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#fuck biden but hell no to republicans
alwaysbewoke · 5 months
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our entire political system is flawed, but
you're not going to change it in one election to perfection; what you can absolutely do is make everything worse in one election. also, you can acknowledge that the system needs work and that you want more without lying and pretending as if it has produced nothing positive for you. the problem right now with many people is that you guys want an instant solution. you want an instant fix. however, there is no such thing. there will not be one election or one candidate or one bill that's going to fix this. this is going to take long-term, strategic, methodical work for us to make it right, and i can tell right now that many people are not up for the task. they're too weak, but they won't be weak enough to complain, make videos, tweets, ig posts, reels, tiktoks, blog posts and whatever whining when shit hits the fan. they'll be the first ones howling at the moon and gnashing their teeth without taking responsibility for the part they played in the shitstorm.
here's some simple advice: pack the senate and congress with hardcore progressives. hardcore progressives. and then go to your local election and pack that with hardcore progressives again. but by no means should any of us accept any talk or strategy that gives the republicans power. at some point, you've got to stop playing checkers in a chess game.
however, the problem is this point of view should have been adopted in 2016. i fear that it might actually be too late because people played checkers in the chess game knowing full well that whoever won that election was going to have at least one supreme court pick. that winner actually got three and now has set this country back for the foreseeable future. generations are going to be feeling that pain. we missed out on critical years to address climate change. the voting rights of black people have been completely undermined. the educational opportunities for black people have also been undermined. discrimination against gay people has been affirmed. we saw the death of millions of americans at the hands of a global pandemic that was profoundly mishandled, and yet having seen and experience all of this people are willing to entertain the idea of allowing those in power who did all this to get even more power again. UNBELIEVABLE! people like that deserve ridicule.
if you actually care about black lives, people of color, trans rights, gay rights, healthcare, education, palestine, dr congo, police brutality, child poverty, climate change, restoring democracy, voting rights, equitable access to all levels of education, ending the prison industrial complex, women's rights, and etc do not entertain any talk about taking actions that will give republicans power. not in the short term. not in the long term. don't let your anger and your disappointment force your hand into making things worse for yourself and others. there's already been widespread voter suppression so if you think you're going to give republicans all that power and then vote to take it away from them down the line when everything is more to your liking, you are delusional. if you really want to change things (like for real, you're not just talking shit about "progress"),here are some insightful videos:
#FuckBidenButHellToTheNoOnAnyRepublican
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compacflt · 10 months
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I just wanted to say as someone who has stumbled across your blog and has read your Wednesday wips and posts about anything topgun related that your thought process and consideration of mav and ice, specifically their political beliefs and relationships with their own identities, is honestly so impressive and cool. You have brought such realism and life to these characters which is just so refreshing to see. idk i just wanted to express how cool and awesome i think that is
Because of the thought into these characters does it make it difficult to like them or understand them if you have differing opinions from them? for me personally i feel like if i were to ever actually have a convo with ice or mav regarding identity politics i would actually start to lose my mind (like how one feels when your dad or fun uncle talks for too long at thanksgiving dinner). If it does make them difficult to like, does that make it difficult for you to write them sometimes?
oh yeah! i think, my ice i really empathize with & really love & really could get along with, once he grows out of the sexism of his teens & twenties, but my maverick drives me crazy. someone sent in an ask a while ago that was like “WHY is cyclone simpson your one true love??” And it’s because i too would absolutely hate maverick & hate working with him lol. people who are overly cocky & un-self-aware & a bit self-centered make me CRAZY. (narrator voice: compacflt is a hypocrite as all these things also apply to compacflt.)
Politically… It’s difficult to say. no one really wants to hear the intricacies of one person’s political journey, which is why i won’t give you mine, but suffice to say—since the start of the russian invasion of Ukraine, and my semi-concerted effort to learn more about the political landscape of modern warfare, my own personal beliefs have shifted a whole bunch. definitely aided in that shift by my top gun fic project that specifically aims to understand the conservative straight-passing male mindset as it relates to military matters… there are many end goals to a project like mine, but one end product is a filter you can take away and hold up in front of your eyes and see the world through it. When writing from the eyes of a conservative straight (passing) white man, your priorities totally shift. I had to write from the perspective of someone who doesn’t care about identity politics. Because they don’t! A core tenet of conservatism is very proudly not caring about that stuff, and being very annoyed when people (usually left-of-centers) make that stuff very visible and want you to care about it! “Don’t shove it in my face,” etc., etc. Don’t force me to care about this taboo, private thing I really don’t care about. It violates my freedoms, or whatever, to be forced to care—or even bear witness to—stuff that i don’t care about. Etc. And then, to be nominally a part of that community that you really, really don’t care about, and then to be told that you have to care about it because of your publicity… people asking you to be proud of something that has had a negative connotation for much of your entire life… that’s not a transformation that happens easily.
Jesus, I could write an essay about this. I have, several times by now in responses to asks over my blog. But there is so much that I could talk about. I think… I really worry that some of my writing falls into the first of the below categories:
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I really try not to romanticize conservatism in my writing—I tried to show that ice and mav’s happiness is the price they pay for their conservatism. They’re actively choosing to be unhappy—but because they prioritize their honor over everything, due to EXTERNAL PRESSURES they cannot control, and which I think are often ignored in the fandom space for one reason or another. The fact of the matter is, in 99% of IPs, characters prioritize something other than their sexualities. It’s never Maverick’s personal identity that is at stake in either Top Gun or Top Gun: Maverick, because he has built himself so impermeably masculine that there are no grounds upon which to question his personal identity. He just isn’t thinking about it. He’s thinking about how to get into Charlie’s pants, how to win the Top Gun trophy, how to uphold his promise to Goose, et cetera. If he’s fucking guys on the side, it’s because he wants to and because hes maverick and he does what he wants without thinking about it—that’s the whole point of his character, from a story-construction standpoint. That’s his archetype. He’s a renegade maverick superstar who is both thoughtlessly brilliant and thoughtlessly dangerous. He’s thoughtless. His priorities are to survive and to look cool doing it, and that’s it. He is a savant in the Naval Air Force, where honor is your lifeblood, who feels he has been dishonored by his own family name, and who willingly joined the conservative post-Vietnam Navy right when/after Ronald Reagan was elected President, and who wears cowboy boots and who disrespects women to their faces, and who is eager to get into altercations with Soviet-Chinese-DPRK-X-second-world-country-coded-but-EXPLICITLY-Soviet-manufactured-Mikoyan-Gurevich-MiG-28s(-F-5s-painted-black)… I’m sorry. In my opinion, the conservatism is baked into him as a character. I find it extremely difficult to separate him from his conservatism, because in some ways his patriotic conservatism is his raison d’etre. IMO if you take that away from him, he ceases to exist.
