#then vote for passive evil

[penginlord]

For those following American politics, I want to be honest; we've been through all of this before.

Cooperations deep in the pockets of senators and presidents was not uncommon in the mid to late 19th century, and yet Anti-Trust laws were passed. Unionists fought and died to earn the right to do what they do now. Woman had to fight to earn their rights. The conservatives have been panicking about communists since at least the 1910s. None of this is necessarily new, but it feels fucking awful having it all piling in on us now like some inescapable mound.

We were able to get past it then. And we'll be able to get out of it now.

We just need to vote for the best option we have, and keep being activists. Keep doing everything we can to make the world better, and always vote for the better of 2 shitty options. Because we know what happens if we sit idly by and let things get worse.

Let's at least try to make things better, ok?

[some-stars]

also, all posts about voting aside, i think i'm at a point where i'm ready to talk to my activist friend about how i can help a lot more without being on the front lines because. it's just. i think this is the worst thing i've ever seen in my life.

[themousefromfantasyland]

I'm not even American but I need to vent.

I assure you Americans that elections and politics suck worldwide, and not just for you. Save from a few cases here and there, candidates are always either too old, too shady, or just too stupid.

But more than candidates, you are voting for their policies.

It's your duty to vote for the better or just the lesser evil policy among them.

The "two sides are equally awful" is seldom true and it's just a lie to excuse passivity.

You have a duty for your marginalized folks and yourself to make your society better or at least stop it from getting worse.

Biden has quite a interesting history of progressive policies done, while Donald Trump is just a convicted fellow, darling of white supremacy, and the god of religious freaks.

There's no place on Earth where these candidates are the same.

Even if your hate Biden based on his softness with the current Far-right government of Israel, Trump is cherished by Israel far-right, is deeply Islamophobic, and even use Palestinian as an insult. He will be even worse for Palestine.

You have to vote, you have to exercise your civic duties. The two parties aren't the same and saying that is just an excuse for passivity.

It won't fix the world I assure you. There will still be things to be one. You still will have to protest, to get involve with politics, to help good policy be made and set in motion. But just voting is the first, and most important step for it.

@ariel-seagull-wings @mask131 @thealmightyemprex @the-blue-fairie @princesssarisa

[twofoursixohjuan]

@george-the-pumpkin tagging you in all the losing L&Co. polls I can find

Found Family Tournament Round 2 Part 8 Group 39

Propaganda and further images under the cut

(Mod’s Note: Couldn’t find the source of the original Professor Layton photo. I think it might’ve been stolen fanart? Gonna feel real stupid if I’m mistaken.)

Lockwood & Co.: Anthony Lockwood, Lucy Carlyle, George Karim (& Quill Kipps, Holly Munro, Flo Bones)

Hershel Layton, Luke Triton & Flora Reinhold:

Sorry, I got no propaganda for them yet :(

Lockwood & Co.:

They are so witty and funny while being incredibly loving and tender with each other!

they are the best because they have all of the tropes the comfort the angst the hurt the drama and the love of a found family and they just AJSHHDHSGSGSHSHSHSJHA yeah.

They're traumatized teenagers who hunt ghosts and randomly proclaim they would die for each other! What could be better?

[tirsynni]

I'm already seeing it: everyone complaining that Trump is going to win. Why? Because people are frustrated with Biden. So their response is... what? To passively let Trump win? Are you kidding me right now?

If Trump wins, I don't want anyone blaming Biden. Not a single person. Everyone has already made their position clear and have also made it very clear that they understand the consequences of those actions. Just instead of accepting blame, they're blaming Biden. For their own choices. For their own actions.

No. You need to be an adult to vote. Now prove you're an adult and that you can take responsibility for your own actions.

No matter how pissed you are at Biden, you need to recognize that non-Trumpers outnumber the Trumpers and it doesn't mean shit if non-Trumpers don't vote. Guess what. Trumpers are going to vote. They're going to go to the polls and they're going to vote. If they vote and you don't, guess how it's going to go, even if non-Trumpers outnumber Trumpers. Doesn't mean shit if your vote doesn't reflect that.

