#democrats are the ones trying to genocide trans people

[spartytoon]

Actually, Democrats didn't really offer much of anything. Harris and Walz started out strong, but they were quickly reigned in. Brought into the mainline democrat control and stripped of any teeth.

Good gravy they were getting people excited by biting back, calling conservatives weird was WORKING! The couch thing was PERFECT! Then... they toned it down. Scaled it back. Fell in line to please the billionaire class and no one else.

They made it clear that the genocide would continue. They cozied up to the Cheneys. They talked about the border wall, were ambiguous on trans rights. They absolutely, adamantly refused to move left on ANYTHING and instead did their best to try to pull moderate Republicans away from Trump at the expense of their progressive base.

It makes me think they genuinely had no intent to win. They were just going through the motions.

Democrats have been shifting right ever since Reagan. You can only go with the "lesser of two evils" so many times before you have to recognize that each "lesser evil" is further right than the last one. You'll still get to fascism, just not as quickly.

So a lot of people just didn't bother to vote. I did, very reluctantly, vote for Harris. But I had zero expectations for any meaningful change.

I don’t know if I’m yet fully here, but something to think about.

[orbularborbular]

Some nuanced takes from internet "leftists" who issue moral proclamations via keyboard while doing exactly 0% of the hard work required to build coalitions and effect political change

[dixiedingo]

Tfw your mutual posts one bad opinion too many and u gotta hit them with the facts knowing it'll be the last u speak to them after this

[cumbunnywitch]

I've seen at least one, but posts saying not to blame the people who didn't vote for Harris because whatever are fully in the wrong and they always will be.

You chose moral high grounding and purity culture over the possibility that our protests would work. You chose "she leaned too right in her campaign" over "Trump and the people who want to puppeteer him are going to get a lot of people killed." You chose the democrats being idiots over the republicans want a racist rapist.

You didn't choose? No, you had a choice. You used yours. If you chose not to vote because you wanted to use your non-vote as a voice to show the democrats that they have to win your vote, you're still going to get your face eaten by the leopards. They aren't going to hear you anyway.

Protests work on the left side of our shit-ass two party system because they at least pretend to care.

Here's just, off the top of my head, the things you decided were less important than telling the democratic party "No you have to be good enough":

Student Loan Forgiveness or Relief

Healthcare

Trans Rights

LGBTQIA Safety

Abortion rights

Palestine/Gaza

Ukraine

Industry Regulation(notice all those recalls on food lately?)

Cost of Living

Police Reform

Taxes

There's no such thing as a single-issue voter, not anymore. The right is diametrically opposed to making any of the above better for anyone, whether or not they voted for that shitstain, unless you're very rich, and very white, and a very straight man.

Honestly, if you voted for Jill Stein, at least you fucking voted. Her numbers won her absolutely nothing but at least you voted.

But no. "Don't vote for Harris because she's not good enough! She's running a campaign to secure moderate republicans!" Yea no fucking shit. That's what they've been doing for the last forever. Yea, it still sucks. But most moderate liberals who actually vote still struggle with that list up there. There's literally a democrat trans woman who just got voted in who wants to support Israel's genocidal campaign of murdering every Palestinian.

And you know what? If she sees that line, she might actually stop and think and move a little bit over to my perspective. Every conservative sees that line and immediately thinks "Yea kill the fuckin' brown people!" because they don't consider them fucking people.

If you didn't vote because you saw people saying Harris wasn't leftist enough, not liberal enough, she was a former prosecutor or the democrats haven't done enough for you in the last 4 years, you fell for the Russian psyop. You fell for the propaganda.

Does it suck that Harris wanted to court the swing states and their moderately conservative voting base over to vote for the first woman president? Yea, it's been a shitty idea for decades and they've been doing it for as long as I've been voting. Obama was the center-ist centerist ever, and he still got healthcare reform passed. He also drone striked a lot of people and gave banks billions of dollars when the financial sector faceplanted after trying to balance on a pin for the longest time.

I was gonna add a read-more or chop this up better but no. You get to read the whole thing. If you didn't vote, or you voted for trump, I want you gone. Unfollow me, block me, because you clearly either don't care enough to prevent our slide into authoritarianism and a fixed court for the next 60 years, or you actively hate me.

[anamericangirl]

What's telling to me about how sick people can be is that Trump was nearly killed, someone in the crowd WAS killed, multiple other shots went out, the whole thing was a terrifying event that everyone in the world should be able to agree was scary And yet I see the media on the left trying to spin this "Well this is to be expected, he's so radical and so fascist that of course someone tried to kill him" and "#YOUMISSED" is trending on Twitter Mask is fucking off and I'm done hitting Anon when I send asks to you, these people have truly shown they have no empathy, no sympathy, and are bloodthirsty. People get shot up in a school and their first thought is "This is why we need to ban guns" and "This is because of ultra-MAGA"

Some unhinged motherfucker actually attempts to kill the former president and kills someone in the crowd and the left turns it into a fucking hashtag and an opportunity to try to blame it on Trump even though he's the one that got shot at.

