#have republicans in her cabinet

[transfemgorgug]

You know typically in posts that put the lives of USian citizens above the lives of Palestinians y’all at least pay lip service to the people you’re willing to let Kamala genocide because you’re shaking in your boots about Project 2025. Interesting strategy here to instead completely ignore all of Kamala’s Bush-esque policy promises and act like it’s so #girlboss to vote in the self-described Top Cop and there’s zero nuance whatsoever. What exactly does Kamala offer Palestinian-Americans, and for that matter Arab-Americans as a whole, that they should vote for her?

due to systemic oppression, usamerican leftists don't currently have the political power to instate a leftist president. we do, however, have enough power to make one of two candidates lose the election. we could use this power to make the white supremacist lose to the black woman, or we could use it to make the black woman lose to the white supremacist. the obvious choice for leftists would be to prioritize making the white supremacist lose, but tumblr users have devised a loop hole, where they agitate primarily for making the black woman lose, but omit the detail about who she would be losing to. this makes their stance more palatable to people who correctly believe that having a white supremacist president would be the worst possible outcome.

[whatsthelimitoncharacters]

I’m wondering how many former Harris supporters are going to start spewing racist or misogynistic rhetoric about her after they accept that trump won. I’ve already seen misinformation start to spread and I’m certain that it’s only going to get worse.

[gwyoi]

They pandered so hard to republicans to get them to vote for her and didn’t get any of them

[bisexualdinahlance]

I have started seeing some INSANE posts in order to try and ignore/avoid the fact that Harris's campaign wasn't very good

[area51-escapee]

My whole thing is that I don’t. Care if someone feels like voting for Kamala is the best thing they can do for themself. That’s kinda what you gotta do is just vote for who’s best for yourself. I understand that this is a decision people are gonna make and I know I can’t ask people to just Not Do It, that’s really not my business. My problem is how people keep saying things that just. Aren’t true. Vote for Kamala if that’s what you plan to do but you don’t have to lie for her, you ain’t on her payroll.

[jyndor]

cool cool so kamala just said there will be no change in policy re: gaza in her cnn interview with dana bash.

you guys need to understand the harris campaign is swerving to the right on several issues like immigration, fracking and yes palestine, and she is NOT separating herself enough from joe biden.

and she's also said she's open to having a republican cabinet member.

but the dnc couldn't even let a palestinian american pro-harris speaker on stage for TWO MINUTES.

I'm sorry that's unacceptable.

[politijohn]

Distractors when discussing Kamala’s loss

I'm frustrated by liberals and Democratic strategists blaming voters, racism, and misogyny for the election loss instead of the candidate and party. Dems will lose forever if their analysis remains this shallow. It shows they still don't understand how this game works.

Perhaps this is a hot take to some…

Kamala’s key reason for losing wasn’t because she is a woman or because she’s black or because of Jill Stein or non committed voters. These excuses are distractions to a deeper underlying issue.

Kamala lost because the Democratic Party abandoned their base, swung right, and catered to their donors rather than the American people. Look at this embarrassment:

Kamala lost because she ran on a radically pro-Israel stance despite a majority of voters disagreeing with that approach. Say goodbye to the Muslim vote (MI). Look at the staggering difference in Dearborn, MI, a significant Muslim district when you campaign for your constituents:

Kamala lost because she backtracked on fracking and the environment. A majority of Americans want to see more done on the environment and this status quo agenda was uninspiring.

Kamala did terribly with young people (who are significantly more left leaning) because they saw a mediocre centrist platform, students saw classmates tear-gassed during pro-Palestine movements on their campuses, and no real messaging that spoke to their needs.

Americans want to hear how the candidates will improve their livelihood. Trump makes a lot of empty promises. We knew that since 2015. But Kamala barely even tried. When asked how she would have governed differently than Biden the last four years, she said nothing except put a Republican in her Cabinet. Voters aren’t to blame for this pathetic response when we know Biden's popularity and the economy are incredibly bad! Differentiation, where? Solutions, who?

The good news? We can fix these things! Focusing on misogyny, racism, third-parties, etc is NOT a winning strategy - they exist and can’t be fixed in four years. I know, groundbreaking. You need to bring people in, not turn them away like the Democratic Party has for years. I mean, on a surface level did you think the condescending comments about uneducated Americans, men, non-voters, third-party voters, and Latinos was going to win them over, bring them into the fold, encourage them to vote for Kamala?

Where is the camera?

