I highly doubt the left will do anything uncivil. How can they win back the country? Is it too late?
“Civil” centre ground/moderate politics are dying across the western world and the far-right are making big gains.
Messages of unity and other kumbaya shit be damned, give me some uncivil and nasty leftist politics to give the fascists a taste of their own vitriol.
So the way it looks now, Trump has won the presidency, and his allies will have the senate and house of representatives, and they already had the supreme court. The three branches of government will not be working as checks on each other’s power, unless we get very lucky and the various factions that make up the GOP split. This is obviously very, very bad, but there are still some checks on presidential power.
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Trump’s last term was a clusterfuck. Things may just be so disorganized that he struggles to actually get what he wants done.
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The states have limited power to defy the feds. While case law does state that federal law supercedes state law, that doesn’t mean all States will immediately cooperate wholeheartedly. Obviously a court battle will eventually get to the supreme court, but that takes time and requires a single panel of judges to beat multiple states into line on each new policy.
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Governments do have a small amount of caution when it comes to their people. One thing the crazy conservatives had right this whole time was that fundamentally, nobody was ever going to come for their guns because nobody wants to force a confrontation with a bunch of armed lunatics. In the same way, they’ll probably try to avoid massive riots and general strikes simply because it isn’t worth the fight to whoever is responsible.
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Citizens can resist. Go to protests, donate to political advocacy organizations (the ACLU will have its work cut out for it), and for Christ’s sake, go vote! Show up every year, just not every 4 years. Without the cooperation of congress, his power would be significantly curtailed.
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If nothing else, terms are limited. In 2 years we can swing congress. He isn’t going to be able to pass a constitutional amendment to do what he likes before that. If we swing congress in two years, it will slow him down significantly, and then we can replace him in 2028. Hopefully people will actually keep showing up long enough after that to reverse all the damage he’s likely to do in the next 4 years.
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What do you mean? Trump won decisively. Electoral, popular, in the senate, etc…
You’re really asking, “how does a minority continue to exist in the face of a fascist majority?”
The answer is, generally, they don’t.
I think that is an oversimplification. He won the popular vote, but that’s the majority of voters, not the majority of people, right? So we cannot accurately say that the majority is fascist. We can only say that the voting majority is fascist.
And then we need to look at who was conned, and how. Of course people who got conned need to work harder to avoid that in the future. We all agree on that. At the same time, the con artists and the people who enable the con, we also need to identify them and figure out what’s making them successful. If we talk about major newspapers and TV networks failing to cover how bad Trump actually was, or putting Harris on unrealistic pedestal, newspaper owners refusing to allow newspaper editors to endorse a candidate, the way Fox News preys on people who grew up trusting TV news and now have only watched Fox for the last two decades, open lies about who’s eating cats and dogs, a DNC that pushes centrist candidates even after 2016 when the weakness was exposed, and it’s clear that many left-wing voters are wildly unhappy, those are all things that smaller groups have done to help create the situation that we saw yesterday. And that’s just a short list.
So what I hope we can do, is I hope we can avoid saying something trite like, this is what the American people wanted, full stop. If you want to make that a conversation starter, go for it. But it shouldn’t be a dismissive conversation ender, because it ignores what actually happened and What will continue to happen in the future.
He won the popular vote, but that’s the majority of voters, not the majority of people, right?
Right, the rest are just so lazy and consumed by apathy that they could not be bothered to vote when THESE were the stakes. I think we can confidently rule them out for any advocacy for our freedom.
Realistically? It’s too late.
We now have an ultra-conservative SC for the rest of our lives. The Republican party openly stated and ran on making fundamental changes to our government if they won the House/Senate/Presidency and to “defeat the enemy within”.
It doesn’t even really matter if the suffering that is coming shocks our society into rebounding in 4 years. The locked in SC and fundamental changes to our government will have already been set in place. Government departments will be run by appointees with absolutely no experience. Entire departments could be re-staffed with partisan political appointees if we are to believe the words of some of the people Trump promised to appoint. We have been placed squarely on the path to decline. That decline won’t happen overnight, but in our lifetimes it will become undeniable. We will probably barely recognize this country by the end of our lives.
