• ExtremeDullard@piefed.social
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    1 day ago

    “If Republicans want to join us in lowering costs for working families, they have the chance to do so. And if they do not come to the table, they will own the premium increases they cause."

    What a load of shit. Fat good it does to people who can’t afford healthcare who “owns” their misery: they’ll be the ones who are miserable, while the “owners” sit on their piles of cash and play politicians for a living…

    • Nollij@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      Democrats aren’t even capitalizing on it. Unless it’s hidden in the ads I’m blocking, I’m not seeing anything to show people that it’s Republicans behind it all. But I can point to a dozen locations that (re)print Trump’s unhinged rants on the subject.

    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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      1 day ago

      If evil space aliens from mars came to earth and demanded we hand over John Fetterman or else, would there be any pushback to the aliens at all?

      • elbucho@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        I’d try to negotiate. You never know; they might be willing to take Trump, Vance, every single one of Trump’s cabinet members, every Republican senator, representative, and governor… and maybe if they’re exceptionally ruthless negotiators, like 85% of all elected Democrats to boot.

      • ExtremeDullard@piefed.social
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        1 day ago

        John Fetterman belongs in a mental institution. His noggin is broken - which makes him more akin to a Republican than to a normal functioning adult.

    • the_q@lemmy.zip
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      1 day ago

      Are you doing this because you believe it matters or just to get your frustration out?

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        24 hours ago

        Contacting your senator is, in fact, a good thing to do. Everyone here (not including those non-registered, non-Americans who like talking about the American politics contact sports) should be doing it. Most probably are not.

        Calling is better, but anything is something.

      • Triumph@fedia.io
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        1 day ago

        Surely there could be no other reasons than the two you’ve proposed.

              • Triumph@fedia.io
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                1 day ago

                The subtext of your original reply was that what I chose to do/say was pointless. Whatever reason I give, you will argue about, so I also chose not to play your game by your rules.

                You’re bitching up the wrong tree.

      • SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 day ago

        So we remind them. Preferably by fielding candidates that will actually fight for us, and aren’t afraid to point that fact out. Loudly.

        Building up a real base of support takes time. As in, 4-5 years worth of time. Might as well get started while people are pissed.

          • SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            1 day ago

            The best time to plant a tree…

            Organizing is organizing. If you have enough people in your corner to win an election, you have enough people to blow up a bridge.

            Or has everyone forgotten why we hold elections in the first place? Voting is a proxy for fighting. If they won’t hold a fair election, make them. Remind the oligarchs why we have elections in the first place.

            • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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              24 hours ago

              If you have enough people in your corner to win an election, you have enough people to blow up a bridge.

              Not if your organization’s membership (and, perhaps more importantly, leadership) is stacked with people who are axiomatically opposed to blowing up bridges. If you intend to blow up bridges in the future, the work on that starts now, not when elections inevitably fail.

              If they won’t hold a fair election, make them.

              Sure, but you can only make them while they’re vulnerable (aka right now). It’s notoriously hard to make autocrats hold elections after they’ve successfully abolished them. MAGAts know they’ll lose control of Congress in the midterms, so their only hope is to overthrow democracy by January 2027. Do you understand what this means? By the time you’re voting for your “candidates who will fight for us” it will already be too late, and by that point “making them” will be easier said than done.

              • SuperNovaStar@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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                20 hours ago

                Ideology is malleable. People aren’t nearly as “axiomatically opposed” to anything as you think they are.

                If your organization is already taking direct action (protests, strikes, sit ins, peaceful civil disobedience) then your tactics will naturally escalate as the government becomes more authoritarian. If you pitch extreme tactics now, though, the only people who will join will be the craziest.

                You can only make them while they’re vulnerable

                They won’t abolish elections all at once. Their strategy for the midterms - or at least what it seems to be - is voter suppression and gerrymandering. Those are powerful tools, don’t get me wrong, but not so powerful that they’re invincible.

                Obviously it would have been better to already be organized, but failing that, the best time to organize is now.

                • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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                  5 hours ago

                  People aren’t nearly as “axiomatically opposed” to anything as you think they are.

                  As history shows, quite a few people will hold onto their flawed worldviews even as everything around them falls apart. It’s entirely plausible for an organization to fail to adapt to changing circumstances and fail miserably at its purpose; it happens all the time.

                  If your organization is already taking direct action (protests, strikes, sit ins, peaceful civil disobedience) then your tactics will naturally escalate as the government becomes more authoritarian.

                  Sure, that’s fair, but that only holds if we’re talking about direct action. Direct action and electoral politics are fundamentally different courses, and there’s no guarantee that the latterer will escalate into the former. My point is: If you’ll organize, you have to organize around direct action, not elections. Also just in case, protests only count as direct action when they meaningfully obstruct power; otherwise they’re just parades.

                  Those are powerful tools, don’t get me wrong, but not so powerful that they’re invincible.

                  True, but what I’m getting at is: What will happen if/when they lose their majority in either house in the midterms? Will they just turn over power? And risk being held accountable for their crimes? Will Trump allow himself to lose his only shot at becoming a fascist dictator? No, they’ll launch a coup and worry about the details later. I think we’ve seen too many Sieg Heils for “it can’t happen here” to still hold water. They’ll launch their coup and there’s frankly very little in America that can stop them right now. Hence, it’ll be up to popular grassroots resistance to do something about it, and the work to make sure such resistance exists starts now, not after the coup is already a done deal. Also, you know, ICE is still kidnapping people off the street and someone also needs to do something about that.

  • Substance_P@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Dick Durbin (Ill.) Jeanne Shaheen (N.H.) Maggie Hassan (N.H.) Jackie Rosen (Nev.) Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.) John Fetterman (Pa.) Tim Kaine (Va.) Angus King (I-Maine), who caucuses with Democrats

  • harbard@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    One of the biggest proofs that politicians only stand for re-election.