#the way you people will be like 'voting is powerful' then tell people not to use the power of their votes is um disgusting and immature

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Emily Singer at Daily Kos:

In 2016, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. crapped all over Donald Trump and his supporters, agreeing that they were racist idiots too stupid to succeed, according to a trove of radio clips unearthed by CNN.

CNN reported that Kennedy—Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services—made the comments on his radio show “Ring of Fire,” where he regularly criticized Trump and those who backed him. For example, in an episode that aired in March 2016, Kennedy praised journalist Matt Taibbi’s criticism of Trump and his base. “One of the things that you write so beautifully, and your stuff is so fun to read, but you write about Trump, quote, ‘The way that you build a truly vicious nationalist movement is to wed a relatively small core of belligerent idiots to a much larger group of opportunists and spineless fellow travelers whose primary function is to turn a blind eye to things,’” Kennedy said, quoting Taibbi’s writing. “‘We may not have that many outright Nazis in America, but we have plenty of cowards and bootlickers, and once those fleshy dominoes start tumbling into the Trump camp, the game is up.’” Kennedy went on to say that Trump is a racist demagogue but isn’t smart enough to be effective like Adolf Hitler because Hitler had a "plan" and “was interested in policy,” while Trump is "non compos mentis"—Latin for "of unsound mind."

CNN reported that Kennedy also compared Trump to other past autocrats, like Benito Mussolini and Francisco Franco. “And you can see that every statement that Donald Trump makes is fear-based,” Kennedy said in an episode that aired in December 2016, according to CNN. “Every statement he makes. You know, we have to be fear of the Muslims. We have to be fear of the black people, and particularly the big Black guy Obama, who’s destroying this country, who’s making everybody miserable.” Kennedy went on: “And only one person has the genius and the capacity to solve these things. And I’m not gonna tell you how I’m gonna do it. Just trust in me, vote for me and everything will be great again. And of course, that whole thing is like a carnival barker.” He also called Trump racist and compared him with former Alabama Gov. George Wallace, an infamous segregationist.

“Wallace’s appeal … was to White middle-class men who had experienced the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s as a social demotion, and who found their lives in turmoil,” Kennedy said, according to CNN. “And that kind of insecurity, I think, is the target of the summons that Donald Trump has sent out to the American public.” Of course, Kennedy has now changed his tune, blaming his past comments on—you guessed it—the "mainstream media." “Like many Americans, I allowed myself to believe the mainstream media’s distorted, dystopian portrait of President Trump. I no longer hold this belief and now regret having made those statements,” he told CNN. “There’s apparently nothing that can’t be blamed on the mainstream media, even one’s own very public criticisms,” CNN reporter Jim Sciutto wrote in a post on X. Ultimately, Kennedy is one of a number of people now in Trump's orbit who slammed the president-elect in the past but have since retracted their statements in an effort to amass power.

During a March 2016 appearance on Ring Of Fire, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave praise to journalist Matt Taibbi’s blunt criticisms of Donald Trump and his MAGA Cultists by calling them “belligerent idiots.”

Now, both Taibbi and RFK Jr. are on the Trump train (esp. RFK Jr.), or at least Trump-curious. Also, Trump’s VP pick, JD Vance, was once ardently critical of him, but now is a suck-up toady for him.

[dykedvonte]

I dislike takes that Danse would be just as conservative in modernized aus when it's clearly shown his staunch views of things come from his time in the Brotherhood and his deep-rooted desire to belong to something with a greater purpose.

Not to mention lines that show much more open-mindedness that get overlooked for his harsher sentiments when you first meet him. Like the oppurtunity to be a part of something is why Danse fell so far into Brotherhood dogma and it doesn't negate the offense things he does but I feel like it's just lazy to be like "hmmm he'd def be racist" just so it aligns to his BoS beliefs.

[anotherpapercut]

it's kind of scary and disgusting the way people are responding to the fact that Joe Biden is enthusiastically participating in genocide with "no candidate is morally pure" dude this isn't about whether or not he shoplifted in his 20s. thousands of people are being murdered and he is going out of his way to make sure that doesn't stop

[coquelicoq]

wow. they weren't lying that 19 portland mayoral candidates sure can underwhelming

[theriverdalereviewer]

everyone jumping to team kamala we will never experience true freedom in this country

[relicfragment]

i am a vote blue no matter who person because i know damn well that things will get worse if we don't vote for the one option we have lmao.