The left are fucking deranged, and I know better than most because I used to be ON the left. I shaved half my head, I had blue hair, I lived with liberal pedophiles (literally) in Ohio for 2 years who wore diapers around the house and bitched about Elon Musk and Trump every fucking day. I know these people are psychopaths and now they have finally just outright announced to the world how sick they are.

Even fucking Biden tried to call the hospital Trump was at to ask if he was okay, EVEN DARTH FUCKING BRANDON CARED ABOUT TRUMP and yet these Twitterlibs and liberal media fuckwads are just jumping on the opportunity to go "Aww man #YouMissed, you fired 5 shots how come you couldn't get him, you fucked up, omg"

For fuck sake hate the man all you want but SOMEONE TRIED TO KILL HIM AND AN INNOCENT PERSON'S BRAIN GOT REMOVED FROM THEIR HEAD, FOR FUCK SAKE HAVE AT LEAST A MODICUM OF SYMPATHY FOR ONCE IN YOUR LIFE YOU FUCKING SAVAGES.

If this doesn't turn people away from the democrat party then nothing will. Trump was not the only victim of this shooting. A couple of people were injured, an innocent person was killed and still the only thing we hear from leftists is annoyance that the shooter missed.

And while we are rightly angry at the spins the msm is putting on this assassination attempt, they have to put that spin on it or eat their words for the last 8 years. They've been characterizing Trump as a fascist tyrannical dictator since 2016. They've spun him to be Hitler 2.0 telling everyone he's a threat to democracy and leading people to believe he's a threat to their very lives. The "trans genocide" and "kids in cages" the "don't say gay" bill all that nonsense is always, always linked back to Trump and if they turn around now and condemn this attempt on his life what would that say about them? Either they will have to expose themselves as the liars and propagandists they are or they will have to be seen as being sympathetic towards literally Hitler. And narrative is more important to them than anything.

Which explains why they were trying to avoid reporting what happened like the plague. The headlines I saw in the aftermath, after we already knew Trump had actually been hit by the bullet were things like "Trump escorted offstage after gun shots were heard." "Loud popping noise heard at Trump rally." And other variations of that headline. And still leftists don't question why after Trump was shot every single mainstream media outlet had the same headline and they all avoided saying Trump had been shot or an assassination attempt had been made.

They can’t come out and say this was wrong because it will mean they will have to admit to something even worse: that they were wrong.

But of course the people currently in office can't come out and condone the shooting. That would look very bad. So yeah, it's good that Biden stood up there and said the right words and made an effort to contact Trump but how convenient that this happened a mere couple of weeks after the democratic party has abandoned and turned on Biden so his words and condemnation will be buried and ignored and mean nothing.

For the last 8 years, though, Joe Biden and every other democrat in office, paired with the media, have been villainizing Trump for his rhetoric. Everything bad thing that happened was directly the fault of Trump because of his "dangerous rhetoric." But the rhetoric they've employed against Trump and all conservatives since that time has been the worst fearmongering and slander I've ever seen so they are directly to blame for this shooting because of their rhetoric. No more "rules for thee but not for me." They have to live in the world they made.

Leftism, as I'm sure you've seen first hand what with your experience of being one and living in that environment, is no longer about what you support, it's just about who you hate. And every sane person still aligned with them is waking up. The mask has been slipping for years and most of us were able to see who they really were way before it fully fell off but there is no mask now. They're not even trying to hide it.

They have the ideas they pretend to support when told to, but all leftists are only united by one thing: hate.

Their heroes are criminals like Michael Brown, George Floyd and Trayvon Martin. And they hate police until they shoot and kill Ashli Babbitt who's only crime was being a Trump supporter at the capitol on January 6.

They still bemoan the killing of a pedophile, wife beater and injury of a career criminal who were shot because they tried to murder a child while villainizing the child they tried to kill because he successfully defended himself against their attack.

To this day they spin their violent riots as "mostly peaceful protests" while the January 6 protest was a "violent insurrection."

The rapes and murder on October 7 were a justified response to "occupation" but anything Israel does is "genocide."

During covid they freaked out about "public health" and wanted everyone vaxxed and masked to "save lives" but when Trump got covid they all immediately wanted it to kill him.

When a white boy shoots up a school it’s an example of how evil white people and right wing gun nuts are but when a trans person shot children at a Christian elementary school the main focus of leftists, all the way up to the White House, was the danger the trans community would allegedly be in from right wing retaliatory violence and how “hateful Christian rhetoric” was responsible for the shooting.

And none of this has anything to do with the values they claim to adhere to. All of their positions on every single issue come down to who it is they hate the most of the people involved. So their "values” change by the second.

So the violence, depravity and dangerous rhetoric is pretty much 100% on their side but watch them try and spin this assassination on Trump as Trump's own fault. And watch leftists just unquestioningly go with it or just try to distract people with more fear mongering about Project 2025 or something else stupid like that.

The only thing that bothers them about this shooting, other than the fact that the shooter "missed', is that this has pretty much guaranteed Trump is going to win the election. And of course they can't stand that after all they've done to try and make sure that doesn't happen.

