honey look, freedom of expression and the right to protest in America just
gotdropped.Let’s not keep making the mistake of assuming Trump’s tweets have force of law. He’s just talking out of his ass again, just like he’s not actually invading greenland and canada. Notice how he’s talking about at least 4 different actions here, I’m pretty sure none of which he can actually do. 5 if you count thanking us for our attention to this matter (?). If Trump tries to do anything in this regard no judge* will uphold it.
*Obligatory other than Clarence Thomas
People in power do what he says. His word is de facto law, even if it’s illegal. It literally does not matter. You are in denial if you think he’s not going to get away with this.
Hey remember that wall that didn’t get built?
The fact that no one is trolling him about it shows how people are weirdly compliant about all this.
Let’s not keep making the mistake of assuming the rule of law matters at this point. If he does something and nobody stops it, its legality or lack there of is moot. If he says to do something and people do it and nobody stops him (or judge’s rulings about it are ignored), then it doesn’t matter that it was illegal.
I know you’re just trying to get people to calm down, but at this point, people are right to be scared and right to think these things could actually come to pass considering it has happened before. Maybe it won’t get that far… But plenty has already happened that should never have happened, and the US currently has a president who is illegally, specifically unconstitutionally, holding office and was allowed to be sworn in anyway, so it’s probably not a good idea to assume this won’t happen just because it’s also unconstitutional.
I swallowed my misgivings and voted Democrat, just like I’ve done at each election since I turned 18, but handwaving away valid criticisms is not how you get people to side with you. Pressure needs to be put on the democrats to be better, too.
I’m 100% for valid criticisms—I don’t even consider myself a Democrat and I have no compunctions about criticizing them when I think they are wrong. But I’m pretty sure that meme is directed at those who withheld their vote.
The problem is that those people (leftist prostest not-voters) most likely wouldn’t have changed the results.
No, I agree. There weren’t enough single-issue Gaza voters to have changed the outcome. It’s still an idiotic position to have taken.
It would be in theory, but mostly it’s just spread around as how any protest against Israel cost the democrats the US election (despite how it was considered widely unpopular to support Israel’s genocide by most democrats).
Unfortunately it may have.
A lot of voters are stupid. They see Israel=Bad, Biden/Kamala = pro-Israel, they stay home.
Then maybe Harris and her team should have listened to some feedback about their widely unpopular stance that seemed to somewhat equate them with the Republicans during an election which they absolutely couldn’t afford to be seen as remotely similar to republicans.
Shielding the Democrats from the pressure to adopt more popular positions lost this election.
No, they were never going to do that. They’ve already said that they learned their lesson, and in 2026, they’re gonna double down on the losing strategy that they’ve been running since Clinton was in office and run on building the wall on the Mexican border and deporting immigrants to court the moderate Republican vote that doesn’t exist and never would vote for them even if it did.
By the Presidential election, it’s already years too late to force them to actually do good things. Protest votes and withholding your vote have done nothing to stop the slide that led to Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney in tow in the 16 years that I’ve been voting. If you want change, it’s only going to come by threatening the position of the people in charge of the party and replacing the old guard with people like AOC. Whoever gets elected President does neither of those things. Unless Krasnov declares the Democratic Party a terrorist organization and has them all arrested as political prisoners. But then we won’t have to worry about voting ever again, just like he promised.
A few things.
Firstly, we can dismiss the notion that the candidate can’t be moved. The citation for that is Biden in 2020, who effectively campaigned during the primary as a moderate Republican, and until the southern states which we’re never going to go blue anyways weighed in, was getting his ass handed to him. The Sunday before Super Tuesday, the rat-fuckening, Oblivious Warren. All that old history.
And then something remarkable happened. Biden opened the doors to the tent and invited the progressive wing of the party in. He handed the Bernie-crats the platform and said “have at it hoss”. And it worked. Instead of disenfranchising the activist base, he embraced them, or at least, extended an olive branch by giving them the platform, without which he assuredly would have lost.
So: Candidates can be moved.
Second:
By the Presidential election, it’s already years too late to force them to actually do good things. Protest votes and withholding your vote have done nothing to stop the slide that led to Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney in tow in the 16 years that I’ve been voting.
