I went to a "No Tyrants (Kings)" thing, and maybe it was just my particular event, but it mostly made me bitter and resentful.
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@peter Where was it held?
@SCampbell Barcelona
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@peter hopefully by then we'll be in Australia working out how to retire to the EU
@ebooksyearn yep! hope to see you here
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and what happened? we all rallied around and elected fucking **Joe Biden** who fucked everything up. and now we're back where we started, with a bunch of babyboomer resistance libs who own million dollar homes yelling at us to vote. ma'am, I can't vote, because the last place I was registered to vote is Washington, DC, and they don't have senators or a representative because when the Democrats take power, they refuse to exercise it.
@peter Risky though it be for me to disagree publicly with one of my instance’s admins, but “fucked everything up” seems like a wild overstatement. Should Biden have withdrawn much earlier from seeking re-election? Oh, yeah. Are there things I wish he had pushed harder for, like packing the Court or granting DC statehood? Yup. Do I hate that he failed to recognize and call out Israel’s genocide for what it is? You bet.
/1 -
@peter Risky though it be for me to disagree publicly with one of my instance’s admins, but “fucked everything up” seems like a wild overstatement. Should Biden have withdrawn much earlier from seeking re-election? Oh, yeah. Are there things I wish he had pushed harder for, like packing the Court or granting DC statehood? Yup. Do I hate that he failed to recognize and call out Israel’s genocide for what it is? You bet.
/1@peter /2
But he also did a great many good, important things from mass pardons for low-level weed crimes to getting Build Back Better passed. Instead of lurching wildly about, he set the stage for inflation being brought under control. In general, he did what Dems invariably do, which is spend inordinate amounts of time & energy un-fucking all the shit his GOP predecessor fucked up.
In conclusion, fuck Mitch McConnell.
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@SCampbell Barcelona
@peter Ah - that's why it is finished.
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I actually don't think it matters if Democrats win the midterms unless they can tell me what they are going to do with that power: how they are going to prosecute the MAGA criminals and traitors, what they are going to do about the Supreme Court, how they are going to rein in the armed security forces. if they can't, what they are promising is not change, but a pause.
@peter IMO, the only way the US will manage to get out of the hole it dug itself into is by either starting a progressive 3rd party that's an alternative to the establishment, or having actual decent politicians change the dems from the inside.
The first option would take a long, long time to have actual motion, so I wouldn't say it's realistic in any sense of the word. Therefore, "we" need to throw out the feckless dems who rely on someone to vote against *and then do nothing to actually oppose them*. We need people to vote for.
That's why I think voting matters, but not on the general election. Primaries are where mobilization makes all the difference. That's what brought Mamdani to the spotlight, and we need so much more of that…
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@peter /2
But he also did a great many good, important things from mass pardons for low-level weed crimes to getting Build Back Better passed. Instead of lurching wildly about, he set the stage for inflation being brought under control. In general, he did what Dems invariably do, which is spend inordinate amounts of time & energy un-fucking all the shit his GOP predecessor fucked up.
In conclusion, fuck Mitch McConnell.
@20002ist the worst thing he did that fucked everything up was appointment Merrick Garland as AG. Trump should be in jail right now. Joe Biden fucked that up.
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I actually don't think it matters if Democrats win the midterms unless they can tell me what they are going to do with that power: how they are going to prosecute the MAGA criminals and traitors, what they are going to do about the Supreme Court, how they are going to rein in the armed security forces. if they can't, what they are promising is not change, but a pause.
@peter You sound as frustrated as I was with the boomer guy I ran into in January who was talking up jared polis for president because he just wanted to "win" and was sure a "moderate" democrat is the best bet. Buddy, the country you knew ain't coming back, you can either continue aiding the fascists by proving democrats are useless or you can strike out in a new direction.
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@20002ist the worst thing he did that fucked everything up was appointment Merrick Garland as AG. Trump should be in jail right now. Joe Biden fucked that up.
@peter Rather than express my personal opinion on that, I’ll just say that Marcy Wheeler (@emptywheel) has blogged pretty extensively, with receipts, on why she believes there was no foot-dragging & things moved about as quickly as was possible.
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look, go to these things. it's fine. rallies are important. but quit this fucking gaslighting that voting matters. for some people it does, but for a huge portion of Americans, **it fucking doesn't**. structurally, as a result of how our political system was designed and maintained over the years by both parties, in many parts of the US, **your vote doesn't count** and by insisting that it does, you are sending the message that Democrats don't intend to change anything about the status quo.
@peter
If voting doesn't matter and you want change, what are you advocating for? -
@peter Rather than express my personal opinion on that, I’ll just say that Marcy Wheeler (@emptywheel) has blogged pretty extensively, with receipts, on why she believes there was no foot-dragging & things moved about as quickly as was possible.
@20002ist if that was the best anyone could do, then we need to tear down the whole legal system and start from scratch, because it simply doesn't work. I prefer to believe more determined people with different values could make it work, but maybe not.
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and what happened? we all rallied around and elected fucking **Joe Biden** who fucked everything up. and now we're back where we started, with a bunch of babyboomer resistance libs who own million dollar homes yelling at us to vote. ma'am, I can't vote, because the last place I was registered to vote is Washington, DC, and they don't have senators or a representative because when the Democrats take power, they refuse to exercise it.
@peter Living in DC is what drove home for me how powerless you are without representation, and how important our right to vote is. The problem with the US is that a two-party system isn’t democracy because it’s impossible to hold either party to account. The US needs more parties, but it’s disadvantageous to go first so both parties have to splinter at the same time. And that is hard to make happen.
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@20002ist if that was the best anyone could do, then we need to tear down the whole legal system and start from scratch, because it simply doesn't work. I prefer to believe more determined people with different values could make it work, but maybe not.
@peter It is fair to point out that SCOTUS’s fucking through-the-lookingglass opinion on presidential immunity is an important consideration.
Did I mention my thoughts on Mitch McConnell?
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@peter Risky though it be for me to disagree publicly with one of my instance’s admins, but “fucked everything up” seems like a wild overstatement. Should Biden have withdrawn much earlier from seeking re-election? Oh, yeah. Are there things I wish he had pushed harder for, like packing the Court or granting DC statehood? Yup. Do I hate that he failed to recognize and call out Israel’s genocide for what it is? You bet.
/1@20002ist @peter
"Do I hate that he failed to recognize and call out Israel’s genocide for what it is?"
LolIsrael's genocide in Gaza was only possible with Biden's willful stupidity (at best.) He overrode his own agencies to force them to operate illegally and continue providing arms for genocide. He forced them to continue even when top people resigned from his agencies because they couldn't stand assisting with a genocide.
And Democrats want to say he had to "let" people die because it would hurt his election chances to stand up to Israel, lol.
AIPAC has got them good -
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