This election determined the political order we will live under for the rest of our lives.
Buy a gun. Try to find happiness within your immediate sphere. And stay safe, if you can. Very, very few people will come out on top in the scenario we now find ourselves in. Give it a few years and you’ll see. They have total control now, so there’s no one else to blame for the decline that’s essentially guaranteed to become apparent in the near future. But I’m sure if they do fail, immigrants will be at the top of the blame list.
It was a worthy experiment while it lasted.
I highly doubt the left will do anything uncivil.
Firstly, undestanding what left actually is would be a good start. You’re not talking about the left. You’re talking about liberals. Liberalism isn’t left. Liberalism is right-wing, and always have been.
The actual left is very happy to be “uncivil.”
Secondly, a good second step would be to finally accept that liberals, and liberalism in general, has never, and will never, oppose fascism.
Those are two very basic things you can do right now.
They don’t. It was never their country to begin with, clearly.
The majority of the U.S. has been racist, bigoted, misogynists from the beginning. Hell, the entire electoral college system that just fucked everyone over is a compromise that was put into place because a bunch of rich white landowners in the Antebellum south couldn’t stand the idea of freed black men’s votes having as much power as theirs. So they immediately rigged the system to keep them in control of who gets power because you better believe no black man was ever going to be an elector.
That is who your country is. There was a brief period from the 60s to the 80s where it became declasse to be an asshole, and so they mostly shut up during that time when they were in public, and then went home and took out their frustration by beating their wives and kids.
Then along came the modern republican party, who began to tear down that cloak of respectability, and it emboldened all of those wife beating shit-heads to say “Hey…we can be assholes again…go us.”
This is your America. It always has been. I’m sorry if that hurts. I really am. But right now I’m also goddamned angry at your country on behalf of my country and all the others that have to be caught in the blast.
Win back? This country was bought and paid for long before any of us were alive. We keep fighting against the oligarhy for liberty and freedom like we’ve always done.
Too late for that.
The Democratic Party needs to run a candidate that is elected through a fair primary process. When this happens, dems win.
2008 - Obama was popular and won the primary 2012 - same 2016 - It was deemed Clinton’s turn, she was given every advantage, and lost 2020 - Biden won the primary as elected by the people, then won again 2024 - Harris was given the candidacy without having to primary, and lost
It is a simple trend.
Though to be fair, Biden won the (practically uncontested) primaries in 2024 and probably would have gotten his shit stomped in just as hard
Biden was losing 2020 by an embarrassing margin until ALL the other candidates except Bernie Sanders dropped out to coalesce behind Biden in SC.
Whatever happened to Liz “et tu, Brute” Warren?
I wouldn’t call the 2024 primaries fair. Biden was ordained, like Clinton.
There’s a reason these predetermined candidates keep losing.
Yeah, I probably should’ve put won in quotes, but I’d argue there’s still a small difference between running as the incumbent and the situation with Clinton. Not that it really fucking matters now.
Go to your Democratic party and demand change.
Find a candidate that will stand on the basis of free healthcare, equal rights, the right to union, enforcing a higher minimum wage, enforcing paid sick leave and a minimum of 20 days holiday a year, and committing to lowering the cost of living.
Once someone stands up for this, push them to the moon for the next four years. Tell anyone else NOT on this platform to fuck off.
Essentially, America needs a Project 2029.
I like the sentiment, but that is predicated on there being another election under the same rule set which would allow either party to win. If things come to pass with the unitary executive theory outlined in Project 2025 and the dictatorship desires that have already been declared, makes it unlikely votes will work to change political parties going forward…
And the “deep state”, meaning actual subject matter experts doing their jobs throughout government for years, regardless of current administration, are all going to be replaced by kid rock and vaping young republicans fresh from dropping out of their second semester in at The University of Southern Alabama State.
That’s who’s going to be the dude inspecting your meat for e.coli and signing off on the clinical trials for you’ve perception meds - Gunner, Hunter and Ryder.
Really don’t think anyone is considering the reality of how deeply fucked we’re going to be looking at the front door for obvious signs of trouble, while they leaf the crawlspace with fertilizer and gasoline and kick in the backdoor with flamethrowers in hand.
