Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)
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A big part of the fight is asking yourself one simple question. How much of this defeatism is real? The bot/troll/fraud problem is massive and leading to the dead internet theory becoming reality. Anywhere there's comments, there's fake bullshit. Figuring out how to stop that is a huge priority.
People need to learn critical thinking. Feeling defeated right now is natural, and some of that energy here is organic. But I have noticed that you can find the bad actors by looking at how they explain themselves.
Good faith actors admit that they feel completely crushed by the current state of politics, fear for the future, and want to give up. They will tell you about their own anxieties, because that's where that energy is coming from.
Bad faith actors will tell you that you are powerless to do anything to stop fascism, and that you should give up. They aren't expressing their anxieties, they are telling you to give up. To fall in line with fascism, because you can't stop it.
People need to start asking these defeatists why the feel defeated, and pay attention the the answers. They need to ask themselves if they are talking to a defeated leftist venting their frustrations, or a propagandist trying to demoralize the left.
I wish all of you the best, but I can't care enough about this country to want to fight for it. One reason being it's a shitty place that put George Takei in a camp, among many myriad other crimes. I don't want to save it. I want to leave and not be bothered by the bunch of racists, idiots, and racist idiots who run this country and who elect them.
I don’t want to save it. I want to leave and not be bothered by the bunch of racists, idiots, and racist idiots who run this country and who elect them.
And the people of color you leave behind. You don't want to save them from what's coming when you resign control of your country to the racist idiots that want them dead?
History never speaks kindly of the people who turned a blind eye to atrocities for a reason. Those people could have helped, and they chose not to. They let others suffer and die because it was more convenient than doing the right thing.
So sick of inspirational posts from rich celebrities. As if any of this is going to affect them in any meaningful way aside from shifting more of the tax burden onto us.
This particular celebrity spent time in a concentration camp, though. Let him speak truth to power.
If I recall correctly, he was put in a Japanese-American detention camp when a child. So I’d tend to believe him on this.
I know what he experienced, but he's insulated from whatever happens in the next few years, by virtue of being wealthy.
It's easier to start a fire with a lighter than with two sticks.
don't know what else I can do really. I've stopped spending money and cancelled all subscriptions. I'm voting with my wallet. Most big tech and big box stores support the repubs. All I can do is not give them any more money than I have to. I'll continue to vote as long as have that option.
join a community organization, join a union, support local progressive community organizations.
If you get organized and start taking direct political action you can have an impact between elections.
If US labor was organized a general strike would bring the government to its knees. Build that momentum.
Yeah I have lost a lot of faith in the country (US) and don't see or know a path forward. You have multiple generations not willing, unable or just plain don't know how to fight back and now the males of zoomers and generation alpha are swerving into the new young nazi party territory. The population is less educated than ever before thanks to the constant attacks on educational institutions and social media and the environment is collapsing rapidly while govs ignore the causes.
I'm so over the folks sharing these hopeful platitude snapbacks - It's pointless and really comes off as "I did my part" when people post and then proceed to do nothing more. The last protest I saw before Roe was overturned was a fucking depressing party of people instagramming their stupid, cheeky signs and saying "we will vote harder next time". Making a sign for your instagram "protest" appearance where everyone shouts platitudes and posting to social media about it is clearly not an effective strategy for change or progress, but it seems like the only thing the left knows how to do... other than sit out elections and further ostracize young males so Rogan and Tate can scoop them up.
Continue to vote with your wallet and with your well… vote. But also do your best for community out reach for whatever matters to you. If you can do so safely anyway. Speaking with people is the only way to combat mis information and to build community.
The people giving up are the ranking officials of the Democratic National Party. What can you realistically expect people to do when the people they thought would lead them through this are rolling over and collapsing at the first sign of pressure? For fucks sake, they're not even defending their own trans colleague!
This guy experienced what we can only read about. It shames me to say I was born less than a hour from where he was held in a camp. Few around there have learned anything from history. To most of them history began when they did and will end when they do.
I very much think we will be seeing something similar happen to immigrants soon. I hope I'm wrong.
Yeah the ‘great America’ they want to return to, many others have lived through it a few times already
The very same people whose Election Campaign Strategy was "Not voting for us is the same as voting for a guy who will round up Transexuals and put them in concentration camps whilst turning America into the Fourth Reich" rather than, you know, actually having a list of measures to make life better for most people, have continued with the hyperbolic alarmism so as to keep their supporters enraged against the "other" lest they stop, think, and figure out that the Democrat Leaders could have done way more than they did to appeal to voters and hence have a large slice, maybe even most, of the blame for Trump getting elected again.