What do you think is going to happen with Palestine if Trump wins? If you're pissed about Biden's actions and inactions regarding Israel and Palestine, how are you going to feel about Trump? Because I promise, if you choose not to vote for Biden, you are voting for Trump, and he will be worse.

There is no third party option which is going to win against Trump. Your symbolic non-vote is a vote for Trump. If you don't vote for Biden, you are fucking voting for Trump, so I hope you're ready for that.

"But Biden --" I don't give a fuck. Be an adult. Accept that sometimes in life, you have to accept the lesser evil. There is no room for you to go "Well, I have to do what feels right." NO. That is self-serving, self-indulgent, selfish bullshit. You are helping no one but your own feelings. You will pat yourself on your back with one hand and stab your neighbor in their back with the other.

If you are really concerned about Palestine, vote for Biden, because I promise, he's still better than Trump. Vote in all elections, because they all matter and Trumpers are voting in all of them. Make phone calls. Raise hell. Sign petitions. Do whatever else you can. I fucking promise you, though, that for any of that to count, you need Biden in the office, not Trump.

Again, I don't give a flying fuck if you hate Biden. I sincerely don't. The US presidential election will be two party. Should it be? No. Doesn't matter. That's reality. The US presidential election will be two party: Biden vs Trump. We need to be adults, and we need to recognize what we're dealing with. I will say it again and again and again: any vote which isn't Biden will be a vote for Trump. Don't think to yourself, "I don't want to show the Democrats they have my support with all of this bullshit, so I'm going to not vote/vote third party/symbolically write something in." Be truthful with yourself. Be realistic. If you are pissed at Biden and decide that you aren't going to vote for him, say clearly to yourself, "I'm voting for Trump and all that entails."

If you really think that way, please let me know so I can block your selfish ass. Make sure to tell your neighbors that you're cool with fucking them over, because you need to do what feels right, and that means letting Trump back into office. If you want to brag about your integrity, then at least have the integrity to at least be that truthful with everyone.

[ceilidhtransing]

I'm extremely done with electionposting but I feel like there's one huge elephant in the room that's barely being talked about vis-à-vis the whole issue of non-voters. I see so many posts to the effect of “does the result really indicate that the people who didn't vote are bad, or that the Democrats simply failed to convince them to vote for Harris?” and I have to talk about that.

Obligatory clarifications because people are understandably very heated at the moment and I know people will jump to take this entire post the wrong way:

I know that the tens of millions of people who did actually vote for Trump are much, much more of a glaring active problem than the people who didn't vote at all.

I know that it is, overall, in most circumstances, bad to assert that a candidate is just “owed” your vote, rather than having to win your vote.

I know that Trump's base is unpersuadable and will vote for him whatever happens. I'm not talking about them; I'm talking about non-voters, particularly anyone who voted Democrat in the past but didn't show up this time.

I know that it's shitty that people should have to settle for a candidate they don't like very much because that's the only way to avoid a much greater evil. It's a rubbish situation to be in, but Harris and Trump were the only viable options presented at this election, and nothing changes that.

I know that some people abstained as a (extremely misguided and counterproductive) “protest” against the situation in Gaza. But if the numbers we're seeing are accurate, Harris lost 15 million voters compared to Biden, and I really can't see all of those being “protest-abstainers”. Some of them will be, but clearly a lot of people simply didn't show up, and if you reply with something like “well not doing a genocide would have helped them!” I will just assume you haven't read this. I'm not actually talking about the “protest-abstainers”, I'm talking about the passive non-voters.

I know that the Democrats are hardly, hardly perfect and that a lot of people do not trust them to deliver the kind of meaningful change that they need. Trust me, whatever criticisms of the Democrats you have, I know. They are tangential to the actual point of this post.

