#republicans who live in republican areas are the ones that are gonna be fucked

[navree]

[bakafox]

I sometimes wonder if a lot of people on the left just don't let themselves be consciously aware that yes, the people who back authoritarianism, fascism, and generally n*zi bullcrap will be voting. On all levels, local to national. All the time.

Because like, people who aren't authoritarian in leaning will argue. Will point out that there's cons and be depressed sometimes easily that there is no perfect candidate.

But- the very point of being an authoritarian is that once they choose their authority, they do what they are told.

They are told to vote by one politician they decided is on their side to vote for another one and will do it without many, if any, questions.

They're told to vote (illegally if it's during a service) by their pastor, by their boss, by their parents, by their spouse, by someone in authority over them that they have accepted as the authority, and they'll go out and do it.

Some of them can snap out of it if it really goes too much against some spark inside, but the whole thing of their wanting a simplistic us vs them world view where they can just sit back and do what they're told and feel better, comfortable, or even superior for doing it means that they'll go do as they're told and then feel good and superior about doing it.

This is how they've long-gamed the GOP to where it is today, that's what is meant when people say "the Republicans just go out and vote". They do that! And they vote without putting any thought into it, without stressing much about imperfections.

Non authoritarians/non-fascists are more likely to give up, or argue against candidates, or just be contrarian, and thus might rather shoot themselves in the foot when it comes time to just doing what is a civic duty to try and prevent the rise of what the other side will always, always turn out in their full numbers to back.

Even if they live in an area where theoretically they would be outvoted 20 to 2, they will show up 'defiantly' and cast their votes for the person they have been told by someone they have decided to trust told them to vote for. Even if they don't know a damn thing about the candidate other than two talking points from a campaign ad or that were talked about at the church social.

This doesn't make any voting at all useless, it doesn't make anyone who votes sheep. It makes voting absolutely required by anyone opposing them. Not 'instead' of community action and protests and letters or whatever the fuck else, but along with.

It means as long as there are any elections, yes, to avoid fascists winning elections 'fairly' (not gonna get into gerrymandering here,) people have got to show up and vote against them, because the fascist voters aren't going to take a mental health day or write in a joke or go third party. Some person whose authority clicked a little circuit in their brain on, who maybe got them riled up about <one thing> told them to vote for <whoever> and they are going to vote for <whoever>, regardless of whatever <other things> are out there being ignored as less consequential.

[vaspider]

Spider, do you have any advice on voting when the options are basically the same? I'm not talking Trump vs. Harris, they are definitely not the same. But my local elections are all "absolutely ghoulish republican who's running on Christian Fundamentalism and opposing the Radical Left, is an anti-enviromentalist, and brags about in their previous term in public office where they legally punished a bunch of homeless people for being homeless" vs "[the exact same fucking thing]". Yes, one of the races, they're both running on how they empowered police to break up homeless camps and arrest them for illegally camping. And it's like the whole local ballot that's like this. Granted, this isn't my first election, and the area where I live has always been very Like That, but it's getting worse year after year.

(People are always like "it must be nice living in California since everyone is so accepting over there" but no, that's mostly on the coast. When you get inland enough, it's not that different from what people think of when they talk about rural Texas (lots of people here are descended from the Okies and the Arkies and the like that came during the Dust Bowl, including my own family)).

[Running for office is not an option for me, I'm not even a functional human being at it is.]

Well.

I think that either you pick things apart until you find one thing that is slightly less shitty about one of the candidates, or you skip that specific race. Those are really your only two options, you know? You can't create another candidate at this stage, and you don't want to skip voting entirely, so... it's okay to skip one race if you really fucking hate both candidates.

I mean, what else are you gonna do?

[notyourmoderate]

I'm gonna vote. I live in a district that is 100% going to go to Trump.

Here's the thing: every election in my area is so one-sided that it doesn't even make good comedy. From the presidential elector to the local traffic judges.

The only thing that's actually up for a real decision is the bond issues and policy proposals that are deliberately written as obfuscated as possible so you can't tell whether you're voting for or against the good thing.

But I'm gonna vote, because Republicans have lost 7 out of the last 8 popular votes. Because their only chance is to lean on the rigged and ridiculous gerrymander system so that their state-level cronies and judiciary activist shills can feed them another unearned win.

And it drives them fucking nuts. So so much.

The vote that I cast in November has a 0% chance of influencing whether Donald J TrompeL'oeil has an electoral vote. But it does have a very real chance of contributing to him losing the popular vote. And if that happens, there's a medically viable chance that he will rage out, pop a blood vessel and die on election night.

I cannot contribute meaningfully to who is going to win the presidential election. But there is a non-zero chance that my vote will actually kill him.

