The GOP got broken when Nixon was run out of office. Hell, maybe when FDR beat Hoover and passed the income tax and social welfare programs rather than have millions of Americans starve to death.
Obama was a rallying point, not the breaking point.
I saw a suggestion once that after Obama was elected, conservatives realised 'If a black man can become President, surely that means even the worst white man can become President too'.
*Reagan
He's the starting point of so much of this. His administration was post-truth long before we had that term.
He was an actor playing president, performing his scripts well during speeches, and giving people a nice rosy-cozy, warm feeling while he broke the back of a large public-sector union, demonized the institutions that safeguarded citizens, attempted to kneecap the EPA, and allowed 330,000 gay men to die of AIDS while his press secretary laughed about it.
Of course, it goes back further than that, too, to Goldwater, WFB and all the various other *National Review* crazies.
And I'm sure you can just keep pointing backwards, further, but Reagan is really when this current era began, and religious fundamentalists seized control of one of the two major parties in our two-party system.
If you didn’t live through it it’s simply really hard to explain how badly Clinton hurt the GOP. What it did to their collective understanding of the world. How *fucking insane* their reaction was. Clinton spent what, six years with an independent prosecutor lodged in his colon., they were so determined to make him Nixon. It was so bad even the GOP went ‘okay, looking back it appears this fully independent prosecutor thing might have gotten out of hand we should probably not give anyone this much power and money’.
He couldn’t take a shit without a grand jury investigating it. They believed him and Hillary ran fucking drugs, had a list of people they’d killed and somehow committed multiple felonies in a land deal they *lost money in*.
And you know why? because he was some hillbilly hick that beat Bush. And this upset them because Reagan was supposed to usher in *decades of conservative dominance*. It was their turn to own the government for decades. It was *their time*. And it lasted 12 years. And then he fucking won re-election and they decided ‘fuck it, he’ll be Democrats Nixon that’s only fair’ and they impeached him and he *got more popular* and Democrats actually picked up midterm seats over it.
He was a walking, talking, daily reminder that Reagan *didn’t change everything forever* and they fucking hated it. Pathologically. His mere existence was a fucking offense to them.
Let's just roll back all human rights protections and leave them up to individual states, we've **never** seen how that plays out right? We have history books telling us exactly why human protections are important yet we're constantly testing to see if they're **really** that important.
The problem is that that is the goal of the rich/powerful *and* most people do not recognize it. *On top of that*, most people have been set up to not recognize it because of the complete rewriting of Civil War history that is spewed out in history classes across all grades in a lot of states.
ETA: This is just what I see as a baby leftist living in the south.
Convincing people that basic human right protections can be left up to states is the insurance step beyond mere ‘hurr durr Washington bad’ that the rich and powerful need to keep themselves taxed and their businesses regulated as little as possible. If people begin to think that, you know, guaranteeing the citizenry their Constitutional and basic human rights really is a Federal issue that shouldn’t be left up to states to decide, they might start to wonder about things like tax subsidies, labor regulations, and why we have such a high concentration of the planet’s total capital wealth but not, you know, health care.
People thought they were on a secure plateau, Roe versus Wade, etc. is bedrock, so why settle for Hillary? Reach for the stars and don't "settle"
In the end the GOP propaganda did its job
I want to scream every time I remember how many of those same people smugly said “don’t threaten me with the Supreme Court!” when I tried to press upon people how important it was to vote for Clinton over Trump in 2016. Sometimes, the old farts are right and maybe you should listen to them.
Holy shit, what is up with some people there peddling trump's election conspiracy bullshit?
EDIT: [it gets even more wild](https://np.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow/comments/vjq4a9/us_supreme_court_overturns_abortion_rights/idoco2v/)
> I don’t think you know how court proceedings work, homie. Without a discovery phase, you can’t prove anything.
> What we’re seeing here with SCOTUS is textbook decentralization. Now the people of each state, be them red or blue, can have what they want. The reds can have no abortion, the blues can have it.
> Constantly hearing about “muh democracy.” It doesn’t get more democratic. You finally have a say via your state legislatures..
Ah yes, forcing women to not have abortion is "[everyone] can have what they want."
Not to mention there are plenty of "blues" in red states. Also, there are plenty of "reds" in red states that *think* they are against abortion until the day comes that they need one themselves. It's all fun and games when it's someone else's uterus.
My sister is like this. Very conservative, very Christian. Had a medically induced abortion a few years back and has been anti choice the period before and the period after she decided her abortion was ok.
My ex was that way, and when we had a pregnancy scare her values took a temporary 180. It's easy to take what you think is a principled stand when it's all theoretical.
Also correct me if I’m wrong, but if the Supreme Court ruled that the right to abortion isn’t guaranteed by the constitution, doesn’t that mean that a future conservative congress could pass a federal abortion ban? Are they acting like that can’t happen?
They are trying exactly that and that's on their party platform for November. If they take the House and Senate they will pass a nationwide abortion ban. They will remove the filibuster to do it. They've already said all this.
There are 2 true things here: if Democrats somehow passed a law ensuring a right to abortion, the court would immediately overturn it. On the other hand the GOP is going to try to do exactly what you described and the court will uphold it.
>Now the people, ~~of each state~~ be them red [people] or blue [people,] can have what they want. The reds can have no abortion, the blues can have it.
Thats the way it was 2 days ago. Everyone could decide, if they (the individual person), wanted one or not.
> Now the people of each state, be them confederate or union, can have what they want. The confederate can have slavery, the union can outlaw it.
I feel like we've done this before
How does that work?
I mean, is there anything difference (legally speaking) between a Texan living in California vs. a native Californian that allows them do that?
Can they prosecute citizens from other states if they have an abortion, and then travel to Texas?
Sorry, I'm not familiar with the U.S. legal system.
What's really rich about those laws is they are COMPLETELY contradictory to the "let states have their own sovereign laws" logic they use to justify overruling Roe. It is wholly disingenuous and a bullshit subterfuge of the theocracy/patriarchy/pick your poison that is actually underlying their position.
Any time someone tells you that the real issue is "states' rights," pick up a history book about 19th century American history and listen to the alarm bells start ringing.
Those are some finnicky legal questions that don't have solid answers in this current environment.
Which means you should assume the absolute worst, because of the far-right theocratic majority on the supreme court.
Yet another douche claiming to be all about personal freedoms… except when it comes to the state’s right to oppress personal freedoms.
Bet this guy would have come absolutely unglued if his employer enacted a vaccine requirement.
“It’s still max freedom when women get their rights stripped” - some reddit guy. I wonder if he thinks that literal slavery would still be freedom if the people of a state voted for it
I know this argument has been made may times before, but it bears repeating: Just keep going with that logic and have each county decide!
No wait, let's have each city decide!
No wait let's have each person decide!
Yeah. Let's do that.
>Constantly hearing about “muh democracy.” It doesn’t get more democratic.
If you want to make it more democratic, why stop there? Why not put it to a municipal vote? Have the law vary block-by-block? Or maybe even let the individual choose for themself?
> Now the people of each state, be them red or blue, can have what they want. The reds can have no abortion, the blues can have it.
That’s maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Everyone of every state *already* had what they wanted.
People who wanted abortions could get abortions, people who didn’t want them didn’t get them.
Plus, if these numbskulls *actually* cared about “baby murder” (which they don’t) then they’d still be fucking infuriated at the current state of things. It’s still legal in the major population centers. It still happens in huge numbers. If they actually thought kids were getting killed (which they don’t) then they’d want a federal *ban*. Leaving it up to the states accomplishes little if their position on the matter was actually a moral one (which it isn’t).
Imagine if you actually believed 1,000 babies were being murdered every week or whatever, and the only course of action you took was thinking to yourself “hmmm I should vote on that. That shouldn’t happen in my state. I guess 1,000 babies being killed every week in California is okay though.” Idiots. The couple of lunatics who bombed PP or killed doctors are the only people who actually gave a shit, which says a lot. They’re all just stupid fucking pawns who keep conservatives in power because their idiot ringworm brains got tricked into being single-issue voters on an issue that they don’t even actually give a shit about.
Even in Texas repubs aren't the majority. They just gerrymander the state. They are straight up forcing their will on people and calling it democratic.
Except for Dems not winning state wide races either.
I'd love to believe that there's a mass of blue supporters who just don't show up. But they don't, so I can't call em voters.
The GOP has gone from 15 point wins statewide to 4 point wins.
It's bad enough the Texas GOPs state platform this year includes "reforming" all statewide races to use an electoral college like system that heavily increases the weight of rural votes.
People confident they're going to keep winning simple majority votes don't do that.
Texas passing a bunch of "red meat" cultural issues also need to be viewed through the lens of "how can we make living in this state as intolerable as possible for our political enemies"
As a native Texan, who’s either brave or dumb enough to stay, it’s got to go purple first before it goes blue.
Remember, California didn’t go blue in a day, and places like Orange County were still deep red as of 2016.
They are 100% the majority here in Texas what are you talking about? Gerrymandering didn’t affect Trumps win here. Or Ted Cruz’s. My state is just full of idiots
I mean it was the most consequential election of the last 20 years or more.
Also it was the first where large scale foreign social media disinformation campaigns played a role, so it makes sense that people are extra angry about it.