But it is properly mind-boggling to me that we have got to a point where we genuinely talk about people needing to be “convinced” to vote against a candidate so thoroughly, off-the-charts terrible as Trump, and as far as I'm concerned it speaks to the incredible job much of the media has done for the last I don't know how many years at continually normalising and sane-washing him, his ideas, his actions, and his speech.

If we were to teleport back to some time significantly before the Trump Era - before US politics got quite so wild, before it became in any way “normal” for a president to rack up an uncountable number of the kind of scandals that individually would have sunk any previous president but which are apparently just the way things are now - and comprehensively describe Trump to the average voter, and then say that he's in an election against a very standard middle-of-the-road don't-rock-the-boat Democrat, and ask “one of these is going to be the president; how are you voting?” the response is very likely to be “fuck me, the Democrat obviously! jesus christ just don't put that guy back in charge!”

Trump is such an appallingly bad candidate on literally every front that I can hardly believe the conversation focuses on whether Harris did enough to convince people to vote for her rather than the fact that Trump himself has spent most of the last decade doing what should be an incredible job at convincing people to vote for her.

And I know the general adage about “people need to be convinced to vote for a candidate, not just against another candidate!” but fucking hell, when one of the candidates is THAT GUY, it really should not take much at all to convince you to vote for whoever isn't him. Where's that meme about Any Statewide Election in North Carolina that has “Adolf Fucking Hitler” winning against “Bland Normiedem” 49% to 48%? Because that's what it feels like when people talk about voters just not being hyped enough by the Harris campaign to vote for her. “Yeah, I know Adolf Fucking Hitler is pretty terrible, but Bland Normiedem just hasn't done a good enough job at winning my vote, and really both sides are bad, you know?”

The thing is that all of the things people say about “you need to run a positive campaign, not just a negative one” and “you need to earn people's vote, not just take them for granted” and “you need to have a good reason to vote for you, not just that you're not the other guy” etc I totally, absolutely agree with - in a normal election with normal politics and normal candidates! None of what we're seeing with Trump is, or should be, normal! “You won't need to vote again” isn't normal, “dictator on day one” isn't normal, running with the intimate support of a bunch of christofascists who are open about their desire to turn America into an authoritarian hellscape isn't normal, and it has been utterly maddening to see people treat this as just another standard uninspiring election and not a code red “for the love of god stop this guy” situation! To use that reference again, it is an absurdity to frame things in terms of Bland Normiedem needing to run a great campaign to convince people to vote for him when his opponent is Adolf Fucking Hitler!

There are many questions to be asked about this election, but re: people not showing up to vote for Harris, a major one that needs to be asked far more often is “how the fuck did Trump and his whole campaign become so normalised to voters that “whether you're persuaded enough by Harris's campaign” is even a serious question? how is Trump Being Trump not persuasive enough for most people?” And this post is long already, but the media has a lot to answer for regarding how they have consistently sane-washed what he's said, normalised his positions, hell, normalised the fact that he's even running in the first place given his many crimes and the way he responded to losing the last election. Trump's enormous base is absolutely the most pressing problem, but this time around that base has been directly enabled to trample everyone else by millions and millions of people apparently just not being “motivated enough” to stop him. That is also a problem.

In no sane circumstances should Trump be a candidate that you have to be extensively, enthusiastically persuaded to keep out of office, and yet here we are, talking about how well or badly Harris convinced people to vote for her when literally everything about Trump ought to have been doing a good enough job of that anyway. How the fuck did any of this become normal? How the fuck did we reach a point where anyone - especially previous Democrat voters - is looking at these two candidates and going “eh, I'll just sit this one out, Harris hasn't done enough to earn my vote”?