[icaruspendragon]

Hi! A while ago I saw one of your tiktoks about how northern democrats typically view people from Appalachia, and it really made me re-examine some biases I had and I deeply appreciated that. I'm from New Hampshire, and basically this primary season we were completely ignored by democratic candidates because of some issues with the DNC and our primary being labeled "unsanctioned". It was weird to not feel supported or valued by my party for the first time ever, (especially when NH tends to get a lot of attention) and it reminded me of your tiktok and how you mentioned that republicans tend to reach out to people in the south while democrats tend to ignore them as a lost cause. Because I saw that happening here with an insanly disproportionate republican presence in my state leading to the primaries. I know the comparisons aren't equal, but it helped drive home the message for me and gave me just a taste of what you explained so clearly in your tiktok. I understand if you choose not to post this, but I really wanted to thank you for opening my eyes and helping me face some biases I didn't know I had.

hello and thank you (for re-examining your biases and for writing me this message). i'm gonna use this as a chance to restate some of the things i mentioned in the video you're talking about.

i'd like to start this by saying i know appalachia and the south aren't perfect. there's racism and homophobia and bigotry. being someone who is marginalized or minoritized in appalachia/the south isn't always easy. but appalachia/the south doesn't have the monopoly on bigotry. america is rife with it. it's something marginalized folks all over the country have to face. and when northern dems act like racism and homophobia and bigotry are things that don't occur in their state simply because it's a blue state, they're doing an incredible disservice to the marginalized people that live in their communities who are facing the results of bigotry.

the folks living in appalachia/the south are heavily stereotyped as nothing more than ignorant backwood cousin fucking hillbillies, and while there are people that live here that fit that bill, appalachia/the south is not a monolith.

appalachia is region that spans from mississippi all the way to new york. the south (depending on who you ask) consists of 17 different states. and here's a little fun fact about the south for ya: according to the 2020 census, out of the 41.6 million black people that live in america, 38.9% of them live in the south.

so when that entire region is written off, forgotten about, and treated as a lost cause it's not the bigots that are being left behind; it's the marginalized people that live here that are being written off. the very same folks democrats and liberals love claiming they care about are the ones being left behind.

one of the reasons republicans have such a strong hold on appalachia/the south is because they put in the work to earn the trust of the voter. work that democrats just don't do. so of course republicans are gonna get the vote, they earned it.

other reasons for the stronghold existing (that people never wanna talk about for some reason) are: gerrymandering, voter suppression, lack of state funding that leads to lack of education, general lack of education, high poverty rates, lack of internet access. i could go on and on.

there are so many marginalized people that live in this region that are working themselves to the bone and trying their damndest to make appalachia/the south a better place for EVERYONE to live and when high falutin yankees act like every single person that lives here is the racist uncle you have to ignore at christmas, they are discrediting the work being done to try and change the region for the better.

allow me to say this again: when appalachia/the south is written off as nothing more than a home to bigots, it's not the bigots being written off, it's the people affected by bigotry.

there are people fighting to make these areas better. we are trying. so please, please stop writing us off.

we are not a lost cause.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for lying and not wanting to being a gay guy to a lgbt Halloween party—???

🎃🏳️‍🌈

(So I can recognize)

So by time this posted Halloween over in not looking for advice or anything and this ain’t rushed- I just wanna know if im the asshole here or not-

So for context: I live in a safe state but my area is kinda republican but not bad (worst is usually a judgmental glance). Well in the town over about half an hour away there’s an LGBT center I go to and volunteer at. Since gays love Halloween we’re having a party (non alcoholic for youth) which hopefully was super fun idk it’s in a few days from when writing this-

Now for the guy I mentioned. He’s gay and even if he wasn’t he would still be allowed to go because we welcome allies. He and I… have a history. I won’t go in detail unless people vote INFO. Short version of it is it wasn’t a healthy friendship. He would only talk to me when he needed things and would constantly talk about a straight guy he liked but when I would take about this straight (he’s bi but at time time this happened I thought he was straight) guy who was giving me mixed he would get mad. And to top it off~ he ruined my life by calling the cops over a JOKE. (It during the time when people were eating tide pods and I said something like “imma do it and drink some bleach to wash it down lmao” which again- A GEN Z JOKE). Him calling the police on me fucked me up, ruined my family life, my mom hasn’t bought bleach since (she never bought the tide pods to begin with), and I have severe trust issues. Afterwards I cut contact and didn’t talk to him for two years since we graduated.

Skip to current events.

He saw on instagram a post of me with this organization hosting events and another post about the Halloween party so he dm’s me. I’ve talked to him a handful of times since but always keep him at a distance. He asks if I can give him a ride to the event and if I’m hosting it. So here’s where I’m wondering if im the asshole. He’s a gay guy and this is the only LGBT center within 3 hours of us. As a queer person, I feel like I should welcome him and bring him there so he can have a safe space. However, as just- a person- he fucked me up so much. This center is the ONE safe place I have that’s not online. If I bring him I’ll lose that.

So I lied.

I told him that the Halloween party is a fundraiser… and that you need to pay to enter…… and that I can’t give him a ride because my car is in the shop and im getting a ride from someone who isn’t comfortable driving strangers………

Was that a dick move?? It’s been 5 years- I should be over it and move on and make amends but like ???? No ???? I’m not gonna ruin the one safe place I have ??????

What are these acronyms?

