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"We need you to help us!"
"By raising awareness, raising the profile of protests by joining and expressing solidarity with them, engaging in legal efforts to block the administration, and introducing legislation to restrict the administration's formal power; the things that politicians and especially legislators have especial power to actually do?"
"No, we want you to take up arms and take to the streets in a way that we aren't willing to do ourselves!"
Impeccable work
Why is Jeffries there and not a Republican
Because Jeffries is a Republican.
Welcome to: the point.
What do you propose they do?
They could start with traveling with armed guards, or more specifically, law enforcement under their own lawful command. Then they can start actually exercising their authority and right to inspect federal facilities such as ICE detention centers. This is the right of every member of Congress. Any ICE or other agents that try to stop them are violating state and federal law. If ICE agents try to stop them, then they should have those ICE agents arrested on the spot.
But really, what they should be doing is stop looking for excuses, like you seem to be doing here. Republicans manage to delay and wring concessions out of Democrats when they're out of power. But the Democrats were unwilling to use the debt ceiling or temporary budget bill earlier this year to demand concessions. They just said, "well, it would be really bad if the government shut down, guess we can't do anything!"
Or they could use other Congressional powers. For example, they should be reading banned books, censored scientific articles, and information deleted from government web pages directly into the Congressional record.
But beyond that, they need rhetoric that isn't cowardly. They should be in speech after speech, calling for the prosecution of ICE agents. They should be up there every day reminding everyone that there are no statutes of limitations for crimes against humanity. And in case of a pardon, they should be promising to ship ICE agents off the the Hague for trial.
And on and on. There are tons of things they could be doing. Many of these involve putting their actual persons at risk. But Democrats are leaders in name only. They have no interest in actually leading. They're just there to collect a paycheck. When they're out of power, they wring their hands and say, "we don't have a majority, what do you propose we do?" When they're in power, they wring their hands and say, "we only have a small majority, what do you propose we do?"
Where exactly is it written that members of congress can have political enemies arrested by private police on a whim, and that they can inspect any building at any time?
Literally anything?
Organize protests. Bring media. Obstruct Republicans in Congress whenever possible
Call upon all forces loyal to their states and districts to expel ICE and all unjust federal agencies.
And then Trump sends in the military and they start murdering people
i will always advocate for whatever preserves human life the best, acknowledging all currently living humans in the equation, and i think this is the route that minimizes casualties.
That is the inevitable outcome. Delaying it only gives them the benefit of more time to prepare and consolidate resources, because god knows we're not cooking up some Machiavellian counterplan to stop them.
Careful appeasement does not work in the end with fascists. People should resist while they still have assets with which to do so.
Vote blue no matter who. Lol
Unless we fail to ratfuck a moderate or socialist in the primary. Then absolutely under no conditions should you vote blue.
Well yeah. Just look at what happens when you don't. Or do you think you needed to vote once?
You are the problem. You got us here.
Unless they're an economic populist.
Then it's all: "Nope, not like that." from your local Democratic ideologues.
Vote blue until literally anything better comes along.
Except lefties who infiltrate the party. You're a traitor if you vote for them. Obviously.
something better has literally been around for decades; people just refuse to vote for it.
So you're actively building the alternative right now, right? You're gonna have another party ready to go next election cycle? Link me to your projects. Surely you at least have some promising candidates lined up? And you're out there getting the word out about them?
Or are you just going to criticize and nitpick because it's easier?
the democrats have proven that they're not going to stop this and your fellow liberals are more politically aligned w you than w me; so what are you doing to prevent it?
The bare minimum. Admittedly it's not much, but even .0000000000000001 is infinitely larger than 0.
I'm not any less disillusioned with the system than you are. But I also admit to myself honestly that I am not going to get out there and man the barricades. At least the minimum is SOMETHING.
You don't like the options? Fine. You should at least be building another one. What are you, a nihilist?
Democrats had options.
Remember Marianne Williamson?
