Lurker > legendary_zell

They love to fight the left with the fury of a thousand suns and compromise with and capitulate to the right.

The right is someone to point to, to split the baby with, to take ideas from to neutralize them.

The left is considered a threat and liability that must be blocked by any means necessary.

We're the bad guys. Not all of us or potentially even most of us. But when judged by the actions of our "leaders", military, and intelligence agencies, we're the baddies.

Will this teach all the people who are saying we shouldn't care about court wins because he's just going to ignore rulings against him?

He pushes as hard as he can, but at the end of the day, he often complies. That's why it's important to challenge everything and to create outside pressure to make sure he does so, rather than just saying "he's just gonna ignore it"

These numbers don't mean much out of context. What is the norm to be gathered and distributed under these circumstances?

And what's the grift here? Is the allegation that he's trying to fundraise and keep the money?

Evening_Dragon posted...

Ehhh, this comes across kind of unintentionally classist instead of woke. Like all that not-money stuff is great, if you already have the money. But if you're coming from no money and this is the one shot you have to bring money to your low class family, then yeah, money is the goal. Of course you're gonna cheat.

College was my only shot at money and that's why I took it seriously and never cheated. Now I'm actually good at my job and haven't fallen for a lot of the garbage a lot of people in my demographic have fallen for, because I learned everything I could.

That other stuff is essential for everyone, money or no money. Education is not just a cheat code for more money. The working class needs real education and the skills you gain from it far more than rich nepo babies who can rely on their pedigree.

It's the end result of our attitude towards education. Actual learning, engagement, growth, critical thinking, all of that is viewed as at best beside the point and too time consuming and at worst laughable and woke. People want the piece of paper that says they went to X school so they can get Y salary at Z company.

It's 20th century factory prep education combined with Stemlord anti-humanities sentiment and grifter/hustle culture.

Nothing that happens on the way matters, it's just about that endpoint. It's an investment, not a transformative experience.

Of course when people think that way, they're going to start minimizing effort through shameless cheating. Why not when it's all about the money?

Still got the day off and didn't have to hear him or my agency head bs about freedom and supporting black people. Best of both worlds IMO.

He's orders of magnitude better than anything going on right now and I'd trade for him in a heartbeat. But Biden was a significantly better President with worse resources.

Obama took office with a chance to created a new New Deal and in a country deeply angry after bankers crashed the economy. He had majorities we may never see again in Congress. And he functionally squandered it all and the state Democratic Parties collapsed under him.

The fact that we got Trump immediately after him is 75 percent racism, and a critical 25 percent of him wasting generational levels of anger and political engagement to empower consultants and try to do Clinton's third term

Ted Cruz survived purely due to the Magic R and the rabid anti-Democrat hatred in Texas. For someone who rails against identity politics, it's the only reason he's still in office.

By being involved in trying to create good news. It helps a lot with the depression, y'all. Get involved with a group or organization that you really think has a chance to change things, one that's trying to create the world you'd like to see.

Numbness, escapism, and withdrawal is what they want from you.

I wish nothing but the worst for anyone involved in this decision. Or maybe that they'll one day feel soul crushing guilt and beg for forgiveness/work to undo the harm they've cause. Historically, that second one seems unlikely, unfortunately.

Many will not get it until they are personally in a prison camp in El Salvador. They think they'll ultimately be fine and they'll just win back power in a year or 3.

Absolute deadly garbage. They're still going to take their culture war scalps and maximize state and federal rights to do terrible things and minimize their ability to do good things.

WingsOfGood posted...

This should be 500 posts already

There's very little debate to be had about open fascism.

Join with anyone to do good and no one to do evil.

The "unreasonable activist left" was right yet again about the potential of ICE as an inherently anti human institution and the need to abolish it.

Trump is using and abusing federal power, but he can't use powers he can't even claim to have or order people outside his chain of command to do things. He's using the federal power of the purse, law enforcement, investigation, et. These are all things that are in his power. He pushes where he can, tries to blur the lines where he can, but doesn't do what he can't do.

State AGs offices have been some of the most effective people at suing him. If he's omnipotent as some of you seem to think, why doesn't he just abolish those? He can do anything and no one will stop him, right?

When you have this many people who frequently disagree with LightSnake saying he's right (including me), he's right.

The President has borderline infinite power to deport people and courts are very reluctant to second guess presidents on border or national security issues. That's why he tries to make everything into one of those issues.

