Lurker > legendary_zell

They'd either have to immediately get rid of the filibuster and ram everything and I mean EVERYTHING through immediately, which would create a huge backlash, or they'd have to completely change the media landscape and their political ideology to win a huge wave election.

The first one is far more likely, but I don't think it's likely at all.

Without one of the two, they won't be able to undo the damage before the next Republican backlash hits. Assuming this time isn't "the end" the next time surely will be.

ConfusedTorchic posted...

all of the doe workers have already been placed on leave, so essentially fired in all but name only

it's already done

Do you have a source? I haven't seen anything confirming this. I only see stories about the employees who went to DEI training (also horrible and likely illegal) but do you have a source for mass leave for the whole agency?

This is no time for decorum. I'll be here to praise them if they actually pull the trigger. Keep them from being able rename a post office if you can.

It's a disaster that fascism arrived with people like this as our leaders. It's not a coincidence at all that fascism arrived with people like this as our leaders. We need new leaders yesterday. People with vision and fight. People who feel and act like there's something vital at stake, not people who think they'll be fine no matter what happens. Since they clearly don't have a plan, maybe there's a chance for that leadership to emerge if they seize the moment and give people a plan and hope.

He used to call himself a socialist and was thought of as "epic science man" and "literally Tony Stark" until post Covid. He had a huge amount of ordinary people and media figures defending him. The bubble didn't even begin to burst until that Thai submarine incident years back.

Elon Musk was widely thought of as one of those "good billionaires" up until a few years ago. That amount of money is deranging and in 99% of cases can only be acquired by megalomania. It is inherently distorting to the economy and democracy in terms of the concentration of power, influence, audience, speech, etc it provides. And perception as a good billionaire is always bought and paid for through the reality distortion field effect that has on media, when they don't outright own the media companies.

Jolly_Bear posted...

Since when did general criticism of a Democrat qualify as being part of the Uncommitted Movement? Regardless of whether or not the criticism is warranted/valid, it seems a bit of a leap to conclude that someone did not vote Democrat in prior elections merely due to expressing frustration with a Democrat. Especially on CE, where bulk majority of American posters did vote for Harris (I think?)

In late 2023/early 2024 as it became increasingly apparent that Biden was cruising for a historic loss. That's when CE because utterly hysterical about criticism and its never recovered.

We need a fighter and I'm unfortunately not seeing any indication that this is that kind of guy.

I don't think this is because of Trump. It's because they challenged the peace of a senior official of the college. You don't disturb the powers that be.

It's felt incredibly slow for me over the past two weeks specifically.

This feels like 2020 all over again, but without the release of an election to get out of the terrible situation at the end. Instead, we've just begun and there's a long way down. I don't think people have any clue what is going on right now.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/musk-aides-lock-government-workers-out-computer-systems-us-agency-sources-say-2025-01-31/

Musk, a private individual with no government position or authority is blocking career HR professionals out of access to their own system and gaining direct access to federal employee's private info they gave to the government.

You are watching private capital attempt to directly take control of, weaponize, break, and dismantle the government. This is not a drill; a transformation of our society is being attempted.

Seriously, did he directly threaten the lives of the staff of these media companies? Or is this just a more craven form of billionaire control.

Patel will do hyper Cointelpro.

RFK Jr will unleash the plague and permanently break public health.

As bad as Patel would be and even though I'll surely be one of his targets, RFK Jr. already has a body count and it will certainly expand exponentially under his watch.

A normal right-wing doctor would be a huge improvement.

This will not help with a single anti-immigration voter. Democrats are always and forever an open borders party in their mind no matter how many people are deported under Democrats. I don't know what sequence of events it would take to prove it to Democratic politicians.

We're not getting out of this without building an alternative media messaging infrastructure.

It's true, they're getting absolutely spammed right now. Absolutely hilarious if it wasn't also evidence of an infiltration of our government by malicious incompetents.

EPR-radar posted...

This business of Democrats having standards and Republicans having no standards has really got to end.

It made no fucking sense at all for Biden's age to have ever been an issue, for the simple reason that a fucking corpse would be infinitely better than Trump, and we wouldn't even be stuck with a corpse because the vice-presidency is a thing.

But an unholy combination of a bad-faith GOP, its mainstream media collaborators, and an electorate where the decisive margins are often provided by meatheads in the middle made this non-issue into an issue.

Ditto with all the other "optics" bullshit that always tags Democrats but not Republicans. Ironically, Biden's fuckup on I/P was about the only real issue anyone of any sense could have against him, but even there that's effectively a non-issue because the US is always awful on I/P, and Trump (of course) is worse than that.