[faelapis]

this sucks. but please don't just blame voters. especially not minority groups who "didn't vote hard enough" or whatever. they're going to suffer through this, same as you. so please, blame the people in power. the campaign was bad.

the liz cheney strategy was always, always complete wishcasting. centrist dems WANT the electorate to be all moderate republican suburbanites who make 200k a year. that has never been reality.

everything else can be discussed. but, it needs to be said that the "moderate republican" strategy was awful. dems valued war-loving neocons with 13% approval rating over winning. they valued protecting joe biden's feelings above winning. they valued love for israel above winning. they valued shifting right above winning.

there was never, ever data to suggest liz cheney neocon shit swayed anyone in a positive direction. never. that was just what dems wanted to happen, because they are neocons. all data showed that harris breaking from biden on gaza would've helped. all data showed she should have promised bigger economic change. but dems valued their own ideological right-wing shift above winning.

we can talk about voters as well. yes, men suck. they don't care about women, minorities, lgbt+ people. but i will never let the democratic party establishment live this down. they're the ones who ran this campaign.

they're going to find ways to blame the left. they always do. they're going to say that they were too woke, they didn't hate trans people enough, latino men are too misogynistic, etc. those are takes i've already started to see. and they're going to try to use all of that to shift even further right.

our job now is to not let them. never let them live this down. never let the democratic party run another center-right, warmonger, pro genocide, anti peace, anti immigration, neocon campaign again. ever. it normalizes republican positions as the "correct" ones. it gives voters a permission structure to see trumpism as "normal." ffs, kamala harris said the border wall was a "good idea."

that is not "bipartisanship." this is capitulation to fascism.

finally, please take care of yourself. i know emotions are high. i know shit sucks, i know nothing good will come from this. but you are one person. you, alone, could not stop this. you need to do everything you can to protect yourself. please stay safe. try to find a community that is accepting and loves you. we must never give up.

organize. protest. keep fighting. and take care.

[kanagenwrites]

So. Tuesday sucked.

We've all had a chance to come down from the "what the fuck" of it all, and we're starting to see the usual circular firing squad. Lots of lib centrists are doing everything they can to throw trans people, minorities, and basically anyone who isn't a finance bro under the bus, as is (very tiresome) tradition after both victories and defeats in the Democratic Party. I will be 42 years old in a few months, so this is far from the first time I've seen it, and sadly, I'm sure it won't be the last. To the lib centrists and those carrying water for them: This never works. Please stop trying it. Trans issues were not a major motivator; I'll get into that below. Sit down, kids, it's time for Auntie Kana's Fireside Dialectics.

One thing I've noticed is that a lot of my followers are significantly younger than me. (Imagine that, an audience that skews young on Tumblr.) A lot of you folks probably haven't been following politics for very long, and you've been able to participate in them for even less time than that. For some of you this is probably your first election as an adult, and it kinda feels like everything blew up in your face, doesn't it? I was about your age for 2000, when the election was nakedly stolen by George W. Bush, and not much older for 2004, when despite his disastrous presidency Bush the Younger rode a wave of 9/11-brained racism to the last popular vote victory the GOP had prior to (likely) this year. So I get it. I really do.

If you're living in the USA you have probably had a subpar education in politics and civics. This is largely by design - education is horrendously underfunded and there is a sustained attack on the ability of teachers to even discuss things like the Civil Rights Movement, the legacy of slavery in the United States, the genocide this country was founded on, and so on and so forth. Economic education isn't much better; you very likely got a short lecture on basic supply and demand and an argument-from-authority that "socialism doesn't work." All this combines to leave a lot of folks totally baffled as to how something like this election happens.

But it's pretty simple. It's just material conditions. That's it. What the media isn't telling you (because there's no profit in it, and the media is nothing but a clickbait engine when they aren't open propagandists) is that there has been a massive anti-incumbent wave of elections across the world. How massive? Japan's LDP, which has held power almost uninterrupted since the establishment of Japan's postwar democracy, managed to lose their recent election.

And why are material conditions so shitty? That's a complicated question, but a lot of it is the fact that we had a lengthy period of low inflation followed by a period of extremely high inflation due to the absolutely botched response to the Covid-19 pandemic. A bag of Doritos used to be 2.50, and now it's like 6 bucks. That's worse than all the inflation (and naked price-gouging, because there's a lot of that going on too) I experienced in my life prior to 2020, squeezed into the space of a year or two. This smacks everyone in the face every time they buy groceries, and while the government and the Federal Reserve were doing everything they could to manage inflation (and understand what a big deal it is for me, the anarcho-communist, to say that the US actually did an extremely fucking good job of doing it, because every other country on Earth had it worse than we did), they did fuck all to actually improve the material conditions people were experiencing. Wages were not keeping up with the cost of living, and price-gouging wasn't being dealt with.

Remember the 600 bucks Joe Biden still owes you? The American electorate sure the fuck does. Invisible backrooms liberal wonkery does not connect, regardless of whether it works or not, but going back on a promise? People remember that shit.