[parkakeet]

why is it that when I say that smaller or more rural areas deserve the same public transit and resources that urban population centers get, people immediately tell me that due to the population size, it can't be supported.

like god. fuck everyone who doesn't live in a major city? this is why a lot of rural people stick with the damn republicans. no one else bothers to speak to them or give a fuck about them. Like. ofc they're not gonna get anything better under republicans, but at least they bother to acknowledge their existence.

rural communities are the base of our damn society, but we can't build train stations there because 'the population size doesn't support it'. ?

fuck.

[possessesnightshift]

my lord seeing all the posts talking about not voting for joe biden like...

im not even gonna push my personal opinion. i just want people to take the time to earnestly reflect about what they're deciding to do

as in. just think "what is the impact of my decision?" think about what would come about if you voted for biden, or against biden, or third party, or (likely the most popular other option ppl want to pursue) didn't vote AT ALL.

then reflect on the actual issues that matter enough to sway your vote. think about palestine. think about queer liberation & disability advocacy. think about the writer's strike and the actors strike and unionizing. think about the environment. the fucking economy. basically anything that's defined the political landscape of the 2020s.

and then circle back to "what is the point of making this specific choice?" in regards to voting in the 2024 election. if you want to make any of these issues better, ask yourself if those changes will be easier to make under a trump administration or a biden administration. would trump be better for palestine than biden? the environment? the economy? even if he's worse than biden in a lot of areas, is there one special issue that could push him over the edge? what are you trying to accomplish with this vote (or lackthereof)?

the reason i felt compelled to lay it all out in this specific manner is quite simple. i want to emphasize something important.

i feel like a lot of people planning to protest their vote for Joe Biden see themselves as possessing a moral high ground with respect to our corrupt political system. by refusing to participate and play the game, you're avoiding complicity in a machine designed to grind people up and spit out their bodies for the sake of profit. i get it. i know exactly why you don't want to take part in something so horrible.

but you DO.

even if you don't want to. you are a part of this system.

withholding a vote isn't exempting you from anything. you are still making a decision. a decision that impacts your life, the lives of those around you, and of course the lives of people overseas caught up in our country's colonialist bullshit

i promise you nobody is keeping score. you won't get extra woke points in heaven because you didn't vote for someone who does bad things. say hypothetically we lived in a country like australia with compulsory voting, and protesting your vote was literally not an option. what would people say then? would the anti-genocide crowd encourage you to vote for trump? vote third party? do these choices make sense??

because at the end of the day, we have 2 choices. we can continue sucking ass. or we can bring in someone else to suck ass EVEN HARDER.

i'm not sure what i can say beyond this much. i get how easy it is to turn off your brain and rail against anyone challenging an opinion that, from your perspective, feels beyond the realm of criticism. these people do not have bad intentions. our brains can't think in terms of stupid political games. we see a man encouraging a genocide running for re-election, and the LAST thing we want to do is reward him.

but the system is illogical by design. (see electoral college for more info.) you can't make it make sense. these people in power aren't gonna buckle to your pressure based on morality or shame because they have none. they know exactly what the fuck is going on. they know what they're doing, and they're doing it on purpose.

if republicans can accept that holding your nose and playing the bs voting game can make the system work in their favor, why the fuck can't college educated socialists come to the same conclusion?

whatever you decide to do come november, just be honest about why you're doing it. whether it's about gaza or trans people or even just the prices of groceries always increasing, it doesn't matter. i know what change i want to see in the world, and i'm doing what i can to help move the needle in that direction.

[theswordwizard]

i cannot believe i keep seeing posts congratulating biden for a four day "ceasefire" (where the IDF CONTINUED to shoot people) over BLACK FRIDAY WEEKEND and saying "ohhhhh he's trying so hard guys we need to clap for him and the DNC, aren't we so glad we have a democrat in office right now" after they gave over 14 BILLION dollars to the israeli military? they scheduled a halftime break in the bombing and you act like they accomplished something real?

i'm also not that surprised, but definitely disappointed, at the amount of posts i've seen blaming "russian bots" for anti-biden posts. its over a year until the next election, and joe biden is CURRENTLY, RIGHT NOW, perpetuating zionist lies about Palestine and actively funding their genocide to the media! you realize that if a YEAR in advance of an election, if people are saying "hey this is fucked up, i'm not voting for someone who does this," the DNC doesn't actually have to run joe biden for the democratic nominee? biden said barely a year ago that he didn't intend to run again!

if every election "season" (that seems to get longer every year, proper campaigning for PARTY nominees have barely started, my god) every liberal blasts the messaging "Vote Blue No Matter Who," that the message you are sending to the DNC is that you will vote for whoever they pick out for you, regardless of whether it's in the people's best interests? if YOU TELL THEM that the only messaging they have to have is how the republicans are worse, then that will be their strategy! and we already saw how that played out with hillary!

hillary did not lose because you didn't yell at enough people online, hillary lost because the DNC played poker and INTENTIONALLY propped up and gave additional airtime to trump because they thought that even a generally disliked democratic nominee could win against him! and they were wrong! you CANNOT win an election on "that other guy sucks," because the average american is not reading your callout posts. the average, non-party aligned american, is gonna watch the debate and go "wow I don't really like either of them, I can't afford to not get paid for the hours it would take to vote," because the average american is not a hard leftist or a chronically online liberal.

joe biden won because he campaigned on the promise of student debt relief and fixing covid, and he did neither! sure, he made some small, unflashy, means-tested improvements, but no one even got the 10k reduction that he kept dangling. we can blame the republican party all we want, but what people remember is that joe biden did not do what he promised people. prices are still getting higher and people are still struggling more and more. it's not convincing, and he's not likeable.

if you want to yell at people for not toeing the party line or whatever, a better use of your time would be calling your representatives and getting more involved in local elections. school boards, city councils, state and district representatives, those will immediately effect people's lives in your area!

as more and more information comes out about what is happening in Palestine and the US's part in it, the more unappealing joe biden is as a candidate. if anything, you should call your senator and tell them YOU and anyone you know won't be voting for him, if you really want a chance for a democrat to win the next election.

