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this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
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I remember constant complaints of "The Dems didn't even TRY anything, they should have proposed bills even if they knew it would fail!" before the second Trump presidency.
Now it seems the chorus has changed to "I can't believe they're trying something they know will fail!"
Curious.
The problem is that when they decide to grow a tiny bit of spine this is what they use it for. Like, even if this bill passed it'd mean nothing in two months as the rest of democracy is dismantled around it. It's like seeing a serial killer break into your home and deciding it's a good time to wash the dishes. I mean don't get me wrong, pushing bills alone is very inadequate for supposed opposition leaders during a fascist takeover either way, but pushing LGBT rights bills? They're not even at the starting line with that.
Okay. There are two core problems with this:
Even fascist regimes are reliant on a highly procedural state bureaucracy in which law can still be used to delay and frustrate fascist aims - this was true even in Nazi Germany at the height of WW2, wherein lawyers associated with the resistance used legal and procedural methods that predated the Nazi takeover, and some that post-dated it, to buy time and save lives. If the fascist regime is intent on killing an individual it singles out for whatever reason, it will kill them regardless of the bureaucracy; but for the vast machinations of killing or imprisoning large amounts of people, procedural methods still have validity as tools in reducing, delaying, and even reversing individual cases. If this bill passed, and for the record I think it has a snowball's chance in hell of doing so, it would be amongst the tools which would reduce the damage the fascist regime is capable of inflicting going forward, even if not in any way a replacement for real action by society against the fascist regime.
What the fuck are they supposed to be doing, as legislators, if not shit like this? There's no fillibuster in the House, no major delaying tactics. You could advocate for starting brawls, like another commenter did, but other than achieving the expulsion of remaining Dems with spine from the legislature, which would seem to me a negative consequence rather than a positive, I don't really know what that's supposed to accomplish more than you or me going down to the Capitol and throwing hands with Generic McFascist (R-Iowa).
Considering that LGBT folk are at the forefront of who this fascist regime is intent on persecuting? Would beg to fucking differ.
According to the article:
This doesn't sound like a procedural method that can frustrate fascist aims; it's just a sentence on a piece of paper saying "you can't do this one thing". If the Trump admin wants to do that thing they'll either pass a bill or issue an executive order saying they can. This bill is too obvious to be a meaningful tool of damage reduction; to invoke it you'd have to come out and say "you're not allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation", which would prompt the administration to say "now we can".
Step down so people with spine can take the position and use it to do things that actually matter. What I expect from a legislator in 2025 (and to be fair my expectations are irrelevant as I'm not American) is to use their position as a podium from which they can tell the people to protest, strike, practice mutual aid and otherwise resist the administration in ways that matter. Legislation would be nice in addition to that, but representatives whose whole "contribution" to anti-fascist resistance is to write a bill and call it a day? They can fucking get lost.
LGBT people are near the top of the regime's shitlist, but look at who is being actively persecuted right now. It's not LGBT people; it's immigrants and from there Latino people as a whole and "criminals". Of course LGBT people are going to be added to that list sooner or later, but for now the front line is still immigrants, so if the goal is to protect people the administration is persecuting they should be pushing immigrant rights bills to at least challenge the narrative Trump and co are trying to create. Pushing a pro-LGBT bill at this stage of the fascist takeover is empty grandstanding with no benefit whatsoever.
... what the ever-loving fuck do you think laws and procedures are
This loops back around to "My choice of practically pointless symbolic action will Rile The Masses(tm) and their choice will not!"
It's not about whether the nitwits in Congress can get fucked, as individuals. The question is whether this, as the action of the still-extant opposition party, is appropriate. While it is almost purely symbolic, seeing as mentioned it has no chance of passing, it is exactly what the opposition in the legislative branch are supposed to do. It's what they're uniquely empowered to do by their office.
Holy fucking shit.
You're right, let's wait for the horses to bolt to bar the barn doors. Luckily, passing legislature is a super quick and easy thing, so once the crisis is in full swing and not just the extensive rollbacks of LGBT protections current happening, we'll be able to comfortably slot the bill.
Settle in for the long fucking haul. Build plans. Build the basis for plans. Build the basis for the fucking basis. Nazi Germany lasted 12 years, and that was with a world war to take it out. Pinochet's Chile 17 years. Franco's Spain lasted some 40 years. And, may I note, Franco's Spain came into power in a much more leftist and activist country, with extensive labor organizing, than 2025 USA.