The vast majority of stuff that he's been breaking the law on, it's by stretching powers he does have beyond their breaking point. That's how he's been dismantling the federal government, because he's the head of the exec, he's using all potential powers. He hates that California's government is the way it is, but he hasn't signed an order abolishing California's Department of Education. Because you can't stretch something that you can't even touch.

There's a difference between things that stretch executive powers or areas over overlap with Congress or the courts and powers that lie elsewhere and don't make judges nervous to question boundaries/second guess.

I feel like some of you have taken the lesson that he's already all powerful and can break any law and do anything. He's definitely a criminal and an authoritarian, but he only presses buttons that are available to him. He is doing things that technically any President could have done, they just had the decency not to press that button. So he has an ICE Gestapo button and an ignore court cases button, but every president has had those.

He doesn't have a pardoning of state convictions button. Not because he doesn't want to, or hasn't thought about it, but because there is no mechanism for him to do that and separate people who have that power. This isn't an honor system or excessive presidential/executive power thing like these other issues. Even if he announced it on Twitter or signed an executive order purporting to do so in 5 minutes, it would have zero legal effect. Same as an executive order declaring himself the mayor of NYC.

Thinking that he's already omnipotent will have you both tilting at windmills and will paralyze you into inaction. We have to always live in reality and respond to actual events and possibilities.

Goddamn, hope they find the guy quick.

Why do they call it oven when you of in the cold food of out hot eat the food?

Cynicism is very understandable in a time of rapid democratic backsliding like this. But it's important to remember that it's ALWAYS worth fighting, and that every single roadblock should be put up, and pain or at least time should be extracted for every right they try to take.

They are able to have this level of success because our institutions are hollowed out, not because they're masterminds. We have to present them with every opportunity to trip over their dicks.

Our leaders are fundamentally unequipped for this moment, and the fascists have been working towards it for decades. We're in for dark times before this gets better, most likely. IF it does.

The last person who talked to him complained about harming the hotel or farm business by disappearing their workers, but he still has his overriding, deep hatred of brown people and immigrants and knows it's his whole brand. This is an attempt to square that circle.

I remember extreme, life ruining trauma for the kids.

I'll sacrifice a goat if I need to.

It's crazy that people can see this and think that the correct response is to echo Republican policy and rhetoric on immigration or to try to outflank them on it/take away the issue like Clinton did with welfare. It just comes back later, all the austerity he imposed did not make anyone think of Dems at the party of "welfare queens" any less. We see the attempt happening in the UK and it's not going to end well.

If the right wing media and cultural echochamber continues to exist, there is nothing they can do to dodge the label of the "open borders" party. The only available response is to draw on humanity and solidarity. If that doesn't work, we were always doomed.

This is exactly the guise American fascism was always going to present itself in. They've learned from WW2 era fascism in that they can't target Jewish people specifically, so they picked immigrants this time and bet that enough people would be willing to burn their own rights over it.

Kamala would not have stopped local cops from kneeling on necks, let's be real. They did it multiple times under Biden. It's what they do in this country, regardless of President. Of course, Trump is now giving them carte blanche to escalate even further to stomping people with horses.

I know one of the organizers for the group that led this! Amazing work!

Let them fight.jpg

asdf8562 posted...

Stop you right there, as you made this completely up.

Any infighting on who the best primary pick is fine before one is chosen. You can bash your non picks as much as you want as long as that stops soon as a winner is chosen. Regardless is that winner was the one you chose.

For example, Bernie would not be my pick for a primary winner. I think he has a habit of giving Republicans easy talking points trying to sound clever. Like the time he agreed with Musk for different reasons. Despite that, all criticism from me would only happen during primary season, and would end if he became the General election nominee.

IIRC, you were one of the main people accusing people of being sabateurs and Trumpers when people were criticizing Biden for being too old and feeble to have the confidence of the people or for supporting a genocide. During the primary. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Additionally, the fundamental premise of this topic is weird because it IS the left that's out there doing stuff and making coalitions right now. It's not perfect, but the progressives are the ones fighting ICE, doing know your rights campaigns, building union/labor solidarity, organizing protests, etc. Meanwhile, centrists and Abundance types divide all their time between turning on immigrants and trans people, being paralyzed, and blaming the left. They're not building anything with anyone.

ssjevot posted...