Same thing with Ice and his unwillingness to openly rebel or go against the grain. That is his whole reason to exist in the story at all. I know that I’m saying this in a fandom space where the whole point is to change characters & put them in different situations (fanfic) but… in kind of a perverse self aware way, as in I know I sound ridiculous and pretentious, i guess i don’t really understand an impulse to change the core tenets of a character irreparably in fanworks. We are shown that ice always goes by the books in TG. Then we are shown that he achieves the fruits of that labor (four stars) in TGM. So he is rewarded for never rebelling, whereas Maverick, who always rebels (but NEVER in a way that challenges his personal identity), has stagnated in the ranks at full-bird O-6. And that’s Ice’s character. That’s what he’s there for in the story—he’s a tool to show us the value system of rank and prestige you earn by following the rules of the Navy. Why take that away from him? That’s his priority! Canonically, that’s his priority and reason for existence! And historically the way to achieve that priority is through conservatism.
And you ask me if it’s hard to like my ice and mav. Yes, but that’s not my choice. The movie already did that for me. They are not, I’m sorry, likable people. I am not a straight white conservative male writing about straight white conservative men to validate my own beliefs—I’m a queer AFAB person of color writing about straight white conservative men because I want to understand the limits of their conservatism. What they do and do not care about, and what it takes to make them care. And from what we are shown in TG… ice and mav would not care about ME. At all. And they would not want to be forced to care about me. Ice’s casual careless dismissiveness… “the plaque for the alternates is down in the ladies’ room…” mav following Charlie into the bathroom… turning the key in the ignition and driving away while pretending not to hear her… “what?? i can’t hear you! 🙉” … they do not care. They have no desire to care.
Again. Maybe I subscribe to a very very old-school and labored and pretentious ideology when it comes to writing… I know a lot of people write just to have fun. I do not. I wish i could, but I don’t. And when you’re not writing to have fun, you don’t have to like the characters you’re writing about. They’re nothing more than tools at your disposal to get your point across more effectively. No, I don’t like them! Of course not! My ice is cruel and cowardly and careless and hypocritical and subservient and weak, and my mav is demanding and dangerous and dismissive and oblivious and so, so, so unbelievably bitter.
And that’s what my story needed, to get my point across. So, shrug. My point was my priority. I don’t care too much about the characters themselves.
Re: icemav & identity politics. Part of hopefully selling this story is the attempt at empathy for the conservative male, to bring this discussion back to the top. Why write fiction at all if you’re not going to write about people different from you, and why write about people different from you if you don’t want to understand them? So… part of trying to understand them was to understand and have empathy for this shift in priorities. Conservative guys do not want to care about labels, or sexual orientations, or, God forbid, discussion of their gender identities. I can kind of see Ice tolerating it by the end… but, there are limits. Again, it’s supposed to be private. I think he’d chafe against getting labeled gay—he wouldn’t want to be called the first gay compacflt, or SECNAV, etc. He can’t say, “i slept with like a hundred fifty women before I even MET the ONLY man ive ever slept with,” because that’s like intensely private personal information!! No one deserves that information, but people still want to call him gay, even though in his head he really is not!!!! Again—from the conservative perspective, it’s a public imposition of left-wing, overly sexualized, too-neat labels and politics onto an area of life that has typically been kept private and respectable—I don’t agree with the conservatism, but I can at least empathize with it. Pre-Maverick’s death (pre-coming to terms with it), it would’ve been shameful & embarrassing to him; but even after coming to terms with it, it’s still not something he “takes pride” in. I think he thinks of it like this—most people aren’t proud of being straight. Like, it’s weird if you are. Same thing with being proud of being white, etc. Why be excessively proud of things you have no control over? Why not take pride in your ACTIONS—for instance, his career that he has actively sacrificed so much of his pride for? I can really empathize with that thought. I don’t necessarily agree, but I get it, especially in his professional circumstances, where he has so much to be professionally proud of, and yet people keep wanting him to publicly care about this private part of him he has no control over and can’t change.
Maverick though. I think he’d be actively hostile about talking about it in public. He Does Not Care. he does not want to care. It’s all an insult. They call him the first openly gay Ace cause he’s married to another man— “okay, but, like, I’m not. Stop calling me that. Neither of us are. Oh my god we have slept with so many women. Stop calling us that.” Ok then what do you want us, the press corps, to call you? First openly bisexual Ace? “No that’s worse!! That’s a word some teenager made up and doesn’t mean anything!! I’m sixty years old stop asking me to talk about this stuff im too old.” What do you have to say to LGBT kids who want to go into the navy? “😎👍 there’s a place for you etc etc. Let’s go back to talking about all the planes I shot down.” Maverick does what he wants without thinking about it. That’s the core tenet of his character. Very conservative. Don’t ask him to care too much.
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Idk. No I don’t like them. But I understand them, if that makes sense. Like their conservative anti-label logic does make emotional sense to me. So that’s part of what I took away from this project, for better or worse… probably worse: I understand why conservatives don’t like the modern over-publicity of sexuality. They don’t care and they don’t want to care. And because they are small-C conservative, my ice and mav still don’t care lol. So, yeah. It doesn’t make them hard to write, because thats why I wanted to write them in the first place.