[ceilidhtransing]

The discussions around whether or not to vote for Kamala keep being dominated by very loud voices shouting that anyone who advocates for her “just doesn't care about Palestine!” and “is willing to overlook genocide!” and “has no moral backbone at all!” And while some of these voices will be bots, trolls, psyops - we know that this happens; we know that trying to persuade progressives to split the vote or not vote at all is a strategy employed by hostile actors - of course many of them won't be. But what this rhetoric does is continually force the “you should vote for her” crowd onto the back foot of having to go to great lengths writing entire essays justifying their choice, while the “don't vote/vote third party” crowd is basically never asked to justify their choice. It frames voting for Kamala as a deeply morally compromised position that requires extensive justification while framing not voting or voting third party as the neutral and morally clean stance.

So here's another way of looking at it. How much are you willing to accept in order to feel like you're not compromising your morals on one issue?

Are you willing to accept the 24% rise in maternal deaths - and 39% increase for Black women - that is expected under a federal abortion ban, according to the Centre for American Progress? Those percentages represent real people who are alive now who would die if the folks behind Project 2025 get their way with reproductive healthcare.

Are you willing to accept the massive acceleration of climate change that would result from the scrapping of all climate legislation? We don't have time to fuck around with the environment. A gutting of climate policy and a prioritisation of fossil fuel profits, which is explicitly promised by Trump, would set the entire world back years - years that we don't have.

Are you willing to accept the classification of transgender visibility as inherently “pornographic” and thus the removal of trans people from public life? Are you willing to accept the total elimination of legal routes for gender-affirming care? The people behind the Trump campaign want to drive queer and trans people back underground, back into the closet, back into “criminality”. This will kill people. And it's maddening that caring about this gets called “prioritising white gays over brown people abroad” as if it's not BIPOC queer and trans Americans who will suffer the most from legislative queer- and transphobia, as they always do.

Are you willing to accept the domestic deployment of the military to crack down on protests and enforce racist immigration policy? I'm sure it's going to be very easy to convince huge numbers of normal people to turn up to protests and get involved in political organising when doing so may well involve facing down an army deployed by a hardcore authoritarian operating under the precedent that nothing he does as president can ever be illegal.

Are you willing to accept a president who openly talks about wanting to be a dictator, plans on massively expanding presidential powers, dehumanises his political enemies and wants the DOJ to “go after them”, and assures his supporters they won't have to vote again? If you can't see the danger of this staring you right in the face, I don't know what to tell you. Allowing a wannabe dictator to take control of the most powerful country on earth would be absolutely disastrous for the entire world.

Are you willing to accept an enormous uptick in fascism and far-right authoritarianism worldwide? The far right in America has huge influence over an entire international network of “anti-globalists”, hardcore anti-immigrant xenophobes, transphobic extremists, and straight-up fascists. Success in America aids and emboldens these people everywhere.

Are you willing to accept an enormous number of preventable deaths if America faces a crisis in the next four years: a public health emergency, a natural disaster, an ecological catastrophe? We all saw how Trump handled Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico. We all saw how Trump handled Covid-19. He fanned the flames of disaster with a constant flow of medical misinformation and an unspeakably dangerous undermining of public health experts. It's estimated that 40% of US pandemic deaths could have been avoided if the death rates had corresponded to those in other high-income countries. That amounts to nearly half a million people. One study from January 2021 estimated between around 4,200 and 12,200 preventable deaths attributable purely to Trump's statements about masks. We're highly unlikely to face another global pandemic in the next few years but who knows what crises are coming down the pipeline?

Are you willing to accept the attempted deportation of millions - millions - of undocumented people? This is “rounding people up and throwing them into camps where no one ever hears from them again” territory. That's a blueprint for genocide right there and it's a core tenet of both Trump's personal policy and Project 2025. And of course they wouldn't be going after white people. They most likely wouldn't even restrict their tyranny to people who are actually undocumented. Anyone racially othered as an “immigrant” would be at risk from this.