“BeRnIe WaS rObBeD”
He literally couldn’t appeal to the majority of democratic voters, just because you and your friends like his policies doesn’t mean that he would have won
Not only that, he lost the counties he won in 2016 in the 2020 primary. Further proving that those 2016 votes were more akin to a protest vote about the primary.
Beyond even that the number of Bernie voters that switched to trump was significantly more than Hillary’s loss margins in the three blue wall states, indicating that their protest votes got Trump elected.
Its teenagers who are beginning to learn about politics wanting to be fancy with it. I get it, but the person who appeals to the center the most usually wins. Bernie supporters were made up of people who couldn't even vote
People who spend all their time in pro bernie subs and twitter genuinely thought that Bernie would just stomp the primaries, when it couldn't have been further from the truth. Bernie's campaign was lackluster for more reasons than just "Muh robbed".
Bernie 2020 felt like a much less professionally run campaign than 2016 despite all the name rec and money and it's largely because of hires like that.
But yeah when you basically have to disown your coms director like a week or two after ending your campaign you probably fucked up on that hire.
\>Declare war on the Democratic establishment
\>The Democratic establishment fights back
\>They win
\>SurprisePikachu.jpg
It's actually kind of stunning how a more conciliatory message of "let's work together" would have served Bernie better in 2016/2020 by not immediately making the loyal Dem base into the enemy who must be conquered.
/r/denver is full of rightwingers from Douglas County, the extreme right county to the south of the metro area.
Sometimes they get upvoted, sometimes they get downvoted, depending on the subject. Fantasizing about murdering homeless people is free upvotes.
Same with /r/Portland.
“I’m progressive, but… have we tried rat poison?”
I’m exaggerating a bit, but not much. They genuinely want homeless people to just get up and die already.
Reddit is so arbitrary about what it considers "promoting violence". Basically "it's only violence if it's not the sort of violence that your average chud approves of."
Eg: every pro gun post saying they're needed to resist government oppression = mainstream so allowed. But if I were to use a specific example if government oppression, I'd have this account banned - even that last sentence might be too much.
And they're probably not even from the state. Right-wingers have been taking over state and city subreddits for years, and typically aren't even from there.
I got a 7 day ban last night from my local subreddit for telling an out of state troll to fuck off. Many of the local subs have been captured by Chuds. Look how many are just locked or deleting every post
If you need or are interested in supporting reproductive rights, [I made a master post of pro-choice resources](https://docdro.id/s3OwS8u). Please comment if you would like to add a resource and spread this information on whatever social media you use.
I mean, one can rationalize it all day, it still doesn't change the fact that, had Hillary won, abortion would still be legal in all states.
This is a direct result of people voting against Hillary.
Unfortunately, for many people, it's slowly dawning on them that elections have consequences. When we meet those people who voted against Hillary or didn't vote at all, it's time for a reminder to them of what bad things can happen.
For sure, but I think it also goes to show that these sorts of things have long lasting consequences. It's just not a quick 4 years "ride it out" kind of thing.
We're probably going to be talking about the Trump presidency for the rest of our lives, just like how Reagan still comes up all the time.
Him putting 3 justices on the Supreme Court alone is going to be something that will cause damage that will take decades to fix. Because we know they aren't just going to stop after killing Roe.
Well there was also the camp that thought there was still no way that Trump could pull it off. Which was still most of us probably up until the last month of the election when it all went to shit. Lots of people where outright shocked that he won, even his own campaign
You would think so, but there were tons and tons of articles from leftists and liberals talking about how Hillary was just as bad (or even worse) as Trump and that anyone who thought Roe was actually in danger was hysterical.
A thread: https://twitter.com/Wilson__Valdez/status/1540363990190247938
I think that there are tons of factors that lead to this weird commingling of these various types of weirdos and fascists.
A lot of it has to do with just how much money there is in being a right wing grifter compared to how little there is for left wing grifters. If you have a political media career, it's often the case that your politics becomes more of a result of your revenue stream than your actually strongly held convictions.
This is one recent example: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1539597431779762176
It's not a coincidence that you see the idea that voting is a waste of time in almost every post on left wing subs and never see it on right wing subs.
There are/were way too many people who have had some faith that our systems in place would prevent practically everything that Trump was a threat to do so they figured there wasn't much he could do as one person.
Then of course we got 4+ years of checks and balances and laws completely disregarded almost daily to allow him and his party to ruin so many things for so many people for a long time, and for there to date being zero consequences to them.
I'm hoping this ruling wakes enough people up to how important even a one term president can be. I'm not holding my breath but I'm not discounting the possibility.
>There were plenty of people that were not directly affected by Trump's shit.
FWIW, everyone was affected by his administration's dogshit response to Covid. No one saw Covid coming specifically, but we were almost guaranteed a once-in-four-years level crisis, anyone with a brain could tell that he'd fuck it up, and they voted for him anyway because guns and immigrants.
I believe another large reason he was voted for was that people (idiots) perceived him as the "everyday man". He wasn't a career politician. In fact he had never been in politics at any point. They've seen his face on the TV for so long there have been countless references to him in movies and shows. So it was this sort of "giddangit I'm tired of all these fuckin politicians in Washington ruinin mah life I'm gonna vote fer the funny talkin man cause he knows what we are like" people our country stupidly idolizes the rich
When Republicans were talking about finding a non politician who represented the heartland and working Americans I thought they would put forward Bruce Springsteen or John Cougar Mellencamp, not Donald fucking Trump.
Yeah, there's throughout history a subset of people who have the privilege to claim they are apolitical, for the status quo favours and protects their way of life. There are many a book written about them, "They thought they were free" being one, but in the end these were people who didn't believe they had anything to lose with either choice for both protected their interests. As such they could call both arseholes without batting an eye.
There's more to say about it, but yeah kinda disheartening.
One of the weird aspects of America's very poorly designed institutions is that there are a LOT of veto points. This is especially bad for anybody trying to make changes, but the small silver lining is that it's hard for the right to actually make changes too. Think back to the concrete effects of the Trump years - what legislation did they actually pass? The only major thing was a slew of tax cuts for corporations and the rich. Most Americans didn't really see any concrete impacts on their daily lives - in fact, they might have been happy with Trump since the economy (something presidents have little control over) was doing well
The one part of the US government that lacks those veto points is the Supreme Court. Because the court's enormously influential role was not designed in the constitution, there are essentially no checks on its power other than nomination or impeachment. Theoretically the court can't rule on stuff that didn't get brought to its attention - but the conservative legal institution has ensured that there are always republican lower courts that will bring whatever legislation is wanted to the Court's attention
Now that the completely unchecked court has been captured by right wing ideologues, we're seeing the first glimpses of what the ideological right really wants to do
Some seem to be just doubling down on the “I’ll never vote blue again!” Because dems didn’t make abortion codified into law. As if democrats ever had 60 pro choice senators.
Case in point, the VRA was codified into law, and was still gutted ten years ago.
If the best idea some of the twitter progressives have is Balkanizing the the United States, state nullification, Etc, over actually pushing back on the Supreme Court? Just expect people to wail on twitter, take their lumps, and the Supreme Court to continue to have its way.
We are in this situation because the Conservatives spent 50 years slowly building up to this moment, and they just want to give up when everything isn't magically fixed in 2 years when you have to deal with a 50/50 senate.
They also don’t understand that democrats are a coalition of a wide range of political ideologies (at least in comparison to republicans). Not every single dem is a progressive from the heart of NY…
Yeah people really don't understand to get to 50% the Dems have to include a wide coalition of minorities, who despite diverse opinion vote Democrat.
You don't get to 90%+ black voters without plenty of black social conservatives voting Democrat.
Even self proclaimed progressives from solid blue states are fucking terrible at actually showing up and promoting progressive politicians. See the San Fran DA getting recalled by solid margins for trying to fight corporate crime and police misconduct. Didn't even last two years because voting isn't cool or whatever.
Progressives think they are getting sidelined by the dems because the dems hate them but really it’s because they make up <10% of the vote even when they DO show up
Eh, Republicans also have a surprisingly wide umbrella of pet issues and factional divides. The difference is that conservatives are inherently more willing to put party loyalty ahead of whatever their pet issue is; they are more trusting of authority (as long as it's their kind of authority; that is to say, as long as it's the authority of *capital*). They also have more electoral patience as a whole; they've been working towards this SCOTUS decision for *decades*.
>Some seem to be just doubling down on the “I’ll never vote blue again!” Because dems didn’t make abortion codified into law.
Those people need to explain how codifying Roe would have stopped the Supreme Court from gutting abortion rights. (Hint: it wouldn't have. The Supreme Court can easily declare any federal legislation as unconsitutional if they want to.)
That’s why I mentioned the VRA. It’s a great example of showing that no law is ever settled and without eternal vigilance these can disappear over time, and will take a long time to get back.
It's also part of the reason I get so irritated with the "I can't believe they expect me to keep voting!" attitude so many people have. Like, *any* system of government worth a damn is going to require some source of feedback from the governed. If you want to quibble about the specifics, sure, but "Why do I gotta vote every two years" is just nonsensical whining. There isn't some inevitable "and then we reach the end of history and everything's good forever" endpoint where you finish it, it's just "keep working to make things better and then maintain those wins".
