D

I remember when the only app they had was angry birds. -J

Now that's the kind of guy who should be reproducing. -J

Cute rhymes with stupid. -N

No arms, no legs, not even living. But watches porn. -R

Sweaty balls doesn't sound very appetizing. -T

You're starting to look like a real girl again. -N

I always poop in other people's houses. It's how I establish dominance. -T

No sir, I am from Boston. All I know is drink coffee and cuss. -M

The gas station bathroom was treacherous. Pretty sure I saw blood on the walls. -C

If it doesn't cure you, it'll kill you! -Z

Bone dry dunes? That's where you go when you run out of cum. -E

I live by the thee S's: serve, slay, survive. -G

I will not participate in the ass licking. -E

You white people always have cool ancestors. My ancestors were slaves. -S My ancestors were responsible for that. -G

That gives me a free pass to call you a bitch. I'll take it. -N

Would anyone wanna buy my wick-less candles? Shameless plug I know. -K

C'mere, come into my womb. -G

I like your dads meat. -E

Our family funds the entire therapy on the north shore. -B

You can't be this smart w/o massive mental health problems. -B

She doesn't like gay people? -M Nope, she's up in the air about black people too. -P

We're back to our regularly scheduled racism. -R

That's abortion money, not pedicure money. -K

I'm gonna give you a disability if you don't stop. -M

I can always fuck up chicken. Especially the breast. -N

Nice parking job Alabama. Was your sister giving you head while you were driving? -N

I don't think calories are real. I've never seen one. -M

Do you even know what man boobs are? -E It's literally in the name. -M

Can't men flick their nipples off? -E

Well, 5 out of 6 of us were born with a full spine. -E

What's the point of having a gf if you can't objectify her? -N

Mother fucker we don't own straws. We broke as shit. -N

You're like a lollipop triple dipped in psycho flavor. -P

What are you just not gonna feed your kid so you can afford to go to Disney? -A

Do you think she's trans? Like she was a dude and now she's a guy? -N You mean she was a dude and now she's a girl? -M

The boogeyman wants to suck you're toes. -M He would never, he's asexual. -P

We need a new toilet. -P This is American made! This is a quality toilet! -A

There's no one as Irish as Barack Obama. -N

She called me autistic! -P Well, it couldn't hurt to get tested. -A

The shirt says 'wicked strong' -M It should say 'wicked annoying' -N

What bitch is blowing up your phone? -M Literally your Dad. -N

I'm a white girl, of course I love cheese. -S

Why do bad things keep happening to me? Don't they know who I am! -N

It's because I feel safe here. -M Well, maybe you shouldn't. -N

The real magic happens when you embrace the delusion. -K

Oh look, the Trump tower! What if it just blows up? -R

I'm gonna be honest, I didn't finish the Bible. It's on my DNF shelf. Adam and Eve? I need enemies to lovers. -B

A woman bit me, I'm gonna become a prostitute. No! -S

Technically, I'm bisexual. -M You're too old for labels. -G

[elfanonymous]

obligatory having to live under fascist orangutan with bootlicker misogynistic family rant under cut 😊