Again. And I’m singling you out because you responded and well, here we are. This is an obtuse, bordering on bad faith interpretation of the argument being made. You aren’t arguing with me. You are arguing with the millions of voters who stayed home for Kamala but showed up for Biden. And you moralizing about an objectively misguided application of strategic voting didn’t/ doesn’t/ won’t/ change their votes. When your “strategic voting” strategy results in losing you the election, explain to me how and why its strategic?
You don’t/ can’t move millions of voters to a new position. Or at least it hasn’t been shown to be possible (2016, 2024). Asking voters to “vote against” instead of “voting for” doesn’t work and we now have so many receipts, that they will write text books on the matter. What can be done, is that the candidate can be moved. Its also been shown through an evidentiary process to work.
To summarize, candidates can be moved. Biden moved and won an election because of it. When you moralize about your own, demonstrated-to-be-wrong conception of strategic voting, you aren’t arguing with me, you are arguing with the literally millions of people left on the table by the Democrats. A strategy that when examined before hand will clearly lose, the insistence of then implementing it becomes a “burn the world down” moralization to wash your own hands: Democratic voters who reliably show up, but did not, because the DNC got a hall pass from those making the exact arguments you are making here. They did not need to respond to criticism because this argument you are making shielded them. And it cost us all, practically everything.
Further evidence that the democrats can be moved if we don’t let them maintain the delusion they can win while trying to be republicans: The entire party told Biden to drop out when it was clear he had no path to victory.
Sadly Kamala was allowed to believe she could win while embracing the same policies and messaging that killed the Biden campaign. Instead of screaming at the party to campaign on overwhelmingly popular left policy necessary to win the election and use every power at the democrat’s disposal to accomplish it, blue MAGA told anyone pointing out that we’re headed back towards the waterfall to shut up and paddle harder.
I’m not American so nobody got my vote, but seems to me like the issue is with the swathes of people choosing facism rather than progressives who chose not to vote.
Choosing how to act in a world like ours is tricky, anyone following a sense of right and wrong (even if I disagree with their judgement) instead of fear, hate, greed or whatever gets a gold star in my book.
Inaction is still a choice, though. I totally understand the sentiment behind that choice and even agree that we shouldn’t be forced to choose genocide, but the alternative that we got is a man who not only wants the same genocide, but wants to accelerate it, put American boots on the ground to assist in it, and then turn the bloodied ground into resorts while also wanting to worsen life across the globe. So, by refusing to act, they didn’t oppose that man getting into power. They cared so much about genocide that, ironically, they enabled making that genocide worse by not acting against that possibility.
The biggest issue, though, is with the people who couldn’t be bothered enough to vote. Some, what, 40% of Americans never vote? Of course, there’s plenty there who can’t due to things like gerrymandering, but there’s a huge swathe of white suburbanites who simply prefer the status quo to actually improving things.
by refusing to act, they didn’t oppose that man getting into power.
you can refuse to vote for a Democrat and still oppose the man getting into power.
But thanks to the two party system, what effect does it have? And I’m specifically talking about the voting day of the presidential election here, not primaries or other elections. Because that’s where those efforts will have the most impact. Not that the Dems deigned to give us even the illusion of a primary this election (or in 2016, truthfully), but so many of these people seem to shake their fist once every 4 years and then go to sleep like cicadas awaiting the next presidential election.
I don’t blame people for hating the weak candidates that the Dems consistently push forward to maintain the old guards’ leadership positions, but I do blame them for looking at the alternative and saying “I’m okay with the possibility of that man winning if I don’t vote or vote third party.” The chance of a Trump victory and all that it entailed was a line in the sand that they were willing to cross.
As a trans woman, I blame them for saying, “Your life is not worth biting the bullet for.”
The chance of a Trump victory and all that it entailed was a line in the sand that they were willing to cross.
that chance was thrust upon all of us. accepting reality doesn’t make him acceptable.
Yet refusing to accept the reality of mathematics that showed that, in a FPTP system, not voting for a viable candidate opposing a fascist only helps the fascist is acceptable? Nah. The blood is on the hands of both dems and non-voters. Non-voters/protest voters don’t give a fuck about trans people, as shown by their actions.
