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It died on November 5th, 2024. We are just in the embers.
To be fair it had been on life support for decades.
Yeah this is the thing. Trump isn't where things went south, but he sure accelerated it. In a working democracy, he would have been laughed out of the room. But decades of neocon politics have deteriorated the American society so much in so many aspects that he got elected
Yup. Thanks, non-voters.
'You mean my inaction at a time when I could have stopped the end of democracy actually ended democracy? Must be bidens fault somehow!' - dumbass American voters
No one chose to be born into this world. No one should be forced to play human-created nonsense games.
Keep being mad and feeding these machines.
True. But like it or not, we are in that situation. No one has said it was 'ideal' in any sense, but we are in it. No one chooses their nation of their birth either. If the machine is so bad, people have a choice to leave. If not, they have a responsibility to recognize and react to the situation to make it better, or at very least to make sure it doesn't get worse. Ignoring it in the hope it'll go away is how we got here today. Willful ignorance and inaction is a choice. Educating oneself as to the consequences of our choices, actions or ignorance and apathy are two sides of the same coin.
You are in this situation. I am not. If I were not able to opt out of voting, I would choose death over submission.
People need to understand what a "no-vote" is. Give me liberty or give me death. We are not playing this small, rigged game.
Humanity is in the age of becoming a multiplanetary civilization, and yet we squabble over petty differences and cater to the lowest common denominators.
We have the stars within our grasp and yet most of us clutch towards dramas played out repeatedly for centuries.
I don't want mere healthcare. I want complete unconditional care for every being alive and to ever live in the future. I want to choose the planet I live on based upon my gravitational preferences. I want my intentions and desires to be read near perfectly and frictionlessly satisfied to the maximum possible. I want equal share in cosmic computational capabilities to be operated as a sovereign extension of my mind.
And I want every other being to receive the same according to the magnitude of their consciousness. This includes plants, animals, and beings we have yet to encounter.
Where you see two choices within a political axiom that has total control over the outcomes within your life and the lives of your community, I see only one. The "choices" are simply ritualistic motions of compliance with decisions the ruling class has already made. I engage with that system only at the minimum required in order to maintain material and bodily sovereignty. Voting in an unauditable and openly rigged system, especially after seeing the DNC is rigged, is nothing but an instrument of mass control.
I create a second choice by not participating. Opting out is a non-destructive, peaceful way to withdraw consent and focus energy on alternatives. Every human being can create these sorts of options. That is how government was originally created. All better systems begin with rejecting the smaller visions.
Sure. Fix the system by not fixing the system. Good job. Hope you stay healthy while you wait for all the healthcare you want.
Let me spell it out for you.
There is no fixing that system. It is broken beyond repair. It is a gordian knot, and it requires the same solution.
Do with that knowledge what you will.
Ah yes. Don't fix your badly damaged car for the interim, then when it finally explodes due to inaction, complain that you no longer have a way to get to your job to earn enough money to get a new one.
Which is unfortunately quite poetic. Refusing to vote has ensured they will no longer be able to vote.
You mean not fixing the system won't fix the system? What am I missing here...? /s
Referring to the guy you're replying to, if it isn't clear.
We all know that Harris had a path to victory and she didnt take it. I suppose its easier for you to demonize the voters who tried to pressure their party to do what we all know is the right thing than it is to pressure our leaders to run a competent and moral campaign.
So you're just lazy and unable to effect meaningful change, beyond shouting into a void on an anonymous forum, right. I imagine if we all just mute your complaints you'll kick your dog and blame it for the loss, so I guess we'll just wait for you to whine yourself out. I'm not in favor of dog kicking.
Yeah, how dare he make a comment on a forum all about making comments.
Non voters made a conscious decision to allow a switch from democracy to authoritarianism and put us on a path to totalitarianism. They are solely responsible and I will never forgive them for this transgression. Not voting was childish.
I see it now-- so if more voters had fewer morals, lower standards, and were more open to manipulation, we'd have better dem leaders doing less awful things. Makes perfect sense. And-- If Harris were in charge today theres no way she'd be supporting this zionist adventure, right? No way. Not a chance.
