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‘What is this, the Soviet Union?’: Senators rip Trump’s call to limit doll purchases
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
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politics
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No, it's the America you lot voted for.
How's it feel being great again?
I voted for Kamala Harris. Before that I would have voted for Bernie Sanders.
Kamala Harris targeted Republican women for a good portion of her campaign, and dropped a lot of the very popular Democratic platform, resulting in millions of Democrats sitting this one out.
Do you think this is because they are stupid? Why would they do this if not to take a knee? And I still thought that Trump would lose, I couldn't believe that he would be re-elected. I'm never cynical enough.
Imagine if she ran on a $15 an hour minimum wage increase, helping many millions of our poorest Americans, with over 60% voter support (not Democrat). Our consumer economy would get millions of new consumers participating.
Ds and Rs are now 30% each, independents are 40% of the voters. Both parties know that they cannot win without a majorly popular independent issue. Why was this ignored?
Oh, almost forget, yes, I know, BoTh SiDeS and so on.
To be extremely clear. THAT WAS ONE OF HER POLICIES
Democrats run on $15/hr, win in a landslide (2020), and throw up their hands because they don't have Joe Manchin's permission to raise wages in the US Senate.
Republicans run on ending abortions and now abortions are fully illegal in a slew of states, with a national ban on the horizon.
I didn't watch her every appearance, but I did watch quite a lot, and minimum wage seriously got very little time compared to her pursuit of Republicans. Reporters and politicos who did watch everything agree. Abortion was in the forefront regarding their D platform, which has about as much support as higher minimum wage (over 60%).
If she had replaced her R outreach with campaigning for higher wages, and continued as she did with the abortion issue, she would have received many more D and independent voters. She needed them both to win, the "R strategy" was weird and stupid and in my opinion I think she was paid to do exactly what she did.
Her campaign undeniably made a fortune from somebody (over a billion dollars). Not only did she make more than anybody ever, she did it in just a few months. It's a radical and preposterous increase, right in the open, in public.
She immediately knew reaching out to Rs was a massive waste of precious time and that she would lose if she did so. It's a mathematical certainty, bOtH pArTiEs know that they need to court independents instead of their opponents to win a fed election.
I voted for her, this is not a Trump defense, he also is paid to do exactly what he does by "donors" (like Saudi Arabia and Musk and Bezos and Walmart and Russia and that guy from the Hercules sitcom).
And you're every so politely ignoring the states run by dems having higher min wages, to pretend that it's only Republicans getting shit done. Notably just like there isn't a $15 min national wage, there's also not a national abortion ban. Your comparison is poorly cherry picked.
I can't speak for everyone, but I thought thoroughness would be pedantic. I could have gone into much more detail, or at least typed out "FEDERAL minimum wage", but I had thought this was taken for granted in any FEDERAL election. So what do you do? Accuse me of "pretending" and "cherry picking", that's not nice.
So, for future reference, a President can only sign a federal minimum wage increase, they are unable to raise state, city, etc. minimum wages. I'll be sure to type that out into great detail next time. Ha, I'm kidding, ain't nobody got time for that.
You know my post would have had to be pages long for the wage increase if I went into detail, you could easily write a fat book about it.
Remember, 40% of voters are independent, Ds and Rs are at 30% each. It's to your advantage to be cordial, whatever party you are; hostility will NOT win elections. Not an accusation, just sharing a factoid (hint hint)
For the comment higher towards you I really did mean that as a general clarification. I would've worded it more strongly otherwise. I wasn't entirely sure if you realized it or not given your wording, so I wanted to make sure less familiar people reading on that were more clear.
The cherry picking comment was not to you, it was to their person it's replied to. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you just misread the comment chain
Which states have a living wage?
$15 isn't a living wage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_minimum_wage
No shit.
Are there some fundamental differences between Dems and GQP? Sure, some, but as a person who has taken an outside view of politics through expanding my political knowledge and understanding, when it comes down to it they only have surface level differences. When Madami was running for Mayor of New York the Democrat establishment threw every nasty thing they could to STOP him. Get this straight, they would have rather a MAGA win than an avowed Democratic Socialist. THAT tells me what I really need to know about the majority of the Democrats in the party.
At this point, the difference is mostly in stability. It's highly unlikely that Harris would have slapped a bunch of tarrifs around willy nilly, and she probably wouldn't be blowing up a bunch of ships near Venezuela (I wouldn't rule it out, but I would assume that the false flag operation would be more subtle).
US voting is 100% picking the lesser evil, at least for now. The current hope would be that democratic socialists gain enough standing to take over the democratic party, so that voters have meaningful choice. In an ideal world, we'd repeal things like citizens united as well
One might argue the sides are Labor and Capital, but we only have representatives from the Capital Party to choose from every year
Agreed! Our "labor party" sold out a long time ago; our current choices are secular or theocratic capital.