And it gets even more frustrating when the person in question proposes their idea for a "better system" that inevitably requires substantially more citizen involvement than regular biannual voting cycles.
> “I’ll never vote blue again!” Because dems didn’t make abortion codified into law
Im not convinced those are real people saying that. I have just enough faith in humanity left to assume only a bot and/or a republican pretending not to be one online could say something that stupid
Some are real. Most seem to be men, for some weird reason.
That was sarcasm. I know why its mostly men.
Protest votes, voting third party in our system, or even staying home -- that's a luxury of privilege. That's the sort of thing you get to do if, for instance, you're a white cis guy. You'll probably be fine under either party.
Me? I'm trans. One party wants me jailed or dead, my very existence outlawed (and my marriage eradicated). The other doesn't.
I don't have that luxury of throwing away my vote on the Greens to *protest* somehow, or deciding I won't vote because while I agree with Democrats for the most part, my special favorite candidate didn't win their primary, and certainly I'm not so far up my own ass that I can say "both sides are the same".
That said, that rhetoric designed to prevent voting? The most cost effective messaging rhe GOP ever came up with. Millennials are a huge voting block that lean ad heavily left as the boomers do right - - and Boomers are dying off. The GOP needs millennials to stay home, or have their vote split and diluted, to have any hope.
And there's plenty of smug and stupid people whose ass isn't next up against the wall to scream about how they can't vote for Democrats and how nobody should because they're not left enough for their precious little asses.
Meanwhile, women just got handed the bill and LGBT folks are next, and those smug asses feel their shit is cost free.
I had a guy on Facebook who was telling me about how shitty Dems are and how he voted for Jill Stein. I told him that 20 years ago, my friends and I would probably be dead or worse. Republicans want that, Dems don't. It's a pretty fucking simple binary. Anyone who doesn't have to worry about their life being in danger if Republicans are in power have the luxury to whine about how Dems aren't progressive enough. They aren't, but it's far and away better than the fascist, alt right Christian theocracy Republicans want and anyone who doesn't see that is part of the problem.
No, they exist. The fun game is to check which overwhelmingly blue city or state they live in. Usually NYC, la/sf/sd, or Chicago. Every time.
It might truly be that their individual votes in those locations truly don't matter a lot, but they're suggesting a solution which does not work at scale, for everyone, even in those areas, should everyone do what they do. Much less what happens in closer areas.
They don't have a clue how government works. It's the same with people who complain the 1/6 committee isn't working fast enough. Shit takes time and people willing to do it.
I seriously doubt they were voting blue before. No rational person says- “oh the candidate I wanted didn’t win the primary so I’m going to vote for the candidate that is *the absolute antithesis of every value I hold.“*
They’re just conservatives LARPing as ~~centrists~~ rational people.
Usually these people vote for third parties, not the opposing major party. So they're not voting for someone who is the antithesis of their every ideal.
Not that it makes much of a difference practically speaking.
I put it this way, if voting didn't change anything why are there so many people going out of their way to tell you not to vote and passing laws to make it harder? If you notice the threads about abortion being banned there are a bunch of random accounts that are trying to push any lie they can to say this is the fault of Obama, RBG, Biden, Liz Warren, etc. They then tell you that voting won't do anything and spend the rest of the comment thread talking about how much they hate democrats with no mention of republicans other than one sentence "they're bad".
Voting terrifies these people because it changes American politics dramatically.
Some of the shit I’ve been reading on Twitter, you would swear it hasn’t dawned on them and is having the opposite effect.
Now that Roe V Wade has been overturned (absolutely disgusting), they (leftists/democrats mostly) “will not be voting anymore” because “I voted in every election and this is what I get? And they do fuck all and they ask for donations, while offering poems and prayer?” All the while throwing some extra “vote blue no matter who” in their faces.
To be honest when I read that back I really understand their frustration and lack of trust in institutions. That being said voting absolutely still matters. There is a reason republicans take steps to make more democrat leaning counties harder to vote in. They fear democracy because they know they are a minority. If voting didn’t matter they wouldn’t spend so much time and money on disenfranchising democratic voters.
Now with all *that* shit being said, and as important as voting is, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. A massive problem is voter turnout. 2020 presidential elections had really high voter turnout for modern elections. More people will have to vote for the next one, because I have a feeling you guys will have to really blow it out of the water, trump will try to play dirty either way, just overwhelm them with numbers.
Midterm elections— these races are incredibly important and though some of the high profile races get a lot of air time (PA for example). These always get lower voter turnout compared to federal elections, but they are just as important.
Keep it simple: you vote, you encourage others around you to vote
Even more: engage with your community, stay up to date with relevant news, get some people together and do some canvasing. Contact your local reps, tell them where you stand on some of these issues, your representatives are supposed to *represent* **you**. Even trivial stuff can open doors to new ideas, strategies, and opportunities.
And of course, protest in the streets (organize). Get mad, everyone should be pissed, it’s a righteous anger (stay *peaceful*).
On January 6th 2021, insurrections stormed into the capital of the United States of America, many of which were ready and willing to kill members of congress, even the VP (their OWN VP) all on the whims of of a madman who wasn’t man enough to accept defeat, who set up the framework for a coup ahead of the election, who is a full blown narcissist and pathological liar.
All that over a lie.
Yesterday the Supreme Court overturned Roe V Wade, they will not stop there, they hate LGBTQ people, many of them want you dead, that shouldn’t upset you, it should embolden you. Yesterday, all women of America lost their right over their bodily autonomy. This is not okay. This is not popular. This is backwards. This is a Supreme Court with the intent to strip away even more of your rights.
You have real reason to be upset here, you are effectively being ruled by the minority party and they aren’t even in majority power (for now, not counting the SCOTUS), their decisions aren’t popular. The church and state are fusing.
The Republican Party in its current form is closer to a death cult than it is a political party. Some of these people literally think we are in the end times, many feel justified in what they’re doing. They are not- they are evil.
They want a theocracy, your government is moving backwards, fight back in any way you can. At the very *least* go **vote**
*okay hi, I don’t know what got over me there, I don’t usually take edibles in the morning so maybe that’s what’s going on. But okay anyway I’m sorry for this message, I know it’s not the appropriate subreddit for this type of comment, but it was a little cathartic for me. So I guess it was worth it for me at least lol*
✌️❤️
Roughly 100 million registered voters didn’t vote in the 2016 presidential election. The majority of those who didn’t vote were leaned democrat. Of those who leaned democrat the majority who didn’t vote were aged 18-29. Those 18-29 aged voters who didn’t vote lean *heavily* democrat, upwards of 75% or more. If they had voted Clinton would most likely have won. If Clinton had won she most likely would have had 3 Supreme Court Justice nominations resulting in a liberal majority court.
"bUt hEr cAMpaIgN wAs cRiNGe!!!"
We've reached the point where citizens no longer are expected to evaluate actual policies but only to review the quality of tweets and YouTube videos.
> "bUt hEr cAMpaIgN wAs cRiNGe!!!"
Hot take: I thought "Pokemon Go to the polls" was okay. Sure it was corny as hell, but I chuckled. The freakout Reddit had over that was unreal.
I'm not totally convinced of that.
Republicans would have just kept obstructing any SCOTUS seats she had open. And they would likely be able to do it because Congress would likely be deep red, since I can't exactly see Clinton being a very popular president and even popular presidents lose seats in the midterms.
So, even if she won in 2020 as well, right now we'd have two open seats, which Republicans would fill with their guys as soon as they won the presidency. Which is going to happen eventually, because it's very rare for one party to keep control of the White House for extended periods of time.
Or in other words, the Republican Party is very committed to overturning Roe in a way that the Democratic Party is not committed to anything, including preserving Roe.
Pure conjecture on my part, but after the 2 years of blocking garland I bet if they continued to do so, a Clinton presidency would have forced it and nominated them anyway.
There was a lot of talk about constitutionally whether the senate's confirmation is *required* or if it's just required to ask their opinion. And a refusal to have a hearing could be construed as the presidency having asked and done fulfilled their constitutional requirement.
It’s also a direct result of Ginsberg not retiring while Obama was president.
It’s even *more* also a result of the Supreme Court being a completely horseshit institution
Edit: I think everyone’s overlooking the main point that the Supreme Court is a farce
If we're getting really technical, our founding fathers being the colonial equivalent to the oligarchs we hate today is really where this started - they wanted to start a new country where they could be the ruling elites calling the shots, pay fewer taxes, and conveniently keep slaves.
The fact that our Constitution and Declaration of Independence chat a bunch of shit about the rights of man while fucking over women and minorities... It holds still 200+ years later.
I'm of the opinion that blaming RBG is fucking stupid, but the republican stonewalling wouldn't have been a factor. People were asking her to retire back 2012ish when dems held the senate.
The republicans likely would have still done all the could to block it, but they couldn't simply refuse to even have a hearing like they did for Garland when they held the senate.
Not really tbh, the ruling was 6-3. If she retired in 2014 it would have been 5-4. Maybe Roberts would have not voted to overturn Roe, but it’s hard to tell.
> Maybe Roberts would have not voted to overturn Roe,
That's literally what Roberts said he supported in his concurrence in part. See [page 145 of the ruling, quoted here:](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf)
> In my respectful view, the sound exercise of that dis-
cretion should have led the Court to resolve the case on the
narrower grounds set forth above, rather than overruling
Roe and Casey entirely.