There is so much to be learned from Bernie’s stump speeches that captivate all kinds of voters.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Many of Harris’s mistakes were similar to those Hillary Clinton made in 2016. Like Clinton, Harris cozied up to billionaire donors. Mark Cuban, for instance, said he was delighted that Harris was abandoning Democrats’ commitments to progressive principles and letting the business community propose the policies it wanted. Like Clinton, Harris and Tim Walz made hubristic campaign stops in solidly red states like Texas and Kentucky rather than spending the final days laser-focused on crucial battlegrounds. Like Clinton, Harris emphasized celebrity endorsements while failing to successfully court unions. (Most notably, the Teamsters declined to endorse her after she refused to pledge that she wouldn’t break a national railway strike.) Like Clinton, Harris focused too much on the danger of Donald Trump (which is very real) and not enough on the reasons why she would be good at being president herself. Most importantly, like Clinton, Harris ultimately decided upon a strategy of trying to woo moderate Republican voters away from Trump, reasoning that it didn’t matter if doing so alienated progressive voters and the Democratic base. Chuck Schumer, speaking of Hillary’s 2016 strategy, infamously promised: "For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia. And you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin." In fact, they just lost the blue-collar Democrats and didn’t pick up the Republicans! In 2024, Harris, too, aggressively touted endorsements from Republicans, promised to put a Republican in her cabinet (she even cited that as the answer to what she would have done differently from Biden!), and went so far as to praise and embrace Dick and Liz Cheney! The strategy was an abject failure. Because she wanted to appease both Republicans and progressive voters, Harris had to further indulge her weakness for speaking in meaningless word salads, since taking stances that were meaningful could have alienated one of these constituencies. Trump, who is canny about portraying himself as more anti-war than Democrats, correctly pointed out that an endorsement from the hawkish Cheneys should be a badge of shame, not honor. (Specifically he said Cheney is “"the King of Endless, Nonsensical Wars, wasting Lives and Trillions of Dollars, just like Comrade Kamala Harris. I am the Peace President, and only I will stop World War III!")

[...]

The lesson to Democratic leaders in 2016 should have been that Bernie Sanders had been right, that the party had betrayed working-class voters and would be doomed if it could not effectively counter Trump’s pseudo-populist appeal with a visionary alternative. (See the excellent analysis in Thomas Frank’s Listen, Liberal.) Unfortunately, the lessons weren’t learned then, and it doesn’t seem like they’re going to be learned now, either! MSNBC anchor Joy Reid is already insisting that Kamala Harris’s campaign was “flawless” (because she got “every prominent celebrity voice”), and pundits like Jill Filipovic are saying things like, “this election was not an indictment of Kamala Harris. It was an indictment of America.” (Good luck ever winning with the slogan “You’re the problem, America!”) USAToday’s Michael Stern says that instead of talking about “where the Harris campaign went wrong” we should talk about “where the American people went wrong.” The Harris campaign itself is blaming unspecified “obstacles that were largely out of our control.” 

6 November 2024

[saltyskeletonkidpasta]

In all seriousness I'm so sorry to anyone who will be negatively affected by a tr*mp administration. I truly cant believe that hate won there is no way that many people saw and heard what that man was saying and thought "yeah the country needs that"...like ur actually fucking stupid. I've been watching from the uk and it blows my mind how he was allowed to even run in the first place or atleast not disqualified for the things he's said over the last couple of months like isulting his opponent, or the threats to Liz Cheney or threatening leftists with the national guard??

America you have let your women down. As if they hadn't lost enough (also if you're one of those "wOmEn fOr tRuMp" literally fuck you ur an insult to the women who fought so hard for you to be able to vote in the first place and now you used it to vote against ur own best interest) and to all the minorities I'm so sorry aswell. You deserve better.

As for the rest of the world we will be impacted aswell. He's already threatened to pull out of NATO which will affect us all and I think it's safe to assume Palestine will truly suffer even more horrifically than they already are. I'd think that goes for ukraine aswell. As for his views on climate change.. well that will affect us all aswell. America are already one of the biggest producers of polution now that idiot who thinks it's a host will most likely cause catastrophic and irreparable damage. The animals and nature have been let down too. I'm truly suprised he won I knew it would be close but I genuinly didnt expect it and not only did he win but Republicans took the house AND the Senate??? Now he has even more power than he did before bc a bunch of his "yes men" are in now...I'm just baffled there is no way that many ppl watched his disastrous campaign and thought "yh I want that" I mean that rally at maddison square garden reminded me of the nazi's...not to mention him undermining democracy, being a felon and convicted of SA oh and also the fact that most of his former cabinet refused to endorse him and said he was incompetent and dangerous...

