First off, you’ll notice people calling this a “betrayal”, because they expected more from a Democrat, this and worse would be typical and expected for a Republican. Second of all, I didn’t read the law but read Newsom’s note about it and kinda agree. Newsom is not motivated by trans hate lol.

Ohhh okay, so the dems can actually be heinous and throw trans folks under the bus but it needs to be cold and calculated and maybe pretend to be sad about it. Gotcha. As long as the calculus lines up, right? All your whinging about trans people getting better treatment under dems was complete bullshit, i guess. Do you actually care? are you comfortable and insulated and don’t actually feel the impact of dem Policy? The fact that this act doesn’t disgust you speaks volumes. ‘Capitulating to the right is good actually! Only the leftists are giving up when they refuse to play by the rules set by the house! The dems are allowed, however, to do anything and everything that they want because they aren’t fascists! and we can’t criticize them because that’s the same thing as being fascist!’

When I was young and dumb, I worked on a bunch of political campaigns (gubernatorial, presidential, congressional). The thing that struck me was the number of people who didn’t give a shit about the democratic party because their lives weren’t improved by it at all, and these were not politically illiterate people. They were fully able to point to issues in their communities or in their state, what have you, that would have changed things for the better. Ask me how the political careers of those democrats went and what harm they prevented.

Math doesn’t give a shit about opinions, voting third party in our system is a losing proposition. Use it for signalling in safe districts.

Ooohh, now math doesn’t give a shit. Earlier you were giving people grief for saying their individual votes didn’t matter. So we can break out the math and realize that our individual votes don’t matter in most cases.

Voting third party is the most bare minimum basic thing people can do. If you aren’t seeing the tangible and meaningful impact that effective political organizing can achieve, then it is on you to rectify that if you truly have ideals which align with anarcho-communism. If you are saying that voting for dems is a worthwhile strategy because they are ineffectual, you can communicate that point without going whole hog defending the dems. I disagree, but it’s a more defensible position. Also, quick aside, why do you think that without meaningful socialist organizing that the leftists would take power after ineffectual dem governance? its just as likely, if not more, that the rightwing with false populism would rise to replace the dems, especially if what little organized left was shown to be in bed with the dems.

You give up that easy? Good luck trying to revolt against the world!

Says Lucy as she places the football

it’s still going to be those things. republicans are effective at moving toward those goals, and democrats are ineffective at stopping them. they’re two parts of a one-way ratchet.

vote if you want, but don’t sell it as a solution. you’re not going to get real change that way, and pretending otherwise is just a way to anesthetize yourself and not organize.

i’ve always found ‘it could always be worse’ to be the most compelling argument out there

You don’t get to pick one. They’re both part of same problem. The sadist and the person who chooses to side with sadists both result in more sadism. Metaphors aside I don’t think which geriatric bigot sits in the big fancy chair and signs the bills matters nearly to the extent you believe it does when they’re the same bills. Having a democrat in the oval office just gives libs an excuse to look the other way while the stuff they don’t like is going on.

I knocked on doors in poor areas for the Nader campaign when I still believed in electoralism and I heard the same answers constantly. Poor people don’t vote not because they’re ill informed but because they’re well aware that it won’t make a difference. They’ve long since learned that they don’t have any friends in Washington.

When the day comes to start shoving people like you and me into boxcars the democratic party will wring their hands and weep big salty tears and go right back to cashing the checks they get from selling our teeth.

Mom. That’s why I won’t be giving her part of my paycheck so she can go out and get more beer for dad. I’m fighting mom right now. She’s the one driving the car currently. Why would an appeal to “dad is worse” make me want to do anything but call mom an asshole and resist empowering her any chance I get? I get a lot of mileage out of forcing her to reckon with her behavior that she’s only apologetic for when she needs my support. Why the fuck would I reward that narcissistic shit?