Ah yes... The moral high-ground of...
checks notes
Enabling fascism by helping the guy, who stated that Netanyahu should "finish the job" and publicly discussed turning Gaza into hotels, elected...
If you were any more in denial, you'd be in danger of crocodile attacks.
likewise.
There is no "likewise". You suck at the trolley problem, plain and simple.
No one is interested in slapfighting. Cut it out.
A "slap fight"? Is that what you call the severity of the situation, or the reconciliation of your own wrong politics?
They may have convinced themselves or others that this is what they did, but it was, in fact nothing of the sort. All that they did was open the door to someone who keeps a book of Hitler speeches on his bedside table. Non-voters are just shy of collaborators and absolute traitors to vulnerable people, as well as humanity at large.
I've engaged in protest efforts and volunteering to help people in my community, while non-voters only engaged in performative bullshit that objectively made the genocide that they suddenly started caring about worse and put us on a path to losing the last vestiges of democracy, not to mention what appears likely to be WW3.
Wow. You're classy. I hope your animal abuse mention isn't projecting your own real-life behavior onto others.
You know what would actually be a good way to stop me from making statements like my original one? Take some fucking responsibility for the harms that you have voluntarily contributed to and do something - anything - to actually try to meaningfully make the world a better place.
What do you do to help people in your community? Anything at all or, is engagement limited to stroking your ego and defending actions that do nothing to improve the human condition but let you tell yourself that you're better than other people because they don't have as myopic of an understanding of the world as you do?
They actually made me care LESS about the genocide because it became impossible to have a rational conversation with them about it. I just switched off, or went to a different thread.
Thats not for you to decide or dictate.
First, want to respond to my question? Are you actively doing anything meaningful to help change the world in a positive manner? Or are you just congratulating yourself for playing the electoral equivalent of The Royal Sampler?
Facts are facts, regardless of how you want to feel about them. I don't decide them any more than you do. Objectively, the world, as well as Palestine, is in a worse place than it would have been under Harris.
You chose to throw democracy, neurodivergent people, trans people, people of color, sick people, the people of Palestine, the people of Ukraine, and plenty of others under the bus with your intention choice not to oppose fascism.
You could say that you weren't warned or explicitly told what would happen if you helped a Hitler fanboy get elected but, that would be a lie. If you insist on playing the same game as a Brexiteer, be my guest, but you'll still be called out until you put in the slightest bit of effort to fix the century of progess that you've flushed down the toilet.
The only real question is whether you were a rube or if you were acting maliciously, like the Acolytes of Accelerationism. That's something only you can answer.
You clearly know nothing about the actual motives of brexit voters. but call other people short-sighted.
The choice was Trump, or a continuation of the political/economic ideology that made Trump inevitable. Implicit in t he act of voting is the giving of consent. This outcome has been decades in the making. And yet you blame 'non-voters' for all of the ills of fossil-fuel powered neo-liberal capitalism, and then have the cheek to call others short-sighted. Grow up.
I'm well-acquainted with the nativism, financial illiteracy, and people mistaking support for right-wing elites for being in any way anti-establishment but, the motive weren't the topic. The relationship to Brexiteers is their reaction to event negative thing that they were warned about coming to pass and their claims of "nobody said this would happen" and "this isn't what I voted for", as well as numerous other statements to avoid taking any personal responsibility.
Trump was only inevitable because of self-fulfilling prophecy. His is a minority party, when support from the populace at large is concerned. Positive changes had been happening, like legalizing homosexual marriage (something that's targeted under this regime for repeal, along with interracial relationships).
They share the blame, yes. Non-voters are the largest voting bloc and have been for decades. Their myopic refusal to meaningfully engage with the political tools of democracy, desiring only instant gratification and ego stroking instead, is why neo-libs have had any power whatsoever. That they helped usher in fascism is just the cherry on top of the shitty behavior.
Don't help fascists.
You are entirely wrong regarding brexit voters.