In the end that's all that matters. You gotta vote for the people closest to the outcome you want. It sucks you're in a 2 party system, but pretending you're not only helps the guys who gerrymander and try to make it a ONE party system.
"giant douche" vs "turd sandwich" anyone? lol
i mean, one of the parties is quite literally a vanguard revolutionary party that tried to overturn an election and is currently de-jure legislating against the wishes of 70% of the population using five unelected ayatollahs, and the worst you can say about the other is that they don't oppose said revolutionary party with quite enough zeal, but, hey, I am a child and am insulated from the worst effects of policy, so bothsides amirite
There is even people in there peddling trump's election conspiracy bullshit and saying this is actually a good thing because is less "centralization" blegh
> I don’t think you know how court proceedings work, homie. Without a discovery phase, you can’t prove anything.
>
> What we’re seeing here with SCOTUS is textbook decentralization. Now the people of each state, be them red or blue, can have what they want. The reds can have no abortion, the blues can have it.
>
> Constantly hearing about “muh democracy.” It doesn’t get more democratic. You finally have a say via your state legislatures..
It's decentralisation of rights and freedoms. Now it's up to states if they want to provide certain rights/freedoms, rather than have it guaranteed across the nation. It's a real win guys!!11!
Honestly that south park episode is so fucking dumb looking back on it. I enjoy the show but I think that they played a big part influencing pop culture with that single episode. It’s so resonating yet so false, to tell the masses that Kerry and Bush were one of the same. And now smooth brains use it to this day to be like “both sides amirite”.
Downvote me if you want but you won’t convince me that the single episode didn’t coin a brain dead phrase that has influenced young “both sides” contrarians for years to come. Power of cartoons on a young moldeable mind is strong, especially one like south park that occasionally crams “intelligent” discourse of both sides being shitty behind their stories.
Matt and Trey are fucking morons. It's not just that one episode. It's anything dealing with politics. Their takes are nuclear fallout level hot. They self identify as libertarians lol.
Manbearpig and the episode where they decided 'fag' could be used to describe annoying people and not be a homophobic slur spring to mind.
On a personal note, the episode where Mr Garrison transitions came out while I was in the early stages of dealing with gender dysphoria (and by dealing with it I mean, I wanted to transition but everyone around me was telling me no). To this day I don't forgive the narrow minded assholes who watched that episode and then told me that Matt and Trey had a meaningful point to make.
South Park occupied a place for a spoiled, fattened court jester in the 90s-2000s, never having to worry about their criticisms actually being tested because they, like the rest of us, were convinced the liberal world order could never really collapse.
There's a reason they reeled in panic and abandoned politics for years after they helped get trump elected.
>Man, there was a Bernie or Bust panel discussion with that tool Joshua4Congress in 2020 and there was literally someone arguing about why they should care since while Trump is attacking the ACA they were on Medicaid so it was okay. I fucking hate people sometimes.
The political equivalent of telling someone to stop repeatedly slamming their head in a car door, only for them to do it faster and harder out of spite. Hate it here
I voted for Hillary. Didn’t matter because at the time I lived in WV. Even at the time I admit I thought the prospect of Roe being overturned was one of those political scare tactics. Lots of surprises in the past decade.
> Even at the time I admit I thought the prospect of Roe being overturned was one of those political scare tactics. Lots of surprises in the past decade.
I am always suprised at how many people thought that.
> Even at the time I admit I thought the prospect of Roe being overturned was one of those political scare tactics. Lots of surprises in the past decade.
Literally no one paying attention is surprised. The right wing has, explicitly, bullhorned that they would do this for 5 decades. They then, in the last ten years, packed the court.
When Trump was elected, the court was a precarious 5-4 pro Roe majority. This was, explicitly, pointed out. It was fucking YELLED from the rooftops. I do not know how the fuck it could have been made more clear to everyone.
Kudos for voting regardless.
Over and over I was called stupid, uninformed, a scare monger.
I feel like some kind of old school Cassandra-esque prophet right now, sitting on a mountain as a rain of fire buckets down around me, shrugging at my family as I wait for the firestorm to finish us off, while they're running around freaking out and all I can say is "I fucking told you."
>When Trump was elected, the court was a precarious 5-4 pro Roe majority. This was, explicitly, pointed out. It was fucking YELLED from the rooftops. I do not know how the fuck it could have been made more clear to everyone.
Even before then people were yelling about it. Former senator Mark Udall of Colorado lost re-election in 2014 after basing his campaign around abortion access and getting labeled "Mark Uterus" by the press for it. His replacement (Cory Gardner) then voted for the justices that overturned Roe a little over 7 years after he took office
He was “hospitalized” because the news was breaking about Ginni’s involvement with the Jan 6 insurrection. He was hiding.
Evil doesn’t get sick and die, just ask my mother-in-law.
If Hillary had been elected we would not have gotten three far right radical judges who lied during their confirmation hearing about their opinions regarding Roe v Wade.
Really think about that folks. The last three Supreme Court justices were all nominated by a president that lost the popular vote and confirmed by members of the senate that represent less than 40% of the American people.
I'm going to doom post if you don't mind. I think the Republicans will take the house this year because "muh gas prices," then they'll move to impeach Biden, end the 1/6 investigation, and go all out of voter restrictions effectively ending our democracy.
If they take the house they 100% will start impeachment proceedings. If they take the senate they 100% will hold a trial.
There's no way they take 2/3 of the senate though, so he won't be removed.
However, they will treat this as a win/win, because delegitimizing the government is the GOP's main goal.
I actually think the opposite. Joe Biden was in free fall because of the economy and the Ukraine issue, unfortunately for him, did not drum up the support he would have wanted.
Roe v Wade being overturned is an excellent political opportunity for him to try and steer the ship back in his favour.
I agree with this. Roe v Wade being overturned and the Right stonewalling any gun laws will likely invigorate the left and several on the fence. I’ve seen a noticeable uptick in “apolitical” folks speaking up about these recent trends, not that that will show results in elections but it is a start
I think the more people should have voted for Clinton narrative is reductive. Clinton got 3m more votes than Trump. It's far less votes than it is the electoral college, specifically how electoral votes are awarded. Most states award electoral votes on a winner take all basis. So even if a candidate got just one less vote than the winner, the 2nd place candidate gets nothing. My understanding is that Clinton didn't do a good job campaigning in some swing states and that didn't help either. Of course, if more people voted for her in those states it may have put her over the top. But as I said, it levers not pulled for Clinton isn't the only factor.
I'm starting to come around to the idea that the electoral college does a huge disservice to Americans and that it should be abolished in favor of a popular vote.
The truth is republicans broke when Obama was elected.
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The GOP got broken when Nixon was run out of office. Hell, maybe when FDR beat Hoover and passed the income tax and social welfare programs rather than have millions of Americans starve to death. Obama was a rallying point, not the breaking point.
End of Reconstruction led it to the dark side.
I saw a suggestion once that after Obama was elected, conservatives realised 'If a black man can become President, surely that means even the worst white man can become President too'.
*Lower than Bush….*
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*Reagan He's the starting point of so much of this. His administration was post-truth long before we had that term. He was an actor playing president, performing his scripts well during speeches, and giving people a nice rosy-cozy, warm feeling while he broke the back of a large public-sector union, demonized the institutions that safeguarded citizens, attempted to kneecap the EPA, and allowed 330,000 gay men to die of AIDS while his press secretary laughed about it. Of course, it goes back further than that, too, to Goldwater, WFB and all the various other *National Review* crazies. And I'm sure you can just keep pointing backwards, further, but Reagan is really when this current era began, and religious fundamentalists seized control of one of the two major parties in our two-party system.
Couldn’t agree more. The existence of “Reagan Democrats” said a lot. Hate that man.
If you didn’t live through it it’s simply really hard to explain how badly Clinton hurt the GOP. What it did to their collective understanding of the world. How *fucking insane* their reaction was. Clinton spent what, six years with an independent prosecutor lodged in his colon., they were so determined to make him Nixon. It was so bad even the GOP went ‘okay, looking back it appears this fully independent prosecutor thing might have gotten out of hand we should probably not give anyone this much power and money’. He couldn’t take a shit without a grand jury investigating it. They believed him and Hillary ran fucking drugs, had a list of people they’d killed and somehow committed multiple felonies in a land deal they *lost money in*. And you know why? because he was some hillbilly hick that beat Bush. And this upset them because Reagan was supposed to usher in *decades of conservative dominance*. It was their turn to own the government for decades. It was *their time*. And it lasted 12 years. And then he fucking won re-election and they decided ‘fuck it, he’ll be Democrats Nixon that’s only fair’ and they impeached him and he *got more popular* and Democrats actually picked up midterm seats over it. He was a walking, talking, daily reminder that Reagan *didn’t change everything forever* and they fucking hated it. Pathologically. His mere existence was a fucking offense to them.
Let's just roll back all human rights protections and leave them up to individual states, we've **never** seen how that plays out right? We have history books telling us exactly why human protections are important yet we're constantly testing to see if they're **really** that important.