this shit fucking sucks cause not only is trump destroying the united states when its literally only been like 4 days but my literal siblings support his ass no matter what . genuinely full blown dont see a problem with trump. never mind that were already losing global climate change laws, destroying the lives of immigrants and innocent poc who are accused of being immigrants, allowing discrimination and abuse in the work place again, leaving the world health organization, and losing all protection for queer people, no impressing my dad who doesnt even support trump and looking edgy and cool in front of people who couldn’t give a fuck is more important than your literal family members who are actually affected. for some fucking reason fascism is the new fucking cool thing to do one day its cool to make misogynistic jokes then suddenly theyre saying shit about girls are so this men are so this one day its fine to make racist jokes but its not so FUCKING funny when you know they actually hate immigrants (though im not allowed to say that they hate them they only want them to go leave or die and reinforce horrible stereotypes about them and demonize them in front of our parents because they think it will impress my FUCKING dad because thats the most important thing right?) one day were “JOKING” about the gay kids in school but is it so fucking hilarious when were sterotyping or OUTING PEOPLE “no one knows hes gay but I do” with no evidence WHATD HE DO WHERE A PINK SHIRT? ALL of this is so FUCKING STRESSFUL and at least LAST TIME people in my house had some fucking sense but I cant even confide in my family members when elon musk is doing the NAZI SALUTE because my sister 110% believes that roman salute lie and will GLEEFULLY “jokingly” EMPHASIZE THE QUOTATIONS BUT SHE MEANS IT HALF SERIOUSLY just say “oh its the roman salute🥺😝” meanwhile its the most FUCKING stressful time of my entire life but it doesnt mean jack fucking SHIT TO HER because shes got daddy musks boot in her mouth all the fucking time so I have to post on my FUCKING TUMBLR ACCOUNT ABOUT IT cause if I have to hear ONE MORE “we shouldnt judeg trump supporters 🥺” or “b-b-but immigrants!” or “my stwong male friends are so crazy not like me im just a girl >_<“ IM GONNA FUCKING LOSE IT and she thinks its all fine cause as long as she supports abortion (for now . ?) and gay people and “isn’t racist” (has a singular indian friend who she referred to as black for a while to pull the diversity card ? ?) but one its a slippery fucking slope two “supports” is a strong word for someone who also supports worlds most transphobic man, runner up for worlds most transphobic man, and third place for worlds most transphobic man and also wouldnt and probably doesnt give a flying FUCK if any of her friends say the f slur . and then they all (my entire family) makes fun of ME for being “woke” cause I dont pray at the fucking ALTAR of men who want me DEAD and oh IM over exaggerating for not licking the boot of someone who disowned his transgender daughter IM CRAZY for not loving it when I see people whose misogyny I have experienced FIRST HAND make misogynistic “jokes” oh im SORRY did I not find it HILARIOUS when you guys who despise haitians (though its FINE to hate an entire race if you have one bad experience THATS FINE????????????????) made jokes about hating other races did I not find that very funny? and is it my fault for not embracing with open arms someone with “just a difference of opinion 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺” AND THE OPINION IS TO END ALL GENDER AFFIRMING CARE? “thats not what being a trump supporter is about u don’t understand its about the groceries THAT I DONT FUCKING BUY🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺” POINT. TO . THE . ACTION . THAT FUCKING ORANGATANG MADE IN HIS FIRST FOUR DAYS THAT BENEFITED A SINGLE FUCKING AMERICAN . POINT. did leaving the world health organization lower prices of groceries? did it? WAS IT FUCKING WORTH IT ? IS IT ALL FUCKING WORTH IT AS LONG AS IT DOESNT EFFECT FUCKING YOU YOU YOU????????? AS LONG AS YOUR FUCKING FRIENDS THINK YOUR COOL

I MEAN IF THEY SAY ADOLF IS COOL THEN HES COOL RIGHT? CAUSE THEY CAN NEVER BE WRONG? AND IF OUR PARENTS SAY BEING TRANS IS WRONG THEN IT MUST BE WRONG RIGHT? IT MUST BE WRONG THEN? MUST IT BE WRONG?

WHY DOESNT ANYONE AROUND ME HAVE A FUCKING BACK BONE THIS IS WHY MY MOM GOES FUCKING CRAZY

and oh is my brother hilarious or is he just making misogynistic jokes? is it really just a joke if he does it ALL THE TIME? is it really just a joke if we found a crude drawing of a nude women in our basement? WHAT THAT A FUCKING FUNNY JOKE? is it funny if whenever a girl gets mad their on their period? was it funny when he talked down to my maga fucking sister in a way he wouldnt talk down to a man? is that fucking funny? or does it get to a FUCKING POINT? DOESNT IT GET TO A FUCKING POINT??????????? DOESNT IT??? DOESNT IT GET TO A POINT WHERE ITS NOT A FUCKING JOKE ANYMORE? HEY DID ANYONE STOP TO FUCKING THINK THAT CONSTANTLY MAKING MISOGYNISTIC JOKES AND DEGRADING BECAUSE LETS CALL IT WHAT IT FUCKING IS DEGRADING MY MOM WOULD MAKE A FUCKING IMPACT ON SOMEONE IN A DEVELOPMENTAL STAGE OF LIFE? WHEN ALL OF HIS PEERS HAVE THE SAME MISOGYNISTIC RHETORIC? CAN WE STOP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT WOMEN LIKE THEIR FUCKING OBJECTS CAUSE IT GETS TO A FUCKING POINT

