this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2024
295 points (91.3% liked)

politics

19072 readers
3988 users here now

Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!

Rules:

  1. Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.

Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.

Example:

  1. Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
  2. Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
  3. No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
  4. Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
  5. No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.

That's all the rules!

Civic Links

Register To Vote

Citizenship Resource Center

Congressional Awards Program

Federal Government Agencies

Library of Congress Legislative Resources

The White House

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Senate

Partnered Communities:

News

World News

Business News

Political Discussion

Ask Politics

Military News

Global Politics

Moderate Politics

Progressive Politics

UK Politics

Canadian Politics

Australian Politics

New Zealand Politics

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 10 points 9 months ago (1 children)

This is why their only political message is “vote for us or you’ll be sorry.”

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com -4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

"A vote for our candidate is slightly better than chopping off your nuts with a rusty cleaver and pouring salt on the gaping wound. Vote Blue!"

[–] NovaPrime@lemmy.ml 8 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Yeah, but the other guy is actively campaigning on chopping your balls off for laughs and keeps showing up to rallies with a cleaver and a salt shaker...so y'know...you pick your fucking battles.

I'm a trans guy, please vote for the guy who isn't literally threatening to chop my balls off. :/

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 9 months ago (2 children)

That's a lot of words just to say you've got nothing except "the alternative is worse"

That's pretty bad

[–] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If the alternative is worse, the current option is still better. And I'll take the better choice.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Which choice frees the refugees? Which choice provides universal healthcare? Which choice gives land back? Seems to me both choices are unfathomably bad. Do we have to pick who gets human rights?

Seems less like a democracy and more like a system inspired by the Saw franchise. Fuck this so much.

Fuck this country.

[–] assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I understand your sentiment, I really do. We also need economic reparations for black people, to redesign the police system, and to ensure LGBT people are represented in society and education.

It's ironic to me how much I hated the country back when I was a senior in high school, 2012 -- and now how it's in many ways worse today in 2024. There have been advancements, and those need to be celebrated, but there have been significant setbacks and reversion. I never thought I'd live to see an era even more hostile to LGBT people, in many ways.

I'm not going to tell you that I've learned to love the country in spite of its many faults -- but I have learned to recognize that we are a country that owned slaves, and also freed slaves. We enacted Jim Crow, and we passed the Voting Rights Act. We didn't let gays serve in the military, then we enacted Don't Ask Don't Tell, and then we stopped caring if soldiers were openly gay.

America is a story of oppressors and liberators. Those who only let rich white men vote, and those who protested until women and black people could vote. America is all of them. We can pick though who we extol as model Americans, and who we condemn as our worst.

To tie things back to what you're saying, we need to preserve the human rights we have right now above all else, before we can expand them to everyone who deserves them. In 2016 people were unhappy that we weren't expanding more, and it led to us losing abortion rights we already had.

We protect those we can, and we wait for our moment. We do our damnedest to make sure we don't regress, and when the time comes, we honor the woman's suffragists and civil rights marchers and secure expansions.

Before we can expand, we have to bury these Trump fascists six feet under. Only then can we get around to fixing our many problems.

We've been regressing though. Bush gave us the Patriot Act, Obama took no action to lift it. Same with Guantanamo and the use of torture, Obama took no action to rescind these things that I'm aware of. Trump put refugees and immigrants in cocentration camps, Biden built even more of these camps.

The problem is the Democrats are not preserving the rights we have. They're willing to compromise on basic human rights.

I've been around since Reagan, and I've been watchin this happen in real time. The few "wins" in human rights have been bittersweet since they are always won by throwing other groups of people under the bus -- for instance, Obama's healthcare plan that successfully helped more middle-income people gain access to healthcare while causing actual harm to our lowest income earners.

I've never seen this protection you're talking about. I've seen both parties drift further to the right and become more and more defensive of the capitalist status quo.

[–] NovaPrime@lemmy.ml 2 points 9 months ago

Correct. The system is fucked. But like it or not, you'll be stuck with one of them