Are you willing to accept not just the continuation of the current situation in Palestine, but the absolute annihilation of Gaza and the obliteration of any hope for imminent peace? There is no way that Trump and the people behind him would not be catastrophically worse for Gaza than Kamala or even Biden. Only recently he was telling donors behind closed doors that he wanted to “set the [Palestinian] movement back 25 or 30 years” and that “any student that protests, I throw them out of the country”. This is not a man who can be pushed in a direction more conducive to peace and justice. This is a man who listens to his wealthy donors, his Christian nationalist Republican allies, and himself.

Are you willing to accept a much heightened risk of nuclear war? Obviously this is hardly a Trump policy promise. But I can't think of a single president since the Cold War who is more likely to deploy nuclear weapons, given how casually he talks about wanting to use them and how erratic and unstable he can be in his dealings with foreign leaders. To quote Foreign Policy only this year, “Trump told a crowd in January that one of the reasons he needed immunity was so that he couldn’t be indicted for using nuclear weapons on a city.” That's reassuring. I'm not even in the US and I remember four years of constant background low-level terror that Trump would take offence at something some foreign leader said or think that he needs to personally intervene in some military situation to “sort it out” and decide to launch the entire world into nuclear war. No one sane on earth wants the most powerful person on the planet to be as trigger-happy and careless with human life as he is, especially if he's running the White House like a dictator with no one ever telling him no. But depending on what Americans do in November, he may well be inflicted again on all of us, and I guess we'll all just have to hope that he doesn't do the worst thing imaginable.

“But I don't want those things! Stop accusing me of supporting things I don't support!” Yes, of course you don't want those things. None of us does. No one's saying that you actively support them. No one's accusing you of wanting Black women to die from ectopic pregnancies or of wanting to throw Hispanic people in immigrant detention centres or of wanting trans people to be outlawed (unlike, I must point out, the extremely emotive and personal accusations that get thrown around about “wanting Palestinian children to die” if you encourage people to vote for Kamala).

But if you're advocating against voting for Kamala, you are clearly willing to accept them as possible consequences of your actions. That is the deal you're making. If a terrible thing happening is the clear and easily foreseeable outcome of your action (or in the case of not voting, inaction), in a way that could have been prevented by taking a different and just as easy action, you are partly responsible for that consequence. (And no, it's not “a fear campaign” to warn people about things he's said, things he wants to do, and plans drawn up by his close allies. This is not “oooh the Democrats are trying to bully you into voting for them by making him out to be really bad so you'll feel scared and vote for Kamala!” He is really bad, in obvious and documented and irrefutable ways.)

And if you believe that “both parties are the same on Gaza” (which, you know, they really aren't, but let's just pretend that they are) then presumably you accept that the horrors being committed there will continue, in the immediate term anyway, regardless of who wins the presidency. Because there really isn't some third option that will appear and do everything we want. It's going to be one of those two. And we can talk all day about wanting a better system or how unfair it is that every presidential election only ever has two viable candidates and how small the Overton window is and all that but hell, we are less than eighty days out from the election; none of that is going to get fixed between now and November. Electoral reform is a long-term (but important!) goal, not something that can be effected in the span of a couple of months by telling people online to vote third party. There is no “instant ceasefire and peace negotiation” button that we're callously overlooking by encouraging people to vote for Kamala. (My god, if there was, we would all be pressing it.)

If we're suggesting people vote for her, it's not that we “are willing to overlook genocide” or “don't care about sacrificing brown people abroad” or whatever. Nothing is being “overlooked” here. It's that we're simply not willing to accept everything else in this post and more on top of continued atrocities in Gaza. We're not willing to take Trump and his godawful far-right authoritarian agenda as an acceptable consequence of feeling like we have the moral high ground on Palestine. I cannot stress enough that if Kamala doesn't win, we - we all, in the whole world - get Trump. Are you willing to accept that?