You are wrong regarding Trump.
And no. when implicit in the act of voting is the giving of consent, it is entirely of course entirely reasonable not to vote for the continuation of the political economic ideology that made Trump inevitable.
YOu have a lot to learn. You will not learn it now.
You're a Brexiteer, I take it? https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053168018773964
Sorry if the reality that a significant number of the Leave voters are just racists upsets you. The fact that Brexiteers made life harder for my family in the occupied counties rather upsets me.
Care to clarify your meaning there and support it with anything?
This is very much looking like embracing the fallacy of Denying the Correlative. The choices in the US election were only:
There were no other options. It's a two party FPTP system, making claims otherwise factually inaccurate. Refusing to vote against fascism was implicitly supporting fascism because refusing to vote has in recorded electoral history only ever helped the right-wing. It really is that simple.
Refuse to oppose fascism in the bare minimum fashion (other action is required) and you're intentionally enabling harm to those that fascists hate.
I've learned that a lot of people claiming to care about humanity are just myopic egotists and lack basic maths skills. What are you suggesting needs learning?
Oh is this a homework assignment I'm required to do? Then Gosh, yes Sir! I am, all the time. Do we want to phallus measure each others social impact and see who has the right to talk, is that how this works? I think my social work resume is pretty far above average. Pretty likely better than yours.
But are you pretending you're able to be convinced by anything I say? I think you're simply here to troll and get some jollies by being angry. Some people just enjoy being angry. Or maybe its that you are looking for anything to not acknowledge that you got played into maintaining a lame status quo, that you explicitely supported genocide probably without even bothering to try to push back, and that you still lost. Same as everyone else.
It amazes me that you and your ilk are not even bothering to even ask why the dem candidates made a choice to support genocide, you are on lemmy whining why didnt everyone else support genocide and you see nothing wrong with that, and assign zero blame to the leaders who made a choice to support genocide. You hold them to no account whatsoever.
Pathetic.
You might recall that you were making assertions that those of us pissed off at the betrayal are doing nothing.
The dem candidates made the choice to stick with the status quo, which you either knew they were not going to break with or were delusional. This genocide has been happening for nearly 80 years and you lot only started caring about it when millions of right-wing cash poured in to influence people to self-disenfranchise.
The "tactic" of not-voting if the only non-fascist option didn't do what you wanted was, plainly, stupid. Inaction only helps the oppressor and non-voting has only ever helped the right-wing get elected.
And there's the attemp to deflect responsibility again. You know that your fallacious claims are not based on reality - you have already demonstrated that you can think abstractly through your creative use of invented animal abuse to try to make yourself seem morally superior. Reality is not black and white, as much as you lot try to assert it to be.
Of course, you know well we hold them responsible for their actions and would have them all tried for complicity but that's become even more remote a possibility, thanks in part to you.
So, you continue to try to assert superiority over others. Congrats, I guess.
So, since you're so concerned about people being held to account for genocide, are you going to accep responsibility for your part in making things worse for Gaza as well as the rest of the globe? Or are you just going to hide behind your faux action that explicitly helped get fascists into power?
How about the global genocide through acceleration of climate change? Are you happy that you helped participate in supporting that? Are you happily accepting responsibility for skiing the part?
How about the mass deportations? How about the illegal and punitive imprisonment of people supporting a free Palestine? Are you proud of your role in making that happen?
"Your choice is between Hitler 2.0 and our Corporately anointed puppet. Remember to exercise YOUR VOICE and vote!!"
What nonsense. People taking no action are no where near people choosing fascism, are you mad? And a choice between cartoon fascism that should clearly be opposed and festering corporate fascism is not a choice.
Not voting IS VOTING. What kind of mental gymnastics has the AI antagonist machine got you on? This non-voter talking point is EVERYWHERE, and people keep spreading it.
When a system is through in through corrupt the only moral action is to not participate in it.
Let me share something with you to give a small hint at what stage you're in with your "voting" and "government"
Who knows, maybe you'll even recognize it?!
"When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."