Thoughts and prayers to all those who worked so hard for change and to not go back but will now be subjected to all the hatred he spreads. Kamala Harris you truly deserved so much better I really hope to see her run again but if not she can come to the UK to be our prime minister anytime I would happily vote for her!💙

I've learned so much about american politics over the last couple of months and have educated myself best I could and even tried to convince some ppl on social media to vote blue I feel defeated and like I could've tried to do more. Its upsetting for women everywhere that ppl really thought it's okay for that creep to be in office. I stand with you and I support you���

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Radley Balko at The Watch:

Since the election, a number of readers have asked how worried we should be, and what we should be looking for in the weeks and months ahead. My general answer: pretty worried! At this point, I see little reason to think that Trump won’t at least attempt his most authoritarian and destructive campaign promises. Whether he succeeds will depend on how much resistance he gets from the courts, Congress, the federal bureaucracy, and the rest of us.

Trump’s nominations to cabinet positions so far are a clear indication that he’s dragging his party further into a nihilist cult of personality. It isn’t just that so many of them are unqualified, corrupt, or destructive (though it’s also all of those things). It’s that they’re uniquely unfit for the specific positions he has appointed them to hold. He’s daring someone to stop him, and learning from what follows.

The Matt Gaetz pick for attorney general was bad, but it wasn’t even his most dangerous. Appointing crank conspiracy theorist and Trump/Assad apologist Tulsi Gabbard to the most sensitive national security position in government is a direct threat to national security and a reflection of Trump’s own fondness for authoritarians. Department of Defense pick Pete Hegseth has never led more than a dozen or so people (the one small nonprofit he did lead, he ran into the ground). As a National Guardsman, he was barred from working security for Joe Biden’s inauguration because he has a tattoo common to white supremacists. He lobbied Trump to pardon war criminals who had been reported by their own platoons, and believes the U.S. military should ignore the Geneva Conventions.

Then there’s the fact that the leader of the QAnon party, a man himself found responsible for rape and credibly accused of sexual assault or misconduct by dozens of women, appointed four — four — cabinet level officials accused of engaging in or covering up sexual misconduct. There’s Gaetz, of course. RFK Jr. has also been accused of sexual assault (he didn’t exactly deny the accusation). The sexual assault allegation against DOD nominee Hegseth are particularly credible. And Linda McMahon, Trump’s pick for Department of Education, was accused in a lawsuit of covering up a ringside announcer’s sex abuse of a boy while she and her husband ran World Wrestling Entertainment.

None of this is all that surprising, given that Trump’s party keeps nominating and electing sex creeps up and down the ballot. Nor does it seem to bother Trump’s congressional supporters. Instead, they’ve decided to single out and bully the first trans woman elected to Congress, barring her from using the women’s bathrooms on Capitol Hill . . . because she’s a “threat” to women. (We’re still waiting to hear which bathrooms male Republicans neutered by Donald Trump will be permitted to use.) Trump is also refusing to subject his nominations to FBI background checks, and his campaign says he won’t release the names of donors to his transition. Both are clear signs that he has no intention of making himself accountable or transparent to anyone. Nearly everything he’s done since the election points to a president who not only intends to buck every norm, convention, and check, he won’t even pretend to try. It’s just open defiance.

In the coming days, I’ll look at the free press and the First Amendment, immigration, and crime and criminal justice. But today, I’ll focus on Trump’s openly-stated plans to weaponize the government against his critics and enemies. I fully expect to see Trump follow through on his promises to seek retribution against people like Jack Smith, Liz Cheney, Adam Schiff, Alexander Vindman, Anthony Fauci, and countless others. Whether he’ll do it by ordering the DOJ to make sensationalist arrests and criminal charges or use subtler though still pernicious tools like IRS audits, subpoenas, or parading people before Congress for public ridicule, is hard to say. But investigations alone can ruin lives and careers.

Let’s start with the DOJ. I’m not sure that the Gaetz debacle provides much instruction on whether Senate Republicans have the backbone to provide any real oversight. (It did show us, however, that House Republicans were willing to remove their spines, gift-wrap them, and hand-deliver them to Trump.) I suspect Gaetz’s tendency to anger and insult members of his own party hurt his nomination more than his extremism, sex pestery, and utter lack of qualifications.

Trump’s new AG nominee, Pam Bondi, is less abrasive than Gaetz, but every bit the devout MAGA loyalist. As Florida Attorney General, Bondi was at one point set to join other states in suing Trump University (Florida has more “alumni” than any other state). Shen then mysteriously pulled out of the class action after Trump made a $25,000 donation to her PAC — a donation that came from Trump’s “charity,” by the way — and then held a fundraiser for her at Mar-a-Lago. (Bondi has a long history of that sort of pay-to-play.) Bondi quickly became a full-throated supporter. She’s not only a 2020 election denier, she was part of Trump’s legal team in his bid to overturn the election. She actually stood next to Rudy Giuliani at Four Seasons Total Landscaping.