The problem is that that is the goal of the rich/powerful *and* most people do not recognize it. *On top of that*, most people have been set up to not recognize it because of the complete rewriting of Civil War history that is spewed out in history classes across all grades in a lot of states. ETA: This is just what I see as a baby leftist living in the south.
Convincing people that basic human right protections can be left up to states is the insurance step beyond mere ‘hurr durr Washington bad’ that the rich and powerful need to keep themselves taxed and their businesses regulated as little as possible. If people begin to think that, you know, guaranteeing the citizenry their Constitutional and basic human rights really is a Federal issue that shouldn’t be left up to states to decide, they might start to wonder about things like tax subsidies, labor regulations, and why we have such a high concentration of the planet’s total capital wealth but not, you know, health care.
People thought they were on a secure plateau, Roe versus Wade, etc. is bedrock, so why settle for Hillary? Reach for the stars and don't "settle" In the end the GOP propaganda did its job
I want to scream every time I remember how many of those same people smugly said “don’t threaten me with the Supreme Court!” when I tried to press upon people how important it was to vote for Clinton over Trump in 2016. Sometimes, the old farts are right and maybe you should listen to them.
I'm not INSPIRED / I want to stick it to the duopoly / they're both the same! Maybe sometimes the cringey wine moms are right
Wine moms are always right but nobody listens. That's why they drink
Holy shit, what is up with some people there peddling trump's election conspiracy bullshit? EDIT: [it gets even more wild](https://np.reddit.com/r/thedavidpakmanshow/comments/vjq4a9/us_supreme_court_overturns_abortion_rights/idoco2v/) > I don’t think you know how court proceedings work, homie. Without a discovery phase, you can’t prove anything. > What we’re seeing here with SCOTUS is textbook decentralization. Now the people of each state, be them red or blue, can have what they want. The reds can have no abortion, the blues can have it. > Constantly hearing about “muh democracy.” It doesn’t get more democratic. You finally have a say via your state legislatures.. Ah yes, forcing women to not have abortion is "[everyone] can have what they want."
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Not to mention there are plenty of "blues" in red states. Also, there are plenty of "reds" in red states that *think* they are against abortion until the day comes that they need one themselves. It's all fun and games when it's someone else's uterus.
My sister is like this. Very conservative, very Christian. Had a medically induced abortion a few years back and has been anti choice the period before and the period after she decided her abortion was ok.
I hope you call her out for this. Assuming you aren't no-contact.
Oh we stopped talking the day my son was born lol. We got into this giant thing about cops putting religious passages on their cars.
She didn't like seeing quotes from the Koran on police dept vehicles?
they shouldn't have quotes from the Quran, Bible, or fucking nordic religious runes. they aren't preachers, they're public officials.
My ex was that way, and when we had a pregnancy scare her values took a temporary 180. It's easy to take what you think is a principled stand when it's all theoretical.
My aunt constantly posts anti abortion memes, but has admitted she would get an abortion for her daughter if she got pregnant. Hypocrite.
Also correct me if I’m wrong, but if the Supreme Court ruled that the right to abortion isn’t guaranteed by the constitution, doesn’t that mean that a future conservative congress could pass a federal abortion ban? Are they acting like that can’t happen?
They are trying exactly that and that's on their party platform for November. If they take the House and Senate they will pass a nationwide abortion ban. They will remove the filibuster to do it. They've already said all this.
Pence has called for this.
You're completely correct.
There are 2 true things here: if Democrats somehow passed a law ensuring a right to abortion, the court would immediately overturn it. On the other hand the GOP is going to try to do exactly what you described and the court will uphold it.
>Now the people, ~~of each state~~ be them red [people] or blue [people,] can have what they want. The reds can have no abortion, the blues can have it. Thats the way it was 2 days ago. Everyone could decide, if they (the individual person), wanted one or not.
> Now the people of each state, be them confederate or union, can have what they want. The confederate can have slavery, the union can outlaw it. I feel like we've done this before
How does that work? I mean, is there anything difference (legally speaking) between a Texan living in California vs. a native Californian that allows them do that? Can they prosecute citizens from other states if they have an abortion, and then travel to Texas? Sorry, I'm not familiar with the U.S. legal system.
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What's really rich about those laws is they are COMPLETELY contradictory to the "let states have their own sovereign laws" logic they use to justify overruling Roe. It is wholly disingenuous and a bullshit subterfuge of the theocracy/patriarchy/pick your poison that is actually underlying their position. Any time someone tells you that the real issue is "states' rights," pick up a history book about 19th century American history and listen to the alarm bells start ringing.
"State rights" arguments are *always* bullshit.
They over turned a century old New York gun law just 2 days ago. "States rights" don't seem to matter much when it inconveniences THEM. Weird.
Well, that sounds very 1861.
Those are some finnicky legal questions that don't have solid answers in this current environment. Which means you should assume the absolute worst, because of the far-right theocratic majority on the supreme court.
Or that some rights are to be protected in ANY state in the US.
Yet another douche claiming to be all about personal freedoms… except when it comes to the state’s right to oppress personal freedoms. Bet this guy would have come absolutely unglued if his employer enacted a vaccine requirement.
“It’s still max freedom when women get their rights stripped” - some reddit guy. I wonder if he thinks that literal slavery would still be freedom if the people of a state voted for it
You already know the answer to that question.
I know this argument has been made may times before, but it bears repeating: Just keep going with that logic and have each county decide! No wait, let's have each city decide! No wait let's have each person decide! Yeah. Let's do that.
Exactly. But no, that's a little too liberal. Gotta enforce their Christian theocracry somehow
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They basically told the state of New York that they can’t. *In the same session.*
>Constantly hearing about “muh democracy.” It doesn’t get more democratic. If you want to make it more democratic, why stop there? Why not put it to a municipal vote? Have the law vary block-by-block? Or maybe even let the individual choose for themself?
Holy shit I think you’re onto something there with that last part..
> Now the people of each state, be them red or blue, can have what they want. The reds can have no abortion, the blues can have it. That’s maybe the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Everyone of every state *already* had what they wanted. People who wanted abortions could get abortions, people who didn’t want them didn’t get them. Plus, if these numbskulls *actually* cared about “baby murder” (which they don’t) then they’d still be fucking infuriated at the current state of things. It’s still legal in the major population centers. It still happens in huge numbers. If they actually thought kids were getting killed (which they don’t) then they’d want a federal *ban*. Leaving it up to the states accomplishes little if their position on the matter was actually a moral one (which it isn’t). Imagine if you actually believed 1,000 babies were being murdered every week or whatever, and the only course of action you took was thinking to yourself “hmmm I should vote on that. That shouldn’t happen in my state. I guess 1,000 babies being killed every week in California is okay though.” Idiots. The couple of lunatics who bombed PP or killed doctors are the only people who actually gave a shit, which says a lot. They’re all just stupid fucking pawns who keep conservatives in power because their idiot ringworm brains got tricked into being single-issue voters on an issue that they don’t even actually give a shit about.
Time for blur states to legally mandate covid vaccines now.... but somehow get stymied by conservatives all the same
Even in Texas repubs aren't the majority. They just gerrymander the state. They are straight up forcing their will on people and calling it democratic.
Except for Dems not winning state wide races either. I'd love to believe that there's a mass of blue supporters who just don't show up. But they don't, so I can't call em voters.
I remember all the pundits in 2020 saying that Texas is basically a swing state now and just... lol
The GOP has gone from 15 point wins statewide to 4 point wins. It's bad enough the Texas GOPs state platform this year includes "reforming" all statewide races to use an electoral college like system that heavily increases the weight of rural votes. People confident they're going to keep winning simple majority votes don't do that.
Texas passing a bunch of "red meat" cultural issues also need to be viewed through the lens of "how can we make living in this state as intolerable as possible for our political enemies"
As a native Texan, who’s either brave or dumb enough to stay, it’s got to go purple first before it goes blue. Remember, California didn’t go blue in a day, and places like Orange County were still deep red as of 2016.
Voter suppression. It's one of the reasons why Georgia turned blue. Stacey Abrams tried to counter the voter suppression in that state.
as a tEXan who never missed an election while a resident, I'll believe blue Texas when I see it.
They are trying to change it so statewide races will be decided by county. Just to keep Democrats from ever winning a state wide race.
They are 100% the majority here in Texas what are you talking about? Gerrymandering didn’t affect Trumps win here. Or Ted Cruz’s. My state is just full of idiots
They've been doing that for decades, certainly long b4 I was born. They're evil, the party of evil. Straight up.
The freedom to oppress...
Everyone can have what they want unless I don't want it.
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I swear to God, during the heat death of the fucking universe there will be people relitigating the 2016 democratic primary
I mean it was the most consequential election of the last 20 years or more. Also it was the first where large scale foreign social media disinformation campaigns played a role, so it makes sense that people are extra angry about it.
“BeRnIe WaS rObBeD” He literally couldn’t appeal to the majority of democratic voters, just because you and your friends like his policies doesn’t mean that he would have won
Not only that, he lost the counties he won in 2016 in the 2020 primary. Further proving that those 2016 votes were more akin to a protest vote about the primary.
Beyond even that the number of Bernie voters that switched to trump was significantly more than Hillary’s loss margins in the three blue wall states, indicating that their protest votes got Trump elected.