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anyone blaming non voters for a trump presidency is stupid. that man should be in prison and biden is commiting attroices overseas killing babies, children, women, men , in yemen/palestein and also belongs in prison. .. what gives these pres the right to cause attrocies overseas? all of em have blood and belong in prison..
. fuck it i dont want to vote .. and if it goes downill its on the corruption in the democratic party . its so annoying how the real corruption is never talked about.. esp with them not allowing other dems to have a chance to win.. the election is a big joke
just vote blue in your state for mayor/govs/ thats better than nothing.
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poisonousquinzel · 6 months
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little me in like 2008: politics are stupid! and confusing!
me now in 2023: politicians are fucking stupid, and greedy!
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stupidcowboykid · 2 years
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to all the americans on here: VOTE IN THE MIDTERMS. VOTE IN THE FUCKING MIDTERMS.
midterms elect CONGRESSIONAL, STATE, and LOCAL politicians. you know those abortion ban trigger laws-- the laws that will restrict abortion access in individual states?? those assholes? those are made by your STATE FUCKING POLITICIANS.
vote in the midterms. the president is the tip of the goddamn iceberg.
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serialunaliver · 6 days
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biden's foreign policy history is entirely bloodthirsty as hell, there's still video of him online casually talking about mass bombing and such. literally indistinguishable from republican politicians people identify as war hawks. saying "it could be worse with trump" when biden is on the same fucking team aside from party label is crazy to see, especially when american liberals point out that republicans will support any awful candidate just for being republican alone, you are doing the same damn thing right now can't you see?
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c-rowlesdraws · 3 months
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browsing twitter for longer than a few minutes gives me radiation poisoning these days, and it’s worse in the evening, in the hours when the dark feelings creep in anyway. So even though I’m really apprehensive to talk politics on my art blog (I mean, if the backlash to a hyperbolic post I made about a famous youtuber is this bad, posting about politics would turn my activity page into a window to hell), I have to vent some of my feelings or that radiation damage will just keep getting quietly worse. And a fair number of people read this blog, and seem to like things that I create and say, so for what it’s worth, I want to say some things I hope people will think about.
Someone I really admire tweeted recently about how hopeless they feel. They said that after many years of fighting for social change, they had no fight left. They said they were too exhausted to vote in the upcoming US presidential election. And I tried to understand where they were coming from, because this is someone I look up to. But I can’t. I understand feeling burnt out. I feel nauseous and heartbroken and scared, thinking about the situation in Palestine and the situation in my country. I understand that it seems like there is no good leader to rally behind.
But I can’t tap out. I can’t give in to hopelessness and say, “I can’t choose. I’m tired and I’m done”. When a choice is between maintenance of an imperfect society with incremental steps towards better things, and cranking human misery and suffering enthusiastically up to 11, I’m going with the former. We are all tired every day. But voting is not physically difficult. Even if you are tired, you can do it. There is a day where you go to a building, and you fill in a bubble next to a name, and you go home. They even give you a sticker. I said voting isn’t hard, but actually, it’s very important to say that for a lot of people in the US, voting is hard to access, and for some groups, impossible. It is made difficult on purpose, by people—Republicans, it’s fucking always them, I don’t know why I’m using vague language—who want to disenfranchise as many people as they can. If voting was really a useless gesture, if it really meant nothing— they wouldn’t be working so damn hard to stop poor people and immigrants and prisoners and folks in general from being able to do it.
If you hate Biden, god, fine, whatever. But he is going to be the nominee of the political party made up of judges and politicians that, for the most part, believe that climate change is real and ought to be mitigated, that the US should not be turned into an evangelical christian theocracy, that firearms should be regulated, that businesses should be regulated, that healthcare should be more affordable and accessible, that people should be able to get safe abortions, that trans and all lgbt people deserve to live their lives, and that asylum-seekers shouldn’t be shredded by concertina wire trying to cross the border. The wheel of social change is huge and fucking heavy and sometimes it looks like it isn’t moving at all. But we can feel it move if we all push together.
I caught a Trump ad on the radio the other day and it was some of the scariest shit. “Trump will bring order to chaos,” it said. “He will ban travel from terrorist countries, and end the disastrous open-border policies allowing illegal migrants and deadly drugs like fentanyl to flood into our country.” The fucking anti-muslim travel ban. It’s back, baby. That was the exact phrasing: terrorist countries. If Biden’s foreign policy with regards to the Middle East is frustrating and despair-inducing already, Trump’s would be a catastrophe. The Republicans think Democrats are soft on terrorism. As much as anyone with a conscience is horrified by the US’s continued passivity with regards to Palestine, this motherfucker getting back in office would bring greater horror. I’m really sure about it. I don’t know what that part of the world will look like next fall, but I’m confident that if this dumb bloodthirsty motherfucker regains office, there would be absolutely no hope of public pressure swaying US foreign policy towards “less murder”. Protesting against war and genocide or for any progressive or civil rights cause would become even more dangerous. I still think about the woman who was run over by a car at the protest in 2017
…I’m rambling. I can’t help it. But I don’t want to just ramble unproductively. I should end this with something I hope makes sense to people snd can’t be easily dismissed, even if you already disagree with something I’ve said. I want to say how I genuinely feel.
I believe that imperfect activism is valuable, because it is better to show up and stand in solidarity with other people fighting for a more just world than to not show up at all. I believe all activism is in some way imperfect, because activists are people, and people are imperfect. That is to say, one middle-aged woman who showed up to a DC protest wearing a hand-crocheted pink pussy hat, who maybe hadn’t been to many (or any) protests before but who felt fired up about this one, was worth ten of the smug “real leftists” sneering about her on twitter. Maybe more than ten. Your own activism will be imperfect. But keep an open mind— to your own learning and to others’. Doing “the bare minimum” (and, ugh, what a discouraging phrase) is still doing. We have to encourage everyone who feels drawn to fighting for social good. We have to link arms with one another and be strong. Even if you think the person next to you is a lame-o liberal, if they believe that (for example) trans people deserve access to gender-affirming care and should not be smashed flat into fruit-by-the-foot and sent straight to hell, they are your comrade.