[chaoticneutralgood2627]

ALL OF THIS!!!

In Michigan, Hillary Clinton lost in 2016 by 2 VOTES PER PRECINCT. If each area had 2 more people who showed up, Michigan could've gone to Clinton.

North Carolina is super fucking close right now. No one thought Trump was gonna have to defend North Carolina. If Trump loses North Carolina, its basically over immediately based on Electoral College bs.

Texas and Florida are way fucking closer than people think about (though they might not flip this year, they're still closer than expected)

There are usually (not always) more registered Democrats than Republicans in any given state because Republican policies just aren't popular. They only have culture war and cult bs.

Even if you live in an entirely red area and there is no way to change that, think of the most annoying Trump simp loser you know of in your area. Cancel out their vote.

There is no shame in losing a righteous fight, there is only shame in not fighting one. (Paraphrased from one of the sanity filters I watch for politics, thank you Glenn Kirschner)

Any red state can turn blue if enough voters turn out.

[textingaboutprometheus]

There a lot of racists in this country but if you really believe every single trump voter is a racist and voted based on only that, then we will not agree ever and there’s no point continuing the discussion.

Trump made huge gains with Latinos and black Americans talking about jobs and cultural issues. Are they racist too? Is everybody racist? Construction companies openly pay less to immigrants, so working class Americans lost the few jobs still available for them in our country. Is this racist? Maybe, just maybe, if democrats had dedicated their time in the last few decades making sure we had functional unions available to all, companies would have to pay the same good salary to everyone equally and there would not be a financial advantage in hiring desperate people and letting Americans with nothing.

Full employment? Where? Paying how much? Do people here understand there is a fucking huge country between cities and the coasts? Listen to our moderator here, she makes less than $24K! A big majority of our country makes very little money and has to really hustle to survive and pay bills and take care of their family. Yes, some are able to see the forest through the trees and understand republicans suck and don’t care about them at all (kudos to you TP), but many more don’t, they are too worried trying to make their meagre salary pay for groceries and THEY FUCKING VOTE.

This attitude pisses me off so much, because I WAS PERSONALLY working to elect Kamala. Not online, not behind my computer, in person, talking to people with little money and almost no hope. Non-paid work, every single day. And it’s fucking hard to convince people to give a chance to somebody who they saw as a incumbent, part of a government that didn’t do anything against inflation, and that believes we should bring more people in, that this same government is on their side. I’m not saying I agree with it, but I have to ask, how many people reading here really went out to red or purple areas once in their lives and talked and really listened to real people.

I will say again, racism, sexism, religion, hate, whatever exists and is the base of Trump party. These people are not enough to elect him, and I will die on this hill. Democrats need to leave their cities and coast, stop watching Maddox and never read Twitter again and GO TO THE swing states every fucking day and week and year and listen to what the people are complaining about, and find solutions to those problems that are still within the democrat umbrella, but offer solutions to THEIR problems, not Twitter fake issues.

And let’s stop with the gaslighting that cultural issues are racist when one example I’m talking about is trans issues that became mainstream ONLY when impacted trans WHITE PRIVILEGED woman. Give me a break.

Sorry TP, but I’m really upset with the worst D loss in many decades and their reaction of blaming everybody else but them.

And by the way, I’m very disappointed with PSA, they should have a pod last night, even if a short one. Are we all fighting this together or not?

I agree with everything you said. They should have had a pod last night. I 100% agree. I don't know why they didn't. Its worrisome. But maybe they'll explain it today when they record.

It's almost 7 am and I got out of my bed. So progressive? Next step breakfast. Then I'm gonna drown myself into films until the guys release a pod late in the fucking afternoon because they have to do everything on pacific time.

Does anyone know how to get money out of investments without tax penalties? I wouldn't have invested so much of my money from my dad if I thought in a million years this would happen.