(And in case I haven't been sufficiently clear, please don't reply to this with any variation of “she should have done xyz!” or “maybe if she hadn't done xyz!” This is not about debating her strategies or the merits of her campaign. A different discussion is the place for that. My point is that Trump is so out-of-this-galaxy leagues worse than her in every conceivable way that she shouldn't have had to “run a brilliant campaign” in order to sweep votes from the tens of millions of Americans who aren't Trump's base. Anyone like her running against Trump should have won in a fucking landslide and the fact that she didn't is not just an indictment of “a campaign that didn't do enough to persuade people” but also an indictment of the electorate and of the media's continual normalisation of Trump. To place blame entirely on “well she didn't run a good enough campaign” - as if in a race between Bland Normiedem and Adolf Fucking Hitler the whole focus should be on the merits or demerits of Bland Normiedem's campaign rather than the fact that Adolf Fucking Hitler is Adolf Fucking Hitler - is to miss an enormous part of the picture and also to reinforce the normalisation of Trump as just any other standard reasonable candidate. It's to buy into the whole deeply false “both sides” thing that the media loves to do, where we go “well Candidate A here is a near-octogenarian quasi-fascist wannabe dictator and convicted felon running on a platform infused with Christian nationalism and hardcore authoritarianism, who refuses to accept he lost the last election and essentially tried to hold onto power by force, and who has spent the last four years in countless trials regarding all the insane crimes he got up to both during and outwith his presidency, but on the other side, how watertight really are Candidate B's policies?” and pretend the two candidates are even remotely equivalent or comparable, and this very approach is a huge part of the problem.)

[death-rebirth-senshi]

See how you can just lie online

I've decided to abstain from voting in the 2024 election. I just can't bring myself to let Biden stay president, no matter what it costs.

[statementlou]

i feel like i can talk to you about this because you have rational opinions. so louis bought a starbucks coffee at the airport and the fandom on twitter are eating him alive, calling him evil and wishing he goes to hell. i’m disappointed since starbucks is on the list of brands to boycott but i feel like this reaction is too much? someone even said jay would be disappointed in him, but people said that was taking it too far. i don’t know, i love louis and i’ll keep supporting him and his music but the fact he can be a careless millionaire is disappointing

1. thank you sweetie I would boop if I could 2. oh my god it's a fucking cup of coffee and if people think that's the worst thing Louis, a multi millionaire, has ever done financially they need a reality check! His money will be handled by bankers who are putting it into all kinds of evil fucking shit that he won't even know about, it's actually very hard to know or control that and there is no way trying is even on his radar. That's a passive thing and not on purpose; but the fact that people don't bother to know about that or care really speaks to how performative this kind of online approach to activism is, that they only care about image rather than effect (the effect of his investments would be easily thousands of times more than any number of coffees or even of the promotion Starbucks might get from him holding it.) But furthermore buckle in cause you hit a nerve: Starbucks isn't even an actual organized boycott target as concerns Palestine because THEY HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ISRAELI GOVERNMENT financially! The official BDS movement calls for boycott of very specific and pointed targets of which Starbucks IS NOT ONE it's literally just an online trend which is not the same as an actual boycott to materially impact a target! Losing them money is always great, they are a crappy union busting small business killing corporation, but it has zero direct effect to help Palestinians unlike supporting the meaningful boycotts called for by BDS. I don't think Louis has decided to buy starbucks because he has this analysis, but to me it's a pretty important point. Him crossing an actual picket line (playing Israel, playing Eurovision [lmaoooo that thought tho], waving an Israeli flag god forbid) would be a very different situation and something that would trouble me so the distinction matters to me. But I get that to people on twitter, that's what they feel like he has done. To which I would say...