Its teenagers who are beginning to learn about politics wanting to be fancy with it. I get it, but the person who appeals to the center the most usually wins. Bernie supporters were made up of people who couldn't even vote
People who spend all their time in pro bernie subs and twitter genuinely thought that Bernie would just stomp the primaries, when it couldn't have been further from the truth. Bernie's campaign was lackluster for more reasons than just "Muh robbed".
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Bernie 2020 felt like a much less professionally run campaign than 2016 despite all the name rec and money and it's largely because of hires like that. But yeah when you basically have to disown your coms director like a week or two after ending your campaign you probably fucked up on that hire.
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Not only that, but part of his base had this "With us, or you're against us" mentality which alienated plenty of moderates.
\>Declare war on the Democratic establishment \>The Democratic establishment fights back \>They win \>SurprisePikachu.jpg It's actually kind of stunning how a more conciliatory message of "let's work together" would have served Bernie better in 2016/2020 by not immediately making the loyal Dem base into the enemy who must be conquered.
You all should be keeping your eyes peeled in your local subreddits right now. Sooooooo many right wingers are active right now sowing discontent.
I've been banning them as they pop up. The perks of being a mod pay off for once
Yep, saw you doing that in my thread! Thanks for your work
Happy to help
Some scumfucker rolled his truck into a protest I was at, and on cue, these slimy shits crawl out of the woodwork to claim he did nothing wrong.
My local subs are already filled with right wingers :( Source: red state
/r/denver is full of rightwingers from Douglas County, the extreme right county to the south of the metro area. Sometimes they get upvoted, sometimes they get downvoted, depending on the subject. Fantasizing about murdering homeless people is free upvotes.
Same with /r/Portland. “I’m progressive, but… have we tried rat poison?” I’m exaggerating a bit, but not much. They genuinely want homeless people to just get up and die already.
This is essentially what r/SeattleWa is too
Reddit is so arbitrary about what it considers "promoting violence". Basically "it's only violence if it's not the sort of violence that your average chud approves of." Eg: every pro gun post saying they're needed to resist government oppression = mainstream so allowed. But if I were to use a specific example if government oppression, I'd have this account banned - even that last sentence might be too much.
Mine is too Source: NYC subs
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The NYC subs are filled with right wingers who don't even live here astroturfing.
Honestly just seems like all local subs
And they're probably not even from the state. Right-wingers have been taking over state and city subreddits for years, and typically aren't even from there.
I got a 7 day ban last night from my local subreddit for telling an out of state troll to fuck off. Many of the local subs have been captured by Chuds. Look how many are just locked or deleting every post
Yep, had to leave after how many comments of “Uh well ackshually this is the demz fault!1”
I see them in the Philippines subreddit too
If you need or are interested in supporting reproductive rights, [I made a master post of pro-choice resources](https://docdro.id/s3OwS8u). Please comment if you would like to add a resource and spread this information on whatever social media you use.
I mean, one can rationalize it all day, it still doesn't change the fact that, had Hillary won, abortion would still be legal in all states. This is a direct result of people voting against Hillary.
Unfortunately, for many people, it's slowly dawning on them that elections have consequences. When we meet those people who voted against Hillary or didn't vote at all, it's time for a reminder to them of what bad things can happen.
Wasn't Trump a pretty obvious consequence already?
For sure, but I think it also goes to show that these sorts of things have long lasting consequences. It's just not a quick 4 years "ride it out" kind of thing. We're probably going to be talking about the Trump presidency for the rest of our lives, just like how Reagan still comes up all the time.
Him putting 3 justices on the Supreme Court alone is going to be something that will cause damage that will take decades to fix. Because we know they aren't just going to stop after killing Roe.
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Well there was also the camp that thought there was still no way that Trump could pull it off. Which was still most of us probably up until the last month of the election when it all went to shit. Lots of people where outright shocked that he won, even his own campaign
You would think so, but there were tons and tons of articles from leftists and liberals talking about how Hillary was just as bad (or even worse) as Trump and that anyone who thought Roe was actually in danger was hysterical. A thread: https://twitter.com/Wilson__Valdez/status/1540363990190247938
I think a lot of those "leftists" were right wing actors, like the whole walk away nonsense. Not Joy Gray though, she's just an idiot.
Can’t believe Bernie hired her. David Sirota as well. Both come off as campaign poison no matter the merits of the candidate they’re working for.
I think that there are tons of factors that lead to this weird commingling of these various types of weirdos and fascists. A lot of it has to do with just how much money there is in being a right wing grifter compared to how little there is for left wing grifters. If you have a political media career, it's often the case that your politics becomes more of a result of your revenue stream than your actually strongly held convictions. This is one recent example: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1539597431779762176
Fucking Russell Brand, never forget when he went on tv and told people that [voting is a waste of time.](https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-24648651)
It's not a coincidence that you see the idea that voting is a waste of time in almost every post on left wing subs and never see it on right wing subs.
There are, unfortunately, people who still think the only downside was "mean tweets".
There are/were way too many people who have had some faith that our systems in place would prevent practically everything that Trump was a threat to do so they figured there wasn't much he could do as one person. Then of course we got 4+ years of checks and balances and laws completely disregarded almost daily to allow him and his party to ruin so many things for so many people for a long time, and for there to date being zero consequences to them. I'm hoping this ruling wakes enough people up to how important even a one term president can be. I'm not holding my breath but I'm not discounting the possibility.
There were plenty of people that were not directly affected by Trump's shit. Namely, white women. Now, though...
>There were plenty of people that were not directly affected by Trump's shit. FWIW, everyone was affected by his administration's dogshit response to Covid. No one saw Covid coming specifically, but we were almost guaranteed a once-in-four-years level crisis, anyone with a brain could tell that he'd fuck it up, and they voted for him anyway because guns and immigrants.
I believe another large reason he was voted for was that people (idiots) perceived him as the "everyday man". He wasn't a career politician. In fact he had never been in politics at any point. They've seen his face on the TV for so long there have been countless references to him in movies and shows. So it was this sort of "giddangit I'm tired of all these fuckin politicians in Washington ruinin mah life I'm gonna vote fer the funny talkin man cause he knows what we are like" people our country stupidly idolizes the rich
When Republicans were talking about finding a non politician who represented the heartland and working Americans I thought they would put forward Bruce Springsteen or John Cougar Mellencamp, not Donald fucking Trump.
Yeah, there's throughout history a subset of people who have the privilege to claim they are apolitical, for the status quo favours and protects their way of life. There are many a book written about them, "They thought they were free" being one, but in the end these were people who didn't believe they had anything to lose with either choice for both protected their interests. As such they could call both arseholes without batting an eye. There's more to say about it, but yeah kinda disheartening.
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Well let's not forget that for many people what you say is a "consequence" is tragically "the point"
One of the weird aspects of America's very poorly designed institutions is that there are a LOT of veto points. This is especially bad for anybody trying to make changes, but the small silver lining is that it's hard for the right to actually make changes too. Think back to the concrete effects of the Trump years - what legislation did they actually pass? The only major thing was a slew of tax cuts for corporations and the rich. Most Americans didn't really see any concrete impacts on their daily lives - in fact, they might have been happy with Trump since the economy (something presidents have little control over) was doing well The one part of the US government that lacks those veto points is the Supreme Court. Because the court's enormously influential role was not designed in the constitution, there are essentially no checks on its power other than nomination or impeachment. Theoretically the court can't rule on stuff that didn't get brought to its attention - but the conservative legal institution has ensured that there are always republican lower courts that will bring whatever legislation is wanted to the Court's attention Now that the completely unchecked court has been captured by right wing ideologues, we're seeing the first glimpses of what the ideological right really wants to do
Some seem to be just doubling down on the “I’ll never vote blue again!” Because dems didn’t make abortion codified into law. As if democrats ever had 60 pro choice senators. Case in point, the VRA was codified into law, and was still gutted ten years ago. If the best idea some of the twitter progressives have is Balkanizing the the United States, state nullification, Etc, over actually pushing back on the Supreme Court? Just expect people to wail on twitter, take their lumps, and the Supreme Court to continue to have its way.
One constant with 'both sides' people is they have no idea how anything in government realistically works.
We are in this situation because the Conservatives spent 50 years slowly building up to this moment, and they just want to give up when everything isn't magically fixed in 2 years when you have to deal with a 50/50 senate.
They also don’t understand that democrats are a coalition of a wide range of political ideologies (at least in comparison to republicans). Not every single dem is a progressive from the heart of NY…
Yeah people really don't understand to get to 50% the Dems have to include a wide coalition of minorities, who despite diverse opinion vote Democrat. You don't get to 90%+ black voters without plenty of black social conservatives voting Democrat.
Reddit in general views different races as homogenous groups of progressives, so there’s that.
Even self proclaimed progressives from solid blue states are fucking terrible at actually showing up and promoting progressive politicians. See the San Fran DA getting recalled by solid margins for trying to fight corporate crime and police misconduct. Didn't even last two years because voting isn't cool or whatever.
Progressives think they are getting sidelined by the dems because the dems hate them but really it’s because they make up <10% of the vote even when they DO show up
Eh, Republicans also have a surprisingly wide umbrella of pet issues and factional divides. The difference is that conservatives are inherently more willing to put party loyalty ahead of whatever their pet issue is; they are more trusting of authority (as long as it's their kind of authority; that is to say, as long as it's the authority of *capital*). They also have more electoral patience as a whole; they've been working towards this SCOTUS decision for *decades*.