And one more point to address: I've seen too many people act frighteningly flippant and naïve about terrible things Trump or his campaign want to do, with the idea that people will simply be able to prevent all these bad things by “organising” and “protesting” and “collective action”. “I'm not willing to accept these things; that's why I'll fight them tooth and nail every day of their administration” - OK but if you're not even willing to cast a vote then I have doubts about your ability to form “the Resistance”, which by the way would have to involve cooperation with people of lots of progressive political stripes in order to have the manpower to be effective, and if you're so committed to political purity that you view temporarily lending your support to Kamala at the ballot box as an untenable betrayal of everything you stand for then forgive me for also doubting your ability to productively cooperate with allies on the ground with whom you don't 100% agree. Plus, if the Trump campaign gets its way, American progressives would be kept so busy trying to put out about twenty different fires at once that you'd be able to accomplish very little. Maybe you get them to soften their stance on trans healthcare but oh shit, the climate policies are still in place. But more importantly, how many people do you think will protest for abortion rights if doing so means staring down a gun? Or organise to protect their neighbours from deportation if doing so means being thrown in prison yourself? And OK, maybe you're sure that you will, but history has shown us time and time again that most people won't. Most people aren't willing to face that kind of personal risk. And a tiny number of lefties willing to risk incarceration or death to protect undocumented people or trans people or whatever other groups are targeted is sadly not enough to prevent the horrors from happening. That is small fry compared to the full might of a determined state. Of course if the worst happens and Trump wins then you should do what you can to mitigate the harm; I'm not saying you shouldn't. But really the time to act is now. You have an opportunity right here to mitigate the harm and it's called “not letting him get elected”. Act now to prevent that kind of horrific authoritarian situation from developing in the first place; don't sit this one out under the naïve belief that “we'll be able to stop it if it happens”. You won't.

[traegorn]

while i completely agree with your assessment of realistically what a trump vs harris presidency will look like, i think the issue me and a lot of other leftists have is that there is no need to tell people (and effectively tell harris) that oh ofc we are gna vote for her despite these issues because trump is THAT bad and if you say you don't want to vote for her because her party is pro-war, pro-genocide, then you are condemning americans to a trump presidency. we know trump is worse! i don't want him to win AT ALL, but why would harris even consider even changing the language she is using (i'm looking at the absolutely stupid speech she was giving in michigan, given the large arab & muslim-american population there and given its a battleground state) if she thinks she is going to win on a not-trump basis? i know who i'm voting for on nov 5th if it comes down to it, but we need the democrats to THINK they are going to lose until the very last minute, we need them to feel like they can't just rely on being the lesser of two evils if we want any chance of a shift on palestine. because they very well might lose, for this exact reason (and i'm speaking again more to the votes of the arab & muslim-american population which is far more demographically meaningful than the votes of leftists) and if that happens, they have no one to blame but themselves.

So I'm going to tell you something important: You don't have the leverage you think you have.

Political campaigns are a machine that's been operating the same way for a long time on the Democratic side. The Republicans may have abandoned a lot of the old ways of doing things, but the Democratic party hasn't. And you've got people running these campaigns who are steeped in the "wisdom" of how you win.

And when a block of voters says they're not going to vote for their candidate, they tend to believe them. So they decide to go court the people who they think will vote for them. That's why you've seen the Harris campaign trying to court moderate Republicans who might be iffy on voting for Trump a third time.

Right now one of the reasons Netanyahu is refusing to commit to a cease fire is because he thinks Trump can win. If Trump wins, he has no reason to ever agree to one. One of the reasons he thinks Trump can win is because the polling is so close.

If you want to know why they've gone to the right recently, it's because they think they've lost the left. And since a lot of those leftists are claiming there's a line in the sand that they don't have the power to appease (because -- again -- they can't get Netanyahu to do shit right now), they're going to go for the centrist Republicans.

Also, there seems to be this weird notion that the only way to move the Democrats is during the election. That's not how you move people. You keep pressuring them during their term and it works. Like Biden is continuing to work on forgiving student debt even though he doesn't have an election ahead of him. Because they know that what he does reflects on the future of the party. Voting doesn't end this game, it's the start of it.

But none of it will matter if Trump wins.

[aw-dag]

Section 1557 is the law that guarantees trans protections in the us. Saying she supports that law is not “not giving a shit about trans rights lol” just because you don’t know to what law she is referring.