[heartevent]

Gonna say something crazy but I think Kamala might win simply cus she satisfies the liberal consumer on appearances, rich democrats who think cheeto in the white house is an actual insult, conservatives she satisfies on policies. Tbh she upholds the current status quo really good, Trump keeps canceling debates and appearances, and Black Woman President does numbers for American propaganda because it emphasizes that America is the future, and it symbolizes (solely speaking thru capitalistic and imperialistic propaganda) a new hope for the future of America and thus the world. That's what a lot of her branding has been too. Her undying support of Israel though is definitely losing her thousands of votes so this prediction isn't really like, set in stone here but idk. I live in a notably conservative rich area and I haven't seen nearly as many Trump trucks or even signs as I have in previous years. I've only seen maybe one f150 with a MAGA flag in the past few months, and usually I see em fairly regularly. especially around election season. I don't even think the person in my old hometown with the white van that has a metric fuck ton of unabomber-type politics and trump praise written all over it has been driving around much. Hell my fucking mississippi conservative father isn't even posting about Trump. But idk, to be honest the republican party has been much more stable than the democratic party this past year, so that alone might give him the win. Idk though

[eucalyptus-gl0bulus]

Hey have you heard of the strategy the American republicans are gonna try if they win. It's called project 2025. Long read, but it's very disturbing, detailed plan for how to rig everything forever in just 180 days.

No president is innocent. If you need 2 billion to be president of the free world, nobody except the rich rich people that you aren't and never will be can afford a shot at presidency.

The only way Trump gets to walk is if he delays the courts long enough, and the people who aren't you but rather other rich old guys decide he should be president so he can pardon himself and face no punishment for his sins. I don't want his head because he's a wealthy shitbag, I want his head because you don't get that wealthy without ruining countless lives while looking the other way.

High Wizard Dark Brandon didn't "steal the election", because that's how your electoral college works, and it'd be even WORSE for the Republican party if it were by flat votes across the country like any good nation (🇦🇺) does. You could even get ranked voting to vote for who you want and not who you can begrudgingly accept because the other guy is that much worse.

I don't doubt that Genocide Joe is a fucking dementia patient but what makes you think that Trump can't be within the term you hope he gets.

As for those "91 Bullshit charges", there should be far, far more on someone his wealth, but these are the ones that money isn't making go away. You have no idea what shit he's had to do since that first small loan of a million dollars to get where he is now.

An American public that wants to see Trump back are part of the Maga death cult part of the republican party. Don't get me wrong, there's still the average republican that you can reason with, but the people backing Trump and saying he's the second coming of Christ is both quite against the Book's teachings and concerning if anyone thinks he really is.

If you haven't heard of it, the Kids Online Safety Act is being attempted again, so if you want a group of 5 schmucks picked by the person who is either your president or a dictator depending on whose lemon you wanna suck to decide what can be shown on the internet, then by all means support it.

I'd say though, it kills any freedom of speech on the widely American owned internet, and will stifle voices that speak out against the presidency. Unless you want your free speaking America to look like the USSR, a country where if you met someone there, their eyes would be darting around for cameras, that is.

Another side effect is that it would systematically remove things related to Sex Ed, which helps with safe sex (even if you're one of those "only after marriage" types, you WANT comprehensive sex ed), or anything under the LGBT family of people and products, which would lead to a lot of my friends magically getting removed from the internet like that one picture of 3 guys that turned into a picture of 2 guys after one of em crossed stalin.

Or if you wanna look at any ~saucy online material~ and don't wanna present your ID so that every federal agent can track your wanking habits.

Basically, I'm asking you to look at more moderate and reasonable options within the Republican party, or since your Overton Window has shifted far enough right that the pre-appealing-to-big-business-and-claiming-to-be-christian republicans would now be one of them blues.

Point is, y'all at shit out of options, the government wants to pass KOSA to censor anything they don't like and make your porn habits more known than Alex Jones's trans porn tabs, and it will suck for everyone worldwide, especially my people in the US who are trans, because they won't even be able to speak up about things like half the states (the republican ones) trying to make them going outside in an area where a child might see them (like if they went to buy food) equal to sharing child porn.

Do you want a government that censors the very existence of people they don't like, and will keep hating on until the bible blasters realise they've been getting duped since Reagan?

THAT is how you write a headline!

[aalt-ctrl-del]

for the record, we haven't seen much fence building in leu of mass shootings. Don't get me wrong, we have fences built in proportion to a crime area - hire capita of violence and gun ratio to proximity of the public school.

After those groceries stores got shot to death in texas and buffalo, we do have stores with police chillin outside 24/7. There's always a police cruiser and a big guy with a bullet proof vest at the doors, it's like we got the armored bouncer than the greeter inside the walmart - everythings nice and civil.

But we don't get giant fences built around schools - we do have cops at the high schools, because big kids and big fights. But the elementary schools in my area don't have reinforced fences - the only fence I've see was around this black only school (condemne) in deep south texas. It had a pokestop, and a fence to keep out homeless.

Otherwise, no amount is made on a national level to build a fortress around schools with little kids.

We like to talk and argue about the measures to take to protect children, because as I always say, this must happen again. We must have another shooting, we must have more dead children. If you say, "no, that should not happen." That's like praying to god for the winning lottery numbers - maybe it will work for someone, but not for everyone.

