Bending the Knee and Politics in 2025

[batmagadanleadoff]

And as expected, the J6 criminals get pardons and commutations. I guess they're now free to go out and rape and pillage and murder anyone that doesn't support the madman in the White House. Maybe even at the madman's urging. Why not? They'll get pardoned again if they're tried for their crimes and the madman already has immunity from commiting crimes.

Maybe tomorrow, the madman will demand that Ashley Babbit's mug appear on the one dollar bill. And the spineless Congress will, naturally, agree. Who knows? Anything's possible now.

[metirish]

The party of law and order, so even the thugs that assaulted cops get to walk free?

[rchurch314]

The party of law and order, so even the thugs that assaulted cops get to walk free?

they were never a party of law and order.

[metsmarathon]

they're not the party of anything they proclaim to be "for"

[batmagadanleadoff]

And to all the jackasses in Michigan who didn't vote for Kamala because Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, this one's for you. Isn't is great that you figuratively gouged out your own fucking eyeballs just to spite the Dems? Did youse really think you'd get a better deal from the lunatic?

One of the lesser discussed batshit crazy Executive Orders the madman signed yesterday reverses or repeals sanctions imposed by Biden against some of the worst, most terroristic settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

As for the reversal of Biden’s sanctions, Trump is telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the far-right-wing members of his ruling coalition, and every settler in the West Bank that they can do whatever they want against innocent unarmed Palestinians.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... tlers.html

[MFS62]

That must be what he meant when he said "there will be hell to pay" if hostages weren't returned.
Later

[metsmarathon]

i'm so proud of everyone whose protest votes were counted in their glaring absence. such a grand gesture. you sure taught the democrats. they'll totally be more extremely liberal and super-de-dooper-progressive the next time. and it will surely push the republicans more towards the center, too.

great work.

dummies.

[rchurch314]

i'm so proud of everyone whose protest votes were counted in their glaring absence. such a grand gesture. you sure taught the democrats. they'll totally be more extremely liberal and super-de-dooper-progressive the next time. and it will surely push the republicans more towards the center, too.

great work.

dummies.

you can call them dummies all you want, but you simply don't drive action by being the lesser of two evils, by being insincere and not having an actual platform.

Because they are dummies. That's why we elect leaders, to make the decisions and lead the country, party, etc to better times. And despite hundreds of thousands if not millions of votes in the primary essentially saying "We are not voting for you" the leaders ignored them. And you know what else? I bet those voters did vote for Kamala, but that those voters represented the tip of an iceberg of disinterest and distrust, including many who simply weren't registered democrats and couldn't vote in the primary anyway.

And to all the jackasses in Michigan who didn't vote for Kamala because Gaza, Gaza, Gaza, Palestine, Palestine, Palestine, this one's for you. Isn't is great that you figuratively gouged out your own fucking eyeballs just to spite the Dems? Did youse really think you'd get a better deal from the lunatic?

One of the lesser discussed batshit crazy Executive Orders the madman signed yesterday reverses or repeals sanctions imposed by Biden against some of the worst, most terroristic settlers in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

As for the reversal of Biden’s sanctions, Trump is telling Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the far-right-wing members of his ruling coalition, and every settler in the West Bank that they can do whatever they want against innocent unarmed Palestinians.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 ... tlers.html

Oh yeah, let's blame the voters that demanded less genocide instead of the people doing the dang thing.

Or what was one of the biggest hot-button single-issue thing that republicans ruined? Abortion access? Did 4 years of democratic leadership restore that? Or did they promise to work hand in hand with anti-choice politicians?

You can rail against these people all you want and tell them they should've held their nose and voted anyway, but when you it's hard to motivate large swathes of people to vote for someone they detest. Republicans know this, which is why they consistently put up road blocks to voting. So now not only do you have to hold your nose, you have to actively fight to keep your registration valid, or find your polling place, or wait on a long line. AND THEN suddenly there's a bomb threat and you can't vote, are you waiting that out?

An aside, it speaks a lot to our media that russia literally sent bomb threats to disrupt voting in democratic counties and we don't even talk about it. All the news stories are like "officials say it probably didn't affect voting much" without any actual analysis.