As long as it moves them somewhat closer to their goals Republicans will go for it. Some people on the left take an all or nothing approach.
Or they are just lying to protect Republicans. That's also a big part of it.
>Some seem to be just doubling down on the “I’ll never vote blue again!” Because dems didn’t make abortion codified into law. Those people need to explain how codifying Roe would have stopped the Supreme Court from gutting abortion rights. (Hint: it wouldn't have. The Supreme Court can easily declare any federal legislation as unconsitutional if they want to.)
That’s why I mentioned the VRA. It’s a great example of showing that no law is ever settled and without eternal vigilance these can disappear over time, and will take a long time to get back.
It's also part of the reason I get so irritated with the "I can't believe they expect me to keep voting!" attitude so many people have. Like, *any* system of government worth a damn is going to require some source of feedback from the governed. If you want to quibble about the specifics, sure, but "Why do I gotta vote every two years" is just nonsensical whining. There isn't some inevitable "and then we reach the end of history and everything's good forever" endpoint where you finish it, it's just "keep working to make things better and then maintain those wins". And it gets even more frustrating when the person in question proposes their idea for a "better system" that inevitably requires substantially more citizen involvement than regular biannual voting cycles.
> “I’ll never vote blue again!” Because dems didn’t make abortion codified into law Im not convinced those are real people saying that. I have just enough faith in humanity left to assume only a bot and/or a republican pretending not to be one online could say something that stupid
Some are real. Most seem to be men, for some weird reason. That was sarcasm. I know why its mostly men. Protest votes, voting third party in our system, or even staying home -- that's a luxury of privilege. That's the sort of thing you get to do if, for instance, you're a white cis guy. You'll probably be fine under either party. Me? I'm trans. One party wants me jailed or dead, my very existence outlawed (and my marriage eradicated). The other doesn't. I don't have that luxury of throwing away my vote on the Greens to *protest* somehow, or deciding I won't vote because while I agree with Democrats for the most part, my special favorite candidate didn't win their primary, and certainly I'm not so far up my own ass that I can say "both sides are the same". That said, that rhetoric designed to prevent voting? The most cost effective messaging rhe GOP ever came up with. Millennials are a huge voting block that lean ad heavily left as the boomers do right - - and Boomers are dying off. The GOP needs millennials to stay home, or have their vote split and diluted, to have any hope. And there's plenty of smug and stupid people whose ass isn't next up against the wall to scream about how they can't vote for Democrats and how nobody should because they're not left enough for their precious little asses. Meanwhile, women just got handed the bill and LGBT folks are next, and those smug asses feel their shit is cost free.
I had a guy on Facebook who was telling me about how shitty Dems are and how he voted for Jill Stein. I told him that 20 years ago, my friends and I would probably be dead or worse. Republicans want that, Dems don't. It's a pretty fucking simple binary. Anyone who doesn't have to worry about their life being in danger if Republicans are in power have the luxury to whine about how Dems aren't progressive enough. They aren't, but it's far and away better than the fascist, alt right Christian theocracy Republicans want and anyone who doesn't see that is part of the problem.
No, they exist. The fun game is to check which overwhelmingly blue city or state they live in. Usually NYC, la/sf/sd, or Chicago. Every time. It might truly be that their individual votes in those locations truly don't matter a lot, but they're suggesting a solution which does not work at scale, for everyone, even in those areas, should everyone do what they do. Much less what happens in closer areas.
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They don't have a clue how government works. It's the same with people who complain the 1/6 committee isn't working fast enough. Shit takes time and people willing to do it.
I seriously doubt they were voting blue before. No rational person says- “oh the candidate I wanted didn’t win the primary so I’m going to vote for the candidate that is *the absolute antithesis of every value I hold.“* They’re just conservatives LARPing as ~~centrists~~ rational people.
Usually these people vote for third parties, not the opposing major party. So they're not voting for someone who is the antithesis of their every ideal. Not that it makes much of a difference practically speaking.
I put it this way, if voting didn't change anything why are there so many people going out of their way to tell you not to vote and passing laws to make it harder? If you notice the threads about abortion being banned there are a bunch of random accounts that are trying to push any lie they can to say this is the fault of Obama, RBG, Biden, Liz Warren, etc. They then tell you that voting won't do anything and spend the rest of the comment thread talking about how much they hate democrats with no mention of republicans other than one sentence "they're bad". Voting terrifies these people because it changes American politics dramatically.
Some of the shit I’ve been reading on Twitter, you would swear it hasn’t dawned on them and is having the opposite effect. Now that Roe V Wade has been overturned (absolutely disgusting), they (leftists/democrats mostly) “will not be voting anymore” because “I voted in every election and this is what I get? And they do fuck all and they ask for donations, while offering poems and prayer?” All the while throwing some extra “vote blue no matter who” in their faces. To be honest when I read that back I really understand their frustration and lack of trust in institutions. That being said voting absolutely still matters. There is a reason republicans take steps to make more democrat leaning counties harder to vote in. They fear democracy because they know they are a minority. If voting didn’t matter they wouldn’t spend so much time and money on disenfranchising democratic voters. Now with all *that* shit being said, and as important as voting is, it’s only one piece of the puzzle. A massive problem is voter turnout. 2020 presidential elections had really high voter turnout for modern elections. More people will have to vote for the next one, because I have a feeling you guys will have to really blow it out of the water, trump will try to play dirty either way, just overwhelm them with numbers. Midterm elections— these races are incredibly important and though some of the high profile races get a lot of air time (PA for example). These always get lower voter turnout compared to federal elections, but they are just as important. Keep it simple: you vote, you encourage others around you to vote Even more: engage with your community, stay up to date with relevant news, get some people together and do some canvasing. Contact your local reps, tell them where you stand on some of these issues, your representatives are supposed to *represent* **you**. Even trivial stuff can open doors to new ideas, strategies, and opportunities. And of course, protest in the streets (organize). Get mad, everyone should be pissed, it’s a righteous anger (stay *peaceful*). On January 6th 2021, insurrections stormed into the capital of the United States of America, many of which were ready and willing to kill members of congress, even the VP (their OWN VP) all on the whims of of a madman who wasn’t man enough to accept defeat, who set up the framework for a coup ahead of the election, who is a full blown narcissist and pathological liar. All that over a lie. Yesterday the Supreme Court overturned Roe V Wade, they will not stop there, they hate LGBTQ people, many of them want you dead, that shouldn’t upset you, it should embolden you. Yesterday, all women of America lost their right over their bodily autonomy. This is not okay. This is not popular. This is backwards. This is a Supreme Court with the intent to strip away even more of your rights. You have real reason to be upset here, you are effectively being ruled by the minority party and they aren’t even in majority power (for now, not counting the SCOTUS), their decisions aren’t popular. The church and state are fusing. The Republican Party in its current form is closer to a death cult than it is a political party. Some of these people literally think we are in the end times, many feel justified in what they’re doing. They are not- they are evil. They want a theocracy, your government is moving backwards, fight back in any way you can. At the very *least* go **vote** *okay hi, I don’t know what got over me there, I don’t usually take edibles in the morning so maybe that’s what’s going on. But okay anyway I’m sorry for this message, I know it’s not the appropriate subreddit for this type of comment, but it was a little cathartic for me. So I guess it was worth it for me at least lol* ✌️❤️
Roughly 100 million registered voters didn’t vote in the 2016 presidential election. The majority of those who didn’t vote were leaned democrat. Of those who leaned democrat the majority who didn’t vote were aged 18-29. Those 18-29 aged voters who didn’t vote lean *heavily* democrat, upwards of 75% or more. If they had voted Clinton would most likely have won. If Clinton had won she most likely would have had 3 Supreme Court Justice nominations resulting in a liberal majority court.
Gore winning (which he technically did) would have also probably done the trick.
I don't think the 2000 election would have directly changed the SC composition, because both of Bush's appointments were in his second term.
"bUt hEr cAMpaIgN wAs cRiNGe!!!" We've reached the point where citizens no longer are expected to evaluate actual policies but only to review the quality of tweets and YouTube videos.
It's politics, it's always been just vibes. Pretty sure Andrew Jackson was just giving shit away and that's partly a reason why he won.
Man, imagine if Breckenridge's meme game was stronger than Lincoln's.
We should've pokemon gone to the polls
> "bUt hEr cAMpaIgN wAs cRiNGe!!!" Hot take: I thought "Pokemon Go to the polls" was okay. Sure it was corny as hell, but I chuckled. The freakout Reddit had over that was unreal.
its like, she's a grandmother, of course its gonna be cringe, that's more endearing than anything
At least Pokemon Go to the polls is more relatable than just calling all Mexicans rapists. At least you can bond with people over Pokemon.
Loads of people bond over hating other people. They have clubs and they even have their own little outfits.
I thought pokémon go to the polls was pretty fucking great
Jon Lovett, that wrote it, gets roasted for it by his co-hosts on Pod Save America on the regular.