Bondi has also already made clear that she fully supports Trump’s plan to weaponize the agency he has nominated her to lead.

[...] We’ll see an important test of Trump’s power shortly after he takes office. He plans to fire FBI director Christopher Wray and replace him with Kash Patel, a vengeful loyalist wholly unqualified for that position. The FBI director is supposed to serve outside the political influence of individual presidents. It’s why the position comes with a 10-year term, and why an FBI director can only be fired for cause. Remember that when Trump fired James Comey, Jeff Sessions considered it a serious enough abuse of power to appoint a special counsel. We’ve become so accustomed to Trump’s power grabs that it’s now just widely expected that he’ll fire Wray for pretextual reasons and install an unqualified lickspittle like Patel — a guy who has vowed to imprison journalists and critics. If the Senate allows that to happen, I fear dark days lie ahead. (Trump is also reportedly considering appointing Patel to a position that doesn’t require Senate approval, but which could still give him the power to act as Trump’s retributive hammer.)

[...] Trump is also already planning to devote DOJ resources to “uncovering” evidence that he won the 2020 election, and to prosecuting state officials who resisted his attempts to coerce them. Expect to see a full-throttle effort to rewrite history about that election, only this time Trump will have more power to force federal agencies to provide faux credibility to his bullshit fraud conspiracies. Watch to see which agencies fall in line.

[...] The Post and other outlets have since reported that one of the key architects of Trump’s plan to purge federal agencies of institutionalists is Russ Vought, Trump’s former head of the Office of Management and Budget — one of the most powerful under-the-radar positions in government. Vought was also a key architect of Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation-led blueprint for a Trump II administration so deeply unpopular that Trump repeatedly claimed during the campaign that he had nothing to do with it. That of course was a lie: last week, Trump nominated Vought back to his old position.

[...] Finally, one particularly pernicious pattern we’ve seen from Trump officials and MAGA pundits is the targeting of not just politicians and public officials, but everyday people they see as representative of their enemies — at which point the MAGA faithful swarm with threats and harassment. We saw Trump-loyal publications repeatedly try to dox whistleblowers who exposed corruption and abuse. We saw them upend the lives of people like Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, along with countless other 2020 election workers who signed up for the sort of nonpartisan positions necessary in a functional democracy.

They did it to doctors and nurses during COVID, healthcare workers who treat trans people, and of course to the Haitian immigrants in Springfield — along with any local residents who dared to defend them. The Libs of TikTok account on X run by Chaya Raichik basically exists solely for this purpose — to sic an army of online followers to heap hate and invective on people she has deemed to be on the wrong side of the culture war. Trump’s “co-president” Elon Musk has been particularly eager to weaponize the social media platform he bought for this sort of targeting. Shortly after purchasing Twitter, he selectively released emails, internal documents, and other private correspondence to a few hand-picked “journalists” to create a dubious narrative about public-private censorship. While there were certainly some examples of improper government pressure on Twitter, most of the claims were wildly overblown. More worrying, the whole project — along with the complicity of Republicans in Congress — led to harassment and death threats against former Twitter employees, whistleblowers, misinformation researchers, and others caught in the crossfire.

Radley Balko wrote a great piece on how the incoming Trump Misadministration seeks to weaponize government agencies to be sharp tools to help his authoritarian masturbatory revenge fantasies.

[tobiasdrake]

To everyone who's absolutely livid about this election and even more livid about the various pundits and even Democratic politicians claiming that Kamala "palling around with Liz Cheney and wanting Republicans in her cabinet" Harris was "too far left":

Be mad. Stay mad. I need all-a-y'all to show up ready to rock when 2026 Congressional primary seasons begin. Maybe even run yourself.

If establishment Democrats take away from this that they lost because they weren't far enough to the Right, they are only going to alienate Democratic voters further. As Republicans turn into Trumpists, we cannot allow our side to shift so far right that the Dems outright become Republicans.

Democratic voters will not vote for Honorary Republicans.

Democrats who learn the wrong lessons from this and move right? They need to be destroyed. The primary election is where you have the power to do that. If they keep coming out and saying things like "I'm against trans people too!" and "We need to fix our border crisis!" and "Kamala lost because she was woke!" then their ability to court the votes of the Left will necessarily wane.

But they can be replaced.