Leftists are a massively small part of the electorate and courting them is not a winning strategy.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/6/62c5f526.png

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/ce4322d6.png

Even if we assume every liberal Democrat is actually a leftist (which is a laughable assumption), there are still more moderate or conservative democrats. You aren't reaching them by trying to appease the both sides are the same people. You have to write those people off and focus on people you can win over. And that means more populist and charismatic candidates, like Obama was.

I'm not even talking about leftists here. It feels like you're assuming I'm reciting some leftist talking point that I haven't even hinted at. I'm talking about the moderate, independent, and yes some dormant leftist voters who vote when the candidate is good, charismatic, can present a vision of something actively better and defend it. That's what we didn't have in 2024 and 2016. Instead, we had demotivating candidates and a lack of a forward facing vision. So we lost.

We're not even disagreeing on what that candidate should be like. Populist and charismatic IS the key, but that populism imo should be progressive policy spoken in exciting, common sense, and disarming tone. But it can't be bloodless and lack vision. As bad as Bill Clinton's vision was, he certainly had one.

ssjevot posted...

If you are watching what is happening right now and think Harris would have been just as bad, you are completely useless as a voter and no one should bother trying to court you, because you obviously don't live in reality and the candidate you would vote for isn't going to appear.

I believe many, if they could see what's happening now, would have voted. But you have to present them with the right person, messaging, and platform during the election, there's no hindsight unfortunately.

I am not talking about myself or really anyone that posts about politics on a board like this. We're political freaks and most of us seem to have a hard time understanding how little so many pay attention to or believe in politics. Those are the people who decide elections and those are who I'm talking about.

Rika_Furude posted...

lets explore this idea. how privileged does a person have to be where they consider that its better to be morally superior to those who want to vote for the lesser evil? why are we seriously considering these people?

Because there's millions of them and they can either be brought in or not and we need them to win. They're wrong for not voting, no matter how broken things are, but simply stating that and changing nothing will lead us down the same path of defeat.

And it's not just or even primarily privileged white urban white collar leftists who feel that way. It's often working class and middle class people who are marginal both economically and politically. Our political and economic systems are demobilizing. It's only the fear of the other guy winning and destroying everything that gets people to come out and vote at all these days, not some hope that things will actually be fixed regardless of who wins.

asdf8562 posted...

This.

At the end of the day either Candidate 1 or Candidate 2 is going to be the next President. Elections have consequences, and Candidate 2s agenda will do more harm.

The time to infight is during the Primary, not the General election.

You hated fighting during the primary too or even the suggestion of a more robust primary. Look where that led us.

And you have seemed unable to grasp the concept that even when candidate one is better than candidate two, both can be so bad that many don't see a point in voting for either. That happened in both 2016 and 2024 and you might consider it dumb or unfair, but that's reality. That's the exact terrain where a fascist can win.

And our job is to present a candidate that overcomes that, like we did in 2008 and 2012.

Again, all evidence we've seen is that the fickle moderates and the marginal voters are who didn't vote this time, due to the economy. The evil progressives held their nose and voted in normal numbers.

I like her because she's least trying to do the right thing, even if she's not always right. No one ever has been or will be. I'd take a trillion of her before one of the armchair critics and haters who at best do nothing or more likely actively contribute to many of the problems she's trying to address.

I wish it was true, it's not though. Large numbers of demobilized working class people, fickle moderates, and tens of millions of right wingers with brain worms led us here.

As bad as everything else is, this is high on my list of concerns for the plague it will eventually unleash, and with even less response than early Covid and no public will for basic public health measures.

That happened to me too, hate when the algorithm mocks me.

It's not about awareness. He says whatever would need to be true or at least believed to demonize his enemies and centralize power to himself. That's all it comes down to.

The fascists aren't only in ICE.

Yep. It's some people's way of saying "I don't like what you're saying and don't trust you and no one else should either"

Okay, that was good and I want to see that energy from elected officials everywhere. If we're gonna have a constitutional crisis, let's goddamn have one, let's not go like lambs to the slaughter. If they're gonna be authoritarian, make it undeniable.

Correct. It's clear that xenophobia and anti immigrant sentiment is the route to fascism this time, not antisemitism. Of course, anti-left sentiment us still a huge part.

Abolishing ICE isn't enough, it won't even get you in the door anymore. We need public trials and to salt the earth.

Endless, bottomless cruelty and stupidity from this admin. All to get people to turn off their brains enough to not notice they're installing fascism and robbing people blind.

Speeding towards a Civil War situation. Why the fuck would Californians accept this? It's going to radicalize all blue states against him. Or at least it should.

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