There are so many fewer ways to help Palestine than we would wish, and it's SO hard to deal with feeling so powerless right now in the face of such horror, so I love that people feel so strongly about doing whatever they possibly can. But worrying about consumer spending, even on BDS targets, is perhaps the least effective of the things a person can do. Note that BDS boycotts do not mostly focus on asking people not to buy things; they list the products that are especially complicit, but the main work of the movement is to get large investors (corporations, public institutions, whole governments) to divest from the companies targeted because that actually hurts them enough that it becomes less profitable to continue to collude with Israel than to drop them as clients. Consumer spending is not enough to do this. It's easy and doesn't require doing actual work but it's basically virtue signaling, not organizing. Just NOT doing something (yes including voting) is not enough! I personally choose not to give my money to certain corporations because it feels bad to me and I can't stomach doing it, even if they never notice me doing it. But if I was running out of fuel and the only nearby station was a Chevron, I would spend a few bucks there and not beat myself up about it because it will have zero impact on their overall profit reports but a LOT of impact on my life. And if I was in the airport for the second time in mere days after circumnavigating the globe and playing a massive show and doing press and fan service before even having time to adjust time zones and about to get on another flight to another country I might buy a fucking coffee from whatever coffee shop was in there too! But Louis isn't me and I'm gonna be real honest I would be real surprised if he KNEW there was a boycott or gave a shit- he is not a political activist! It's reasonable to be disappointed if someone behaves not how you want them to, but just in general responding to being disappointed in people by lashing out at them is... not it. Not useful, not rational, and not actually an okay way to act to other people. Louis is an awesome sweet caring person who I believe tries hard not to have a negative impact on anyone directly and who cares very much about others; if that's not enough for someone to be a fan of him, okay then they should not be a fan of him! But warning: they're not going to be able to be a fan of anyone else either. No one is pure and perfect... maybe that energy would be better spent trying to make a meaningful difference in the world, and a great first step in that IMO is to recognize and challenge your inner cop. The better world I want to live in doesn't include policing other people, not on twitter and not anywhere.

[bubonickitten]

One thing I keep getting hung up on is just... the complete failure of the Democratic party to recognize that the "undecided voter" they need to convince isn't the right-leaning moderate, but the non-voter, especially the progressive non-voter.

It will require a combination of fighting against voter suppression, fighting for robust voting rights legislation, and actually taking progressive voices seriously.

But it will also require that Democrats come to the collective realization that people are so, so tired of voting for the "lesser of two evils" (especially when their foreign policies are so similar) and that "we're not as bad as the other guy!" is not a winning strategy.

Regardless of anyone's personal takes on the impact of independent voters in the outcome of this or any other election, or assumptions and value judgments about people who vote independent or don't vote... from a purely practical standpoint, Democrats still need to inspire people to actually get out and vote for them, or they will continue to lose. They need to give people a platform to vote for, not just a series of conservative assholes to vote against.

They also need to seriously reevaluate their approach to various demographics (as well as their assumption that any one demographic is a non-intersectional monolith) and their inattention to (if not open contempt of) vast regions of the nation (rural areas, "flyover zones", Appalachia...)

And inspiring progressives specifically to enthusiastically support their campaigns is going to require them to rework their entire fucking platform, especially their lack of commitment to human rights at home and abroad. There comes a point where you really aren't going to convince people to opt for harm reduction when it requires them to vote for someone who signed off on the weapons sales or drone strikes or policy stances that killed their families. Basic decency and compassion should be reasons enough to support human rights, but let's be honest, those arguments don't sway politicians as much as we wish.

I think it wasn't just one thing that led to the Democrats losing so badly. It was a baffling, disheartening, frustrating cocktail of decisions and trends and conditions, none of which originated with Trump, many of which are directly related to current state of our news media and online information environments, and most of which were the logical outcome of centuries of colonialism & imperialism and decades of political leaders either actively encouraging or passively tolerating a pervasive tide of nationalism that finally reached a widely-visible boiling point in the last ten years. There are a lot of people and ideologies to blame for... this.

But one of those many, many factors is Democrats' insistence on shuffling further and further to the right to the point where we have no left-wing party. (Which, yeah, doesn't even begin to tap into the lobbying, career politician mentality, and financial conflicts of interest that permeate both parties. Again, I'm just addressing one of many clown acts in the hell circus, and I need to shut up now.)

ETA: I should note that I'm only invested in Democratic candidates insofar as they are currently usually the 'lesser of two evils,' at least wrt domestic policy, which is my entire point. Ideally we wouldn't have an entrenched two-party system and I wouldn't have to settle for Democratic candidates. The Democratic party would need to change so fundamentally that it would be nigh-unrecognizable before I could actually call myself a Democrat instead of just... an exhausted I'm-just-registered-Democrat-so-I-can-vote-in-the-primaries.