I was screaming from the rooftops that this "should have been better than Trump to everyone" attitude was an electoral loser and the exact dynamic that got Hillary beat. That's the main way he wins, in a contest between two historically hated candidates.

Even if that is how things "should work" it's demonstrably not how it actually works. Democrats need someone or something to vote for. Our voters aren't driven by hatred and fear whipped up by decades of right wing media like Republican voters are. We needed an actively positive candidate and instead, every poll said we had a historically huge drain sucking us down. Kamala wasn't able to escape that anchor.

LoZguy709 posted...

Biden suffered in the polls from the debate performance itself, but not to a point that would have been unsalvageable, had "told-you-so" progressives not needed their obnoxious voices heard so prominently. The American public is fickle and forgetful, but spiteful progressives are not unfortunately. The negative reactions from progressives and media shitheads looking to profit off a frenzy didn't start with Stewart, but he helped keep that echo going until Biden had no course for recovery. It's not a hindsight is 20/20 situation, but I do believe that he could have carried through had progressives not had to keep engaging in trashing on him with the likes of Chris Christie.

This is just a non-functional political analysis. This is not how politics or reality works. The article I posted with 86 percent of people thinking he was too old already was from February 2024. February. Which means that opinion was already baked in a year before the election and everything we've heard about their internal polling, plus the results of the actual election confirm that. You have no support for ascribing a widespread preexisting opinion to progressive media post-debate. We don't have that kind of pull at all, wish we did.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/poll-americans-on-biden-age/story?id=107126589

This is the first result you get when you search "how many thought Biden was too old"

It's from well before the debate, before there were any serious calls for him to drop out, before the verbal slipups accelerated. 86. Percent. 79. Percent. Of. Democrats. That's a rare level of agreement in American politics.

LoZguy709 posted...

Typical Americans were not the ones throwing huge fits over Biden's age. Following the debate, the problematic reactions from shitty excuses for Democrats brought particular attention to that characteristic. The ignorant American public wasn't giving such a crap until dumbfucks like Stewart started putting that shit under a microscope without delay.

This is just straight up false. The polls at the time disprove this sentiment. There was widespread agreement that Biden was cooked with huge bipartisan majorities. Even among Democrats. Even among people who voted for him in 2020. Literally anyway you slice it. Typical Americans were the exact ones thinking that way, it was only certain media figures and party/White House officials sticking their heads in the sand and expecting it all to go away somehow.

LoZguy709 posted...

He doesn't have to be a cheerleader and can still criticize Democratic leadership. But he was a total bitch in the way he went about devoting entire segments to Biden's age.

I can't believe this still needs to be said after Trump won, but Stewart did not cause people to have problems with Biden's age. Most people did. Most Democrats did. Most Democrats did not want him to run again. Biden appearing cooked was one of the most widely agreed on points in politics by 2024. Stewart was simply acknowledging what the public overwhelmingly felt. Trying to do what Dems did until right before the switch and pretend it wasn't happening would have discredited him and made him appear to be a shill. It didn't work for anyone who tried to do it. And it did untold damage to the party's credibility that it'll take a long time to fix. Him going another route would not have had any positive effect, the cake was already baked on that issue.

Some people clearly want unthinking cheerleaders for whatever the current democratic line happens to be and not anyone an inch to the left or right of that. If we're throwing Jon Stewart overboard, I don't see how we're getting out of this.

You love to see it. I hope they both crash and burn with immediacy.

Despite all the different types of conservative out there, they all love hierarchy and hate what the left represents. The left remains their ultimate enemy. Therefore they can work together to repress the left/people lower in the various economic and social hierarchies and figure out who will be on top of the new hierarchy they create later, whether that's tech CEOs, military contractors, religious leaders etc.

The Democrats are a party of a lot of liberals, a lot of conservatives, and some leftists, who all disagree about both means and methods, and some consider each other more of a threat than they do Republican conservatives. That's why unity is much harder to find.

What people need to realize is that he's just saying "this is the N words fault"
He's asking people to turn off their brains and just think about racism and how every single thing that goes wrong in the world is caused by minorities and treating them too well.

It's a middle school level codeword game that lets people be openly, virulently, and constantly racist without facing the full pushback they would if they just said what they're actually thinking. DEI means minorities should be kicked out of any position of power and influence. Merit means those positions should be reserved for white men, maybe some white women at most.