Another school has to be shot to pieces. We have to have more thoughts and prayers. We need more mourning, more sorrow, more arguments, more of all this fallout and vigils for children who didn't make it to summer break. We have to we have to we have to we have to

We have to regulate guns

We have to build fences

We have to provide better security

We have to get big men with guns patrolling schools full of children

We have to have another shooting

All of these things will happen again. They must happen again. And if you're one of those easily triggered by this and go, "That's disgusting." "How dare you" "Monster"

Your passion is commendable, but think about the mantra "It must happen again" Cause we have fully accepted that we cannot, and will not try to indulge in the idea to implement competent measures to protect these children. republicans hiked their shoulders up and went, "Well, we can't do anything abou-- GOOD LORD IS THAT A MAN IN A DRESS?!? OMG IF THE CHILDREN SEE THAT THEY'LL BE SCARRED FOR LIFE. BAN IT! CRIMINALIZE IT! ZERO TOLERANCE! MONSTEROUS!!"

The Dems have at the least provided a means to mitigate and reduce these risks - eradicate certain caliber of guns, moderate munitions sales, apply more astringent background checks. It of course won't eliminate the outlier of the variable, but it will be the effort and motion toward accountability. We have better quality control over gravel and foundation laying, than we do weapons designed to kill multiple threats in a small margin of time. Hell, lemme bring in abortion restrictions - which remains restricted to affecting the family involved - a woman is not gonna take her uterus and cull a classroom of kids, but republicans treat each miscarriage and each masturbation like Noah and his Ark got sunk by a rogue ice berg.

It's not the political measure of robbing people of fictitious RIGHTS, it is the effort and acknowledgment of DOING BETTER. Of saying "in wake of this atrocity, we didn't do enough. But we will do better, and we are trying. We will investigate not why the person did this, but HOW and WHO armed them. We will explore if the arms merchant fulfilled all criteria to warrant the legal sale, and whether they should maintain a license to continue their business."

Every school day parents and guardians let go of their kids, so they can attend classes that prepare them for community involvement and eventual placement within our society. They sure as fuck don't send them off to conduct military style drills like we live in some war torn world, but that is the world that republicans have built, because they clutch tighter to the AR than they do their own kids. Their gun probably gets more psychological enrichment that their own child. THE GUN IS BETTER SHELTERED THAN THE AR.

republicans are so infantile and insecure about losing a rifle tomorrow, they don't even acknowledge that it is more likely tomorrow someone is gonna say goodbye to their kid, and it'll be last time they ever see that child in one piece. In one piece.

If you take a gun apart, you can still put it back together good as new, maybe better than before. But you take a 9 year old apart bone-by muscle- by skin - no mortician and no amount of skill will ever restore that child. Don't doubt, both the gun and child can have a lot in common. They'll both be cold and stiff.

[cipheramnesia]

I know that thing with JKR being stupid about people who menstruate is over 2 years ago, but you seem knowledgeable about the subject and did anyone ever point out that, given the original article was about specifc problems THE PANDEMIC caused for menstruating people, and given her age, JKR likely didn't even menstruate any more at that point, she was literally inserting herself into a Discussion about/for a group she wasn't part of...?

Here's the thing about conservatives like JKR, really most people who are against social progress. They don't care about hypocrisy.

Conservatives don't care about hypocrisy. Republicans don't care about hypocrisy. Tories don't care about hypocrisy. No one puts themselves in between social progress who cares about hypocrisy.

I'm repeating this because all of us who are leftist or want equality or inclusion need to hammer that home internally so we can stop trying to use it as a rhetorical tactic.

Rowling has never written a woman who is particularly aspirational in her life, essentially has written zero queer people, and knows almost no trans people. She's perfectly happy to talk about women and lesbians and trans people all day long despite her writing setting all those people back a few decades.

Every conservative politician pushing family values has fucked dozens of people on the side and usually has multiple marriages. They work against any and all programs designed to feed or house children. Their constituency knows this and cheers them on with gusto.

Supporters of trump with blue lives matter flags and punisher skull bumper stickers are out in droves demanding we defund the FBI. I guarantee you they will be back to support whatever cop shoots an innocent person next week.

There are white women right now crying into their Facebook pages about the loss of Roe v Wade who are without doubt paying into campaigns for forced birthing candidates and calling anyone who needs abortion access sluts damned to hell.

What I'm getting at here is fuck Rowling for her miserable, pathetic, sycophantic hypocrisy but that's not important. Observation of hypocrisy while eminently enjoyable changes nothing.

JKR off her shits again? Maybe donate to Mermaids UK. Forced birthers in office in your area? Donate to Planned Parenthood and vote em out or maybe even run for office if you got the resources. Volunteer at soup kitchens or homeless shelters, donate to organizations for feeding the poor.

Like no one person can do all of this all the time and maybe not even a lot of the time, but that doesn't matter. Do what you can when you can, try and be better. If you have a chance to make a difference to someone take it, just try and do kind things that give people help or hope or homes or hands y'know?

I promise not a single one of these hypocritical bastards is gonna be undone by sex scandals or bad optics, and we're lucky if they even face legal consequences for blatantly violating the law and order they love to tout so proudly. So, y'know, it's fun, but also fuck it. Put down the dancing crabs and do something helpful.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Corruption

“Corruption” conjures images of bags of cash changing hands in deserted parking garages, but I’d like to propose a simple and concrete definition that goes beyond that: “Corruption” is when something bad happens because its harms are diffused and its gains are concentrated.

Here’s what I mean. West Virginia is known as coal country, but coal is actually a small, dwindling industry in WV; WV’s biggest industry is chemical processing, dominated by Dow — chem processing, like many industries, is heavily concentrated into a few global monopolies.