[gryficowa]

We all know that as if Harris won, then the blue MAGA like after winning Trump, they would have Palestine somewhere

These are the liberals, even if the "smaller evil" wins, they will be the first to be silent when their party makes a crime

"Palestine" for them was a method of manipulation (and they are still trying, because their butt has baked) and only a "pretext" to the election card, nothing more (just like the rights of LGBT+people, immigrants, not white people, people with disabilities)

There is nothing worse than people who manipulate minorities so that they vote for someone who does not take care of them, because liberals live in a bubble, where "nothing bad is happening and our candidate is holy"

That is why liberals hate leftists because they see their manipulations (and liberals do not want it to be seen because they would be on an equal footing with fascists they "hate")

The language they used towards Palestine through the elections and after winning Trump was cynical, because the words they used were empty (and some fantasized people's deportation like their "candidate will not win")

Liberals are friends only when they get what they want (and they are passive anyway)

The venom that falls from them after winning Trump showed the real face of the liberals, just fascists wearing a mask pretending to be left, to stick the knife just a minor with which they soapy their eyes that they would defend them and want them

Blue MAGA prefers to be in a bubble than to get out of it because they would have to question all their morality

[spidermartini]

First, shout out to all of the hard -working moms. You guys get all of the respect. ❤️

The problem is, we who aren't moms...really don't get any. It seems to be a topic of interest this election, so let me break something down for the Republikkkans.

Here is the thing about the "childless cat ladies"...here are things that don't take up our time:

Picking up anyone up from school

Make sure to get someone to soccer (fill in sport) practice

Get home early to put someone to bed

Running around making costumes for school

Baking for school functions

PTA meetings

Last minute "Mom, I forgot I need____" shopping

General mom stuff

Here is what "childless cat ladies" instead have time to do:

WAIT ALL DAY ON LINE TO VOTE YOU INTO OBLIVION

actively or passively campaign against your evil ass

Strategize ways to deprogram our brainwashed MAGA love ones

Deprogram our brainwashed loved ones according to said strategy

Feed the cat

Volunteer at organizations that Republikkkans hate, helping those organizations grow strong and secure

Pour all of our collective female rage and energy into making sure we don't lose our rights as women

Pour a little extra rage in for our fellow sisters, who are moms and are just too tired to rage because they are busy being moms (we know you want to, we've got you covered!)

Make it our purpose to use whatever privilege we have to body block those who are vulnerable when necessary or needed/requested

To make sure there are many different voices protecting POC and LGBTQIA2S+

Make it our life purpose to ensure that corrupt and insane bastards like Tr$mp, MAGA amd corrupt Republikkans never get a strangle hold on the country, and our rights, again.

My point..you just pissed off a lot of ladies with the luxury of controlling their own time. Bad move.

[sageandred]

Today, I saw someone say "I do not want that genocide on my conscience" in regards to voting Democrat or Republican, and opting for a third party in place. I ask you, do you want stripped rights of American minorities on your hands or innocent children's lives due to gun violence and no efforts to reform? Because that's what this is! For the love of god, I do not understand the take of fighting for a better outcome and aiming for world peace when the unlikelihood of a third party is evident as history has shown. We live in a democracy (supposedly), but we live under a system, regardless. It's Democrat or Republican; it's Democrat or Trump, now; it's Democrat or fascist. I'm not arguing that Kamala is perfect or parts of where she focusses her attention in policies won't disappoint; that's of the reality with anyone that gets in office; that's every politician. The goal has never been vote the "lesser of two evils;" do nothing else. (I hate the indication of "evils" when I don't think every politician is an awful human being (in a system guaranteed to codemn them with questionable ethics, but that's another post). The goal is make the logical and correct decision, so you have the chance to make it better again and for them to make it better in office. If you vote third party on the basis of moral terror, you will not have that chance to make the world better how you aim to. Trump has shown you what he'll do, and made it worse.