It's a rare incumbent that could win in an environment like this, especially when tied to a track record of doing exactly fucking nothing to actually help people from the perspective of the vast majority of the population. Kamala Harris was not that incumbent. She was a singularly uninspiring candidate who failed to connect with voters so thoroughly that she was on track to lose her home state in the 2020 Democratic primary. Nobody liked her (except a few very eager and very loud fans in the K-Hive), and speaking as someone who lives in California, I am not surprised she ate shit. She was a terrible choice for VP and a terrible choice of successor for Biden, but because Biden('s handlers) insisted on pretending he wasn't obviously declining before our very eyes, Harris, a singularly uninspiring candidate, had three months to build and run a campaign.

And it was still weirdly close.

Now, there's two possibilities: Either she actually ran an amazing campaign and it's incredible that it was even this close, or Trump is just so loathsome that even in a massively anti-incumbent environment he didn't bring anyone new to the table. Given that Trump is on-track to receive less votes this time than he did in 2020, and how many of those votes seem to have been cast for Trump and no one else down-ballot, I think it's more of the latter than the former. Trump brought the usual suspects, while Kamala successfully drove away voters that even Joe fucking Biden and Hillary fucking Clinton were able to bring home. Not on the left, not in minority demographics, but across the board. After all, if things are horrible and you're being promised that "nothing will fundamentally change," (literally an early-presidency quote from Joe Biden, whose agenda Kamala Harris 100% aligned herself with) and keeping in mind that the average American voter is not nearly so plugged into the minutiae and the day to day of politics (as evinced by the sudden peak in google searched for "Did Joe Biden drop out?" on Tuesday), why the fuck would you bother to vote?

Hopefully you have a better idea how we got here now. The question, of course, is where do we go from here? I will probably continue posting about this from time to time, especially if there's interest, but my advice is this:

We are still here. We will be here tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, and so on. Plan accordingly.

Things will get fucked up. Things will always get fucked up. That is the nature of things no matter who is running the government. Plan accordingly.

Organize. Develop parallel structures of power and assistance, because the government is likely going to be even more useless to directly assist you than it already was. Our greatest strength is each other, and our ability to care for and help one another.

I have been here before. You will be here again. It always feels like it's the worst thing ever to happen. That never really goes away, but your ability to deal with it, to plan around it, to endure it, and to rise up again on the other side of it and say "No, fuck you" is entirely under your control and within your capabilities. And you will get better at it as you do it. And you are not doing it alone. None of us are.

Do not give up. Do not surrender. This isn't the end, or the beginning of the end, or even the end of the beginning: it just is.

Now go watch a video of a cat doing something cute, or read some smut, or whatever gives you joy. You can't take care of others unless you take care of yourself. That's General Order #1: Take care of yourself.

Solidarity, y'all.

[kawuli]

He was saying that voting as harm reduction is not a good metaphor, at least not for the people of Palestine. Trump can't do any worse than committing genocide because the Dems are already doing it quietly, he's just louder about it. We vote Kamala in and things will continue as they are, but we'll be happy because our rights are maintained. If Trump gets into office, people will live in discontent and be forced to protest against the Dem's liability and thus, their complicity in genocide

Dude, that is not how anything works.

For starters, Palestine is one of many places in the world and saying it's the only place that matters? is batshit.

Second, there was a whole hell of a lot of protesting under Trump and all of it was to keep things from getting worse. Obamacare is deeply flawed, but because Trump was president and the GOP controlled Congress, we had to fight like hell just to not lose it. If we have a Democratic President and Congress we can push to move forward. With a Republican administration we will push as hard as we can to limit the damage and we will fail on all kinds of fronts.

Third, the US government does not actually control the actions of foreign governments. There's a lot of other people in the world and they all have agency. The US President cannot fix the world by fiat even if they wanted to.

I am voting for Democrats - Harris/Walz, Ilhan Omar and Amy Klobuchar, nationally, because I believe those people will work to make life better for everyone. Their Republican opponents are going to try to make Minnesota, and the rest of the world less safe for trans people, people who can get pregnant, immigrants and refugees, Black people, and, to come back to the typical usage of harm reduction, drug addicts. Everyone who isn't a billionaire will suffer under a Republican government. Voting for Democrats is, on every level, an effort to reduce harm for everyone.

Harm reduction isn't a metaphor, it is literally what we are doing here.

[maxknightley]

i just don't understand how usa trans folks in my circles aren't afraid for their lives re: the election. i get it. biden has been shit, he's been the main contributor to a genocide. harris will likely be no different. i'm in no way thrilled with them or our establishment as a whole. but trump clearly spells a much, much worse reality for trans people in this country. not only does his supporters' platform outline the criminalization of transness, but they'll have full immunity to do it due to the supreme court decision. this isn't a worst case scenario to get people to vote blue, this is the reality of what trump actively wants to do. am i missing something? because i'd love to believe i'm the crazy one in this case

most of what you're describing has been happening on a state-by-state level. the biden administration has done next to nothing to meaningfully push back against it. even if you're going hard in the paint on voting, you would be better off focusing your efforts on state and municipal elections, where something good could at least conceivably happen

"supreme court justice" is a lifetime position. as such, the supreme court is still going to have a republican majority regardless of who gets elected come november. you could make the argument "oh but what if one of the justices dies within the next four years," except that the democratic establishment has repeatedly demonstrated that they have zero interest in actually securing a progressive majority in the judiciary, so I'm not especially convinced it would make a difference. mind you, the whole fucking institution is flagrantly antidemocratic regardless.

kamala harris is actively campaigning on Bipartisanship and Cooperation with the christofascists she's running against. oh sorry I mean the Moderate Anti-Trump Republicans, like dick cheney, who definitely wasn't part of multiple infamously reactionary presidential administrations within living memory. why should I believe for an instant that she'll fight for me?

