this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2025
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Whenever I see posts like this, my question is: What constitutes "something?"
Democrats vote against all the Republican bills.
Cory Booker is filibustering a bunch of judicial appointments.
They're banging the drum about how horrible everything Trump is doing is.
They support the suits and the protests.
What do you want? It seems like people just want to complain about the Democrats regardless of the realities of the situation.
If this were even true (what was Schumer in hot water over again?), what the fuck does 'voting against republican bills' do when the black-shirts are already rounding up immigrants?
Democrats can't run around screaming about the end of democracy for 8 years and then wax romantic about the need for 'bipartisanship' when they're starting to line people up against the wall.
Okay then, I repeat: what should they be doing?
Well they sure as fuck shouldn't be capitulating to the fascists
I would expect that someone who really thinks we're at the end of democracy would be (at the very least) breaking decorum to derail the fascism machine before it picks up steam, not censuring their own colleagues for loudly defending what they all presumably believe in.
"What else could they possibly be doing?!" they cry, as ICE agents are pushing legal permanent residents into black vans and flying them to a prison in El Salvador for exercising their 1st amendment rights.
As incredibly frustrated as I am by ICE, when they’re operating with the efficiency and speed of burglars, even politicians can’t stop them. Judges have slowed them down - preventing deportation to outside prisons and requiring lawyer visitation.
I do believe that raising voices about the abductions, and making sure as many people as possible see the fear in the video from Rumeysa as she’s taken, makes a difference in broad opinion and that’s critical.
I have no forgiveness for the votes to censure Greene. For what it matters, it didn’t do much to him. On the CR; I can formulate a very long argument why allowing it through was a reasonable decision made in a no-win situation, not a capitulation. To be fair, I could MAKE the argument - not agree with it. That comment about judges and courts was a huge part of it.
I’d have more respect for your argument if you had something constructive to suggest, rather than simply asserting what you stand against. Destroying is much easier than building.
I've made several.
The truth is that the Democrats have plenty of options in at least slowing down the rapid growth, but dismiss them out-of-hand simply because they break decorum. Booker just did a 25 hour filibuster (which is awesome), but he wasn't even filibustering a bill. Democrats only seem to want to break decorum when the stakes are low enough not to piss off republican lawmakers, and that's a huge problem when those lawmakers DGAF about democrat reactions and break the law anyway.
This is the time to be raising the alarm and making noise (remember when libs were whining that 16 months before an election was 'not the time' to be protesting democrats?). I don't care about the occasional good thing the dems do in opposition to fascism, I care about all the things they're not doing. They're still acting as if there will still be elections, even though they spent the last 2 years screaming that there won't be any more if trump wins.
At some point they have to start behaving like they actually believe what they've been trying to convince the rest of us of.
So, ten Democrats in the House constitutes the WHOLE PARTY doing nothing?
And you still aren't making any actual proposals for what they should be doing.
Because what you're looking for is some kind of policy proposal or voting strategy to stop a fascist movement, and I'm telling you that we're beyond that.
Democrats should be physically impeding the dismantling of our institutions - that means disrupting the normal proceedings of congress and the legislature in order to raise the alarm, or at the very least not punishing the members of the party who are, and not breaking the line to side with the republicans when it actually matters (Schumer is the fucking minority leader, not some random spoiler).
When the strategy of the minority leader of the senate is to cooperate with the republicans in tearing apart the government in the hopes that voters blame them for a dip in the stock market 2 years from now and vote them out, it tells their constituents that they don't really believe we're witnessing the end of democracy. One of the top 2028 presidential contenders welcomed a white nationalist onto his podcast to talk about the 'real concerns' with transgender participation in sports. The DNC chair is out in public soliciting donations from "the good billionaires" while the base is setting records rallying against oligarchy.
The democratic party would rather collaborate with the reactionaries in the conservative party than recon with the growing populism in their own base, and that's the entire-fucking point.
Yes, when the entire party of over 150 fails to represent the people who elected them because of 10 traitors then that counts as a L for the whole party.