One of our biggest assets is their tendency towards incompetence and gloating.

America has always had the building blocks for a fascist state, we've known that for a very long time. Not dealing with our racism and segregation problems, letting corporations and billionaires run rampant and our education system decline. letting the media be bought out and controlled by said billionaires, all of that combined has brought us to where we are today.

This is why doomerism is death. Imagine if state AGs and nonprofits listened to the doomers who say it's not worth challenging anything because he'll just ignore the courts. No, we should be challenging each and every power grab because he hasn't completely commandeered the courts yet and things can be stopped that way.

There's no buyout or seven months of pay. It's just us continuing to get paid for working. We still have to work, just not in the office. We get nothing after we stop working. We're still subject to any BS they institute between now and the resignation date. We could still be fired, this isn't any type of job guarantee. This is purely to create a fear based decision.

I just got it. It's not even a buyout. It's just an "offer" of not having to return to the the office in exchange for committing yourself to resigning immediately. We continue to get paid because we still have to work. There's no pay for not working like a true separation agreement or buyout. It's a total scam.

No, I don't intend to take it. My work is important and pays well. My union is going to sue to block return to office. I'm the person relaying union information and admin news to my coworkers.

I intend to stay and do all of my jobs to the fullest.

News and the admin is already confirming it.

I already got a preliminary email.

There's a very high chance you won't have a federal government at the end of these four years. He's running Project 2025 to the letter. They really want to get rid of the government.

None of them cared in the first place. DEI as they practiced it was never about true equity. They were never interested in changing the conditions that produce inequality because those are the conditions that grant them their power and control.

There's always going to be some bad actors that slip through. Sinema is a great example of that. Sinema is an understandable oversight. Fetterman is not and Gabbard was not.

People are hungry for genuine anti-war and anti-corporate sentiment and because of that, some go as far as to consider almost anyone opposed to US interests as a hero of the global south. It's reflexive thinking just as much as flag waving is.

Nope, there's no plan, and that's part of the point. They want people to quit in frustration, to constructively dismiss us, for people to not get any work done when we're there, so they can justify defunding, privatizing, and abolishing our offices and work. If we stay and obey, that's fine with them. If we leave, that's fine with them.

The only thing that's not fine with them is fighting and defeating them.

I understand not wanting to forgive people who did and are doing harm gleefully, but as another poster said, if we're at each other's throats, we're not at the throats of the people funding this, messaging this, executing this, etc and they love that. A world in which families, neighbors, coworkers are disowning and becoming terminally cynical towards each other is the exact world in which fascism flourishes.

Victims should not be asked to be the bigger person as someone continues to punch them in the face. But there's no positive outcome from societal blackpilling. I struggle with this myself as the people that voted for Trump have really worsened my life and it's only week two. But even if they never admit what they did wrong in the past, ceasing to do harm is a drastic improvement and is necessary.

LightSnake posted...

I'm just kinda wondering how many times this has to happen before the Left admits it has an issue with shallow aesthetics...like this isn't the first time we've been here and now that individual is poised to be Director of National Intelligence. The same people who were shocked at her and Fetterman are currently swearing up and down Hasan is great.

To be totally fair, "activist bckground and a commitment to values consistent with that" is how we got into the Sinema mess, but at least *everyone* can say she fooled them and everyone turned on her for her ridiculous bullshit to the point she couldn't run for reelection since she would've gotten stomped in a primary. but at least she didn't hold a man at fucking gunpoint after profiling him.

The solution isn't to keep accepting establishment types, it's to accept no substitutes for actual progressives. As in a long history of movement or service-oriented work and statements/actions incompatible with the status quo politics/economics/law. That would create more of a contrast and conflict between the left and the Democratic Party, not less. I agree that shallow aesthetics and saying you're pro-Bernie or progressive aren't enough. The Tulsi thing was embarrassing for a portion of the left, that was just a lack of research.

People are so desperate for standard bearers for the left with some actual visibility that they'll believe without works. That's gotta stop.

LightSnake posted...

Connor Lamb supporters are owed a serious apology.

I'll take the L on this one. Going forward, vague "anti-establishment/working class" branding and calling yourself a progressive isn't enough. I want to see an activist background and a long record of commitment to values consistent with that, without any weird incidents like chasing black people. Without that, a reliable if unexciting establishment Dem is better than a future Fetterman or Sinema.

All the cancer in the world should go directly to his body.

To mock God. Much like most of Arizona.