WV has a water crisis, with frequent “boil water” advisories. Its origins are in the chemical industry — specifically, in a regulatory proceeding where state regulators sought comment on whether to relax the EPA’s national guidelines on chemical runoff into drinking water.

Dow, acting through the manufacturers’ association it controls, argued the people of WV could absorb more poison than the national average because they were much fatter than the median American, and when they drank, it was mostly beer, not water.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/03/14/the-real-elitists-looking-down-on-trump-voters/

No, really.

Here’s the thing. I’m not qualified to set the safe levels of different kinds of runoff in water-tables. It’s probably not zero (at least, not for most chemicals), but it’s also not “anything goes.”

It’s a question that requires subtle, interdisciplinary expertise: chemistry, health, environmental science. It’s an area where people of good faith can disagree.

These thorny, high-stakes technical questions that cross disciplines are the norm, not the exception.

Even if you have the technical knowhow to evaluate whether wearing masks fights covid, that doesn’t answer questions about vaccine safety, or whether zoom-school will turn your kid into an ignoramus.

Answer those questions and you’re left with still more: should you get in one of Southwest’s recertified Boeing 737-Max airplanes? Is the code specifying the reinforced steel joist that holds up your roof adequate, or is your building gonna collapse?

Should you eat carbs? Will your 401k preserve you through a dignified retirement? Answering all of these questions definitively for yourself requires earning 50+ PhDs, but also, people who have those PhDs don’t all agree with one another.

In a technologically complex world, there will always be official advice whose technical arguments we can’t understand. Our only reassurance is the process by which that advice is arrived at.

We may not understand the arguments, but we can recognize an open, independent process refereed by neutral regulators who show their work and recuse themselves if they have a conflict of interest.

We don’t always understand what goes on inside the box, but we can tell whether the box itself is sound. We can tell judges are financially interested in outcomes, whether they publish their deliberations, whether they revisit their conclusions in light of new evidence.

That’s all we’ve got, and it depends on a balance of powers that arises from a pluralistic, diffused set of industrial interests.

When an industry says with one voice that West Virginians are so fat that we can poison them without injury, it carries a lot of weight.

(so to speak)

It’s a stupid argument. It’s a wicked argument. It’s a lethal argument. It’s the kind of argument that might get you laughed out of the room if it is filled with hundreds of squabbling chemical companies looking to dunk on one another.

That’s the thing about conspiracies (and Dow was, in fact, engaged in a conspiracy to poison West Virginians to enrich its shareholders) — they require a lot of discipline, with all the conspirators remaining loyal to the conspiracy and no one breaking ranks.

The bigger a group is, the more it struggles to keep a united front. That’s why there’s so much billionaire class solidarity. Sure, it’s hard to maintain unity among a clutch of grandiose maniacs, but it’s much harder to maintain unity among billions of their victims.

Monopolization is corruption’s handmaiden — not just because it lets Dow hire fancy lawyers and “experts” to dress up “fat people are immune to poison” as sound policy, but because the industry can sing that awfful song with one voice.

Dow spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to win a policy that will save it millions — and cost the people of WV hundreds of millions or even billions in health costs, lost productivity, and, of course, the intergenerational trauma of ruined and lost human lives.

The reason millions in gains can trump billions in losses is that that the millions are reaped by just a few firms, who can wield them with precision to secure the continued right to impose costs on the rest of us, while the losses are spread out across the whole state.

For Dow to corrupt West Virginia’s legislature, it need only tithe a small percentage of its winnings to political causes and dark money orgs.

For West Virginians to fight corruption in the cash-money world of political influence campaigns, they have to overcome their collective action problem and outspend Dow — all while bearing the human and monetary costs of Dow’s corruption.

America is a land of manifest, obvious dysfunctions, and close examination reveals their common root in corruption.

Take the health-care system: Americans pay more for worse outcomes than anyone else in the rich world.

Their healthcare is rationed by faceless, cruel bureaucracies. They ration their medicine or skip necessary procedures. Patients hate this — but so do doctors and nurses, who have to hire armies of bureaucrats to fight with insurers.

Everyone hates this system. Everyone knows it’s rotten. Everyone — except for a handful of pharma, hospital and insurance monopolists, and the propagandists they pay to busily race through the crowd, busily swapping hats and shouting, “SOCIALISM! BOO! SOCIALISM!”

But while the US healthcare system is terrible at providing healthcare, it’s very good at jackpotting for monopolists. They reap billions while costing the public trillions, and they hand around millions to keep that situation intact.

We can see that in action right now. Nina Turner is running to take over a Congressional seat in northeastern Ohio vacated by Marcia Fudge when she joined Biden’s cabinet.

https://www.dailyposter.com/dems-launch-proxy-war-on-medicare-for-all/

For 30 years, every Congressional rep for Ohio’s 11th supported Medicare for All — a commensense measure to end the long waits, price gouging and cruel bureaucratic rationing of for-profit care. Unsurprisingly, Turner also supports M4A.

https://twitter.com/ninaturner/status/1404793650895331337?s=20

In response, a group of corporate, establishment Congressional Dems have launched an all-out attack on Turner’s candidacy, joining forces with health-care lobbyists to raise vast corporate fortunes to support her primary challenger, Shontel Brown.