They need to stop letting Republicans into the Democratic party if they want cohesion.
That doesn't even make sense. Those ten went with the majority. What was there for the one hundred forty to do?
So why have a democratic party if they are randomly going to break ranks to enable fascism.
Literally any time a bill comes along that will make regular people's lives worse for the rich to benefit conveniently there's always enough dem traitors to get it passed.
Because a party that is mostly against fascism is better than none that are at all? Which I should not to have to say.
The party that's mostly against fascism still is a party that's is not against fascism. It's against it in optics only, when at critical juncture after juncture it makes the decisions that enable or even help the fascists. There were so many things these dumb fucks could have done. Some people even from the party itself were screaming the solutions. At this point the only hope I see is the Bernie/AOC program. The Democratic party, as currently formulated, governed and funded has demonstrated that it can't resist fascism. You have to do anything in your power to elect enough socialist independent reps that vote with Bernie/AOC's agenda and hold the balance of power. And organize unions. Otherwise the Democrats will win again by default, do nothing material of substance and pave the way for the next wave of fascism to sweep power.
Two thirds of Americans thought Kamala was too far left. The idea that we will see hundreds of socialists elected to Congress, which is more than have been elected to anything in this country, is ridiculous.
People support Bernie and AOC because they are willing to stand up and fight. Not because they're socialists.
According to you, fascism has already won.
Not hundreds, tens would likely be enough.
You should ~~look up~~check the study Bernie conducted mid last year. It tested socialist policies without calling them such. If I remember correctly most were popular with the significant majorities of both Republicans and Democrats. Socialist ideas are popular in the US. People very much support Bernie and AOC's agenda which is full of socialist policies. E.g. universal healthcare, free education.
Yes fascism has already won, we're at the tip of a trend that started in the 80s. Well actually earlier but the 80s present a recognizable acceleration point. We (not just the US) need to reverse the trend, not change how steep it is for a time.
And yet they don't vote for politicians who support these things. Hypothetical polling does not gauge the realities of voter behavior.
You need to watch Noam Compsky's manufacturing consent.
It teaches you why government propaganda is legal in the US and how it is used to benefit the rich.
A Nazi sit down at a table with 10 others, and nobody leaves. How many Nazis are now sat at the table?
The Democrats should whip their members harder instead of giving members ‘outs’ that makes the party as whole look uncommitted - Pelosi managed to do it for years, even with those ‘pesky progressives’.
Use the billion dollars of DNC leverage and lean on them - just like Elon’s unlimited money has openly threatened to primary anyone “disloyal” on the right.
Your definition of sitting at the table is "being in the same building."
Hardly. How about letting ‘moderate’ reactionaries stay in your club?
Manchin wasn’t ejected from the caucus despite his numerous blocking votes and hostage holding, but they did cut off party fund disbursements . Never kicked out of the party, despite him leaning into Trump.
Sinema wasn’t ejected, but they did cut her off party funds after 2019. But never threw her out of the party either.
First of all, if you consider Manchin and Sinema to be fascists, that's your issue.
Second of all, they didn't give them the boot because that would cost them control of the Senate, which, however, tenuous, still matters.
Manchin glazing Trump at his 2024 inauguration speaks words, even without his problematic voting record on immigration, the border wall, or routinely blocking the Democratic agenda - to me runs beyond the ‘sensible silent majority’ centrism tropes, and veers to bedfellows of fascism:
I KNOW! Why don't they hold up stupid little signs? That'll help!
Still not saying what you want Democrats to do.
I'm not the person you were talking with, I'm someone random passing through the thread. I'm just so fucking sick of the republicans being the "make shit worse party" and the democrats being the "do nothing" party and never having fucking anything improve. I'm so fucking sick of voting for people who aren't going to help people. I'm sick of nothing being done. And, what I'm REALLY REALLY FUCKING SICK OF IS PEOPLE DEFENDING THEM DOING NOTHING TO HELP. I'm not a fucking politician, I'm a regular dickwad on the internet like anyone else, I don't know what fucking specific actions they should be taking, I don't know how to improve things, THAT'S WHAT WE FUCKING HAVE ELECTED REPRESENTATIVES FOR.