I might be biased due to living in a blue state, but the fact of the matter is: after four years of Trump, my life was not materially worse. after four years of Biden, my life was not materially better. under such circumstances, how am I supposed to feel anything but nihilism and apathy about the presidential election?

This is definitely a factor of living in a blue state, but it would be a statistical miracle if my vote for president mattered even the slightest bit beyond "maybe the green party will get some government funding and that will have some kind of positive ripple effect"

as someone who remembers the Bush administration I speak from experience when I say the republicans are constantly proposing hideous, inane social policies that end up dying in committee. that's not to say we should let down our guard, only that "if trump is re-elected he will immediately institute a dictatorship and all trans people will be hanged on the spot" is not actually a sure thing by any means.

I am a petty, angry person, and when people try to browbeat me into doing something - especially something that strikes me as pointless - it makes me less likely to do it.

tl;dr it's going to be bad either way; meanwhile, voting for a cheerleader of genocide would disgust me enough on a personal level that I'm willing to get uncharacteristically Kantian about the whole affair.

call me when they return to the obama playbook of "at least pretending they will try to make things better"

[batboyblog]

In speeches, interviews and campaign videos, Trump has promised to:

Use the military to participate in the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants in American history;

Order the National Guard into cities with high crime rates, whether local officials want it or not;

Prosecute Californians who protect minors coming to the state for gender-affirming care;

Impose a 10% tariff on almost all foreign goods, increasing prices for consumers;

Appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” his political opponents, beginning with Biden;

Purge the federal civil service of anyone who questions his views.

lets be clear here, Donald Trump wants to use the military to hunt immigrants and if you think it'll stop at "illegal" immigrants I have a bridge to sell you. He wants to place major American cities, Democratic cities under military occupation, oh also while he fires any Democrats from the civil service and "goes after" his political enemies. And as a cherry on top he'll make being trans illegal.

right now the world is trying to distract you from this, trying to act like this is a normal election with two more or less equal choices that both have problems and draw backs, thats not true. One side is selling an authoritarian dictatorship that wants to carry out a genocide of trans people, the other side is not.

[xxdrowninglessonsxx]

DNI IF ANGRY AT WHAT I HAVE TO SAY OR YOU WILL BE BLOCKED. SICK OF THE HARASSMENT.

Two months ago people would have been hyping me up for criticizing the two-party system, but now I just get comments telling me how I’m the reason trans people don’t have rights or why other minorities don’t have rights. I’m trans, 22 years old, and live in Appalachia. I can promise you I’m not the reason trans people don’t have rights. We don’t have rights because society is rigged against us. We don’t have rights because we never have. We don’t have rights because the candidates we vote for to give us rights, never do what is promised. They rarely fulfill their campaign promises, so why would I want to support someone who has no intention of actually helping me or the other people they claim to want to help? Just so we can be “comfortable” for another 4 years until we get to the 4th year and wonder why no change was made and why we have to pick between 2 evils again?

Just because I question the system we live in and actually stand up for what I believe in, doesn’t make me complicit in my own suffering. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Get a life and stop harassing trans people and other minorities for not following blindly to whatever bullshit you spew while simultaneously using them to prop up your stance. It’s actually kind of fucked up. I vote in my local elections and the primaries. Never have I once said I wasn’t going to vote, and the people insinuating that don’t know me as a person in real life. You sit behind a computer screen arguing for the sake of arguing. Just because I don’t know who I’m voting for for sure, doesn’t make me the devil, and trying to force and harass other people into going along with “VOTE BLUE NO MATTER WHO” only makes you look worse. You’re allowed to vote for whoever you want for, just as much as I am. It’s almost like that’s the point of voting. You’re allowed to announce who you’re voting for or what your stances are; it’s almost like that’s in the 1st amendment. You’re fed up. I’m fed up. We have the same goals but different ways of going about it.

I’ve held the exact stance that the two-party system is shit for years, and never have I ever been more attacked than by Harris supporters. I haven’t ever had a republican come on my page to guilt trip me about my own identity and tell me I’m the reason that my community is in jeopardy, but you democrats sure love to attack minorities who want change just as bad as you when they don’t fully agree with you. Or you use trans rights to make a lame point, despite the fact you’re literally using someone’s identity against them in order to make them feel bad for not following your specific pick for president who literally supports genocide just as much as the other one does. Please spare me the bullshit on how Trump is worse and plans to take our rights away. We as a collective know. I voted for Biden in the previous election. What’s to stop Trump from running again in the next one if he loses this one? It’s clear his age won’t stop him.

Some people need time to grapple with what’s at stake in this election, and it’s not fair to bombarde them with hate in order to convince them to make a choice when both parties go against their morals and have gone against their morals. Hate and the “better than thou” attitude is the exact reason they don’t like your cause.