IF EVERY SINGLE DAY AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAING “WOMEN BELONG IN THE KITCHEN” SUDDENLY STARTS COMING OUT IN DEAD SERIOUS “YOUR JUST EMOTIONAL” OR THE FUCK WAS THAT THE OTHER DAY THE BEING CONDESCENDING LIKE OK WE GET IT WE ALLL HATE WOMEN HERE FUCK WOMEN AM I RIGHT?

genuinely tired of it im so fucking tired of it its just NOT A JOKE ANYMORE

its real it was always real because you cant spend EVERY WAKING FUCKING HOUR saying that shit thinking it wont affect how you view the world and treat those around you BECAUSE LETS BE HONEST IM GETTING TREATED LIKE DOG SHIT BECAUSE MY FAMILY OF FUCKING “politics doesnt matter lets just ignore its existence” LITERALLY WONT EVER SHUT UP ABOUT POLITICAL SHIT AND HARASSING FUCKING ME CAUSE HOW DARE I BE GAY? HOW DARE I? HOW DARE I CARE ABOUT OTHER PEOPLE? HOW DARE I CARE ABOUT OUR COUNTRY THAT THEY CLAIM TO LOVE? HOW DARE I WANT PEOPLE IN POVERTY TO SURVIVE WHEN THEM, SELF PROCLAIMED “CATHOLICS” WANT THEM TO BUILD THEMSELVES UP THEMSELVES ON THE MINIMUM WAGE THEY DONT WANT TO RAISE WITH THE HEALTHCARE THEY THINK THEY DONT DESERVE WITH THE COLLEGE TUITIONS THEY WOULD BE OUTRAGED IF THE GOVERNMENT PAYED FOR

FUCKKKKKKK EVERYTHING ESPECIALLY MY FUCK ASS BOOT LICKING WOMEN HATING NAZI SUPPORTING ONE ELON MUSK SPEECH AWAY FROM HOMOPHOBIC COULDNT POINT TO THE CAPITOL ON A MAP “CENTRIST” REPUBLICAN

AND FUCK HALF OF THEM FOR THINKING NOTHING IN POLITICS APPLIES TO REAL LIFE FOR THINKING THEY LISTENED TO “BOTH SIDES🥺” AFTER LISTENING TO A 6 HOUR RIGHT WING PODCAST AND GLANCING AT ONE LEFTIST TUMBLR POST

GET ME OUT OF HERREEE

[centrally-unplanned]

I agree with your assessment that Biden could not have passed any form of federal abortion protections (short of court stacking, which is a non-starter w/ him), but I think that tweet is still correct to criticize this facet of Dem campaign strategy. Barring a fantastically strong Dem showing in 2024, the prohibitive legislative hurdles Biden faced in his first term would still be there on re-election, and I frankly think Biden has better odds of croaking himself during his second term than a conservative Justice like Thomas does, much less the two Justices Dems would need to revive Roe.

Every election holds the potential of seeing abortion rights curtailed if Republicans win big enough, but the plurality odds are that the present deadlock will continue to prevail, which makes the Dems look either weak or unserious or both when they run on issues they can't materially fight for even if they win the election. Imo, Dem electeds need to learn how to campaign in a way that doesn't make their constituency feel like they are Charlie Brown in that one gag with Susie and the football, and the fact that the Dem VP candidate is falling afoul of that mistake sparks serious concerns for when the election that will actually determine the fate of abortion rights comes along.

I am definitely not adverse to critiques of how the Dems are campaigning! I don't think its been great myself (though not awful or anything). But on this one I do think you really need to ask what is the concrete, specific, actual thing Dems can do about this?