Democrats were all like, nah, give me the guy with evident public dementia instead.
why not be significantly more effective than 1 millionth of a percent and join the 3-9% of american voters that have been trying to warn liberals that democrats are shit every election for the last several decades w a third party?
Warning them clearly isn't doing anything. They're not going to change. They're not getting behind anything truly progressive. But I don't see the 3-9% of American voters building an alternative. That's a PRETTY big number - that's millions of people... are they all just content to criticize and not actually MAKE an alternative? The rest of us are here - surely some of you are motivated enough to give US an alternative to the democrats? Why is it the democrats that have to make an alternative that's palatable to YOU? This argument goes both ways, you know.
And the CLINCHER is it doesn't have to be either/or. It's ENTIRELY possible to both do the bare minimum AND also build the alternative at the same time.
But no, we're just gonna ride the worst of both worlds into hell. Fine by me, I guess.
that 3-9% is the percentage of americans who have been paying attention to how shitty the democrats & republicans are and have been actively trying to build a better alternative through the green, socialist, libetarian, etc. parties. (atleast so until democrats and republicans join forces to quash them over and over and over again).
you either practice what you're preaching here and give them your support or just sit & complain. like the other 90% of american voters, the choice is yours; you either keep voting for the 2 parties that have been cooperating w each other to bring us here or you try the only real alternatives that you've been willfully ignoring for the last several decades because of what the propaganda tells you about 3rd party voting and fptp deadlocking.
Okay, it's my turn.
The democrats don't inspire you with confidence? Fair.
The greens? The socialists? I've looked at Jill Stein... I've looked at De La Cruz... They don't impress me either. In the same way you don't owe the democrats a vote, progressives don't owe a vote to a candidate just because they're not a republican or democrat. Find someone inspiring and take advantage of the fact the internet has unprecedented reach.
I just looked at your post history. You've been here a year. I don't see a SINGLE post supporting a third party candidate. You're not stumping for Stein... You're not stumping for anybody. Do you want them to MAGICALLY gain support?
Speaking of practicing what you preach.. How am I supposed to get behind a third party candidate when the people who are ostensibly on that side can't even be bothered?
that's because .world defederated from the most active core of the leftists lemmyverse and effectively robbed you of the needful information that you need to make an informed choice; just like the democrats like to do to its base.
do yourself a favor and join another instance and maybe then you'll see how proud i have been to throw my support (both voting and canvasing) for psl.
Okay, that may be the case, and that may be fair, but if you're only posting into instances that already support you, is it really helpful?
No third party candidate will win without support. Support must be visible and passionate. And it must be visible and passionate to people who aren't already on your side, otherwise it's an echo chamber. Nobody - not Republicans, not Democrats, not Greens, not Socialists, is going to win by waiting for people to come seek THEM out.
The user is a fascist apologist. I wouldn't expect too much out of them.
For the immediate future. Sure.
it took decades of this sort of strategy to get us here; expecting an immediate change is unrealistic.
I'm not sure where you've been recently, but it seems pretty apparent that if you're a president with control of Congress, you can fundamentally change American's culture and governance systems in mere months.
I think there’s a sentiment that we need a third party.
No - we need a second party. The Democratic Party may be corrupt, but the Republican Party committed suicide. The full downfall will be when Donald Trump dies (hopefully not of old age).
Absolutely not. Burn the whole thing to the ground.
Alright. Were you still planning on casting a vote (write in "None" or something) or were you kust planning on decreasing your voting demographics influence?
I’ll be voting for socialists. My votes will no longer go towards the people that actively work against the working class. The two right winger parties in this hell hole can go fuck themselves.
Same, and it's a shame that the Dems can't fail hard enough to get the ideologues to do anything differently.
As long as you're voting.
Yes, BUT, we gotta get those conservative fuckers out first. Baby steps.
That’s been the game. Back and forth political theater. A vote for a billionaire bootlicker is a vote against the working class.
Oh shit, things are significantly worse now.
Maybe if we continue to refuse to support the progressive party in protest then things won't get significantly worse again next time? /s
What progressive party?
There is no progressive party. We have two parties doing their best to support billionaires.