Be wary of people who self-identify as Cassandras and unheeded prophets, especially if their messages consistently emphasize how everything is garbage and the world can’t be saved. If someone is telling you that only they understand how uniquely horrible things are, that no progressive or leftist political philosophy is viable except for the specific one they adhere to, that no news or media sources are worthwhile or even trustworthy except for the small handful of ones they endorse… I won’t say to stop listening to them or following them, but I’d recommend listening to other people, too.
Do your own reading about issues that are important to you. Read many people’s words, watch videos, think about what you believe, and how those beliefs have changed over time, and stay open to being further changed. We are all constantly learning and shaping ourselves, and teaching, and being shaped by others. All of us are tired. But we can hold each other up.
I don’t have a rousing call to action. Just the same things many people are already saying that I’ve felt encouraged by, in a grim sort of way: protest and donate when and where you can, support political candidates on the local and national stage who do support policies you agree with, who could do real good. It feels very hard right now to be hopeful. But we all have to live in whatever future comes eventually— so I think we have to still participate, and that means things like voting. We are all tired. But we have to keep going. There is, ultimately, no sitting out. People who opt out of voting still must live under the social climate and policies imposed by the person who gets elected, and who they endorse and empower and appoint, and who those people empower and appoint, and so on.
This post doesn’t have a good conclusion. I didn’t write it thinking about what would make for a satisfying structure in general. But if you read it, then thank you for reading.
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odinsblog · 3 days
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Elie Mystal covered the ridiculous, “Presidential Immunity” (aka, “Why Can’t Trump Be Treated Like A Dictator?”) case before SCOTUS
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Dreeben: "BECAUSE THERE WEREN'T CRIMES!" (he didn't yell, I did, but he said "because there weren't crimes." )
Oh God, now Roberts wondering if they should send it back to the DC circuit because he's worried about presidents getting prosecuted in bad faith.
Roberts: "The court of appeals did not get into a focused consideration of what facts we're talking about or what documents we're talking about... they did not look at what courts usually look at when... taking away immunity."
Is this motherfucker serious? His argument is "Every president coups, why is mine getting charged?"
Thomas: Are you saying there's no immunity even for official acts?
And... that could be the ballgame
Roberts, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh are more worried about a prosecutor going after a president for *political* reasons than A PRESIDENT TRYING TO OVERTHROW THE GOVERNMENT.
This is just about over.
And by "this" I mean the rule of law and by "over" I mean delayed indefinitely to help Trump.
Gorsuch suggesting that under the government's standard a president could be prosecuted for leading a "civil rights protest" in front of Congress and sought to "influence an official proceeding."
Yes, because Jan 6 and a fucking sit in are the same thing, Neil.
This is goddamn disgusting.
I'm going to keep listening because it is my literal job, but this is pretty much in the bag for Trump at this point. Remand to DC Circuit for decision on "official acts" and whether organizing a coup is one.
After November, if Trump loses, SCOTUS will return to the issue.
Alito: Are you really saying the president is subject to criminal laws like everybody else?
YES YOU DICK. THE PRESIDENT SHOULD BE SUBJECT TO THE LAWS LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE!
Alito: "I'm not talking about the particular facts of this case."
WHY? WHY THE HELL ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS FUCKING CASE RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU?
The question I'd have for the SCOTUS now is: If you do this, why would a Republican president every peacefully transfer power again?
Democratic presidents will because Democrats follow rules that don't apply to the other side. But why would Republicans just leave *ever again*?
Alito: Couldn't FDR's decision to inter Japanese Americans during WWII be charged [as a crime]?
He says that LIKE THAT'S A BAD THING?
And Dreeben is trying to say that he couldn't.
This country, and specifically this court, is a fucking joke.
Now onto self-pardons. Alito is just playing all the Fox News hits now.
I'm going to smoke. Biden should send Seal Team 6 to Mar-a-Lago because according to Alito there's no downside.
Alito just suggested that the last election was "questionably decided"
I have left my body and am texting things I can't say aloud to my friends.
Kagan is like the first person to be asking about the actual criminal acts Trump is charged with.
I assume Alito is not listening because Kagan is a woman while Gorsuch is probably sitting there emailing the New York Times because they got something wrong on the Spelling Bee.
I see the internet is unimpressed with Dreeben but that's being a little unfair. The Republican justices want to do this, there's nothing that Dreeben could say to stop them.
What he *could* be doing was making their hypocrisy more clear for the non-legal media following along.
But... SCOTUS advocates have to preserve their ability to argue another day, and blowing up the justices in one case
A: Doesn't help them actually win the case.
B: Actively hurts them in the next one.
Kavanaugh: "Like Justice Gorsuch, I'm not concerned with the here and now of this case, I'm concerned about the future."
I don't know why this is acceptable. I do know that the justices are sure they are right about ignoring the facts of THIS ACTUAL CASE.
Kavanaugh... who WORKED FOR KEN STARR... is basically saying that Jack Smith is politically motivated and his appoint in unconstitutional.
It's... maddening. And most of the media reports will not even point out this hypocrisy.
The "independent counsel" law was rewritten into our current "special counsel" law BECAUSE of the shit Kavanaugh helped Starr do! Everybody was like "that crap can't happen again."
Somebody get @neal_katyal and @MonicaLewinsky on the phone to blow up this asshole.
@neal_katyal @MonicaLewinsky Every time I try to no have a stroke listening to this bullshit, they say something even more risible and stupid.
@neal_katyal @MonicaLewinsky Kavanaugh: "President Ford's pardon. Hugely unpopular when he did it... now probably looked on as one of his better decisions."
What? WHAT? WHO THE FUCK THINKS FORD'S PARDON OF NIXON WAS A GOOD IDEA? WHEN DID I DIE AND GO TO HELL????
@neal_katyal @MonicaLewinsky This could be a men v. women 5-4 ruling.