If you weren't there for the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, you need to understand that she was running for the district of Joseph Crowley. Crowley was the guy. He was so important to the party that he was being groomed to replace Nancy Pelosi as leader of the House. This man was so untouchable, he didn't even bother to show up to the debates.

AOC destroyed him in the primary and then swept the general. He was so powerful that he was supposed to lead a key faction of the party and instead he was dragged kicking and screaming out of office by a progressive liberal, because voters liked her better. He's gone. He sells weed now.

And if they learn the right lessons and move left? Great. Still show up to the primaries ready to rock with even more leftist ideas anyway. If you win, great, and if you lose, you still make them scared and force them to come even more to the left.

The primary is where we get to fight for the identity of our own party. So stay mad. Scream at the top of your lungs. Don't be afraid to criticize Dems. And in the meantime, build coalitions, build support for leftist causes, and show up ready to rock when primary season comes.

[contemplatingoutlander]

The House GOP is a circus. The chaos has one source.

Republicans spent two years sabotaging the U.S. House. Another two years would be ruinous.

Dana Milbank does a masterful job of describing just how dysfunctional the House GOP members have been in the past two years.

This is a gift🎁link for the entire article. Below are some highlights:

The Lord works in mysterious ways. Six weeks after his improbable rise from obscurity to speaker of the House in late 2023, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson decided to break bread with a group of Christian nationalists. [...] “I’ll tell you a secret, since media is not here,” Johnson teased the group, unaware that his hosts were streaming video of the event. Johnson informed his audience that God “had been speaking to me” about becoming speaker, communicating “very specifically,” in fact, waking him at night and giving him “plans and procedures.” [...] Today, Johnson’s run looks anything but heaven-sent. In the first 18 months of this Congress, only 70 laws were enacted. Calculations by political scientist Tobin Grant, who tracks congressional output over time, put this Congress on course to be the do-nothingest since 1859-1861 — when the Union was dissolving. But Johnson’s House isn’t merely unproductive; it is positively lunatic. Republicans have filled their committee hearings and their bills with white nationalist attacks on racial diversity and immigrants, attempts to ban abortion and to expand access to the sort of guns used in mass shootings, incessant harassment of LGBTQ Americans, and even routine potshots at the U.S. military. They insulted each other’s private parts, accused each other of sexual and financial crimes, and scuffled with each other in the Capitol basement. They screamed “Bullshit!” at President Joe Biden during the State of the Union address. They stood up for the Confederacy and used their official powers to spread conspiracy theories about the “Deep State.” Some even lent credence to the idea that there has been a century-old Deep State coverup of space aliens, with possible involvement by Mussolini and the Vatican.

The above article was adapted from Dana Milbank's (2024) book: Fools on the HILL: The Hooligans, Saboteurs, Conspiracy Theorists, and Dunces Who Burned Down the House.

[See more below the cut.]

And this is on top of the well-known pratfalls: The 15-ballot marathon to elect a speaker, the 22-day shutdown of the House to find another speaker, the routine threats of government shutdowns and a near-default on the federal debt that hurt the nation’s credit rating. They devoted 18 months to a failed attempt to impeach Biden, which produced nothing but Marjorie Taylor Greene publicly displaying posters of Hunter Biden engaging in sex acts. One “whistleblower” defected to Russia, another worked with Russian intelligence and is under indictment for fabricating his claims, and still another is on the lam, evading charges of being a Chinese agent. As soon as Biden withdrew his candidacy, they promptly forgot their probe of Biden’s “corruption” and rushed to launch a new series of investigations into Kamala Harris (over her record on border security) and Tim Walz (over his military service and “cozy relationship” with China). After a number of failed attempts, they did impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (the first such action against a Cabinet officer since 1876) without identifying any high crimes or misdemeanors he had committed; the Senate dismissed the articles without a trial. House Republicans created a “weaponization committee” under the excitable Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), but it was panned even by right-wing commentators when it produced little more than a list of conspiracy theories from the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard. They lapsed repeatedly into fits of censure resolutions, contempt citations and other pointless acts of vengeance. In all of its history, the House had voted to censure one of its own members only seven times; in the two weeks after Johnson became speaker, members of the House tried to censure each other eight times. [...] In lieu of consequential legislating, they passed bills such as the Refrigerator Freedom Act, the Gas Stove Protection and Freedom Act and the Stop Unaffordable Dishwasher Standards (SUDS) Act. On the House floor, the Republican majority suffered one failure after another, even on routine procedural votes. Seven times (and counting), House Republicans voted down their own leaders’ routine attempts to begin floor debates — something that hadn’t happened once in the previous 20 years.