Lovely how libs has spent a year going "yeah well Harris is gonna back and fund a genocide but at least she will stand by trans people in the US" just for her to come out as not giving a shit about trans rights lol

[tobiasdrake]

Like, getting political for a moment. A thing a lot of people need to understand is that, ultimately, rules only exist if they are enforceable. The mechanism of enforcement is what determines the realness of a rule.

If you're playing Monopoly and you decide that being in Jail sucks so you move your piece to Go and call it a tunneling loophole, there's nothing built into the game to actually stop you from doing that. Other players yelling at you and banishing you from the table is how the rule is enforced. But if they don't, if they let you do that, then I'm sorry but that's just how the game is played now. If you're allowed to do it then it's not against the rules.

We all instinctively understand that when you're running track, you're not supposed to cross the lines into someone else's lane. But the lines are not a wall. They're not physically preventing you from doing anything. If you decide you want to run into the lane to your right and jump-kick the other racer, you physically can do that.

The line on the ground is a social construct. It's part of the magic circle; A thing that takes on special meaning, even psychological power, so long as we exist within its play space. But it's not real, and it only has power if somebody comes over and drags you off the field for striking that other racer.

At the highest echelons of power, a lot of what "can" and "can't" be done are actually just the boundaries of a magic circle with few real enforcement mechanisms. The President can't do that. But. Like. Who's going to stop him if he does?

The biggest thing we learned during the Trump Presidency was just how many restrictions on government power are illusory. Trump spent his four years in office testing the limits of what he can and can't do. Stepping over the lines of the magic circle to see which ones had enforcement mechanisms and which were merely decorative. And revealing that an alarming number were decorative.

Because the thing about the highest offices, about POTUS and SCOTUS and Congress, is that they're the highest offices. There's nobody above them. The only check on their power is each other and, contrary to what high school social studies might tell you, those checks aren't very strong at all.

Trump wants to redefine the game rules to be dictatorial. The magic circle says he can't do that. But the only factor that truly decides whether he can or can't is whether the other players at the table will let him do it. And if you listen to the way Republican Congressmen talk, it's not reassuring.

There are no executive super-cops who will arrest Trump if he breaks the rules. The Avengers are not going to show up and stop him from continuing to reconfigure the magic circle to his liking. The only thing, the only true restriction on his power, is the vote. It's the fact that we, as a population, get to make a choice as to whether or not he even gets to sit back down at the table to play again at all.

In a democracy, voters are the enforcement mechanism. Let's try and remember that when November comes around.

[fairuzfan]

What's new(ish) in the settler-colonial state of the US is that a series of bills have been passed in the House (the Baby Senate as I like to say) and are on their way to the Senate that make it harder to voice support for Palestinians while also making sure your direct taxes aid the genocide in Gaza.

These bills affirm the US's stance on the settler-colonial Zionist Entity and the implicit ties that the government has with Israel and really — just goes to show you how Israel is just one big base for American Imperialism.

Anyways, there's still time to call your senate and tell them that you don't want these bills that only further spiral the US into fascism so even if you think it might not do much — it's important that we document our dissent in official sources. And while you're at it — call your congressperson and tell them that if they voted for this you're not voting for them next election. If they voted against the bills, still call your congresspeople and tell them you support their decision to vote against these bills.

Here are the bills:

📍Resolution: HR 6126

Resolution Name: Israel Security Supplemental Appropriations Act Description: Gives $14.3 Billion To Israel From The IRS (Taxes You Pay). Like straight up. Just takes it from an IRS project, which used our tax dollars to begin with, to give to Israel "defense." Link to check summary: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr6126

📍Resolution: HR 798

Resolution Name: "Condemning the support of Hamas, Hezbollah, and other terrorist organizations at institutions of higher education, which may lead to the creation of a hostile environment for Jewish students, faculty, and staff." Description: Will Penalize Students On American College Campuses For Supporting Palestine. This includes "Free Palestine" Protests as according to Rep Owens who introduced the bill (Click). Link to check who voted: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/118-2023/h578

📍Resolution: HR 3266

Resolution Name: "Tolerance in Palestinian Education Act" Description: They will be examining Palestinian education materials to see if it promotes "hate" or "violence" (aka are they teaching their children to become murderers??). Will inevitably require Revision Of Text Books In Palestinian Schools To Portray The Occupation In A Positive Light. Link to summary: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr3266