I’m sick of people acting like voting blue for President will prevent the end of the world or whatever the fuck you think. Other elections matter as well, not just presidential. Democrats love to sit comfortably while their President is in office, so comfortably that they forget that organizing for change matters. They forget that we should be lobbying for ranked choice voting. They forget that we should be lobbying against the electoral college.

Have you taken a look at your candidate’s benefactors recently? Do you know any response other than, ��Well, what do you suppose we do about it?” when asked about Palestine’s plight? How should I know? I’m a lower-class person who makes about $10,000 a year with no voice but my vote. I’ve emailed and called my representatives. I’ve done all I can do. I’ve donated what little money I can to causes I believe in. It’s not my job to step up. I have been stepping up. It’s our politicians job to step up. It’s the billionaires who fund our politicians who need to step up.

It’s not anyone but your candidate’s fault if they lose in the election. Quit blaming the innocent people who do nothing but work their asses off just to scrape by into being complicit with you and your corporate-controlled parties who only want to pass whatever agenda will make them the most money. The parties who allow the rich to get richer while the poor get poorer. Y’all loved saying Palestine was your red line when Biden was running, but suddenly everything is different now? It doesn’t make sense to me, and it must be fun being privileged enough to jump from one cause to the next as trends cycle because you don’t live in Palestine, and it doesn’t effect you. You are not immune to propaganda just as much as I am not immune.

“A man who stands for nothing will fall for anything.” - Malcom X

That being said, I understand the appeal of voting for Kamala and why you would. I understand the fear. I experience the fear every single day. So go out, vote, and use your voice. Stop making others feel bad. Going after the people who relatively agree with you is not helping your cause, it is hurting it, and it will be what causes you to lose the election.

[whatiwillsay]

Hi Cam I hope you’ve been doing well <3 I’m checking back in on the pod after a few months away and with all the election talk I have a question. Now I’m not American so I am obviously a bit removed from having to actually make choices re the candidates so I get it’s a whole different situation for USAmericans. But I’m curious how you square the circle of not just voting for but vocally being for the Harris ticket when they are the party currently in power perpetrating genocide and doing very little to fight for reproductive or trans rights. I hope this doesn’t come across as an attack bc it’s a genuine question and I do get being in the belly of the beast makes it a different equation. If you’ve already talked about this I’ll be v happy to read your perspective, I’ve missed a lot of the pod and tumble talk these past months

in america we have two choices- kamala or trump. there is no other choice. it is mathematically impossible for a third party candidate to win the election.

the next president may get 2 supreme court appointments. the supreme court in America is overpowered. they are the ones who took away nationally guaranteed abortion rights for example. their decisions on cases become federal law and precedent. trump has already had 3 appointments during his 1st term (this is how we lost abortion rights and they also made other harmful decisions) if he gets 2 more then 5/9 (a deciding majority) of the supreme court will be trump appointments. it will be a defacto trump supreme court and that will last for the next 30-40 years because these are lifetime appointments. this will permanently alter the course of history.

democrats have been trying to protect reproductive rights and trans rights, they can only do so much without super majority in the senate and without controlling the house at all. they may not be PERFECT on these issues but there are only two choices and they are the far superior choice.

democrats and harris are far better for Palestinians (although certainly there is room for improvement, biden performed to the left of where he campaigned, I think kamala will as well, her senate record was the most far left and progressive of any senator except for sanders) than the republicans and trump. trump has said "let isreal finish the job" harris says "cease fire now and let's have safety and dignity for Palestinians" remember there are only two options and we have to pick one. are you really surprised I'm picking the person who says cease fire now? even if their entire position isn't perfect on Palestine, it would be HEINOUSLY immoral to not be vocally against the guy who says "let Isreal finish the job" and vocally for the person who stands in his way to power. again there is only so much dems can do without a senate super majority and house. for example biden put a pause on sending certain weapons to isreal. the republican members of congress passed a bill that disagreed with this. democrats ARE NOT perfect on Palestine but THEY ARE BETTER and again as someone who is very much concerned with the suffering of Palestinians it would be insanely immoral of me to not support the better option of the only two we have.

i am not a single issue voter either and on basically every policy I'm concerned with dems are better. dems want to get money out of politics (hindering corruption). dems want to protect gay marriage dems want to protect workers rights. there's more I'm going to take them in other points!

the genocide in gaza is not the only one happening in the world. there is an argument to be made that there is also a type of genocide being executed against black Americans. dems are for police reform that helps fight against that. i think you could also argue there is an attempt to erase lgbtq people from existence in America (particularly trans people!) as I already pointed out dems are for protecting the rights and dignity of trans people. it would be insanely immoral of me as a cis ally to the trans community and a white ally to the black community to not to loudly oppose the republicans who are the ones attacking these groups. dems are not PERFECT on these issues but they are FAR BETTER.

speaking of mass death do you know how many people will die in climate related disasters if we don't try to get global warming under control? republicans are ACTIVELY fighting against any attempt to protect the environment. dems are trying to fight global warming. they are not PERFECT on climate but they are BETTER. there are only two options. it would be insanely immoral for me to not support the better option.

