You would obey every tape in a SAW movie and sacrifice all your fingers before you ever started looking for a loose window pane

Oh, I know this one! Don't vote next time so Republicans win! Step 2: ????

Seriously though, I understand the frustration. Obama absolutely deserves criticism for continuing and expanding parts of the post-9/11 surveillance state. But the US was fundamentally changed by 9/11, and reversing that political momentum was always going to be difficult. That doesn't excuse his decisions, but it does help explain the political environment in which they were made.

The same nuance applies to ICE. Democrats have funded immigration enforcement for decades, and their record deserves scrutiny, particularly under Obama. But funding an existing federal agency isn't the same as endorsing Trump's use of that agency. Enforcement priorities, oversight, detention policies, and the scale and purpose of operations matter. Treating all ICE funding as equivalent ignores some pretty significant differences between administrations.

And let's not forget the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare wasn't universal healthcare, and it certainly wasn't the single-payer system many progressives wanted, but it wasn't nothing. It expanded coverage to millions of Americans, protected people with preexisting conditions, and fundamentally changed what Americans could expect from their healthcare system. Those were substantial gains, even if the legislation was compromised from the start. That's exactly what I mean about political momentum: imperfect progress can establish protections and expectations that future reforms can build upon.

My larger concern is that abandoning Democrats over their failures doesn't move the country left. If anything, it risks pushing the Overton window even further right. The American electorate hasn't consistently supported the kind of progressive policies many of us would like to see, and there's been an enormous, well-funded political and media effort over the past decade to discredit those policies, particularly around civil rights, immigration, and anything labeled "woke."

I'm 43 now, and one thing I've come to appreciate is how much political momentum matters. Progress isn't linear, and meaningful social change often takes decades to establish. It's much easier to capitalize on fear, resentment, and existing prejudices than to build lasting public support for expanding rights and changing institutions.

None of that means Democrats should get a free pass. Quite the opposite. They need to be challenged, especially when they compromise on fundamental rights. But there's a difference between holding a party accountable and allowing its opposition to consolidate even more power.

The Democratic Party is divided, and I don't know who is going to provide the leadership it needs. But I don't see the Republican Party advancing civil liberties, economic equality, or a more humane immigration system. And I certainly don't see how handing Republicans more power helps us get there.

Real change takes time, organization, and political momentum. We have to build on what we have while pushing for something better. Abandoning the imperfect opposition to an increasingly authoritarian right doesn't strike me as much of a strategy.

You are coping with your new historical legacy as "American fascist, 2026, colorized"

Haha, every single sentence in that statement is factually true. But pretending that factually true data is incorrect is exactly what I expect from Libs that support racists, rapits, murderers and thieves.

Open borders, essentially. Massive reforms to streamline the immigration process to make it a formality so that people don't have a reason to immigrate illegally, and treat it as a paperwork violation if they do, since that's what it is.

Completely dismantle immigration courts which are kangaroo courts where young children have to defend themselves against threat of deportation with no right to an attorney. Full due process for immigrants.

If an immigrant commits a crime, deal with it the same way as anybody else committing a crime.

So again, why is ICE or anything like it remotely a "must have?"

I'm not wrong, that's how you Amerikans react every time. "oh we can't have x, we need to vote the bigoted fascist in the primaries to be able to defeat Trump!" Like with Gavin Newsom. This behaviour is not new.

imperfect opposition

Liberals do not consider Palestinians fully human.

🌽

Taco trucks on every corner! The horror! What will happen to our sophisticated culture and way of life?! What will happen to:

Speaking as a leftist who was born and raised in the Bible Belt, it's bold of you to assume that I shared the values of my town or neighborhood in the first place. My oldest childhood memory is dressing up as Robert E. Lee in second grade to do a presentation on the Civil War, which was really about states' rights, donchaknow.

More seriously, cultural diversity is a strength in a similar way biodiversity is. Bringing together the knowledge, experiences and perspectives from across the world is an asset that will only help us to innovate and make wiser, more informed decisions that account for factors that one culture might have as a blind spot.

Furthermore, accepting and respecting immigrants will help build a sense of solidarity. Even if they don't value inclusivity, welcoming and including them is the first step towards convincing them of the benefits of such values.