I'm lucky enough to barely have anyone I'd need to do this with. But it's important to note that support and understanding from friends and family is one of the only reliable ways of deradicalizing someone. This extremely understandable drive to want to protect yourself or stop wasting energy on someone engaging in harmful behavior also has the side effect of cutting off the avenue to things getting better.

If people have no relationship or an antagonistic relationship with anyone that is telling them something different from what they already think, they'll never change. I really don't know what to do with that.

Find the leftmost candidate with a chance to win and support them in every way you can. Support organizations that will produce those candidates or provide them the support they need to win. Become that yourself if at all possible. Our greatest enemy going forward is cynicism and apathy.

That's exactly what the fascists want. They're hoping and praying that this is exactly your reaction. They've moved in a way that is calculated to produce it. And most importantly, if everyone that felt this way took a few actions to fight it, they wouldn't be able to do most of it. So that's what I urge you to do, donate, support a union, get active in mutual aid, blow up a vulnerable congressperson's phone, don't roll over because that's a necessary condition of their actual win. Things have been worse than this before and it was fixed through mass mobilization.

I don't know why y'all are treating Modern as if he's the enemy. How are you planning to win or even defend yourself if you're casting people like him out? The main thing is saying is we need to fight hard regardless of what Trump plans to do and we need to be ready to contest everything.

WingsOfGood posted...

so if after all that has been done and that candidate looks great

what if they disagree on certain things and won't budge?

Are the criticisms valid? If no, I'll try to convince people on that. If yes, then depending on the issue and how heinous it is, I'll either tell people to vote for the candidate either way full stop or tell people to vote for the candidate for the purposes of harm reduction but understand if they won't and will defend their right to continue to criticize.

That's what I did this time. You're not ever going to get me to agree to shutting down valid criticism, no matter who the candidate is or who the opponent is. Once we're doing that, we've already lost.

WingsOfGood posted...

so what is the plan for 2028?

Start with grassroots resistance that by necessity involves and produces a different type of politics. The UAW's union organizing and voter education is a good model. Find out who still has energy right now and put them in charge. Honestly assess our weaknesses with normies who do not think the way we do. Immediately start building an alternative info/media atmosphere because all legacy media is cooked. Donate to fund legal challenges to keep central pillars of our society intact. Find more working-class candidates, true community leaders, and run them. Primary all dinosaurs and moderates. Educate people on the importance of primaries. Prioritize working class centric economic messages and minimize high risk low reward lefty rhetoric, without throwing anyone overboard. Ensure there is a full and open process for the selection of the 2028 candidate and that the candidate can credibly present themselves as a fresh start. No Obama/Clinton/Biden ties.

Tom_Joad posted...

Already forgotten about Genocide Joe?

And the "vote third party" rally cry right up to election day?

Joe did a Genocide. It will never be wrong to say that at any point and if we can't say that just because an election is happening, we're already cooked. We'd be forced to accept literally anything at that point.

There was negligible third party vote this election and it had no real effect on the outcome. You're tilting at windmills.

Spend some time talking about observable reality and how you're going to deal with that instead of ranting about the left.

WingsOfGood posted...

So the dems are our heroes but they must change to our demands correct?

There are no heroes except for some spectacular ordinary people. The Dems are definitely not heroes, I'm not aware of a political party that ever has been, but they can be better or worse. The party as it currently exists has zero chance of saving us. With their current structure and ideology and the constraints of our political system, they are not getting the majorities to change what needs to be changed. The only solution is to have wider appeal.

They're not our demands; they're the demands of the moment. There's no way out of this that doesn't involve getting back the working class and the party has been bleeding support there over the course of decades. There's absolutely no way to rationally argue that the present course will reverse that trend. Parties rarely change course themselves, events and movements have to push them. That's what happened at all our previous crisis points. Staying the course has never ever been an option and has never happened before.

Terrible take by him. It was a sieg heil, point blank, period.

Being far right is far more important to the far right than anything else. They're fine with outright Nazism as long as you support plutocracy and unlimited state violence to maintain the status quo.

Man, I hope this is just raw feelings from the election because if it continues this way for four years, we're beyond cooked. We create working class liberal-leftist coalitions and break through the brainwashing or we're doomed. That'll require better voters, better activism, and a better Democratic Party.

This isn't the first time democracy and ordinary people have been at a low ebb. We didn't get out of it previously by blaming each other, entering silos, or staying the course. It took people building a popular front, getting out into the streets, transforming political parties, striking, etc. That's what we need to spend every ounce of energy doing and that's what I intend to do in real life.