i do not want to live in an uneducated country I believe access to a good education is a basic human right. trump wants to disband the department of education. this would be DISASTEROUS for some areas of the country.

trump wants to repeal the affordable care act. i, personally, will lose access to healthcare if this happens. so would nearly 30 million other americans. this would lead to the death of many innocent people, sentenced to death just for not having the right type of job or being poor. it would be insanely immoral not to oppose this. dems are not PERFECT on healthcare (I believe the only ethical solution is a single payer healthcare system) but they are BETTER.

thanks to luck and privilege I was able to buy my first home in 2015. this home has been a great source of security and wealth building for me. i want other average Americans to be able to have this same security and wealth. harris's plans increase the ability for more first time home buyers to purchase a home.

democrats in general are much better for the economy. this matters less to me than some of the other issues we've talked about but a high tide raises all ships. a good economy is protective to vulnerable people at least to some degree.

i could go on and on. at every turn on basically every policy from social safety nets to marijuana to unions to women to school lunches for me on every issue democrats and harris are BETTER. they are not perfect on every issue but there are only two options... obviously I'm going to vocally support the better option.

and yes... i do somewhat feel like I am in the "belly of the beast". some of these issues do affect me personally. issues on gay rights, healthcare, women's rights, and the environment... i am scared. i am allowed to be concerned for my own rights. women are dying because they aren't able to get abortions. my own state of Tennessee is ACTIVELY attacking gay rights. every year the world gets hotter and I fear for my life and that there might be an extreme weather event near me. my fear demands that I be vocal in fighting against this terrifying stuff.

but it's also a moral thing. i believe there is value in human life. trump's bungling of covid let to the deaths of millions. marcellus Williams would likely still be alive if we had had 3 Clinton appointments to the supreme court and not trump appointments. ashley thurman would be alive today if trump hadn't gotten to appoint three justices to the supreme court as well. trump's deregulation policies have lead to people being poisoned by our food.

and damn we haven't even gotten into January 6th. people DIED because trump sent a mob to attack the capitol because he couldn't accept he lost a free and fair election.

GOD WE HAVEN'T EVEN TALKED ABOUT TRUMP'S ADMIRATION FOR HITLER. trump's former chief of staff john kelly who is a retired general went ON THE RECORD to say trump praised hitler in office.

i'm guessing you didn't know all of this when you sent me your question and I'm guessing you now understand that yes... it is my duty as a human being to stand against the guy who praised hitler.

lol i could say more but... i hope you get it now. it would be unethical for me to do anything but support harris who is the only person who can guarantee trump doesn't reach office and while she is not PERFECT on all these issues she is FAR BETTER and that matters.

[jaythelay]

Why do Dems seem to think we need Genocide to protect trans and gay people?

One day people will understand that anti-genociders withholding or voting third party isn't necessarily them trying to get politicians to listen

It's to get You to Listen and Demand Better.

The fact is, you're demanding Genocide and That Is Wrong. You should oppose Genocide no matter Who.

If ya'll were to demand they do anything else, we'd have a shot at progress. But ya'll are too tied up in insulting people for reasons ya refuse to understand on the grounds of fear. Criticising the administration's involvement is seen as opposing democrats.

Sucks. But I value human life and don't arbitrate that depending on country or personal situations. I don't view Genocide on a party basis. Just a cult one, which is why All Republicans keep saying they want Genocide. The word itself is used multiple times in a positive manner by R's. Why the fuck are Dems agreeing with them???

Be Anti-Genocide and ya get the anti-genocide crowd back. All this "I gotta smuggle my hormones!" is you saying your hunger supersedes that of anyone's starvation. Sorry I'm trans too, but I don't think anyone's medicine supersedes a Fucking Genocide???????????

You can, and nobody is denying the possibility, of you voting dem. What Anti-Genociders want, is a party that isn't Pro-Genocide.

If ya want the Anti-Genocide voter, then start being Anti-Genocide. Everything else is genuinely embarrassing. Imagine defending Genocide by saying it simply has to happen so you can get medicine. Ever consider you could change that situation instead of allowing it to play out?

If republicans put "kill all gays" as a bill, and dems put "kill all whites" do you really think there should be a decision made as a voter for either party? Who should I vote for?

Or should you Demand Dems drop the fucking "kill all whites" bill so white people aren't scared into voting to kill all the gays?

This shit is so uncomplicated I explained it in child's terms. Cmon dems. Fucks sake. If someone puts a gun to a child's head and says "choose yourself or the child" YA DON'T DEFEND THE MAN WITH A GUN.

[mythica-ithaca]

"vote blue no matter who" centrists who lose their minds when leftists tell them they aren't voting for their candidate genuinely can't see how they have dug this hole themselves.

it's not about "voting with your morals" you fucking losers. like yeah sure, there's always going to be people who will only vote for unrealistically perfect candidates. but a vast majority ARE willing to compromise on a lot of shit and understand that a politician is not going to share every one of your personal values.

