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Liberals: why didn’t you vote to continue Biden’s polite genocide? I was comfortable with that. Now I’m uncomfortable with Trump’s rude ethnic cleansing and it’s all your fault.

@aral Whether to continue it was NOT ON THE BALLOT. Sadly you only get to vote for or against things that are on the ballot. Everything else requires non electoral methods.

OTOH Project 2025 was on the ballot and a bunch of people lying that "continue the Palestinian genocide or not?" was on the ballot voted for all of its provisions. And noe we're stuck with multiple genocides to fight and an administration that can't be pressured because they consider genocide a badge of pride not something shameful they want to pretend they're not doing.

@dalias @aral I'll never be able to forgive those who couldn't be bothered to vote against Project 2025

@n8chz @dalias Can you forgive Biden and Harris for arming the genocide of the Palestinian people with billions of dollars of your taxes?

@dalias @aral @n8chz And I find it very hard to forgive those who didn't vote.

@tinydoctor @dalias@hachyderm.io @aral @n8chz
Perhaps you should redirect your hatred to the party that did everything in its power to alienate those voters, and to the system that props up an oligarchy as if it were a democracy.

@freediverx @aral @n8chz Every time I voted for a democrat it was a vote for slow decline over precipitous collapse. I know what they are. Voting is necessary even under such a system. Until it isn't. We may have reached isn't. Hate is irrelevant. People who voted for Trump, and the people who didn't vote, in effect voted to kill my daughter. With NIH funding canceled, she now has a slow motion death sentence. So it's personal. Yeah, I voted for other people to die. More will die under Trump.

freediverx

@tinydoctor @aral @n8chz
I voted for Biden 2.0 (Harris) as well. But we're long past the point where we should be scolding voters for the Democratic Party's failures and betrayals. We need drastic measures to break up that corrupt gerontocracy or replace it with a real people's movement, and there's no place in that movement for DNC apologists, certainly not in any leadership roles.

@freediverx @aral @n8chz Agreed. The Democratic Party as it currently consists needs to be razed to the ground, rebuilt, or replaced. I'm not scolding voters, no matter who they voted for. I'm *telling* Trump voters and nonvoters they voted to murder my daughter and people like her, and I *won't* forget. Literally, IRL, in person I tell them.

@freediverx @aral @n8chz I'm sorry, that's not building solidarity with the people we need for a successful movement. So, maybe I have to forgive, but I won't forget.

@tinydoctor @aral @n8chz
Racism is nothing new in America. And those in power amplify that racism (and misogyny, homophobia, xenophobia, religion, etc.) to keep the working class divided. Both parties do this.

Because if Americans suddenly developed a sense of class awareness, it would be game over for the elites (as we saw in the public's reaction to the Luigi story.)

@tinydoctor @freediverx @aral @n8chz I mean, the GOP has basically rebuilt the party as an anti-democratic far right extremist party, so maybe the DNC can rebuild too? Just into something less evil rather than more, because fuck that shit.

@veronica @tinydoctor @aral @n8chz
An evergreen quote from
Chomsky from 15 years ago.

@veronica @tinydoctor @aral @n8chz
I thought that too a while back, before I realized that the new GOP remains beholden to the same billionaires as the old GOP, which are the same billionaires served by the corporate Democrats.

Our political system is a bit like the “good cop, bad cop” routine, where both cops are acting in tandem against the interests of their victim.

@freediverx @veronica @tinydoctor @aral Assuming for the sake of argument that they both serve the same billionaires, the GOP also serves the fundamentalist preachers and their bloodthirsty congregants. That is more than enough reason to vote against Republicans, in the only effective way to do so in our corrupt first past the post system, which is by voting for Democrats. If it's not reason enough for you, you are not my ally.

@n8chz @veronica @tinydoctor @aral
You'r missing the point. Both parties LOVE fighting over issues that that keep the working class divided, including race, religion, immigration, gay rights, etc. But notice how neither party ever earnestly tackles income and wealth inequality and never tries to unite the working class against the 1%.

It's all by design.

@veronica @tinydoctor @freediverx @aral At least three times in my lifetime, the Republican party has undergone a hostile takeover by their more strident, less moderate, faction. At least two of these transformations clearly resulted in GQP presidential election wins. The Democratic Party is extremely resistant to change, has the "superdelegate" system, and purges its nonmoderates about as aggressively as the GQP purges its moderates. As a result, it is unable to adapt to change and has fossilized. A hostile takeover of the party by progressives is urgently necessary.

@n8chz @veronica @tinydoctor @aral
But it's telling that the Democratic Party always responds by shifting further to the right. Notice how they never even consider moving to the left economically, except during some election seasons when they adopt progressive policies into their platform and then make no serious effort to fight for those once elected.

@freediverx @tinydoctor @aral @n8chz The scolding is important to remind people how we got into this state.

Not reflecting, constantly, is not learning the mistakes of "history". It's also reinforcement to tell those that made the mistakes to sit down, shush, and listen.

This lack of "Retrospective" is why Dems keep repeating the same strategic and tactical mistakes. It's been a gun war and Dems still think hot-air balloons is how to fight back.

@ShrikeTron @freediverx @tinydoctor @aral There has been a lot of scolding going both ways.

@n8chz @ShrikeTron @tinydoctor @aral
Scolding the voters feels a lot like an abusive spouse blaming their victim.

@freediverx @n8chz @tinydoctor @aral Or it's Neville Chamberlain trying to rationalize / mince words on how Hitler got into power bc people don't want a critical look at past actions & learn something.

One side is demanding remedial action, and the other side is threading something like denial.

This King got reelected with 80 years of full WW2 post-war context, and 1.2 million preventably died that's more than all combined combat war deaths since Revolution (or an atomic bomb), begs questions.

@freediverx @n8chz @tinydoctor @aral People can play ping-pong over who and how to blame voters but the realtime result is happening.

A wise-man said, "the Avalanche has started. It's too late for the pebbles to quibble" (modified from B5):

"his client’s uncanny capacity for sensing “the potential weakness inherent in every formal form of law” and then ruthlessly exploiting that weakness"
c.im/@cdarwin/1139032287546496

C.IMChuck Darwin (@cdarwin@c.im)How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 Days He used the constitution to shatter the constitution. -- Timothy W. Ryback https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/01/hitler-germany-constitution-authoritarianism/681233/

@ShrikeTron @tinydoctor @aral @n8chz
My point is that the scolding must be directed at the Democrats, not the voters.

If the Democrats do their job, the voters will follow naturally. They must earn the votes, not demand them.

@freediverx @tinydoctor @aral @n8chz Sorry, I don't see a distinction. 34% don't vote, 33% vote D, 33% vote R.

I think everybody has responsibility here.

My take is Noah's ark. Those that voted against KingT got on the boat. Those that didn't needs to go through some hell.

However, the morale to me stills ends up being nobody learns because everybody forgets.