Like we can say "campaign on passing the WHPA but A: they currently do the equivalent of that, and B: its a lie, they can't pass it, they can't pass any bill federally on this - its pulling the football. They can appoint judges, which they say they will do, actually do, and makes a difference. And then....well, shit man, what do you want? Now what you can also actually do is operate at the state level - and here Dems have been hitting quite hard! Every Dem in a competitive state was emphasizing abortion in 2022 in campaigns, on the concrete promise that they will support bills in state legislatures to legalize the right to an abortion - which they did. And down-ballot voting strats is how it works, you get people into the ballot box to vote for the big elections and it drives turnout down the line. But while you can imagine a campaign that is like "vote for me a figurehead stamp for state level initiatives", imo that would be a bad strategy - people are very invested (to their detriment, but w/e) in the President-as-leader, and so him downplaying himself would probably not work.

IMO they should say "lets get to 60 everyone, if we do we will pass the WHPA" - but they do say that! Its what the VP thing you are mentioning is about, it was the focus Biden's first campaign event of the year. And as the same mentions, they are using the Justice Dept. to challenge bans on medically necessary abortions and other maneuvers that seem viable. Remember when Congress couldn't appoint military officers, like any, because a Republican Congressman was filibustering them? That was over Biden's continuing directives to fund abortions for servicemen. He is doing things! These are not football pulls, if Trump wins you absolutely could see members of the military losing access to abortion, even in pro-choice states. That's 200,000 women, its not small.

Again, I'm not saying there aren't some other ideas out there that might be good. The article above actually mentions some - leasing Federal Land for abortion clinics is a big Fuck You, I kind of like it (but its probably not smart, voters won't like it and state governments will go ballistic) But I think Dems have been pretty solid here since 2022, they are hands-tied but have found a bunch of ways to hammer the issue and make concrete promises with real stakes. If you don't win elections, which the US system is essentially built to prevent, its a tough game.

[dadbodbuck]

cheating on my hiatus again to say a) my state overturned our abortion ban yay! and b) god even if kamala wins the presidency i'm still terrified of the missouri state races. when biden won the conservative backlash at the state level was horrifying and draconian. we led the nation in anti lgbt bill proposals during a dem presidency. i had to cross state lines to get my hormones a few times because of a bad attorney general. like yes the trump presidency would fuck me to death but i guarantee missouri republicans will try to enact mini project 2025 anyway and that shit scares me so bad.

[ikebanaka]

You're the one who brought up voting on that post, though. Presumably anyone with your same "they're both awful but vote for the less awful one" should also want everyone to hate Biden, since your argument for voting for him relies in no way on actually liking him, so why do you have a problem with someone pointing out how he, in specific, sucks shit? And back at ya bud, if you can dismiss anyone who can't give you a 4-month revolutionary outline, how about you give us a foolproof plan for protecting trans kids, abortion rights, and ending the several foreign genocides currently going on? I bet you can't, but for some reason you get the luxury of saying that doesn't matter.

Hi! You seem to have a misunderstanding about how politics works. And also how logic works, so let's start with that.

First, not approving of Biden's actions wrt to the current genocides does not mean I want people to hate him. Those things are not A=B. I understand that that might not really make sense, but I'll explain why.

The reason I want people to avoid spreading hatred of the old bastard and think it is unproductive to hate on him is that shitting on the most progressive viable candidate, i.e. the lesser evil, plays directly into the kind of mindset that will keep people from voting. This is why all those goddamn psyops in previous elections keep fucking doing it. And lo and behold, it fucking worked in 2016.

Second, the problem isn't that quick radical change isn't possible or that I hate the idea and think it'll never work. It will, and people are already taking steps to make that happen. The protests are making a difference, the direct actions are making a difference, the people stepping up to help their community and make it strong enough to survive the ways this country is determined to tear them down are making a difference. The letter writing campaigns, the fundraisers, the calls to representatives, the voting in local elections, it all makes a difference.

But we're still laying the groundwork for more radical change. In the leftist bubble it seems like support is near unanimous, and we're all arguing about semantics, so talking down about enacting radical change right now sounds like being all talk and getting in the way of actual change. And it's true that the idea is gaining traction nationwide! Unfortunately, there's a whole lot of people who exist outside that bubble that don't have the same knowledge or perspective and aren't even aware that radical change is an option, let alone where they stand on it. Enough people to make most catalysts of revolution fizzle out and die.