📍Resolution: HR 340

Resolution Name: "The Hamas International Financing Prevent Action" Description: Claims to stop financial support for "terrorist" organizations but considering that Gaza's government is run by Hamas, then this would mean Gaza will receive absolutely no aid and donating to people in Gaza could get you in legal trouble. Link to summary: https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/hr340

There's a button for most of these bills that allows you to contact your representative directly. Please do take the time to contact them — while many of this isn't especially new to Palestinians, the difference is now that we have a larger power in numbers than we did in the past. Please make sure to advocate for you Palestinian comrades in the US whenever possible! Help us Free Palestine one step at a time!

[piratefalls]

okay someone please tell me why the only time i get misty-eyed during the red, white and royal blue movie is ellen's speech at the end?

[anexperimentallife]

Project 2025 would ban anything the far right considers pornography. The far right considers anything queer-positive to be pornography, and they WILL encode that into law if given just a TINY bit more power.

Have queer fanfic (or trad published literature) or pics of your transition, or of two men kissing, saved to your hard drive? If the GOP get their way, you'd be guilty of possession of pornography. Did you share any of it? You'd be guilty of distribution of pornography. Have a sweet coming of age story with a queer protagonist? That'd be child pornography.

Even now, states are trying to make it a crime to be openly queer in public (by, among other things, classifying dressing as the "wrong gender" anyplace kids might see as a sex crime against children). Oh, and Florida tried (and thankfully failed) to impose the death penalty for the above.

This is just one example of the horrors awaiting us if the project comes to fruition.

And the far right is already screaming that any adult who mentions around kids that queer people exist is "grooming" children. Wear your Pride shirt past a playground? You're now a child groomer. Think they won't put that into law if allowed? You're naive.

The GOP currently controls the Supreme Court (which is how they overturned Roe v. Wade) and has a majority in one branch of congress. Imagine what will happen nationwide with the GOP controlling every branch of government, including supermajoroties in both houses of Congress.

Oh, and top GOP officials have also announced their desire to NUKE Gaza, so don't come at me with, "but I can't vote blue because Biden..." Or tell me how you think Gaza would somehow be better off with Trump and the GOP.

In France, the left and center joined together--even though they disagree vehemently on many issues (get two leftists together and they'll have three positions on any issue)--to stop the far right from totally taking over, because the one thing they ALL agree on is that fascists dictatorships are BAD.

Much the same with the UK finally kicking out their own neo-fascist party, the Torries, to install 400 Labour MPs. Not everyone loves Labour's policies, but virtually everyone with a brain cell recognizes that the Torries are fascists, and that FASCISM BAD.

"Every election, they tell us this is the most important election if our lives!" Yeah, because each election over the past several decades has been more important than the one before, until we are now at a tipping point between remaining a fucked up oligarchy with SOME resemblance to freedom, and an outright neo-fascist military dictatorship.

Trump has literally stated publicly his intent to criminalize dissent, use US armed forces against protesters (Kent State, but multiply it by thousands), purge all agencies and stuff them with those personally loyal to him, and use the DOJ to go after anyone he perceives as a threat to his political power, among other things.

And remember the things he did in office, like pulling the teeth of federal workplace protections for queer folks (which Biden reatored).

I don't care if you don't like Biden or Harris. Neither do I. But the alternative is Trump, and anyone telling you not to vote in 2024, or to vote third party, is rooting for Trump, and for Project 2025. Anyone telling you not to vote does not give one single solitary flying fuck about vulnerable populations in the US or anywhere else in the world.

"You're just being an alarmist!" Right. Like I was being alarmist when I predicted the failed Jan 6 coup attempt. Like I was being alarmist when I said the GOP would try to use control over SCOTUS to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Fucking vote.