What makes it fucking worse. I donated to bernie in 2016. Since then, my contact info has been spread like an STD and I get all these fucking fundraising emails, texts, and calls, from these fucking democrat assholes. "Give me money so I can fix things :)" Like my FUCKING god we had a democrat president, and majority in the senate and house and still nothing was fucking done to improve things. For the love of GOD stop begging me for money so you can sit on your goddamn asses and do nothing.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to blow up at you, I hope you can understand my fucking frustration.
No, I can't. Because you're factually incorrect. They're not "doing nothing." They're doing what they can as the minority in a majoritarian legislature - which isn't a whole goddamned lot, but blaming them for not being able to effectively stop a majority is not exactly their fault.
And in the 117th Congress, they poured billions into the public coffers to deal with the economic devastation during COVID, they enshrined marriage equality into law, they expanded hate crime law. They tried for more, but undivided opposition from the Republicans, the clear political motivation of the Supreme Court and the unreliability of their slime majority hindered them. Blaming the whole of the Democratic Party is just not warranted.
I love how, in the same thread, you credit Republican opposition with stopping the Democratic agenda and then claim that Democrats are powerless to do the same.
Why are they powerless?
***Because they're voting with Republicans and helping them steamroll us when they get a chance to withhold their votes and draw concessions or filibuster, which yes, is something they deserve full credit for doing as a party. ***
Because Republicans vote in lockstep but Democrats don't. It was not some commentary on the ontological natures of the two parties, it's just the reality of the two. Republican voters punish their politicians for not abasing themselves before Trump, Democratic voters reward candidates for breaking ranks.
I was under the impression that federal Republicans were voting in lockstep due to threats from Elon Musk to primary them if they don't. Possibly interpretable as extortion.
The point that (I think) they're trying to make is that the democrats always have N+1 politicians who will be the ratfuckers of the party; your Machin, Sinema, Lieberman, etc. No matter how the numbers work out, there always seems to be juuuuust enough ratfuckers in the party that the big legislations never get through without getting the back broken for capital.
So you propose...what?
I don't have to propose anything to point out the flaws in the party.
And I'm saying this as someone who generally votes for them. Stop treating every response as if we have to provide some grand solution when pointing out the shit they're doing wrong. I'm not a policy wonk, so I don't know the best path forward. But I can still recognize when a bed has been thoroughly shat.
I started this by asking what people's proposals for opposition were. You do have to provide one otherwise you're not answering the question.
That's all well and good for how it started, but we're way down the thread and conversations evolve. And I responded where I did for a reason
If I had a response on what to do, I would have responded to your question instead of trying to expand on another posters point.
As a lurker who ends up rubbing shoulders with right wing culture spaces, I have to disagree. The right has heresy tests for their politicians, the left tests for their voters. However the left expects competency in government (because they actually believe in it) and will sacrifice ideals or policies, while the right can afford the luxury of rejecting good governance because they’re expressly transactional when it comes to politics.
Rightwing voters are willing to cut off their nose in spite and become single issue voters - and it works for them. Pro-life or you’re dead to them. Pro-gun or you’re dead to them. Non-Christian? Dead. They get the political rhetoric and efforts they demand, which has left them severely ripe for opportunist political grifters who say whatever gets them access power. Like the MAGAs who build nothing, but hand out bones to voting blocs. Abortion overturned. No new gun laws. Ten Commandments in school and state houses. “Hurting the right people”. Migrants deported. Culture wars.
Or in the more extreme examples, they’ll just outright co-opt the structures of power and governance to fit the voters whims. It’s why we have the political maximalist lobbying NRA of today, instead of the humbler sportsman’s advocacy group of yesteryear. Or Trump.
I did, however.
How in the flying fuck are you defending this bullshit adherence to fascism? Please it is beyond pathetic.
Who needs enemy's with friends like those 10....
Let me try it this way.
If those 10 can undo the actions of the rest, did they really do anything?
Exactly.