The seven Dem lawmakers attacking Turner have collectively taken in $5m from pharma and health-care monopolists. James E Clyburn alone has pocketed $1m from pharma. He’s leading the charge against Turner.

https://twitter.com/TaylorPopielarz/status/1405121330433957888

Before Clyburn accepted $1m worth of pharma money, he co-sponsored Medicare For All legislation. Now he’s its most bitter opponent, insisting that it’s political poison (a majority of his constituents support M4A).

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/live-blog/south-carolina-primary-live-updates-democrats-vote-2020-candidates-n1145296/ncrd1146076

One million people in Ohio lost their jobs — and health care — during the pandemic. The system is murdering and maiming people. It’s a wasteful boondoggle that’s bad for everyone except a tiny minority of shareholders and the corrupt officials who accept their blood-money.

It’s not just healthcare. Think of Exxon Mobil’s crime against humanity and Earth: the 40-year coverup and disinformation campaign to delay action on the climate emergency. Exxon spent millions, made tens of billions, and cost us all trillions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crisis-crime-fossil-fuels-environment

The megadroughts, once-in-millennium heatwaves, raging wildfires, annual floods-of-the-century and zoonitic plagues Exxon bought with their millions were objectively a very bad deal — but their concentrated gains beat our much larger diffused losses (so far). #ExxonKnew.

But corruption creates policy debt, and the interest on that debt compounds — in a degraded environment, worsening health, precarious work, and a collapse in trust in institutions. The corrupt have a structural advantage, but it’s not a sure thing.

Take Ohio (again). The GOP-dominated Senate passed legislation to ban Ohio cities from offering municipal broadband. Now, municipal broadband is the best internet in America: cheaper, faster and more reliable than anything the telecoms monopolists offer.

There are ~900 (mostly Republican) towns and counties where people get their internet from their local government:

https://muninetworks.org/communitymap

And they fucking love it, just as much as their Comcast-burdened peers elsewhere hate their service:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180808223947/https://www.consumerreports.org/phone-tv-internet-bundles/people-still-dont-like-their-cable-companies-telecom-survey/

Muni networks are better at everything to do with the internet: connection speeds, price, and customer service. There’s only one area in which they underperform relative to telecoms monopolies: generating profits for shareholders by overcharging and underinvesting.

There’s only a tiny minority of people who’d trade good internet service for profitable internet service (namely, the people receiving the profits). But the pro-monopolists have concentrated gains, while the public experiences diffused losses.

That’s why the Ohio Senate passed its budget bill banning municipal networks. But when the budget was reconciled in the Ohio House, the measure was killed, thanks to an all-out uprising led by the people of Fairlawn, who stepped up to defend Fairlawngig, their muni ISP.

The victory for muni broadband is a triumph of evidence over corruption — proof that the diffused nature of corruption losses can be overcome. It’s cause for hope, especially in light of this week’s collapse of the antitrust case against Facebook.

https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-antitrust-case-against-facebook-very-much-alive/

Facebook escaped justice by citing the theories of Robert Bork, Nixon’s chief criminal co-conspirator and Ronald Reagan’s court sorcerer. Bork insisted that anittrust law had but one purpose: to keep prices down.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/28/dubious-quant-residue/#incinerators-r-us

Any other consideration, especially political corruption arising from market concentration, was out of scope.

The court agreed. No surprise; 40% of the US Federal judiciary has attended a lavish “Manne Seminar,” junkets where they are indoctrinated into Borkism.

But the absurdity of ruling that Facebook isn’t a fit subject for anti-monopoly law is the beginning of the end for Borkism, prompting bipartisan calls — led by Elizabeth Warren — to explicitly redesign American antitrust.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/facebooks-surprise-antitrust-victory-could-inspire-congress-to-overhaul-the-rules-entirely/ar-AALCJz8

Corruption has many costs: monetary, human, environmental. But every bit as important is the cost to institutional credibility. Remember, none of us are capable of understanding the technical nuances of the dozens of life-or-death decisions we face daily.

If we can’t trust our institutions — if we don’t believe that regulators are neutral, good-faith experts in ardent pursuit of the truth and the public good — then our very idea of shared reality collapses, as Snowden has written:

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/conspiracy-pt1

It’s hard to overstate the sheer, reeling epistemological terror of institutional collapse. When the EPA allows the chemical industry to poison America, how can you know whether the products in the store can be trusted not to kill your family?

https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/epa-pesticides-exposure-opp/

Remember, the Flint water crisis came about as the result of corruption: the promises of “experts” that taking shortcuts to save money would come out all right, despite the copious evidence to the contrary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Water_Crisis

What parent of a permanently damaged child, poisoned by lead deliberately introduced to save pittances for a tiny group of people, could ever trust any “expert” process again?

Michigan Republicans saved millions at the expense of billions, but the gains were concentrated among the wealthy white taxpayers of the state who enjoyed cuts to the top marginal rate, and the costs were born by the Black families of Flint. That’s corruption.