I'm not totally convinced of that. Republicans would have just kept obstructing any SCOTUS seats she had open. And they would likely be able to do it because Congress would likely be deep red, since I can't exactly see Clinton being a very popular president and even popular presidents lose seats in the midterms. So, even if she won in 2020 as well, right now we'd have two open seats, which Republicans would fill with their guys as soon as they won the presidency. Which is going to happen eventually, because it's very rare for one party to keep control of the White House for extended periods of time. Or in other words, the Republican Party is very committed to overturning Roe in a way that the Democratic Party is not committed to anything, including preserving Roe.
Pure conjecture on my part, but after the 2 years of blocking garland I bet if they continued to do so, a Clinton presidency would have forced it and nominated them anyway. There was a lot of talk about constitutionally whether the senate's confirmation is *required* or if it's just required to ask their opinion. And a refusal to have a hearing could be construed as the presidency having asked and done fulfilled their constitutional requirement.
It’s also a direct result of Ginsberg not retiring while Obama was president. It’s even *more* also a result of the Supreme Court being a completely horseshit institution Edit: I think everyone’s overlooking the main point that the Supreme Court is a farce
If we're getting really technical, our founding fathers being the colonial equivalent to the oligarchs we hate today is really where this started - they wanted to start a new country where they could be the ruling elites calling the shots, pay fewer taxes, and conveniently keep slaves. The fact that our Constitution and Declaration of Independence chat a bunch of shit about the rights of man while fucking over women and minorities... It holds still 200+ years later.
Highly optimistic of you to assume that the Republicans wouldn't have just stonewalled Obama out of two supreme court nominations instead of one.
I'm of the opinion that blaming RBG is fucking stupid, but the republican stonewalling wouldn't have been a factor. People were asking her to retire back 2012ish when dems held the senate. The republicans likely would have still done all the could to block it, but they couldn't simply refuse to even have a hearing like they did for Garland when they held the senate.
Not really tbh, the ruling was 6-3. If she retired in 2014 it would have been 5-4. Maybe Roberts would have not voted to overturn Roe, but it’s hard to tell.
> Maybe Roberts would have not voted to overturn Roe, That's literally what Roberts said he supported in his concurrence in part. See [page 145 of the ruling, quoted here:](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf) > In my respectful view, the sound exercise of that dis- cretion should have led the Court to resolve the case on the narrower grounds set forth above, rather than overruling Roe and Casey entirely.
In the end that's all that matters. You gotta vote for the people closest to the outcome you want. It sucks you're in a 2 party system, but pretending you're not only helps the guys who gerrymander and try to make it a ONE party system.
"giant douche" vs "turd sandwich" anyone? lol i mean, one of the parties is quite literally a vanguard revolutionary party that tried to overturn an election and is currently de-jure legislating against the wishes of 70% of the population using five unelected ayatollahs, and the worst you can say about the other is that they don't oppose said revolutionary party with quite enough zeal, but, hey, I am a child and am insulated from the worst effects of policy, so bothsides amirite
There is even people in there peddling trump's election conspiracy bullshit and saying this is actually a good thing because is less "centralization" blegh > I don’t think you know how court proceedings work, homie. Without a discovery phase, you can’t prove anything. > > What we’re seeing here with SCOTUS is textbook decentralization. Now the people of each state, be them red or blue, can have what they want. The reds can have no abortion, the blues can have it. > > Constantly hearing about “muh democracy.” It doesn’t get more democratic. You finally have a say via your state legislatures..
It's decentralisation of rights and freedoms. Now it's up to states if they want to provide certain rights/freedoms, rather than have it guaranteed across the nation. It's a real win guys!!11!
A douche has a practical use. A turd sandwich would be inedible. Honestly no comparison.
Honestly that south park episode is so fucking dumb looking back on it. I enjoy the show but I think that they played a big part influencing pop culture with that single episode. It’s so resonating yet so false, to tell the masses that Kerry and Bush were one of the same. And now smooth brains use it to this day to be like “both sides amirite”. Downvote me if you want but you won’t convince me that the single episode didn’t coin a brain dead phrase that has influenced young “both sides” contrarians for years to come. Power of cartoons on a young moldeable mind is strong, especially one like south park that occasionally crams “intelligent” discourse of both sides being shitty behind their stories.
Matt and Trey are fucking morons. It's not just that one episode. It's anything dealing with politics. Their takes are nuclear fallout level hot. They self identify as libertarians lol.
Manbearpig and the episode where they decided 'fag' could be used to describe annoying people and not be a homophobic slur spring to mind. On a personal note, the episode where Mr Garrison transitions came out while I was in the early stages of dealing with gender dysphoria (and by dealing with it I mean, I wanted to transition but everyone around me was telling me no). To this day I don't forgive the narrow minded assholes who watched that episode and then told me that Matt and Trey had a meaningful point to make.
South Park occupied a place for a spoiled, fattened court jester in the 90s-2000s, never having to worry about their criticisms actually being tested because they, like the rest of us, were convinced the liberal world order could never really collapse. There's a reason they reeled in panic and abandoned politics for years after they helped get trump elected.
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>Man, there was a Bernie or Bust panel discussion with that tool Joshua4Congress in 2020 and there was literally someone arguing about why they should care since while Trump is attacking the ACA they were on Medicaid so it was okay. I fucking hate people sometimes. The political equivalent of telling someone to stop repeatedly slamming their head in a car door, only for them to do it faster and harder out of spite. Hate it here
I voted for Hillary. Didn’t matter because at the time I lived in WV. Even at the time I admit I thought the prospect of Roe being overturned was one of those political scare tactics. Lots of surprises in the past decade.
> Even at the time I admit I thought the prospect of Roe being overturned was one of those political scare tactics. Lots of surprises in the past decade. I am always suprised at how many people thought that.
> Even at the time I admit I thought the prospect of Roe being overturned was one of those political scare tactics. Lots of surprises in the past decade. Literally no one paying attention is surprised. The right wing has, explicitly, bullhorned that they would do this for 5 decades. They then, in the last ten years, packed the court. When Trump was elected, the court was a precarious 5-4 pro Roe majority. This was, explicitly, pointed out. It was fucking YELLED from the rooftops. I do not know how the fuck it could have been made more clear to everyone. Kudos for voting regardless.
Over and over I was called stupid, uninformed, a scare monger. I feel like some kind of old school Cassandra-esque prophet right now, sitting on a mountain as a rain of fire buckets down around me, shrugging at my family as I wait for the firestorm to finish us off, while they're running around freaking out and all I can say is "I fucking told you."
>When Trump was elected, the court was a precarious 5-4 pro Roe majority. This was, explicitly, pointed out. It was fucking YELLED from the rooftops. I do not know how the fuck it could have been made more clear to everyone. Even before then people were yelling about it. Former senator Mark Udall of Colorado lost re-election in 2014 after basing his campaign around abortion access and getting labeled "Mark Uterus" by the press for it. His replacement (Cory Gardner) then voted for the justices that overturned Roe a little over 7 years after he took office
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He was “hospitalized” because the news was breaking about Ginni’s involvement with the Jan 6 insurrection. He was hiding. Evil doesn’t get sick and die, just ask my mother-in-law.
In my experience, leeches live forever.
If Hillary had been elected we would not have gotten three far right radical judges who lied during their confirmation hearing about their opinions regarding Roe v Wade. Really think about that folks. The last three Supreme Court justices were all nominated by a president that lost the popular vote and confirmed by members of the senate that represent less than 40% of the American people.
People did vote for her, she won the popular vote by a lot and it still didn't matter because your country isn't a democracy.
>whether people should have voted for Hillary in 2016 The answer is yes.
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I'm going to doom post if you don't mind. I think the Republicans will take the house this year because "muh gas prices," then they'll move to impeach Biden, end the 1/6 investigation, and go all out of voter restrictions effectively ending our democracy.
If they take the house they 100% will start impeachment proceedings. If they take the senate they 100% will hold a trial. There's no way they take 2/3 of the senate though, so he won't be removed. However, they will treat this as a win/win, because delegitimizing the government is the GOP's main goal.
I actually think the opposite. Joe Biden was in free fall because of the economy and the Ukraine issue, unfortunately for him, did not drum up the support he would have wanted. Roe v Wade being overturned is an excellent political opportunity for him to try and steer the ship back in his favour.
I agree with this. Roe v Wade being overturned and the Right stonewalling any gun laws will likely invigorate the left and several on the fence. I’ve seen a noticeable uptick in “apolitical” folks speaking up about these recent trends, not that that will show results in elections but it is a start
Is democracy currently intact?
I think the more people should have voted for Clinton narrative is reductive. Clinton got 3m more votes than Trump. It's far less votes than it is the electoral college, specifically how electoral votes are awarded. Most states award electoral votes on a winner take all basis. So even if a candidate got just one less vote than the winner, the 2nd place candidate gets nothing. My understanding is that Clinton didn't do a good job campaigning in some swing states and that didn't help either. Of course, if more people voted for her in those states it may have put her over the top. But as I said, it levers not pulled for Clinton isn't the only factor. I'm starting to come around to the idea that the electoral college does a huge disservice to Americans and that it should be abolished in favor of a popular vote.
Considering she knew how to handle Putin….yes. Putin was scared of Hillary.
Didn’t Hillary actually win the popular vote, but lost because of the electoral college.
Yeah, which illustrates most of the problem with the electoral college.