The reality is that people mostly have to wait and see, since there are a lot of ways to stop or at least undermine the most autocratic Republican tendencies, plus the most intelligent Republicans (i.e. the sociopaths at the top of the party doing it for their own personal upside maximization rather than the "true believer" useful idiots) are well aware that the system only works as well as it does (i.e. from their point of view, only produces maximum wealth for their wealthy patrons and hence they themselves) if people in general think they live in a Democracy and their vote counts.
Also keep in mind that the factions of the real power in American - the Wealthy - will carry on fighting for themselves as they've always been doing, no matter what the façade which is the Theatre of Politics looks like (they're apolitical and buy, bully or swindle people on both sides of the aisle).
America is an experiment in seeing how far the squeezing machine can be made to squeeze the masses without breaking, but none of the real power of the land is interested in it actually breaking and stopping delivering them maximum wealth increases, and as a country which doesn't have enough natural resources for the wealthy to extract maximum wealth without most of the population going along with it, they too are not interested in letting it get to the same kind of situation as for example Russia. Absolutelly, their process doesn't deal well with systemic problems of the Tragedy Of The Commons kind - hence things like Housing Inflation starting to asphixiate the rest of the Economy - but it does work for stopping direct singular actions that would mess with the interests of Wealth, such as the kind of legislation required to establish an Autocratic Regime in the US.
I'm not saying that the Wealthy will save the rest because they care, but as it so happens it's in the best interest of the real power of the land - Money - that the machinery that keeps the rest producing wealth to enrich them does not break, so their interests are aligned which those of common people who don't want Autocracy.
Normally I would dismiss this as liberal/nationalist nonsense...
But George Takei is kinda cool. I'm with dude.
The Democrats gave up so easily and went "I guess we hate transpeople now? Is that why we lost? We didn't hate transpeople enough?" so quickly, that I"m wondering if Trump's election was part of the fucking plan to begin with.
I think at least part of the problem is that Democrats believe in The System. So when someone cheats and whines about fake votes and stuff, they can resist that with faith that the system is working, but when the system willingly chooses the other side they have no choice but to concede that this must just be the Will of the People. And who are they to stand against the system they uphold...
Don't forget about big money. The Democrats, Republicans, Harris, and Trump all avoided pointing the finger at what's to blame, it's big money in politics. Trump and the Republicans have openly accepted all the money from the big donors and the power that gets them. Elon Musk was a huge part of his campaign while they blame immigrants. The Republicans know how to work a broken system, just get more money.
Meanwhile the Democrats and Harris have to thread the needle of accepting big money too but not showing it. They can't outright say it's the billionaires that are screwing you, so they say Trump is, and that he's a fascist. All true but Trump's second presidency isn't the cause of America's facist decline, he's a co-morbidity of it. Then they are shocked when the system they refuse to fix is broken.
I don't believe the Democrats actually wanted to win this election.
Losing, while upholding the facade of "fighting the Republicans," means donations will likely go UP, their "underdog" status remains intact, and they won't have to pretend to govern, nor offer the public the milquetoast accomplishments that only verify they capitulate to their oligarch/corporate backers. Losing IS their strategy.
A Billion dollars in donations. Outspent the Republicans twice as much and yet spent on campaign managers and the salaries of their rich friends kids working for them and nice lunches out to expensive restaurants.
They are the party of money. And saying whatever gets them more of it.
No no friend, the Harris campaign had 1.5 Billion dollars.
And the DNC just threw all their workers out on their asses without even offering severance, because they're "broke?" People who had worked there for decades. THAT is their caliber of financial management?
The Harris campaign threw wasted dollar after dollar into Republican pits to gain exactly NOTHING, as 94 fucking percent of Republicans voted Republican (as one would expect of a cult). Meanwhile the top Harris consultants were people making millions a year from Uber who flat out steered the boat away from any negative messaging about the corporate hands that pull their strings.
They WANTED to lose. All the surface animosity is a facade; they're controlled opposition.
Biden isn't even using a tiny bit of his fucking brand new immunity to save the country. It's like he said, "Oh no, but they meant that just for Trump." I don't know what there even is to save if no one is gonna do a goddamn thing that still has the power to.