[marxistlesbianist]

How do I stop getting more and more terrified of the upcoming Trump administration. I know on a material level Harris would not be much better but every new cabinet pick and headline makes the liberal in me scream and cry, I'm a trans woman just starting her transition and I'm scared I will never become the person I want to be. I'm scared it's too late for me. I need a Marxist perspective, what do I do?

Unfortunately marxism cannot provide you with any way to avoid fear as such, but this does not mean it is useless here. Marxism as an analytical method helps us to see the social/economic mechanisms affecting our lives as they really are, rather than as the quasi-divine forces which liberalism supposes them to be. I and many others have found that looking at the world in this more grounded manner has the effect of lessening our anxiety, but how you react to this vision of material reality is still up to you.

That being said, here is a rough outline of a marxist outlook on the US political economy to–day, which might help you to ground through the anxiety of the election results:

The US empire is an empire in decline. This is not the fault of any single politician, but of the inherently unstable ground on which capitalist economies are built. Capitalism necessitates constant market growth, and with nearly the whole world already captured by the US economic order, this is an increasingly impossible demand to meet. As climate change worsens the third world countries exploited by the US are pushed to either drown under ceaseless natural disasters, or revolt against the economic system distroying their ecology—in both cases the US hegemony is weakened and our great empire dies by a thousand cuts. The only way to avoid economic crisis is to move away from the capitalist mode of production all together, but bourgeois politicians will only ever offer us incomplete solutions to the problems they have created.

Fascism is the liberal response to economic crisis. Throughout the history of the 20th century, we have seen that even the most socially progressive liberal “democracies” have morphed into fascist monstrocities when the capitalist economy is threatened. Voting in ostensibly progressive candidates without seriously challenging the political economy won't save us--as the people of Germany learned when the liberal chancellor Hindenburg appointed Hitler as the head of state after beating him in the election. This happens because fascism is at its heart the imperialist system turned inwards; when the German bourgeoisie were no longer able to sustain their economy by exploiting colonized countries like Namibia, they revitalized their economy by building a more advanced version of the Namibian colonial state at home.

Because the system is already collapsing in on itself, the primary task for us to organize toward is not challenging the system as it is, but building something better in its place. Of course, the task of defending our movement will necessarily bring us into conflict with the current bourgeois state, but we must remember that the point is not to oppose our enemies but to defend our friends. Even if a socialist president were elected to the white house, their dictates would only mean anything if there existed an organized body of workers prepared to exicute the plan inspite of bourgeois sabatage. Conversely, a sufficiantly large and well organized body of workers would be capable of building socialism in the US no matter what Washington says.

For trans women, the state of affairs following Trump's election is fundamentally no different than it was before November 6th. For 250 years the US government has been hostile to our existence, and yet there are more of us living out of the closet now than there ever have been in this country's history. The liberties which the republican party now threatens to deprive us of were not given to us by liberal politicians, but won inspite of them by the masses of our trans elders fighting tirelessly for themselves and their children—and for so long as we continue the struggle we have inherited, the bourgeois state will never be able to defeat us. Of course, much of this history of struggle has been obscured by the liberal order trying to co-opt our movement, but it is still there to be discovered. (If you only know about Stonewall, I highly recommend you read about the history of STAR (Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries), an organization founded by some of the trans women who lead that riot.)

Of course, none of this is to say that the situation isn’t terrifying; just that it is also manageable. You may not be able to live the life you wanted, but that doesn't mean you can't still lead a life worth living! The liberal in you screams and cries because she sees that things are bad, but doesn't see how you as an individual can make it right. Adopting a marxist perspective to see not just that things are bad but also how and why, and organizing with your class allies instead of working on your own will silence your inner liberal’s tears as she becomes obsolete. Individual Trump staff picks don’t mean much for us in our project of building a socialist movement. Regardless of who sits in office, the work before us is the same. So let’s get to work—for the revolution of the world!

Lastly, because I always found it annoying when people would tell me to "join an org" without elaborating, here is a brief rundown of some organizations you could look into:

PSL (Party for Socialism and Liberation) has the widest reach of any nominally communist party in the US. Their top leadership are largely opportunists insofar as I can tell, but the local chapters vary enough that some of them are involved in genuinely productive work.

FRSO (Freedom Road Socialist Organization) is a lot smaller, but with more genuine leadership and a strong ideological line. They are growing, and tend to be much more active in the few areas where they are organized.

DSA and CPUSA (Democratic Socialists of America, and Communist Party of the USA) are both useless as organizations, but you might still find some people there you can organize with—especially of there aren’t any better orgs in your area.

SALT (Socialist ALTernative) basically encompass the worst of all worlds in my experience, but individual experience may vary.