The vast majority of Americans didn't vote for this. Two thirds of us didnt vote for this. If you think this is the voters' fault, you dont understand the world very well, my friend.
1/3 of them didn’t vote, which is very much a vote in and of itself and don’t dare absolve them by letting them continue their “I didn’t vote for this” narrative. You fucking did the moment you chose not to vote.
A great Canadian philosopher once noted, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!"
Lol thanks, now that song is gonna be stuck in my head all day D=
There's worse songs.
Indeed, it could be Two Princes.
[Now That's What I Call Songs Sung To The Tune Of "Two Princes" By The Spin Doctors 5]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaJ_2uEs10I
Tom Sawyer is one that I have more often get stuck in my head...
Wise words. He also said "I will choose the path that's clear," and I feel like none of the people who didn't vote were paying attention. It's been pretty clear, to anyone who's actually paying attention, what's been going on for a long time now.
Well a whole lotta Ken Bones seem to think the parties need to offer them a pretty, pretty pony.
And then...they'll still think about voting. If they aren't washing their hair that day or if there isn't some compelling reality TV show on or something.
The majority didn't vote because there are flaws in the voting systems we have. They are disenfranchised, not at fault. I dont blame a poor person for being poor, but I mean, if you want to blame people for being subjugated, thats your prerogative.
I voted for Harris. What else was I supposed to do?
In the average Lemmy twat's view, try to overthrow the government at the cost of your life and possibly your family's while they pontificate on the internet about Americans not doing enough.
I mean, you're not wrong. They are full of brave, anonymous invective.
^ This.
Work on shifting USA culture from alienating individualism, which says "I did a thing, so don't blame me", to a collectivist understanding that society requires mutuality of action and responsibilities.
If my co-citizens fail to vote, or actively vote against our interests, then that's on me, to the extent of my abilities to contribute.
TL;DR: talk to people about civics
Me too, man. Stay vigilant.
Im watching to news, ready to do what makes sense. If ICE comes to town, I'm there baby.
Thank you for doing that. Others went above and beyond by canvassing and volunteering too and/or donating. I tried to make an impact by just getting people to vote period. If they needed a ride to the polls I was willing to help. But you at least did something
I'm out in the country (appalachian mountains) so kind of low population density for this, but if I'm ever living back in the city I'll try and reach out to people.
I'm confused by your comment. Are you saying two thirds didn't want this specifically, or are you counting non-voters as opponents of Trump?
My guess is that most of the non-voters, if forced to vote, would have voted Trump. He had name recognition. These types of citizens couldn't name the current Vice President any more than they could find the USA on a world map.
Unlikely voters, as opposed to likely voters which are the pollsters darlings, are low information, "just trying to pay the rent" kind of people. Why a low information voter with no reason to believe their life would change with either result would by default be a Trump voter speaks to your personal prejudices.
Personal prejudices? I explained why in my comment. Name recognition.
You called them "low information." If your comment wasn't prejudiced, then neither was mine.
America has a two party system where both parties are controlled by capitalists and the entire system is designed to keep the populous divided and distracted so that the capitalists can continue to extract wealth. In such a system, participation itself is the moral choice, not the choice between one side or the other.
Voters give legitimacy to the false dichotomy that capitalists present us.
How does it feel to be a smug, unhelpful asshole?
We didn't all vote for the the orange clown.
It's just a reminder that the American people are the problem. Even when Trump is gone, the people will remain, so it must remain the top priority of everyone who values democracy and human rights to reduce the power that the United States exercises on the world.
Every two years we vote. Every two years things get worse.
Clearly, the problem is with the people doing the voting. Couldn't possibly be something fundamentally dysfunctional in our democratic model.
I see it as a two part problem. One, the current party setup one party ratchets us towards fascism, the other obstructs attempts to go back for "bi-partianship." Secondly, I hear most swing voters consider themselves moderates and from experience along with other's inspection of them, they're only concerned about order until it affects them. In thusly they're essentially just a brand of conservatism. Sounds a lot like the typical liberal.
There's a joke about the average suburban Wine Mom voting for Pete Buttigieg every two years, while having political opinions consistent with Mao's Little Red Book. "Moderate" is such a moving target, precisely because its hedged in by who is actually running. I'm sure if you sample the NYC voting pool, you'll find people who voted for Rudy Giuliani in the '90s, Michael Bloomberg in the '00s/'10s, and Zohran Mamdani in '25, without much cognitive struggle. Hell, there's no shortage of Obama/Trump swing voters.
Most people don't care about politics until it affects them. And the art of political discourse is largely trying to get your audience to sympathize with your position by convincing them they are going to benefit from your policies / suffer from your opponents'.
So much of the modern capitalist system is predicated on people believing that they benefit from playing along and contributing their labor/intellect for a share of the spoils. And so much of the socialist system is predicated on people believing their neighbors have their backs in a real material way, so they should reciprocate in kind.
Move a liberal from a system that rewards subservience to a system that rewards solidarity and they're happy enough to change.