[palms-upturned]

Frustrates me to no end seeing people say “what’s your alternative to voting blue? Stage a revolution right now? This second? Get real, you’re posting on your computer instead of firebombing walmarts.” I don’t think that you understand what people are actually doing. I know for myself, I’ve been reading more history and theory than I ever have before. I’ve been marching. I’ve been getting involved with labor activism. I’ve been doing strategic research. I’ve tried to archive and share resources. I’ve watched other people do WAY more than I ever have or probably could. I’ve seen people occupy arms manufacturing sites and hold wildcat strikes and disrupt daily life as much as possible. We’ve all seen this happening at unprecedented levels for months now. And most of all, I’ve seen Palestinians telling us, rightfully full of anger, do not ever go back to how things were before. Do not turn away from what’s happening and your own complicity in it.

This is not something that we can vote our way out of. Our state is built on the same violence being inflicted on the people of Palestine. We helped to build Israel. We are still arming it and funding the “war” right now. Even the most half hearted measures from international bodies like the UN to take the bare minimum of a stance against genocide are quashed by the US. As they always have been, our power and resources are used to reinforce imperial and colonial hegemony. That remains the same no matter who is sitting in the Oval Office. And so does our own struggle for liberation. Meaningful change is never, ever going to come from within. We force the change to happen, as we always have.

If you can understand intersectionality, then surely you can understand this: we are not going to free ourselves by sacrificing colonized people. You may vote blue, and for you it could be a matter of life and death. Believe me, as a poor disabled person in a red state who almost killed myself over medical debt, I know the stakes. But I think you have to own the fact that you are empowering perpetrators of genocide and breaking solidarity with colonized people, not even to liberate yourself, but just to bargain with the oppressor for your life. That Palestinians and everyone else who we have harmed are going to be angry and they are more than within their rights. Instead of deflecting by just assuming that no one else is capable of putting their money where their mouth is and actually trying to lay groundwork for change, just do whatever you feel you have to do and sit with the reality of the situation.

Palestine will be free, we will be free, the whole world will someday be free. But for now, this is where we are, and we won’t free ourselves by operating like crabs in a bucket. Get organized, take care of each other, commit to solidarity. Empower yourself and each other rather than the state.

[fiercynn]

okay, if you have ever made or reblogged a “hold your nose and vote for biden” post, this is for you.

here’s the fucking thing about these kinds of posts. i've been seeing them since i first returned to tumblr in, I think, late 2022? they've certainly increased in frequency since october 7, but they were there before too, ready to counter any kind of opposition to biden that has cropped up. many of them are not just trying to educate people about what positive things biden has done, which, like, at least I can understand the motivation behind those ones? but so many of them are directly in response to people criticizing biden, and their only real point is “sure you’re upset at this thing biden did, but have you considered the election?” starting YEARS before the next presidential election, mind you.

and october 7 only made that clearer. i don’t think it had been a week before i saw these posts cropping up. can you not see how fucking ghoulish that is? to look at the rightful pain and anger of those whose relatives and communities are being slaughtered with active american support, to respond to one of the few pieces of agency most americans have in influencing what their governments do – their vote – by saying “yes but trump would be worse.” as if the primary people you’re lecturing – palestinians, muslims, arabs, black people, indigenous people, disabled people, other marginalized people – don’t remember exactly how bad it was under trump!

and even if you think not voting is an empty gesture – something i, who studied political science at a mainstream american lib college, who has worked as a field organizer on a previous democratic presidential campaign and for several policy campaigns, who currently works in public policy in america, used to believe, but have absolutely changed my mind on – what is in no way an empty gesture is saying publicly that you will not vote for someone. the arguments people usually have about why simply not voting is bad are that you can’t tell why someone is not voting, so it is as likely to be apathy or disenfranchisement as it is a political statement. but saying publicly that you will not vote for someone, and why you will not vote for them, absolutely is a political statement, and potentially a powerful one! but you choose to negate and/or ignore that by trotting out the “lesser of two evils” bullshit.

and then there’s the whole “yes but people will DIE under trump”. PEOPLE ARE DYING NOW. even if you’re fucking racist and have decided that palestinian lives don’t count, have you forgotten biden’s ongoing covid minimalism and dismantling of the CDC’s covid research and prevention infrastructure? have you forgotten his increase in spending for law enforcement scant years after the murder of george floyd and his administration's surveillance of protesters, including cop city protesters? have you forgotten his recent ramp-up in deportations of undocumented immigrants, including the active continuation of many trump-era policies?