Even if there are no active organizations in your area, joining one and sitting in on zoom meetings is still a worthwhile step forward!

[mariacallous]

If you were waiting for the perfect time to make your first donation to my campaign for Senate, not only is today the perfect day but there's also a very good reason as well.

Betsy DeVos.

If you're already familiar with her significant support for my opponent and are ready to chip in, please use this link to give:

Otherwise, let me go a little deeper ... including a very recent revelation about her designs on a role in a second Trump administration.

As Michiganders know, for decades the DeVos family’s #1 issue has been weakening Michigan's, and the country's, public education system. Betsy DeVos used Michigan as her petri dish before becoming Trump’s Secretary of Education, and one of his longest serving cabinet secretaries.

Much like our Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, she condemned Donald Trump after January 6, 2021. In Betsy DeVos’ case, she “resigned in protest” as Education Secretary, blaming his rhetoric on the insurrection — just 13 days before the end of Trump’s term.

And like my current opponent who turned around and worked hard for Trump's endorsement, Betsy DeVos is now back — and willing to serve in a second Trump administration.

So what does that mean?

As if there weren't already a million reasons to defeat Donald Trump, there's now one more: keeping Betsy DeVos out of any role of prominence in Washington, D.C.

And there is no doing that without winning in Michigan.

The DeVos family has been some of the top supporters to opponents of mine in the past, and they've doubled down on this Senate race.

Mike Rogers' first FEC report in this race was filled with donations from a bunch of members of the DeVos family — contributions totaling $46,200 all made on one single day. And just last week, Betsy DeVos herself was campaigning with Mike Rogers at a roundtable just a day before the primary election.

They are certainly not done with their support of my opponent.

On a positive note, the response to emails about the DeVos donations has raised far more than the DeVos family has contributed. But we have to keep going, because their family's unlimited wealth can impact this race in many more ways.

So in light of this news about Betsy DeVos' potential return to Washington, D.C. and her role in campaigning for my opponent, I am asking:

Can you contribute $3 directly to my campaign for U.S. Senate in Michigan? I will put your donation made today in Betsy’s name right to work persuading the voters we need to win in Michigan this fall.

[bambamramfan]

What If They Win

Too much has been written about the horse race of this election, but not nearly enough analysis about how either administration will govern. There's some fearmongering about Project 2025 or courtpacking, but that's propaganda not actual predictions.

(FWIW, I think Trump has this race in the bag, but can understand people who still hope think this is a coin flip.)

If Harris Wins...

Harris has held together a remarkable coalition of people against Trump. Mainstream Democratic politicians, YIMBY pundit technocrats, far lefters holding their nose, and Republican neoconservatives. This is no criticism, it's pretty impressive how they are coming together to defeat a common enemy, and I really really would like them to win.

But what happens to a coalition defined by a common enemy, after they win? Let's assume the best case scenario and she gets a Democratic Senate who confirms her cabinet and some SCOTUS judges.

Who supports Harris in the press, or is vote-corraling for her in Congress? Not those Republicans who hope to turn a page on the Trump era. Not a far left who has decided to hate her as a centrist sell out. Not moderate dems who will run away from any hint of weakness. Maybe a few of those YIMBY pundits who hope she's actually committed to more houses and nuclear power. But that's no political hyperpower.

What would her first major bill be? Who would support it? It will be just one scandal plagued administration with little support from any quarter that makes its ground breaking "first" for subaltern identities a disappointing token. The David Dinkens of the White House.

I predict that President Harris would have the lowest approval rating in her first year of any President we have polling for. It's gonna be brutal, and an easy 2028 win for Republicans (who hopefully won't be running 82 year old Trump.)

If Trump Wins...

This is the interesting one. I've heard a lot of people say that a second Trump term will be even worse than the first because he's fully unleased now and no one can stop him from doing what he really wants. And I think this is partly true.

I just don't think what he wants is "Republican authoritarian rule." Sure, he will probably let the Fed Society still pick the judges (which he never cared about besides thinking they should be loyal to him) and there will almost certainly be a tax cut/extension. But besides that?

In the first Trump term, he had VP Pence, Jeff Sessions as AG, governors like Chris Christie, and three establishment figures at State, Defense, and Treasury making a pact that if Trump fires one they all resign. It was an actual coalition of Republicans and Trumpists who need each other. Even Jared Kushner was pretty establishment friendly (he's the one who approved Pence.)

Jared and Ivanka are gone now, replaced by Eric and Donjr. The VP is a Thiel-acolyte who isn't anti-Republican but sure is "from the blogs." And the endorsers Trump touts are RFK Jr, Tulsi Gabbard, Elon Musk (while more and more mod Republicans endorse Harris.)