The "Anything that doesn't have immediate effects is pointless!" view is going to get more people killed, just like the fuckwits sitting out the election in 2024 because the Dem candidate wasn't going to fix any immediate problems have already signed death warrants to the toll of literal millions.
Many of us are going to die going forward. It's unlikely that there's going to be a massive outpouring of support to save many of us. Our deaths are unlikely to provoke spontaneous unorganized mass resistance. Wishing that public attitudes will reach a fever-pitch and a crisis will save us from our massive lack of actual organization and support in the population is downright delusional.
Well they're many things, but laws and procedures that will be useful in the sense you described need to be ones the regime either wants to stay in place or doesn't care enough to notice. The bill in the article is neither.
Telling the people to resist isn't a pointless symbolic action, and the point isn't to Rile The Masses™. The masses are already (to an extent) riled; what they need now is leadership so their energy can be spent on productive acts of resistance rather than a weekend protest every two weeks. The people's sense of normalcy needs to be completely shattered so they even entertain anything more radical than calling their representatives, and that's where a half-decent opposition party would come in.
And there the question becomes: Who cares? Their office is now meaningless except, as I said, as a microphone to amplify whatever message they want to deliver to the masses. The power bestowed upon them by their office doesn't mean the bill in the article was more beneficial to the resistance than if the reps pushing it had been playing a game of backgammon.
No legislation for LGBT rights is gonna pass either way, so the timing for pushing it is a moot point.
Can I have that while defending the people currently being kidnapped and sent to God knows where (or to God directly)? The basis for the basis should be defending the people being persecuted now, not drawing a line in the sand that the administration is going to sprint over. Challenge what the fascists are doing now rather than hppe you'll be able to challenge them later. I hope I don't need to quote the poem.
That's not how government procedures in totalitarian states work.
That you think the issue is a lack of leadership is... not realistic.
Not even close. "The legislative branch won't save us from fascism" and "The legislative branch retains influence to hinder fascism" are not mutually exclusive positions.
Then why the fuck did you bring up the timing of pushing it?
You can. But there might be symbolic legislative action being put forward while you do it, horror of horrors.
No, the basis for the basis is getting fucking organized. You may notice that there are people standing up and speaking, quite prominently. The issue is not that no one is speaking for the people who are being fucking disappeared by the secret police; the issue is that there is currently no serious power base or appetite for serious action in the general population with which to fucking stop them, in large part because left-purists decided to sign over all levers of government to the fascist regime without any fucking ground game to challenge it when it rolled into possession of one of the most powerful states in the fucking world.
Influence like? Without Republican defectors I mean.
Because now it's not making even a statement. You can prepare ahead of time, but you can't make a statement ahead of time that's not how that works. Pro-LGBT bill later = pro-immigrant bill now = at least making a statement. Pro-LGBT bill now = not even making a statement.
I'm sure as hell not gonna complain if they do both things, but they're not. Setting aside a few exceptions I'm not hearing a goddamn peep.
Of course; my point is that politicians in federal officr can (and therefore should) be prompting the people to organize. Right now they're complicit in maintaining the wider population's sense of normalcy (see: People being surprised that ICE is robbing citizens). The onus is still on the people themselves to get organized, but everyone with a literal or metaphorical microphone should be screaming that 24/7 so they get their heads out of the gutter. Maybe it'll work, maybe it won't, but either way their silence accomplishes nothing.
Yes, and there should he more of them. Again, the problem is the general sense of normalcy. Americans don't understand that they're in a time of crisis and think things will return to normal eventually, and everyone who can must take part in shattering that illusion. Again, even if it ultimately doesn't work, that doesn't excuse not trying.
its more like senator warren introducing the flag legislation which was meaniningless.
Turns out that when they actually get a majority, they need to reintroduce and actually vote for bills, or they lose credibility.
Which is how you get people who realized in 2021 that your party is run by useless bums who only effectively represent the businesses exploiting us and of course netanyahu.
You want less cynicism, inspire less cynicism.
who the fuck was saying that other than your fellow coward-ass liberals?
The same kinds of Very Serious Leftists who are now saying spontaneous revolutionary action is the only solution that is acceptable.
no lmao