What I'm saying is, we need more time. Change can happen fast, but not that fast. And the only guaranteed way to get that time is to elect the guy who has proven himself willing to uphold at least the veneer of democracy. And who, frankly, has made a lot of positive changes to infrastructure that just don't get as much press because righteous anger about buzzword topics sells better.

Which, circling back around, makes doing the same things as Russian psyops, who have successfully used them to get Trump elected once, a bad idea. To clarify, the things in question very much include constantly shitting on the more progressive main candidate and insisting both candidates are actually equally shitty and denying or ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

I hope you consider everything I've said here seriously, without immediately rejecting everything out of anger. I hope you can see where I'm coming from, even if you don't agree with everything.

[lionesscersei]

Hi. Some about me since tumblr doesn't fit much in its bio section.

First off: DNI: Anti shippers & trump voters

Don't DM me if you're gonna consistently take more than 24 hours to reply. It's rude and I hate people who are always "too busy." Nobody is ever too busy. People make time for what's important to them.

I'm 42, cis female, she/her. Living in The USA. Yes I hate it here.

Asexual, seeking a monogamous QPR with a male

Childfree

Possibly autistic

Probably borderline but I'm anti therapy so is no way to find out for sure

I'm a fictionkin to Cersei Lannister

On disability

Wanting to make a career off youtube but probably will fail cause everyone seems to hate me. Anyway my videos are all private atm. Maybe one day I'll post the content I wanna post. At least my idea is unique.

I'm very vengeful and I'm not sure if that could relate to being Cersei in a past life but I've always felt the need to get back at those who wronged me. Even when I was a small child I would do things to get revenge. And I've never really felt bad about it or ever regretted it. If anything there were times when I didn't get revenge that I regret not getting it.

I'm a pro shipper

I'm a misanthropist and cannot understand how especially after the last election everyone isn't one as well.

I'm anti trump and anti trump supporters

Yes, that means I support reporting undocumented Trump voters to ICE. I'm not ashamed to say I may do so, they deserve it. :)

I'm both pro abortion and pro death penalty. I support LGBT rights, but I do not support Poly rights to marry! I wish that people did not act as though its an orientation, its not. Marriage should be between two people who love each other, not 3 or 4 or however many people. If you want to be poly cause you like sex fine, but the ones who think they all love each other, no. Just no. If you are "in love" with both, than you love neither enough. Besides that 99% of the time poly is either some overly religious nutter taking multiple wives, or some poor woman, or man who felt bullied in to it by their partner. It destroys lives and I rather not associate with someone who is poly, because I think being so also can reflect on how you view your friendships. Someone who cannot be faithful to one person is far more likely to also view friendship in a more casual manner. I'll explain more below.

I'm looking for close friends, that I can forge deep connections with, not acquaintances. I understand everything starts out as acquaintances at first, but if the goal is not to potentially forge a close bond I am not interested. I don't want people in my life either in real life or online who will be people I don't consider close friends after knowing them for months. I just don't do casual friendship. I don't. Which is also why I would prefer not to be friends with extroverts or people who claim to have more than 3 or 4 close friends. If I make room for you in my life I want to be very important to you. I do not want you to have very little time for me in your life - if we go several days without talking, I am not interested.

I'm pro AI and I might at some point post AI art.

I love my cats

I do not like dogs or creatures in the canine family, I never have

My hobbies are in no particular order, reading including fanfiction, board games (mostly against the computer ;( I need a scrabble partner! Anything paranormal related, cooking, and genealogy (occasionally)

Another fun fact about me. I've been obsessed with twins ever since I can remember despite not having one. And obsessed with lions since a teenager, long before ever knowing of game of thrones. When I watched game of thrones I couldn't help but feel like Cersei was me. We look nothing alike, but our personalities are very similar and also I got crazy emotional when watching her kids die and when watching Jaime get with B really upset me. To the point I'm sure this must have been a past life because I have watched a lot of shows and movies and never come close to having this sort of reaction before. It was as though my own child died or as though my own S/O broke up with me when Jaime left. I don't think I can say I have memories, but there is one thing I think is a memory and seeing it happen on the show years later really freaked me out.