Non-voters/protest voters don’t give a fuck about trans people
prove it
refusing to accept the reality of mathematics
support your claim
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances
1st ammendment to the constitution since conservatives love to claim they support it
“…illegal protest…”?
Oh right, the US Constitution doesn’t exist any more.
Next time an american speaks about “muh first amendment”, “USA only free speech country in the world” bullshit, show them this
lol it never has the united states has a long history of killing, maiming, and imprisoning protestors
“illegal protests” Pretty sure Freedom of Speech and Assembly is part of the first amendment. He’s a putz
Ill do whatever the fuck I want bitch, shut the fuck up and go suck Elons dick.
There is no such thing as an illegal protest… especially in the US. The US prides itself to the rest of the world about its people’s freedom and liberties. So don’t give any attention to such nonsense as it will only give it power. Be mindful of where & what you give your power to… it’s what they feed off. Just blow them away with your breath with a gentle whisper of “fuck off” as you exhale 🌬️
We really need to tax the mega rich. I compiled this list of numbers after the President speech last night, it’s kinda wild:
$ 99,000 - National Median Income is less than $100 thousand. $ 1,000,000 - 1 Million Dollars. $ 485,000,000 - Cut Funds to International Relations and whatever. $ 1,000,000,000 - 1 Billion Dollars. There are over 400 Billionaires in America. $ 22,000,000,000 - Cut Funds to American Social Serivces through HHS (Human & Health Services). $ 244,000,000,000 - Elon Musks Net Worth. $ 1,620,000,000,000 - 1 Trillion Dollars - Meta (Facebooks) Corporate Net Worth. $19,900,000,000,000 - The U.S. National Debt in Jan 2017 (Obama to Trump) $27,800,000,000,000 - The U.S. National Debt in Jan 2021 (Trump to Biden) $36,000,000,000,000 - The U.S. National Debt in Jan 2025 (Biden to Trump)
I prefer eliminating them outright.
Let every single drop of their stocks be rendered worthless by abolition of capitalism!
And improve the livehoods of the “middle” and lower class, ie. the proletariat - but in such a way that for them it is far more beneficial to give up private property.
And the media has to be liberated from the shackle of fascism!
Yup it’s really the clear solution but when the ultra rich control the government then it won’t happen.
“Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Every time I scroll past this image, that’s the line that gets me. Bold threatening declaration by fascist dictator, then ends like a work email reminding you not to leave food in the cafeteria fridge over the weekend.
Checks fascist handbook. Jup. Checks out.
I’m so fkng tired to see American politics even on the salad.
I used to be the pride of my family for having finished college. Now it’s demonized by them.
I feel for the students of today. College was an important time for me. I experienced a lot of new ideas, my mind was opened. I didn’t get to do much in grad school, but my first four years of college changed me and I wouldn’t be the same without those experiences. The way the situation is escalating we may see colleges completely locked down or even abolished.
GUNS
If you’re actually manually replying this all over the place you are a king and I hope you don’t stop lol
just know that i will probably be banned before too long. lemmy pretends to be a leftist outlet but it’s actually a bunch of coward mods.
What’s an illegal protest? I thought first amendment speech covered that
Also, how can he expel a student from a school he doesn’t control? or does he mean expel students from the country?
"You know the best strategy to counter this is to do nothing, it will burn itself out after awhile. If a few people die or get imprisoned well that’s okay as long as I don’t have to do anything difficult or will affect my portfolio and control. "
obviously I made this quote up but it is how I feel about the people in power that say they are against this administration but really are doing jack shit to support or engage the population. Sure there are some that are doing somethings and I appreciate that, but fuck man do most of the “opposition” party really not have a spine? Like what the fuck, there are millions of citizens that are genuinely scared for their life and freedom and all we are getting is crickets…
That’s because left-wing politicians are still politicians. They want to remain politicians they don’t want to end up getting arrested or lose their jobs, so they are only going to push back against this to the limit of which they think they can get away with, which basically means making statements, but otherwise not really doing anything.
If you want action you’ll have to do it yourself. Unfortunately this does present a bit of a problem because you are then playing into the narrative that the Right have, that everyone who opposes them is a criminal. Because by definition you’ll have to commit crimes in order to oppose them, since they will make opposing them a crime. Welcome to the wonderful circular logic of extremists.