[metsmarathon]

republicans also know that the best - and only - way to get the country that you want is to vote for it, even when it's not perfect.

democrats and progressives fail to learn that lesson over and over and over again, and then wonder why the federal government just outlawed DEI, and empowered ICE agents to bust into schools and churches to deport people.

but hey, one day, maybe after enough damage is done, they'll put in a candidate that meets your purity test, and you and your five friends can go vote for them while they lose the primary, and then you can stay home again on real election day and we can all watch the whole fucking country turn to ever more shit.

[metsmarathon]

i mean, fuck, your trying to argue that not voting for a candidate whose just not good enough for you is a proud accomplishment when the opposition just held their collective noses and voted for cheeto mussolini over there.

how the fuck do you hope to compete with that if not to choose to accept the imperfect in search of the better.

[rchurch314]

republicans also know that the best - and only - way to get the country that you want is to vote for it, even when it's not perfect.

democrats and progressives fail to learn that lesson over and over and over again, and then wonder why the federal government just outlawed DEI, and empowered ICE agents to bust into schools and churches to deport people.

but hey, one day, maybe after enough damage is done, they'll put in a candidate that meets your purity test, and you and your five friends can go vote for them while they lose the primary, and then you can stay home again on real election day and we can all watch the whole fucking country turn to ever more shit.

republicans didn't vote more. Their message doesn't resonate. What they do is PREVENT voting. They know turnout is bad, and the democrats just roll over and are like "yup, we have to make voting SECURE!" even though it was! They government, BOTH PARTIES, continue to erode the Voting Rights Act. Like what do you expect to happen?

The democrats do all those things too. I don't know who said it, but it resonates. When they have to chose between fascism and insincere fascism, they'll choose the real thing. Listen to trump voters, the idiots, what do they say? "He tells it like it is" "he's not a politician" etc. Authenticity. When was the last time the democrats had that at the top of the ticket? Carter?

No one's asking for a purity test. But maybe don't run on being better than them and then cozy up to anti-choice folk, do genocide, border atrocities.. it just makes you sound insincere.

[metsmarathon]

given the choice between worse fascism and less worse fascism, choose less worse.

[metsmarathon]

until we have ranked choice voting, you vote for whichever of the top two horses better aligns with your ideal. even if they're both the same left/right direction from your ideal, pick the one that's closer.

[MFS62]

This is the woman he said "wasn't smart" after her sermon that criticized him"

She earned a B.A. in history at the University of Rochester, graduating magna cum laude. She earned both a Masters in Divinity (1989) and Doctor of Ministry (2008) from Virginia Theological Seminary. Her sermons have been published in several books and journals and she is the author of two books,

https://cathedral.org/about/leadership/ ... gar-budde/

Every time he says someone isn't smart, I want to scream "Show us your transcripts".

Later

[metsmarathon]

like, for instance, if both choices are more restrictive of abortion access than you'd like, you pick the one whos less restrictive than the one who is more restrictive. because then you at least get some of what you want. and you still have the chance to get more of what you want later.

or, you know... if you're starving, and would really want to get a full meal. but one person is offering you a slice of bread and the other person is offering you a middle finger and rocks thrown at you, but you'd really much rather have a steak sandwich. take the slice of bread.

hillary wasn't good enough, so some people voted for jill stein. and then trump picked three supreme court justices and now abortion is illegal. take the slice of bread.

[metsmarathon]

republicans don't vote more. i suppose. it's just that more people voted for trump.

because democrats (or voters for democrats) didn't turn out as much. because the candidate and the platform wasn't good enough for them to motivate themselves to overcome substantially worse outcomes than they would have putatively voted for.

if you really think that there's not a whole hill of beans difference between a trump presidency and a harris presidency, then i guess we can be done arguing.

[batmagadanleadoff]

John Bolton, the madman's former ambassador to the United Nations, has been under round the clock Secret Service protection because of Iranian plots to assassinate him. But because of his past differences with the madman, one of the madman's first official acts was to revoke Bolton's protection.

I'll bet youse that Bolton could get back his protection if he found a way to funnel a million bucks the madman's way. Pretty soon, that's the only way anybody's gonna be able to get the Federal Government to do anything for them.