You get it
I’ll also add that you need to primary basically anyone that has been in politics for more than 15 years. There is just too much, “common sense,” in this party that is just wrong. In 2016, it was smart to run a centrist campaign that tried to move moderates away from Trump, and it failed. In 2024, they ran the same fucking campaign, and it failed.
There are well intentioned people that somehow still think that the 1992, third-way strategy will deliver gains through incrementalism, and it’s just not going to happen. Primary them, so that they at least have to contend with the new political realities. Trump picked up working class voters across across all demographics, not just the white working class. Everyone wants change; offer real change.
The average death age of any empire is 250 years.
Tick tock America. You’re proving that figure to be correct.
*proved
America has past the point of no return on education. Anti-intellectualism is the status quo now. It’s only gonna get worse now.
Waves Bible they’ve never read
They won’t need it… they got people to think what it’s best for them, what books are good or bad, what values you should have, how you should live. And then they will also have chatgpt and AI that will answer their doubts and even do their work cause they won’t be capable of doing it. I wonder if the AI will get “less smart” because of their clients needs being more basic. We’ll see
Biden could do some official acts. But he won’t.
He should at least transfer a shitton of military gear to Ukraine in the coming days. Not little stuff either.
Top-tier tanks, jets, warships, and more. Enough to absolutely crush the Russian war machine. Basically everything shy of nukes and loads of it.
But he won’t
Should be the DNC motto.
Gallows humor is all we’ve got left
Facism is capitalism in decay. America just proved that the decay is rapid.
Liberal institutions just paved the way for facism to take root.
I’d like to learn more about
Facism is capitalism in decay.
Is that just a think people say or are their studies or books about this?
Facism is a reaction to the institutional failures of capitalism brought about by many scholars. Mainly brought about by the working class left behind looking for a change to the system.
Places in history where it happened
italy (1920’s) voters wanted a stronger economy with trains to run on time germany (1920’s) voters wanted a stronger economy without a destabilization of currency
Is that just a think people say or are there studies or books about this?
But why male models?
I’m not sure that we do. Not in our lifetimes anyway.
With a functional justice department we’d have a chance. There’s nothing to stop them from tweaking the electoral lines. There’s nothing to stop them from not certifying an election. We’re about to have the scotus filled with young like-minded Republicans. We’re about to have every federal judge biased for them.
Even having both sides of Congress the best thing we could do would be to status quo because every time a veto is overturned the scotus could just stamp it down as unconstitutional.
The president has God King status, he can have opponents jail for executed.
The thing is even if none of these things were in play, The popular vote just voted for a dictatorship. He was utterly and absolutely clear and anyone that says he was joking around doesn’t actually believe that they’re just too embarrass socially to announce that they themselves are racist/fascist/misogynist. There is nothing here to win back. We’re better than 50% rotten to the core and those people aren’t going away.
Even this election wasn’t right versus left it’s right versus more right. If you put a true left candidate in they’re just going to get murdered. (That may or may not be literal)
I’m not sure that we do. Not in our lifetimes anyway.
I don’t understand this sentiment as I’m hearing it a lot.
We’ve elected a fascist into the highest office. We’re cooked. There’s a lot we can do right now, but the most important thing is organizing. Organizing your community, your family, your town/village/city. Organizing mutual aid, direct action, and resistance. How much more do we need until people actually get off their asses and start doing something about it? Like the time for peaceful and democratic means of avoiding fascism was before the election. But a fascist is now in power, so are we going to wait until the troops are rolling down the street to do anything? I’m not saying go out and just commit wanton acts of violence in the name of revolution, but the longer we wait the more difficult it will become to get organized, involved, and yes armed.
Good luck with your local police. They’ll get a federal warrant and gleefully raid your home at 3 am.
I don’t understand this sentiment
There’s a lot we can do right now, but the most important thing is organizing
Organizing? Resistance? Armed? That’s honestly insane.
You’re going to organize against half the US? Gonna start a civil war with every last (fully armed) enemy in your own backyard?
They could blockade cities from food and shut down any movement in 3 days.