Men: Let's kick this back to DC to further delay Trump's trial.
Soto, Kagan, Jackson: Why? That's fucking dumb.
Barrett: Ladies, I agree with you, but we shouldn't call the men fucking dumb. We should politely disagree.
@neal_katyal @MonicaLewinsky We're past the two and half hour mark for an argument where the Republican justices made their decision when they were appointed, some of them decades ago.
@neal_katyal @MonicaLewinsky KBJ is closing by trying to answer all of Gorsuch's questions, which would be effective if Gorsuch operated in good faith. But... he doesn't. So...
@neal_katyal @MonicaLewinsky I had hoped that *one* of the liberal justices would have made the point from the Common Cause brief, highlighting that the whole point of what Republican justices are doing is to give Trump delay.
Not a persuasive argument for the justices, but good for the media to hear.
@neal_katyal @MonicaLewinsky The case is submitted. Court doesn't come back till May 9th which will be a decision day.
But I think they won't decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.
@neal_katyal @MonicaLewinsky I wish I had better news for you. Thanks anyway for following along with our national descent into madness.
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full offense intended to people who hate voting— they literally don’t know how government works. youre not just voting for the politician youre voting for their ability to make political appointments. like if you claim to be pro-labor and pro-union and you take a dump all over voting, it’s just crystal clear you don’t know what the National Labor Relations Board is. But most people just do not know labor law. Like understandable, it’s a complex field. I just have to roll my eyes at “both parties are the same”. On some issues, yea. On others no the fuck they’re not. Embarrassing behavior imo.
Yeah actual labor leaders are EXTREMELY clear that they want people to vote and vote Democrat. I've heard union presidents talk about how much progress they've made and how much easier it's been with the Biden administration as opposed to Trump. And on a local level, my state Democrats got me paid sick time when my union wasn't willing to fight for it, while multiple Republicans states are repealing their labor laws left and right. And sure, Democrats as a whole aren't great at labor - but negotiating is a hell of a lot easier when the starting position isn't "unions should all be burned to the ground and the organizers run out of town on a rail".
And that's just labor - I've heard similar stories from people involved in climate change stuff and I'm willing to bet it's the same with a lot of other issues. The problem is that people assume if it's not big, splashy front-page news then it's either not important or didn't happen, when a lot of the most important stuff is quieter. The New York Times isn't going to report on every judge appointed to the NLRB but it's still an incredibly important issue that the parties are extremely different on!
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sourcreammachine · 5 months
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✨My Favourite Moments of 2024!✨
uk prime minister keir starmer resigns in disgrace after accidentally referring to a trans woman by her correct pronouns
elon musk attempts to prove the safety of the tesla truck by letting mitch mcconnell drive. both men die within seconds of entering the vehicle
in response to worldwide famine, the World Food Programme appoints taylor swift as its director-for-life
the IDF continues carpetbombing occupied gaza after the ghosts of hamas are spotted. all gazans are required to evacuate into a shallow grave
the conclave repeatedly fails to elect a new pope, causing a schism. one conclave elects some italian bishop you’ve never heard of while the other conclave elects agent Q
the IMF buys pakistan
donald trump wins the republican primary carrying 60 states, 14 countries, and 8 circles of hell. during his victory broadcast from prison he suffers what it clinically described as a MegaStroke, removing his ability to move and speak. he declares one of his busty nurses to be his running mate and leads biden by 30 points
following the death of musk twitter is divided by gavelkind amongst multiple rival warlords
joe biden finally finishes his 13th genocide, winning a bet he made with obama
after it retreats from ukraine and georgia, putin personally murders every single member of the russian army. he is reelected in a landslide
his holiness the ayatollah ali khamenei dies peacefully of old age surrounded by his loving family and a grieving nation. days later he is found in a disused oil pipeline hiding from protesters while off his tits on heroin, and is dragged through the streets and beaten to death
the largest war in human history erupts in africa, costing dozens of millions of lives. it is a slow news day at the UN
president millei attaches argentina to the dollar. the us economy immediately crashes and undergoes apocalyptic hyperinflation, the dollar becoming the first currency to have a negative value. the only surviving american industry is joe biden ‘i did that’ stickers
the PLA begins its amphibious invasion of taiwan. the war claims the lives of one million PLA soldiers, ending within 20 minutes when the generals learn that tanks can’t swim
donald trump wins the us presidential election carrying all 100 states. during his victory broadcast from the intensive care unit, he suffers what is clinically described as a Heart Apocalypse, rupturing every single artery in his body and leaving him as pile of blood and gore. the supreme court rules that despite being, quote, “the most dead person ever recorded”, he is still eligible to be president. he and vp-elect Busty Nurse will be inaugurated on 20 january
due to a weird loophole, elon musk’s trans daughter inherits his entire estate. she immediately uses all her wealth to found a mutually-owned food distribution network, ending world hunger
the switch 2 still doesn’t have fucking analogue triggers
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As President Joe Biden mingled on the House floor following his State of the Union address Thursday night, Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) gave the official Republican response, a stern but bizarrely delivered rebuttal that focused heavily on immigration and the economy.
The freshman senator is considered a rising star in the party. But her speech’s intense tone—with an over-the-top dramatic cadence that was delivered in a kitchen—left political operatives and observers struggling to make sense of it.
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The performance was so bad that some Republicans watched the high-profile speech with a grimace. A GOP strategist told The Daily Beast that Britt’s delivery quickly became a gossip item Thursday night among operatives connected to Donald Trump—something that could have potential implications for her consideration as a vice presidential pick on the 2024 ticket.
“Everyone’s fucking losing it,” this Republican said, requesting anonymity to discuss private conversations. “It’s one of our biggest disasters ever.”
Several popular social media influencers in the MAGA camp also panned the speech; the account Catturd tweeted Britt was "awful" to his 2.4 million followers.
The setting of the kitchen table—more so the kitchen than the table—for Britt’s speech also left some seasoned Republican strategists confused.