maybe you have forgotten all those things and do purport to care about palestinians, but you just think that biden is doing his best to influence netanyahu and is getting nowhere! but then you must have forgotten all of the things that biden and his administration themselves have done to further this fucking genocide, including:

continuing to send arms to israel

putting together a military task force within days of yemen’s red sea blockade and attacking yemeni ships

bombing yemen

bombing syria

bombing iraq

vetoing three ceasefire resolutions at the united nations

testifying to defend israel and its genocide and occupation at the international court of justice

refusing to rescue palestinian-americans stuck in gaza

halting funding to the united nations relief and works agency for palestinian refugees (UNRWA) based on israeli claims that 12 of UNRWA’s over 30,000 staff were hamas agents, even though u.s. intelligence has not been able to independently verify this

lying that he’s personally seen photos of babies beheaded by hamas when he hadn’t because they didn’t exist (and even when his own staff cautioned him that reports of beheaded babies may not be credible)

questioning the number of palestinian deaths reported by the gaza ministry of health (when even israel has not questioned them, since they are in fact proud of those numbers)

perpetuating lies about hamas having committed the attack on al-aqsa hospital

questioning united nations reports of adults and children raped by israeli soldiers while claiming to have proof (that no one else has seen) of hamas doing the same

honestly so many more things that i can’t remember them all but others feel free to add

or maybe you haven’t forgotten any of that, and think that you’re still justified in lecturing people about why they should vote for biden, because you genuinely believe trump would still be worse. if that is the case, you have still failed to see that by saying you will vote for biden no matter what, you are part of the problem of biden continuing to act like this. because biden is counting on fear of trump to win him this next election no matter what else he does. despite his appalling polling numbers, despite the knowledge that he is losing the palestinian-american vote, the arab-american vote, the muslim-american vote, the black american vote, the youth vote – despite all of that, he is secure in the idea that he will still win because he is better than trump. can you not see how that allows him to act without impunity? how it becomes increasingly impossible for his base to influence what he’s doing if he thinks that they will be with him no matter what? this is how you make yourself complicit to biden’s actions, by not affording anyone even the slightest power to hold him accountable for anything.

and in most cases, the “hold your nose and vote for biden” thing is the response of people who aren’t even being instructed by others not to vote for biden. it is their response to people saying they themselves are choosing not to vote for biden. fucking ghoulish.

[letters-to-lgbt-kids]

My dear lgbt+ kids, 

A few quick reminders: 

If you are a human being, then yes, politics do affect you personally. Laws and policies impact your daily life in ways you might not even realize, from health care and education to jobs and the environment. Voting is your chance to shape the world you live in day to day.

You most likely won't find a "perfect" candidate on the ballot. It’s rare, if not impossible, to agree with a candidate 100%. Vote for the one who best represents your priorities in general.

Avoid throwing away your vote. Writing in someone who isn’t running (like a celebrity or fictional character) doesn’t actually send a message to candidates. It just makes it harder for your voice to be heard. Use your vote for someone who’s truly in the race.

The "big revolution" that fixes everything might be a nice fantasy, but change happens through small steps. Voting won’t solve everything right away, but it’s a powerful tool for moving the needle in the right direction. Progress, even if gradual, adds up over time. Fantasies are just.. well, fantasies.

Many places offer early voting or absentee ballots. If you can’t make it on election day, look into these options to ensure your vote gets counted. 

If people tell you you can’t vote for whatever reason, double-check that info. Do your own research. Sometimes people have bad intentions or are simply misinformed. 

Voting is private. Your parents, partner, caretakers etc. may be able to check IF you vote but no one needs to know WHO you vote for if you don’t feel safe or comfortable with them knowing. Your ballot will be secret and protected. You have a right to keep the secret. Always remember: Lying for safety is okay. 

Last but not least: You know who will vote? Nazis. Fascists. People who hate queer people, women, immigrants and people of color. People who want to take away your rights, even people who want to see you in jail or dead. They will absolutely go out and vote for their preferred candidate, even if you stay home and refuse to vote. You throwing away your voice as a “protest” will only make theirs louder.

With all my love, 

Your Tumblr Dad