Also, your argument is literally the exact argument used for redlining, when PoC were segregated from white neighborhoods. "What if a black person moved next door to you? What if a whole bunch of black people move in? There goes the neighborhood!" It was racist bullshit then and it's racist bullshit now, but it also illustrates another point, which is that there are already many different cultures within the US that are free to move wherever they please already. For example, I was born and raised in the South, but I moved to a different region with a different culture and different values. The only difference between me and an immigrant is that one of us crossed an imaginary line called a "state line" and the other crossed an imaginary line called a "national border."

I hate to post greentext, but immigration is an issue where you can literally just do this:

Well Harris sure as hell wasn't going to get enough votes to win either, so did you refuse to vote for her too?

Right back at you.

If I was interested in "parroting the views of others" I'd still be in the South and I'd be a conservative just like my parents, religious leaders, and (many of) my teachers were.

What I said is my genuine opinion and the result of critical, independent thought. If I happen to agree with the arguments some people make, it's coincidental.

Frankly, I doubt many people on the anti-immigration side could say the same thing. They freak out over it because the TV tells them to, even though it doesn't actually affect them at all.

and wtf do conservatives think of Palestinians? Bacteria? This thread is full of immature low iq group thinking edgelords.

Emphasis mine, fucking crazy that you embrace the accusation. And leave it to a nazi to make everything about iq

What do these things you're saying actually mean? How the hell are other proles a "different class" than me? What in the vagueposting about values, Great Replacement fuck are you actually talking about? What is the concrete concern here?

Because it would have violence inflicted on it well before that two weeks. I agree it's a great opening move, but you have to be ready to fight to protect the general strike, both against opportunists who'll scab for the ruling class and against the goons they'll throw at you to break the strike.

Because it would…

Again, this comes across as a preempted excuse, I’m sorry. That’s not necessarily the case and then you do have to have the forces fully against the public.

This is the problem…nothing can apparently be done, because there’s always reasons not to, never reasons to.

The truth is, the country’s people aren’t willing to go through hardship, it’s that simple. They are happy for others to, applaud people like the French but won’t do it themselves and when that’s pointed out, we don’t understand the complexities or some other shit.

Yes, you might have to fight the general strike in some areas. Yes it’ll take hardship. It’d also take about two weeks at most. Hardly enough time to be evicted or starve, or do without healthcare which apparently is an existing issue anyway.

Nobody else is bailing them out, that’s for certain.

We’re also getting tired of their politics being forced on us on top of it. We didn’t vote for fucking CPACS and we don’t want to be inundated with their fucking military.

I didn't say not to, I said it'd be tantamount to just opening with a violent attack on a bank. The ruling class will react the same way to any threat to their wealth and power.

If we started a general strike, anyone who's got any kind of platform and discussed the strike in any kind of positive light can expect their door to be kicked in by a federal SWAT team by day 2 or 3.

That’s gonna be hard if it’s a substantial amount of the population. Not all of those police and SWAT teams are going to be keen on pushing through with it either, if the other decision and direction results in them keeping jobs in the future and a better government.

Honestly it’s either that, hope for the best (all of which have failed thus far) or it goes down badly.

Well yes, but those were blue collar workers, not scientists and administration.

https://lemmy.world/comment/26319780

I was going to reply to your prior comment with, "Wrong, he got elected!"

That’s gonna be hard if it’s a substantial amount of the population.

It won't be. First off a substantial amount of the population doesn't have a platform big enough to cause problems. Secondly, most of the people who do are friendlier to the ruling class than they'd like you to believe.

It won’t be

I get the feeling that once it’s collapsed and you’ve gone out to bully others, rpthen those others fight back, it might be.

If it gets to that, hopefully the others give them a decent beating.

the whole endless needless attempts to "cut a deal" to broker some kind of peace all over the place seem like some very bad political satire but Kissinger got a prize for way less if you think about it (and it messed up the region for decades onwards) - so while demented there is a bit of logic going on.

Fair. He could broker a lot of peace by refusing to meddle but that ego...

the size of Unicron at least

😉