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“Senator Katie Britt is a very impressive person. She ran a hell of race in [Alabama],” Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former Trump White House communications adviser and Nikki Haley supporter posted on X. “I do not understand the decision to put her in a KITCHEN for one of the most important speeches she’s ever given.”
Olivia Perez-Cubas, the former spokesperson for Haley’s 2024 presidential bid, also said in a post on X that while Britt “is incredibly impressive, unsure why she felt the need to deliver the SOTU response from a kitchen.”
Tim Miller, the former Jeb Bush aide turned ex-Republican, called the kitchen setting “creepy” and said it made former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s much-maligned response to Barack Obama in 2009 “look like the Finest Hour speech.”
Brendan Buck, a former senior adviser to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), also acknowledged that Britt’s “delivery was unfortunate.”
“She was clearly overcoached,” Buck said on MSNBC.
Britt went for a dramatic performance with her State of the Union rebuttal, casting Biden as a failed president and arguing that the GOP was the best option for regular working families.
But the senator's delivery turned out to be so dramatic that it ended up being distracting at best and disingenuous at worst.
Allie Beth Stuckey, a conservative commentator, posted on X Friday morning that Britt had genuine appeal in coming across like "the moms at the school drop off" and praised the kitchen setting.
"But the delivery was parody-level terrible, and I promise that didn’t sway any of those suburban moms we’re trying to reach," Stuckey wrote.
State of the Union responses from rising stars in the opposing party are notorious for generating awkward, unflattering moments that can follow a politician through an otherwise solid career. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) is still remembered for awkwardly taking a sip of water during his response speech over a decade ago.
The GOP strategist who called Britt's performance a disaster likened it to Rubio’s water moment—but they said Britt was actually worse and that she “lowered her stature” in doing it.
A Britt spokesman did not respond to a request for comment.
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fangirltothefullest · 2 months
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ok you dont have to respond but i figured youd understand my frustration but i feel like everytime i get on tiktok some white 20 uear old is telling me not to vote for biden and like ok ik hes not great but like the stuff trump has been saying hell do is also horrific!!! and theyll say stuff like 'well im not saying vote for trump 🙄 you dont know how voting works' like obviously you dont either!!! not voting or voting 3rd party is basically useless!!!
and like idk i have more thoughts but i dont want to rant forever
They're literally Republicans or Libertarians who want everything for themselves but not for anyone else. ESPECIALLY when they're white.
Because Biden has done some shit yeah but he's also done one he'll of a good job trying to undo SO MUCH of the bad that trump and the other Republicans put into place.
"He didn't forgive student debt!!"
He forgave shitloads of debt and the Republicans PREVENTED HIM from doing more at every turn!
"He's an old white man!"
Who gives a fuck when he's doing more good than harm?
"He's fucking it up with Palestine!"
Yeah he is, call him out for it, but also if Trump was in office he would be doing SO MUCH FUCKING WORSE.
Here's some more good stuff he's done! In case you want a list.
Executive order protecting reproductive rights
Historic climate policies (that Republicans forced him to make less progressive, but are still very progressive)
Historic criminal justice reform
Massive boom in employment regardless of inflation (which, by the way, is not controlled by the president and is controlled by the corporations which are not regulated because Raegan, a republican, deregulated them so as to not have to pay proper employee wages, so corporations could get away with harmful practices, and so people did not have protected unions, which is what benefits white Republican CEOs over everyone else)
Literally just handed people money (stimulus checks) for free during Covid, because Trump and his repu lican thug cohorts handled the pandemic so fucking badly.
And if anyone tries to come at this post and call me out for using the term thugs, you don't see fucking democrats storming the capital for their wannabe dictator they worship like a goddamned cult.
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tittyinfinity · 1 month
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I still can't believe that this election year of all years isn't the deal breaker for a lot of people when it comes to the two-party system.
Not willing at all to organize for another candidate or even protest the fact that many states aren't allowing you to vote for anyone but Biden for the democratic candidate.
You won't even demand that the Democrats put forward a different candidate to vote for? Even though you know that the guy running is a lifelong conservative who only recently put on the liberal sheep's clothing?
Just put your head down and vote for him No Matter What under threat of violence from the other party? No matter who the candidate is? No matter how bad they get, until they come for you? "You'll always have my vote as long as you keep ME safe from the Actually Evil party. Damage control!"
As if telling a political party that they can be as horrible as they want & STILL have your vote is any kind of "damage control." Maybe it's short-term damage control for you. But why would dems be incentivized to give you rights and work for your vote if you tell them that you'll vote for them no matter what policies they have? How will that look years down the line?
Why would they even try to stop republicans if all they have to say is "vote for us because the other party is worse?" Whenever every time something bad happens under a democratic presidency, you say it's not really their fault? How in the hell does that "push the democratic party to the left?" Because I see a lot of "vote for them first, THEN push them to the left!" Well then how the fuck do you expect to do that? Just ask them pretty pretty please? Are you "pushing Biden to the left" right now? How does telling people not to criticize Biden "because it increases the chances of the other guy winning" push him to the left?
Biden is issuing executive orders to send weapons over to Israel but won't do that for Roe v. Wade or trans rights. He's threatening to take away some of our first amendment rights and cut us off from outside information. And if that isn't enough, you know what happened because of the weapons he sent to israel? And how it affects you personally? Look at what happened to Fall and Winter. So much progress towards combating climate change. Lost. The US military is the largest polluter in the world & the military industrial complex will eventually kill us all if we don't stop it.
NOT TO MENTION his fucking track record? If a lifetime of advocating for racist policies that have killed and continue to kill tens of thousands of people doesn't make him as bad as Trump, what does? Trump's shitty 4-year presidency somehow cancels the decades of lives lost to Biden? WHAT? The fuck do you MEAN one of them is the "lesser of two evils"?!?!?!?
