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this post was submitted on 28 May 2024
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I remember when gay people couldn't get married. I remember when I never saw a fellow trans person on TV who wasn't a fictional depiction of a serial murderer played by a cis guy. I remember when we almost never had cops caught on camera so their brutality was an open secret.
But 'steady' is a bit inaccurate.
I've seen actual people with family from Gaza online say that they want Biden re-elected because he may suck balls, but Trump will outright throw protestors into concentration camps.
Like... Trump outright said he's bringing the next Reich. And loves this murdering Palestine people business. So yeah, this is a trolley problem where on one track you run over some people, and on the next track you... run over those same people plus extra. So in this context, saying you're going to refuse to switch tracks to save anyone whatsoever is indeed kinda demanding perfection in a situation where the only options are horrifically flawed and no one really wants to do them, but if we had wanted to really do something about it, we all shoulda fucking voted in the primaries.
That, and also maybe this whole thing could have been avoided if Sanders hadn't made some guffaws. I know he successfully pissed me off and all he needed to do was not go talk to a talk show host with known transphobia and that painful comment about Black southerners. Who knew it turned out that asking Sanders not to support transphobes was demanding perfection?111? /s
Very smooth, blaming Sanders for his political kneecapping carried out by the very people you're advocating for. "It's not that establishment democrats are opposed to actual progress because progress robs their corpo candidates of their cover and endless funding cheat, it's not that there's an entire corporate media structure invested in backing the DNC establishment, it's Sanders fault for his 'guffaws', like calling for healthcare reform and advocating for civil rights."
Give me a break. The lesser of two evils thing is played out, it's precisely what brought us right to this point. It's time for neolibs to wake up, there is no way to avoid what is coming by voting for more corporate careerist shitheads, it doesn't work. There is no "comfortable" way of weathering the confrontation with fascism that needs to happen.
Do yourself a favor and buy yourself a gas mask.
Just so you know, when you say shit like this you sound exactly like the MAGA lovers that are frothing at the mouth for the start of violence because then "they have to take our country back".
There's plenty of ways to avoid fascism that doesn't involve just letting the world burn because you're upset it isn't perfect.
No one is "frothing at the mouth for violence", violence is here, people are getting ready to face the consequences of your complicity.
Nobody fucking wants to have to confront fascists and protest and riot, people want a normal life, unfortunately that is not going to be possible given the situation you've put us all in with your politics. Neolibs have ignored the political fight they were charged with and instead tried to sweep it under the rug so they could keep cashing those lobby checks, and now the disease literally cannot be ignored and has metastasized into literal fascism.
Vote for Biden all you want, I'm trying to warn you that it's too late whether he wins or not, and you need to wrap your head around the reality of what you're dealing with. No amount of jelly-spined fascist lite democrats are going to get us out of this hole, and the longer you labor under that delusion the more the fascism takes root.
Oh shit didn't realize I was the boogeyman singlehandedly keeping American politics in gridlock.
I'm perfectly aware that American Conservatism has quickly backsled into fascism, and I know the establishment neo-liberal wing on the Democratic Party ignored it.
Part of my family barely survived the Holocaust, and the rest of that wing of my family was killed, I'm perfectly aware of what fascism is and will do.
I'm just saying that telling people "it's all over you're doomed you better take to the streets and do revolution" won't fix the situation literally at all.
That's not what people are saying, and certainly not what I have been saying. Fucking wake up for fuck's sake. Jesus christ.
Go ask Neville Chamberlain how it worked out to try the business as usual route.
Then what are you saying??? Because so far all I've heard from you is.
"Neoliberals ruined it all, voting is pointless, go buy a gas mask, and you need to go into the streets and riot to confront fascism."
Tell me what the message of this is supposed to be other than this:
To me they come off the exact same.
Also, if the democrats aren't the answer, who is? Where are you planning to pull institutional support to battle the fascists? Or are you just planning to go into the streets and yell about it aimlessly?
I've made a clear distinction that I'm attacking establishment democrats and neoliberals. Stop trying to muddy the distinction, it's dishonest.
"Neolib." *drink!*
(Not really. If I started playing a drinking game on YOUR bullshit, I'd die of alcohol poisoning.)
Walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, defends genocidal presidents like a duck....