You are fighting the war for Palestinians and all who are being attacked by Israel, because they are targeted minorities and you cry for the innocent lives of children being taken, but that ethnic and communal cleansing is exactly what Trump is fighting for in dictatorship in America. If you vote third party, you will also have blood on your hands, because you are voting for Trump based on the historical unlikelihood of the 3rd candidate winning. If you choose not to vote, you are forfeiting your choice and indirectly voting for whoever comes into office. You will not feel like there is no blood on your hands if you see what comes of his presidency. The amount of people I've known & seen who felt stupid for abstaining in his election after the reality of his leadership is a large pool and proof of the regret and realized actuality. Do not put yourself in the position to feel like them!

Trump has said, he will have it "fixed" so you will never have to vote in another election again if he wins. You do not get to easily rectify your choices if your opted third party loses. You will not have that chance. (Let it be noted, that also the 4 years a president spends in the house are not so easily reversible (we have still been dealing with Trump's damage in Biden's term).

P.s. Here's what Kamala has said about Gaza:

x x

Here's what Trump has said:

x

Former President Donald Trump said that Israel needs to “finish what they started” and “get it over with fast,” as he continued arguing Israel was “losing the PR war” because of the visuals coming out of Gaza.

“You’ve got to get it over with, and you have to get back to normalcy. And I’m not sure that I’m loving the way they’re doing it, because you’ve got to have victory. You have to have a victory, and it’s taking a long time,” Trump said in an interview with The Hugh Hewitt Show that aired Thursday.

x

Harris also recognized antisemitism, showing support for the community that's faced it, and that's not what this is.

Be definitive; make the choice; and don't be passive when your options are historically laid out between two separate parties!

Vote for hope, not a never-ending apocalyptic genocide with Trump.

Also, relevant to note, it's just as important to vote down ballot. Get supporting figures who will back the better choice, so that it's not all for nothing.

[cbk1000]

You know it’s funny - I thought I would be angrier but honestly I’m just so tired and numb. I like in California there’s a bit of a safer space but to think that half the country would vote for this man …. To think that republicans control the whole government. I’m honestly scared of what they’ll do. Of what they’ll try to repeal and change.

I've never wanted to be wrong so badly in my life, but I was saying in private conversations months ago that I was worried he was going to win. Not in a vague, existential, this-might-happen-because-he's-one-of-the-candidates kind of way, but in the I-hope-to-God-I'm-wrong-but-I-think-he's-going-to-win sense. I didn’t want to fully, out-loud admit to it and speak that evil into the world, but if I'm being completely honest, I would have been very surprised to see Harris win.

So because I was braced for it in a way I absolutely was not in 2016, I am disgusted and angry but I am not surprised, and I am not grieving. I'm enraged that this country didn't prove me wrong, didn't prove that it's better, collectively, than I thought, and as someone who has read a lot of history, I am obviously extremely concerned about our future.

But mostly I'm just fucking mad. Fuckwits like Trump and Elon Musk and couch-fucker don't get to win. They don't get to tell us what to do with our bodies or who to love or how to identify or live.

We are not babies, we are not helpless, and we do not have to sit and watch in passive horror as they do whatever they want. Fuck them, and fuck the people who empowered them. There are still millions of us who are not going to ride their theocratic boner back to the Dark Ages. Many of our parents and grandparents had to fight for civil rights; we will have to do the same. This has always been a cyclical battle, all throughout history. We have always had to fight the same battles over and over again, because there will always be some nosy dickhead who can't stand the fact that people are doing things they don't approve of. It is exhausting and disheartening to keep repeating this; but we do keep repeating it, because all throughout history people have always deemed it worth fighting for these rights over and over again. There are still enough of us who will keep doing that. There will always be enough of us.

[toxicsludgeyaoi]

Toxic Sludge Yaoi Tournament: Rhack (Borderlands) Vs Makoyomi (Master Detective Archives: Raincode)

(Vote for whichever you like more.)