It ultimately comes down to "I prefer the violence to be where I can't see it." You're not afraid for the people that the Democrats are currently killing and have been killing while lying to your face about it, you're not afraid for the people who have been watching their family members be blown to bits for months – but you're so terrified of a republican president that you'll put up with tens of thousands of people dying in another country in order to have better domestic policies. Instead of ever fighting for anything different.
"Well then what's your plan?" Are you not embarrassed to admit that you've been actively ignoring every person who's laid out clear options for you? You can't think of anything else yourself other than "vote blue no matter who?" Newsflash, literally anything is better than enabling TWO FASCISTS to run for office.
We stop BOTH of them. Not just one of them. Step the FUCK up.
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linddzz · 1 year
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Why Are People Happy (or like, at least Not Freaking Out) About the USA Midterm Results?
(or in my case exhaling a held breath as I slightly lift my finger off the "oh fuck me and my spouse should worry for our future survival if we stay in the country" button for now)
So for newer voters there is the very valid question: why the hell are people acting like this is a victory for progressives/Democrats when they'll likely lose the House and barely hold on to the Senate?
Short Answer: because by historical pattern and all the usual indicators, anyone who even slightly caucused with Dems should have been trounced, and the fact that they weren't trounced has the far hardline right shaking.
To borrow from a great Reddit comment I saw; the GOP is freaking out because this was like a pro boxer went up against a sick six year old, and the boxer may have scored higher in the end but the six year old beat the shit out of them in the process.
For decades the pattern has been that the president's party loses at LEAST 20-40 seats in the midterms. Add in that Republicans tend to turn out more for midterms, gerrymandering, and the fact that in the past swing voters are swayed by inflation and gas prices and...it should have been so much worse. With how everything was stacked up this ended up being a historic turnout for an incumbent executive branch, the career politicians pay attention to shit like that.
And yeah with how things are, "holy shit it could have been so much worse" is worth something.
So I'm not like, popping bottles and cheering, but this to me is a great example of Voting as Harm Reduction in Action.
Voting did not Fix It. It can't. Voting will not stop fascism, strike that expectation from your mind and also really see that that is not what voting's role is in an action plan. Voting is the Minimum. Meaning if you can't do anything else you vote, but you don't rely on voting and expect it alone to fix problems.
(long post with more of a breakdown below. Tho this isn't a breakdown where I pulled sources and exact numbers. It's more of a General Take Away.)
The ultimate proof that this wasn't great for the far right is the fact that they're very openly freaking out. Go to the far right outlets and they are losing it. It has been loudly shown that they can't assume they can point to inflation and get away with OPEN pushes for total take over.
On one hand, we very VERY likely gained a couple more years to fight (either to stop a fascist take over or to at least set things up to save more lives, or to even reduce the power hold a fascist take over could keep.) On the other hand, people like Nick Fuentes are now openly saying "we are the minority and these results show why we need a dictatorship." Whether it's a good thing they're saying the quiet part even louder or not remains to be seen.
(My optimistic take is it may be a good thing, as it's way harder for moderates to accuse progressives of hysterics when the wackos won't stop saying the quiet part out loud and are in fact saying it louder. I kind of WANT the wackos to be louder and louder, there's now good evidence that freaks voters out.)
The More Definitive Good:
-The GOP majority is not NEARLY what they were wanting, and a lot of their moderates are spooked. The status quo holders are seeing that hardline regressive politics like the overturn of Roe is BAD for them, and they can't rely on "but the gas prices." The GOP generally falls in line together yes, but remember how much they struggled to pass big change legislation when Trump was president? They're gonna have even more inter-party tensions now as the hardline right gets frustrated that they can't impeach Biden every week and the status quo moderates get more hesitant to back up policies that they KNOW won't be popular with their constituents. They will not be able to coast whatever they want through. Even if they end up flipping the House AND Senate it will not be with big enough majorities to do whatever they want.
-Listen if nothing else, if you're a petty bitch like me who enjoys a nice dish of shadenfreude, its probably gonna be very funny watching McCarthy struggle to keep his party on track if they retake the House.
-Cannot possibly stress enough that the fact that it's STILL not 100% certain the GOP will flip the house is buck fucking wild.
-GenZ turnout is giving me hope that the Youths are properly viewing voting as a minimal first step in an action plan and not as a "if it doesn't fix it why bother?" scenario. If voting is all you can do, do that so you can help give people who are fighting better ground to work on and more time. Stay involved in local elections especially!
-For me at least, this has let me take my mental finger off the PANIC AND FLEE NOW button so I can focus slightly less on survival for immediate family and more on helping others.
-Speaking of, LOOK UP HOW TO HELP YOUR NATIVE AMERICAN COMMUNITIES. The Indian Child Welfare Act is on the line at the supreme court. Look it up, look up how you can help.
Best Case Scenario Outcomes/Dreams
-Trump vs DeSantis actually does turn into a GOP civil war. Will this fight be good in the long run? I don't know but I know that at this moment it's very fun watching them claw at each other. Thoughts and prayers towards an ongoing GOP civil war. The established GOP wants Trump gone and see this midterm as proof he's bad for elections, but he's not going to go easy. I'm gonna be like Cersei Lannister looking out my window sipping wine watching them fight.
-GOP realizes "being seen as the social regression party is bad for us" and they stop being obstructionists. Best case here is they open up to climate legislation. That or they buckle down harder and piss everyone off more. Either way is likely to work out for progressives. Ultimate Dream is a GOP civil war and party shakeout leading to a conservative party with like, disagreements on tax policy and regulations being the biggest thing to worry about in the future.
-Bigger Dream; this is a death knell for the rise of Christo-Fascism. They overshot their reach with the Roe overturn and the power hold the hard right Christian block has on the conservative party goes downhill from here. This is more of a dream and not a realistic expectation though.
-I don't hold as much hope here but there's a CHANCE that this also signaled to Democrats that they can be more pushy and not suffer for it. Biden is a political beast and I wouldn't be surprised if his more openly progressive (by his standards) moves recently were to test how voters would respond to it. If Dems payed attention (big if) they got the message that people want more action.