Would you like to tell these people to their faces that they're neoliberals defending a genocidal president? I will caution you however, you may want to wear some padding and a helmet.
What are you babbling about? The person I'm talking to is pretty clearly neoliberal because he's using all the same old neoliberal tropes and rhetoric to try and defend the democratic establishment, I don't know why you're bringing up some conversation you claim to have had with entirely different people.
Because you had this conversation with people just a few comments up the chain:
https://lemmy.world/comment/10311688
You're saying that people voting for Biden are defending genocidal presidents. I find it appalling that you would say this about people who actually have family suffering in Gaza.
This is a complete joke. You've actually already forgotten what people were saying to you. Why the hell should we take anything you say seriously if you're not engaging in this conversation in good faith? Clearly, you're not paying attention, and you'd rather scream into the void about how morally superior you are.
Again, why would I temper my criticism based on some likely-imaginary conversation you had. You know what's actually apalling? Supporting candidates who fund a genocide. You don't get to pretend to be scandalized and appalled by anything given the party politics you're supporting.
If your totally not made up person that you definitely talked to is going vote for Biden it is still a long-term mistake that makes Democratic support for genocide acceptable.
It's not acceptable and we have three choices as voters 1) Support Biden's full throated no-strings support of full speed genocide 2) Support Trump's full throated no-strings support of full speed genocide 3) Vote Uncommitted to communicate that Dems need to change their party politics around genocide support if they want to win elections.
Those are the choices, there is no "Biden will maybe change his mind once you reward him with power again and suddenly become less genocidal" choice, that's a fantasy.
Your reading comprehension is severely lacking.
Your moral center is non-existent.
Unlike Biden I do have a red line. It's support from genocide, from any candidate. Full stop, do not pass Go, do not collect the lesser of two evils.
This isn't about morality, I'm telling you that you can't fucking read or you don't care about reading.
Yes. Supporting or not supporting genocide is about morality.
No. I won't be convinced to vote for any candidate who supports genocide. Ever. For moral reasons, and because voting for that candidate would mean I'm communicating that support for genocide is politically viable for me. I disagree that genocide support should be politically viable.
You may be ok with Democrats supporting genocide, that's your call. You can call it pragmatism if you want. It's still genocide, and you still support it by going out and voting for a politician who supports it.
The Supreme Court just ruled that racial gerrymandering is ok as long as it's intended to advantage one party over the other. They gave a thumbs up to rigging elections and fundamentally undermining democracy and described it as a legitimate purpose. And if that wasn't enough, they went on to rule that courts must tip the scales in favor of politicians who are defending against charges of racial discrimination, even if the evidence overwhelmingly supports the accusation, adding unique barriers to racial gerrymandering cases so that they are essentially impossible to win. That decision took away the one remaining tool that was available to fight the GOPs national strategy of going all in on gerrymandering and locking in power in every state they can.
Now, I'm sure you can probably think of other Supreme Court decisions that the current 6-3 court has made which were not exactly great. And those will keep rolling in until the make up of the court changes, which could happen at any time. If Trump gets to appoint another justice or two, he'd likely be able to lock in the right leaning majority for decades.
The undermining of democracy and the extremism of the Supreme Court should be reason enough to recognize that the damage Trump can do would outlast whatever political calculus goes into the next Democratic primary. But add to that his stated intention to eliminate the norms of that keep the justice department and IRS independent so that he can weaponize the entire executive branch to attack his rivals and carry out his petty Vendettas. Add his open hostility to NATO and Ukraine, and his unwavering support for Putin even as he threatens further military aggression. And let's not forget his stated plans to rollback environmental regulations. Oh, and let's not forget the part about how he's planning on rounding up millions of people and putting them in camps. Plus, you know, the fact that he's siding with Israel all the way, and doesn't give two shits about genocide in Palestine or anywhere else. And that's ignoring the crazier shit he might do.
You going to go out there and gun down the bastards? Because they don't give a fuck about protests. They're happy to send cops in to assault protestors, and then use the protests as fuel for fundraising. If you want to have an effect, your options are voting and political participation (potentially including protests), or a whole lot of assassinations. Unless you think that some signs and gas masks will somehow solve the partisan divide and bring the people together in a massive unified front that can overthrow the government and all it's entrenched interests, and that this is somehow more plausible than being able to convince people to support better candidates in primaries and at the state and local level.