Propaganda under cut. Note: spoilers for these medias may be below.

Rhack propaganda

"Rhys idolized the man that Jack once was, and when he accidentally uploaded an AI of Jack into his own brain, and that Jack AI realized that Rhys idolizes him, he used that to his advantage to manipulate and exploit Rhys and made him betray all his friends. Also Jack had a whole plan to cut Rhys open and install a metal skeleton inside him so he could literally live inside and pilot his super sexy body."

Makoyomi propaganda

"They have. 4D chess mind hate sex 24/7. They want each other dead. They also have silly passive aggressive banter. Makoto probably calls Yomi every morning to ask what mask he should wear. Yomi regularly calls Makoto "masked freak" and "balloon boy". It's sympathetic villain vs cartoonishly evil villain. Literally they're everything!!! To me!!!!!"

[heartsystembeats]

To whom do I address my rage?

Click here to find actionable ways of supporting the Palestinians of Gaza.

To whom do I address my rage? What powers compelled would upend the world stage? My teeth yearn for the load-bearing space between bones, desperate to fell giants from their so-called renovations of rightful family homes. To whom do I apologize for the cry of a child’s unbeating heart? How much can I give that won’t rend me apart? To whom do I address my rage?

Food prices skyrocket as innocents starve, and we are meant to forget that money is not a passive necessity.

To whom do I address my rage? The actors who bound across the stage? Were I to leave the audience, they would add me to their growing sea of bones. Removed from our viewing, a flood would occupy their stolen homes. How can I shake the American empire that wields the weeping of Judaism’s broken heart? Can my voice be a weapon to take it apart? To whom do I address my rage?

They tell us to vote for the future of democracy. America holds the power to stop this massacre, but neither side intends to, and Palestinians can’t cast their vote.

To whom do I address my rage? What gods do we call on for change at this stage? The masses I melt into cry of very real weight on our bones, but countless lives are unspeakably crushed as we watch from our homes. Would it stop their torture if I managed to donate the viscera of my heart? If I knew for sure, I might tear my chest apart.

To whom do I address my rage? Institutions pour investments into weapons made to murder children, and our comrades’ protest is the alarm that tells us our education has always been funded by death.

To whom do I address my rage? Is there an ultimate evil hiding backstage? Is there a glue that binds the flesh of genocide to imperialism’s bones?

I fear how easy it may be, with common ignorance, to see a secret predator in our homes. Rage like mine may slip through antisemite lips, arm raised to show a bleeding paper heart. Waves rise to break more than Israel apart. To whom do I address my fear?

The Zionist mechanism attributes their own atrocities to the single most scapegoated marginalized group in history. What can I do when all this is over for the inevitable victims of misplaced retaliation?

To whom do I address my rage?

[rosetowers]

What the Democrats are pulling now is beyond horrific. Their only selling point is being the lesser evil and they can't even do that right. Palestinian Americans have the absolute right to abstain from voting for these spineless shits.

Having said that.

Not voting will not stop the genocide.

The rest of you have a choice here. One side wants to commit genocides in both countries, the other wants to commit a genocide in one country - making them evil scum in the same way - but will allow the citizens of their own country to live and fight against the destruction of the Palestinians.

Not voting will not stop the genocide.

This is not me saying you should only care about the people in your country and to hell with anyone else, this is me saying that you will have a far easier time fighting and protesting and donating for Palestinian lives if you don't also have to fight so hard for trans and gay and black lives and the right to women's bodily autonomy.

Politicians are like tissues: use them for what you can get them throw them away as soon as possible, you've already done this with Biden and we're right to do so, he is of no use to you now and I hope he dies soon. You owe no loyalty to Harris or most of the Democrats whatsoever, but the only control you have here is voting and protest.

Not voting will not stop the genocide.

This isn't like boycotting a business, which can slow or stop the flow of money into the Israeli economy.

Not voting will not stop the genocide. Not voting will not stop the genocide. Not voting will not stop the genocide. Not voting will not stop the genocide. It is so fucking passive.