[batmagadanleadoff]

hillary wasn't good enough, so some people voted for jill stein. and then trump picked three supreme court justices and now abortion is illegal. take the slice of bread.

And let's not forget that they killed the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations. Otherwise, they would've never gotten those three extreme maniacs onto the high Court. They do what it takes and the Dems get Manchin and Sinema.

[rchurch314]

given the choice between worse fascism and less worse fascism, choose less worse.

Are you leaking the Democrats 2028 campaign? how'd you get it?

It'll probably get us another trump term, but kudos to them to sticking to their guns I guess.

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

So how are we resisting this time? I learned that arguing with my high school friends on Facebook ultimately wasn't effective but nearly put me in the nuthouse.

Seriously I'd like to do more but I'm not really an organizer or a strategizer.

[rchurch314]

So how are we resisting this time? I learned that arguing with my high school friends on Facebook ultimately wasn't effective but nearly put me in the nuthouse.

Seriously I'd like to do more but I'm not really an organizer or a strategizer.

There's a big governor vote in NJ this year, and they're almost definitely going to fuck it up and nominate Gottheimer, who's got all the money and the support of the Democrat establishment, but he's essentially a Republican. But helping out on some of the other campaigns could be beneficial.

Working Families party is having a zoom tomorrow:

https://www.mobilize.us/workingfamilies/event/428362/

DSA is doing some stuff I hear.

https://www.dsausa.org/get-involved/

[Edgy MD]

Imma just picking one thing that offends me and putting my muscle and mind up against that.

[metsmarathon]

eh, i dunno. maybe start by recognizing that you're going up against an array of single-issue voters who then aggregate around the collective issues that bind them.

and then realize the folly of single-issue non-voters, who find reasons to stay home in critical elections and then aggregate around a collection of non-voter issues that bind them into more and more non-voting.

yes, sometimes you have to hold your nose on one issue, or topic, in order to find advancement in the other issues you care deeply about. that it's better to, worst case, only move a little in the wrong direction if the alternative is moving much further much faster.

recognize, too, that the other side wants you not to vote. are you really gonna keep letting them win?

but i guess it starts small. local. individually. and probably not on social media unless you're really good at playing the game. i'd dare to say it starts with empathy and understanding. push forward on the idea that the progressive ideals are all about empathy and understanding, and hopefully make traction there.

[TransMonk]

So how are we resisting this time? I learned that arguing with my high school friends on Facebook ultimately wasn't effective but nearly put me in the nuthouse.

Seriously I'd like to do more but I'm not really an organizer or a strategizer.

I had the opportunity to volunteer with the state party last fall in revamping our city's "neighborhood team", which is about recruiting volunteers, community outreach and event planning for progressive politics. Coming into 2025, I'm lucky enough to be one of the leaders of the group. WI has a statewide Supreme Court race in April, so the break from campaigning was short. But after that election, the focus of our group is to try to build a bigger tent within our community, have conversations about what matters to people on a local level and try to make sure people stay engaged as MAGA floods the zone with shit.

IMO, start as locally as you can. Go to city council meetings, school board meetings, etc. They will be 90% boring but will give you a sense of what matters to people enough to go into an open (face to face) forum and talk about it. If nothing else, this will keep you more informed and perhaps you're able to share that knowledge with others in attempt to separate some of the bullshit from reality. Understand the dynamic of your state's politics. Theoretically, the states will be a buffer from what Trump enacts nationally, but who knows.

Nationally, I believe we're screwed for a while. The time to sound the alarm about Trump has come and gone. He's here, he has more power than anyone in America has had in a long time (ever?) and has every intention of using it to satiate half of America while deliberately pissing off the other half. Resistance may not be futile, but he has full control of the game now. He has already started checking off the Project 2025 list and I expect him to continue. Will the courts save us this time? We'll see, but they are anything but trustworthy. Stay informed as best you can. Pay attention to what he does more than what he says. Don't tune out...that is one of their biggest unspoken goals.

[metsmarathon]

The moronic federal return to work edict is already starting to shut down telework.

Cool.

The only people this benefits are rich old white men whose wives hate them.