-Trump probably lost the political backup he hoped for if he gets indicted. There's a GOOD chance that the establishment GOP won't stop the legal freight train about to hit him even if they get both House and Senate. I think it's silly to say "it's over for Trump!" but it's fair to say his tower is less protected than he likely hoped. It's likely the establishment is less afraid of his power than they were even after 2020.
-can you imagine if he made a third party and wrecked the GOP voting base? Like to charge reblog to cast.
-If nothing else; between Alex Jones, Elon flailing like an idiot and maybe taking down Twitter, and far right pundits screaming in confusion, there is entertainment to be had.
Now What:
-The fight is not over. It will never be over. The hill to fight up is less steep than expected now, but it's still there.
-We will likely not see much passed before 2024. This midterm was less about getting progressive platforms pushed and more about making it harder for regressive policies to pass. It'll be frustrating but with how things were stacked that's the best we could've hoped for.
-The GOP have gerrymandering and can win that way (it's likely how they end up winning the House) BUT more people are aware of it now and districts that should have been EASY wins were closer than the GOP would like. They're likely to try to gerrymander harder, it's now our job to be very very loud about that. Push for districting reform.
-The conservative voting bloc is ALSO sick of the two options. Peeking around in r/conservative revealed a surprising amount of support for rank choice voting. This is an area to plug your nose and work with people towards a common goal. Rank choice is at the moment, the most realistic strategy for breaking up the two party system.
-Hard to swallow pill: the majority of this country is moderate. It sucks. But it is. You cannot depend on the dream of a socialist revolution. Lying down and accepting that as a reason to give up is also not an option.
-Expanding on that; this midterm may be a sign that the moderates are more politically aware than they used to be, and that they're more persuadable towards progressive policy than I had expected. Try to keep that up, because it makes it harder for the hardline right to try to push their shit quietly.
-There will almost certainly not be a time where progressives can relax and say they fixed it.
-Celebrating "holy shit that could have been so much worse" can't be a sign that It's Fixed. I also don't think people view it that way. My big hope is that younger progressives have realized that they can't go "the system is fucked beyond repair so why bother."
-Celebrating increments and enjoying some shadenfreude can be good for your mental health. Shitting on people for celebrating "oh good I don't need to flee the country asap" doesn't really help anyone.
-There was a ZERO chance this midterm would have given total big majorities to progressives. If you are set on only celebrating Perfect Wins you're going to have a BAD TIME and will burn out fast.
-Fight for an ideal you don't expect to reach. Take every half step you can, push for bigger leaps. Do not give ground for the sake of not reaching the goal.
-If DeSantis is smart he will moderate his "anti woke" openly social-regression talk. Don't let him get away with remaking his image as "the nice safe moderate compared to Trump." Pull out the petty shit he did with Disney, point out every way he is JUST as low and mean.
-GenZ: the far right is now terrified of you. Good. Keep em scared.
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agaritas · 2 months
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watching biden’s state of the union address is so comical, he can barely speak without his dentures falling out and he’s stuttering so much. kamala keeps popping up every 30 seconds behind him like a pez dispenser and republican hecklers keep yelling whenever he brings up trump which is also every 30 seconds.
congressmen are clapping like seals as if their applause can drown out the sound of the genocides they’re funding. bragging about the hundreds of billions in tech development built on the blood of congolese ppl dying in mines and fields. bragging about being the arbitre of freedom and democracy in defending ukraine from occupation while sending bombs to kill 35 000 palestinians and to maintain the bloodiest apartheid system since south africa’s which america coincidentally fought tooth and nail to maintain too.
it’s truly mortifying to witness the spectacle of american politics. every single person in that room watching him and having watched every president before him deserve the hottest spots in hell. it feels beyond dystopian to see all these old fuckers cheering on the supposed bright future they’re building for americans while damn near everyone is living paycheck to paycheck, working multiple jobs, can’t access medical care, can’t afford basic prescription drugs, can’t pay rent, don’t have bodily autonomy, are drowning in debt. while they’re killing thousands upon thousands of black and brown people every day.
“4 more years! 4 more years!” whoever fucking gets the job in the fall won’t give the ppl 4 more years of anything but misery, poverty, and military oppression. that is if either one of these fucking demonic fossils last 4 more years. cop cities are being built all over the country so that the american military complex can kill as many ppl nationally as it does internationally! i love america!
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decolonize-the-left · 1 month
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..How are you going to vilify people who vote for biden bc there is no other choice?..
Trumps plan is to turn the US into a christofascist dictatorship by 2025.
Voting for third parties doesn't do anything significant and therefore leads to trumps majority votes win.
Voting for biden, at the very least, minimizes this chance.
Not voting at all again leaves Trump to win.
Please tell us what to do then, if everything we vote for leads us to suffer.
There are several other choices actually, they just aren't dems or Republicans. But they are there. You DO have a choice. And the one you're making is for a fascist. So it's actually REALLY easy to villify y'all, thanks for asking
Also here a sourced post I made very recently that shows how Biden is ALREADY meeting goals for project 2025. His admin is even using the same language found in the mandate for leadership
"Israel has a right to protect itself"
"we must protect the freedom of navigation in the Red sea/Suez"
Yeah that's from the fascist handbook you think only Trump is using.
You vote third party or you admit the system is too fucking corrupt and broken for voting to be worth a single thing anyway and you start organizing so we can overthrow it.
Because that's what we need to do if Trump OR Biden wins.
Unless you plan to sit around while everything gets worse?
Our choices are Blue Fascist 2025 plant, Red Fascist 2025 plant, or 3rd parties.
Those are our choices every year. And as long as you keep ACCEPTING fascist presidents then we will always HAVE a fascist president.
And since IM not the one advocating that we vote for "lesser evil" fascists, please take your fear and anger and virtue signaling and redirect it to the DNC who is the actual organization that has forced a (losing) fascist candidate on democrats.
Quit sending anons to Tumblr bloggers and DO something about the reality we've found ourselves in. It's sure as hell not going to change on its own or without support.
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