This isn't a Trump face over a body of Republicans - this is a Trump leader over all the fringe outsiders of American weirdo culture. I think Trump *actually does* want to appoint RFK to Secretary of Health, and indulge in every conspiracy, organic hippie, crunchy nonsense - which actually has a lot of believers across the country, but extremely little following in DC itself.

I think this will be hilarious beyond our wildest dreams of entertainment. It will not be a functional fascism - it will be closer to Jill Stein and Richard Branson and Andrew Tate. He'll try to pass laws that every kid in America needs to eat healthy and also work in a McDonalds.

[eugenedebs1920]

Step right up folks, to the Carnival of Corruption! There’s thrills! Chills! And inevitable jail cells! The crimes a fraud a minute here at the Carnival of Corruption!

We start with the head of this 3 ring circus, the man with the tiny hands! The orange Cheeto crusted Jesus himself! Convicted rapist, fraudster and insurrectionist! The dumb, the only!…. Donald J Trump!!!

Our felonious circus leader has 34 felony convictions, he’s been convicted of sexual assault, robbed his own charity, the master of business fraud and tax fraud, an incompetent liar and complete racist as*hole, this man makes Bernie Madoff look legitimate. The irreparable damage he has caused to the United States will be felt for decades to come! The installation of 3 Supreme Court justices, ranging from religious extremists, to fellow sexual assailants, was instrumental in his rise back to power when, as it turns out, the “conservative” judges in SCOTUS, don’t know how to read. When the ruling in Trump v Anderson was ruled in favor of Trump, allowing an insurrectionist access to the ballot. Going in direct contrast to the 14th amendment section 3. It’s nice to have skeezy friends in high places.

We turn our sights now to the second in command. A guy that wears more eyeliner than Liza Minnelli, JD (Jerkin Dudes) Vance. No major scandals (yet) to speak of, but what a prick! A man who called out our circus leader as “Americas Hitler” and berated single women who love cats, this jerk has close ties with billionaire Peter Thiel, who financed the most expensive senatorial campaign at the time to get Vance elected to the Senate from the “great” (🙄) state of Ohio. With the top of the ticket this fantastic, how did they not win by an even higher margin!? It absolutely nuts!! 🤔😐

Next we have Susie Wiles as White House chief of staff. This longtime lobbyist, and swamp creature, can be credited with getting the worst of the worst elected. From Ron DeSanctimonious, the the Mandarin Mussolini himself, Wiles is the definition of the swamp.

For Secretary of State there’s Little Marco Rubio. He may be the most “qualified”, one could say, of Trump’s cabinet picks. Our mousey little buddy has time and time again shown his lack of conviction on anything. If he was any worse in personal integrity he’d give Lindsey Graham a run for his money.

Look up in the sky, it’s a bird, a plane? No! It’s Pam Bondi on the corruption trapeze! Switching spots with the sleaze bag, child rapist, Matt Gaetz, her cronieism earns her the spot tightrope walking as Trump’s Attorney General. As she swings from on high with former positions where in 2012 she was the lead attorney in Florida trying do overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA)! Her, along with 19 other Republican led states sued in 2018 to overturn the provision in ACA that bans insurance companies from denying people with pre existing conditions, or raising their premiums due to them. Real lady for the people folks! The entire Republican Party seems to give zero sh*ts for regular working class people. As long as that black guy who was president legacy is discredited and looked down upon, that seems to be all that matters to them.

Bondi also has daredevil stances on opposing same sex marriages, she’s had interesting donation scandals as well. Rulings and cases that had mutual benefits for both the Circus Ringleader Tangerine Tubbster and herself. Complete loyalty to the top circus clown is the main qualification.

This brings us to our next attraction as head of Health and Human Services (HHS), the man who’s destroying the legacy of his family’s name. A man whose brain was partially eaten by a worm. His voice makes anyone uncomfortable, and he’ll saw and take home all sorts of roadkill. A guy who has more skeletons in his closet than a taxidermist, which he seems to want to be! The babysitter molesting, antivaxer himself, Robert F Kennedy Jr.

His anti vaccine stance is solely responsible for a measles outbreak in the pacific that killed hundreds. His too priority as head of HHS seems to be removing fluoride from the water supply. A credit to Americans oral health in comparison to the rest of the world. If conspiracy theories were wealth, he’d be a rich man. Oh wait! He already is. With his anti vaccine policies, no child will be safe.

Thats it for now folks! With more to come! There’s plenty of entertainment to go around in this 3 ring circus! So stay tuned. And catch us next time on the, Carnival of Corruption!!!l