Centrists just can't see how every time they vote for someone farther and farther right, that they lose another chunk of people who refuse to compromise on certain issues. If you've created a gap wide enough that the amount of people in your party willing to either not vote or vote third party is enough to actually split the vote enough to lose to the other guys, then your candidate clearly does not reflect the interests of the majority of your party.

If a Democrat ran with an anti abortion stance, they would lose anyone unwilling to compromise on that issue.

If they ran with an anti trans stance, they would lose anyone unwilling to compromise on that issue.

The vast majority of the left has made it clear that Genocidal Zionism is not something they will vote for or compromise on. If you're choosing to push a Zionist candidate, then it's your own fault that you have alienated a large enough portion of your own party against you that it's actually going to split the vote.

If you want to fucking win, you need to actually give enough of the people you're trying to appeal to what they are demanding.

[bricko-mcfisto]

I think it's worth noting, Trump didn't win because of some massive turnout of Republican voters. By all accounts it looks like he's going to have a similar result as 2020 which was 74 million (at time of writing he's at 71.2).

So no I don't think this was a sudden shift towards the far right, or rather it was, and I think we can firmly blame the Democratic party shifting right for their loss. It's looking like they lost at least 11 million voters if not more from 2020 and I think all of that can be squarely blamed on their abysmal strategies.

The genocide, talking about strong borders, their milquetoast (being nice) stance on trans people, wanting the most lethal military, republican in the cabinet, and all the rest.

When Reagan won, one of the things that let good ol' Ronnie take the presidency was that the democrats decided not to run a progressive candidate, but someone more moderate to appeal to people across the aisle, and it failed, completely.

The lesson they took was that left wing policies aren't popular and shifted towards the right. They learned this because they refused to run left wing policies and then lost, go figure.

Harris' campaign utterly failed. Part of it was racism and sexism I'm sure, but it can't be denied with this much of a failure in votes that the campaign strategies she chose or was pushed into were completely self-destructive.

I don't know if it helps anyone else but just at least keep in mind, the voter turnout for Trump was no different and maybe even a little worse than last time. This wasn't the US shifting right but far more likely the result of the Democrats refusing to budge an inch left.

Trump is not more popular than he was before, and trying to appeal to the right was not the answer to beat him either.

[prettycottonmouthlamia]

Listen to me right now, genuinely.

You should vote in November. You really should, but I don't really want this post to be about that. I have a pretty profound distrust of the average liberal "blue no matter who" crowd on here. I am not of the belief that you should willingly suspend your capacity of criticism and accountability of people in charge. If that can be extracted out of you, they will not give it back. Democrats are not a party full of people who love you and want to do everything you ask of them: they are a party who support the capitalist system first and foremost, and their interests are more beholden to the system than they are to us.

BUT, speaking as a trans woman right now, I'd personally really not rather see Trump get elected, obviously. If you're the type of person who sits and goes "I don't believe in politics", I want you to really listen to me. I get it. I truly do. American politics suck. Our politicians are chronic liars, they make promises they don't even try to keep. But there is almost one thing they never lie on, and that's the people they intend to oppress and stomp down. Trump wants to legislate and use his executive powers to push trans people out of existence. He can't be allowed to do that.

BUT

BUT. Voting cannot be the only thing you do. A bunch of the blue no matter who posters on here are going to do one of those things come November

Trump will win, and despite any evidence to the contrary, they will blame the like 50 communist bloggers on this website for ruining the election chances of the entire country. It was Russia yet again, somehow.

Biden will win, they will pat themselves on the back for a job well done, and proceed to sit on their hands until they find another reason to blame leftists for the actions of conservatives.

Trans history is full of examples of us being left behind. Your political plan for the future CANNOT just be to show up at a polling booth. You need to do more than that. What you will need to do will change somewhat depending on who is in charge, but I'm begging those among you to start taking action both now and after the elections.

Make sure your trans friends are safe. Check to see if they still have access to their medications. Check to see if they need money to get out of the country. Work to protest regressive and transphobic policies. If you're a lawyer, it's time to get ready to defend the cases of trans people against libelous suits. Plenty of you can do this pro bono.

Build mutual aid groups among your neighors and peers. Show up to a local LGBT organization and see what they need. Volunteer your time and money and often time spare clothes for other people. Educate yourself on our history, educate yourself on political theory, support organizations that help out the homeless directly.

Learn how to defend yourself and others during a protest when it faces police brutality and state sanctioned violence. Learn how to effectively neutralize tear gas, learn how to cover your self up so that you cannot be tracked by the pigs. Learn how to break kettle formations, learn your rights.

Never stop protesting against the people who feel it is their God given right to turn America into a theocratic dictatorship (which is not in the Bible by the way. I feel I should mention this. This is not a Biblical belief, the conservative Christians who tell you otherwise are lying out their ass.) Never stop protesting to stop the exploitation of the Global South by tech companies. Never stop protesting to end the genocide in Palestine. Never stop fighting so that the people of Sudan can be heard.

Just voting does not make you a politically active citizen, or really, a politically active person. It takes work, work that is very easy to burn out on. But if we can't rely on the American government and the Democratic party to do the things we need in order to avert the twenty crises looming over the horizon, then yes, we need to do more as a united people than fucking vote.