The Civil War worked efficiently because there was a battlefront. This is more of a Republican Soup.
There’s nothing to stop them from tweaking the electoral lines.
Given that the Democrats have known the districts have been gerrymandered to hell and back for decades now, why haven’t they spent any time at all doing their own redistricting, rather than strongly pushing agendas that affect 0.5% of the country?
The first bill filed in the House of Representatives and Senate after the 2020 election which resulted in the Democratic Party gaining nominal control of Congress and the White House was a bill to ban partisan gerrymandering, require independent redistricting committees, forbid states from imposing onerous voter registration or identification regulations, limit the influence of rich donors and wealthy PACs in federal elections, and generally just make the process of voting better for Americans.
This bill was called the Freedom to Vote Bill and was numbered H.R. 1 and S. 1 for the House and Senate versions, respectively. It passed the House of Representatives in 3 March 2021 and received unanimous support among the 50 Democratic senators when the Senate held its vote on 22 June 2021. The bill was blocked from advancing due to a Republican filibuster.
On 3 January 2022, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York announced plans to abolish the filibuster for legislation in order to allow this bill to advance. President Joe Biden had previously indicated he would sign the bill. Schumer made his move on 19 January 2022, moving to change the filibuster rule to require continuous talking, i.e. in order to filibuster a bill, someone must make a speech and keep talking for the duration of the filibuster, with the filibuster ending when they finish talking. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin, members of the Democratic Party representing Arizona and West Virginia, respectively, got squeamish and voted against the change. All Republican senators voted against the change. This doomed the bill’s passage through Congress as the filibuster could be maintained indefinitely by the Republicans.
The bill died when Congress was dissolved pending the November 2022 general election, in which Republicans won a narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
Manchin and Sinema’s terms with both expire when the new Congress is convened on 3 January 2025 following the November 2024 general election. Manchin did not seek re-election in yesterday’s election and will retire at the expiration of his term. Sinema was forced out of the Democratic Party and originally planned to stand as an independent before deciding against it. She will retire at the end of her term.
Due to the innate malapportionment of the Senate, it is exceedingly unlikely that the Democratic Party will ever regain majority control of the Senate.
So I point my finger at these two idiots for sinking American democracy as we know it.
Even that doesn’t address the mess that exists today. It’s a great example of why they keep losing. They’re going to make it impossible to gerrymander after the lines have already been redrawn to benefit the Republicans? Why? Why would they do that? They’re essentially committing to always fighting an uphill battle for the rest of their days. I respect the principle, but not the approach. You cant lock a scale while it’s broken and then expect it to measure correctly. They need to pull their heads out of their asses and start playing to win. To start recognizing the strategies which continually defeat them, and start countering with some equally aggressive strategies of their own, or their time is done.
I think I phrased my comment wrong on this. It doesn’t ban the act of gerrymandering, it bans the results of gerrymandering. Gerrymandered maps would need to be redrawn had the bill been enacted.
This bill was no slouch. It directly abridged several states’ voter suppression laws. Had the bill passed, the next phase would have been people being able to use the federal courts to strike back against these incompatible laws.
That being said, if you were the leader of the Democratic Party, what would you have done? Not intended as rhetorical snark, I’m just curious as to what other ideas there are.
Okay, then that sounds reasonable. Regarding your question, I suppose I would have held a primary and put someone on the final ballot who the people voted for. That would have required acknowledging before the primaries that Biden wasn’t fit to continue, which from what I’ve read, they did have full knowledge of, but refused to act upon.
That’s easier said than done though. Right? Like I’m not directly exposed to the corruption inherent in the system and the demands placed upon them in order to secure enough campaign funds to have a chance at all. Although I don’t think sticking to the actual system as it was designed would cause the loss of donors.
Oh, and I’d get rid of the super delegates. In short, I’d stop trying to control who gets on the final ballot to push my party agenda, and instead let the people actually elect the leader they want. Again though, that’s probably a lot easier said than done, and I’m an outsider not privy to the dealings that take place behind closed doors.
Oh dems have. But you have to have control of the state to do that. Hogan (R governor) tried his damnest to unwrap central Maryland from Western Maryland.