The court is locked in as right leaning for decades. The only mitigation here would be expanding the court, which Biden and establishment dems refuse to even entertain. Those are your "champions". It's literally the only way to fix the court on a reasonable timescale and they've shown no indication that they will ever do that because in their tiny little peanut brains we're still back in the 90s where everyone is still pretending that the courts are "apolitical".
Nothing you're saying here is compelling.
Pre-emptively? No. But ask yourself this; how should citizens react to concentration camps in their country? How should people react when fascists start jailing and executing dissidents? How should moral people respond to genocide done in their name? Your mentality needs to evolve now to become that of resistance, because when the system finally gasps its last you're not going to be able to keep cowering behind the lesser if two evils, you're going to have to join the fascists or actually take a stand. You need to prepare for that eventuality.
The question is of when fascists get into power, not if. The goal is to make that stay in power as short as possible and do all the things we should've done at the end of the Civil War. Fascists prey and feed on the "moderate liberal" mindset, that's what allows them to keep edging the line further and further and hiding behind "decorum" and other nonsense.
You have to understand that neoliberals have already fucked us over these last decades by doing what you're doing right now (telling people vote lesser of two evils, shielding the spineless democratic establishment from political consequences, helping propagate neoliberal rhetoric etc.) We're here because of neoliberal apologists and chronic political negilgence.
So when fascists get control there will be no other option to stop the momentum except direct confrontation. Which will include all manner of civil unrest. Yes, that is extreme and undesirable but that's where we are at; an extreme inflection point at which fascists are actively taking over our institutions and establishment Dems are letting it happen. It has been in the works for decades.
The question then is will the American people be in a mindset to actually resist or will they be like the citizens in places like China -- cowed, resigned and worn down into complacency by the slow, grinding creep of gradual fascism, any memory of what a free society actually looks like erased from their collective memories.
If fascists are to gain control it is better that their hand be forced quickly so perhaps the shock will wake people like you up and the fascists have less time to lay further groundwork. People who are in a comfortable bubble need to experience the consequences that, up until now, have been shouldered by the minorities and groups that those same middle-class neolibs claim to support. Fascism needs to be definitively banished and we cannot do that that in the political climate that neolib "moderates" create.
The alternative is fascism continues to creep into every nook and cranny of our society over the course of a generation and society acclimates to it. There will be ash clouds over our cities and idiots will still be babbling about "We just need to elect the lesser of two evils". No, force the fascists into the open now, force people to experience it and confront it now, to choose a side definitively, not continue to bury their heads in the sand and elect do nothing dipshit genocidal establishment Democrats.
We cannot keep rewarding democrats who won't fight, who keep maligning progressives and talking about finding middle ground with the fascists. Voting for those politicians is not useful, it's counter-productive. Being fascist-lite isn't cutting it and that needs to be demonstrated materially to the DNC before it's too late because either they need to stop sabotaging and running from their progressive base or they're useless.
Letting fascists seize power will not make it easier to get rid of them. If you think it's hard to stop them now, wait until they have a chance to purge the government of anyone who opposes their agenda, and wield the full power of the federal government without restraint or oversight. They have the insurrection act and they aren't afraid to use it. And nearly half the people will cheer them on because they get their news from propaganda outlets that will reassure them that the protestors are the bad guys and the soldiers stomping their heads are the good guys. To say nothing of the kind of insidious shit they can do to suppress dissent using the IRS, the justice department, the NSA, etc.
Sacrificing democracy, the rule of law, and what little institutional opposition we have to authoritarianism is not going to help us in the long run.
They are going to sieze power. The decision is whether you give them more time to massage the general public into the idea or not.
Trump will not step into office and start ruling like a king, Project 2025 or no. He'll get four years and will trash the cpuntry and our institutions. Once that's done Democrats will be faced with a choice; go to the primaries and vote for another milquetoast failure of a corporate dem, or vote for someone who is willing to fight.
If the lesson doesn't sink in by that point, it never will and the country is doomed.
Voting lesser of two evils has failed, and it will continue to fail. Biden represents a slow death, nothing more.