Donald Trump has unleashed a “flood the zone” strategy: a cascade of executive actions aimed at rapidly reshaping the federal government and the country. The scope of changes is staggering: massive reductions in the federal workforce, the dismantling of USAID, signaling departments of labor and education are next, and the firing of Justice Department prosecutors.
Amid this whirlwind, a critical question emerges: Where is the opposition? What concrete steps are Democrats taking to counter this aggressive agenda? Senior politics reporter Akela Lacy says there are some very obvious things the Democrats could be doing. “Movement people are asking the obvious question right now, which is:
Why are there any Democrats — at all — voting to confirm a single Trump nominee? That’s one of the lowest hanging pieces of fruit,” she says. The Democrats had no plan, Lacy says, despite there being “no confusion about the fact that these nominees were going to be coming up for a vote. And still there were Democrats who voted for several of Trump’s nominees.”
Your arrogant framing that he’s “ignoring” some “realistic” choice - Dem vs. Repub - is simply an idiotic restatement of the circular reasoning that, “we will only vote for the duopoly, because we will only vote for the duopoly, because we will only vote for the duopoly, […]”. This self-defeating thinking, when adopted by the general public, completely neuters the public’s democratic recourse against a tyrannical system. We are not ignoring anything. We have heard this reasoning you’re using, and have understood and described the problems with it, over and over again. You are ignoring the real problem - an oppressive political system that’s methodically stripped any power from the people, using useful idiots like you to attack any attempt at democratic expression.
There is no legal enshrinement of the two party system. Nowhere is it written in law that only Democrats and Republicans can win elections. Ballot access, which isn’t even required to win an election, is granted by petition and filing paperwork. The only thing stopping a “third party” from winning is the public’s self-inflicted unwillingness to vote for them, stemming solely from partisan fear and ignorance. And, consequentially, after the support has been whittled down sufficiently, the media refuses to even cover them, compounding the problem.
Be nice if they did, but third parties don’t do meaningful work between general elections - because they are often sock puppets for bullshit, nefarious astroturfed campaigns. I agree that we should have a viable third party and beyond, but the prerequisite is voting reform. Any third party worth a shit, that genuinely meant what they said, would become exclusively the party of championing things like ranked choice voting in all 50 states and local municipalities and overturning citizens united. Otherwise, you just know you’re an intentional spoiler that can’t win - as Jill Stein and the green party stated baldly last election.
But they don’t that do they? they get REALLY fucking quiet for 3.5 out of each 4 years. They have no reps they work to elect nationwide to meaningful positions in government. You’re arguing for a child’s theoretical ideal, flying in the face of our shared objective reality.
And, it seems there’s a good chance you’re just a doodoo head, too. Love you, cutie.
Your ‘third parties don’t do anything between elections’ is a funny way to admit you don’t pay attention between elections. Acting like things you don’t notice don’t exist, like a damn child lacking object permanence.
You very conveniently ignored the word “meaningful” in your paraphrasing of what I said - actually says a lot about the value of anything you have to offer in a conversation. You also just completely fell on your face by not even attempting to offer any tangible examples to make a flailing attempt to prove your false assertion here
Stein herself was forced to admit that if she somehow won the presidency, she’d have no existing coalition in government to start working with, because none of them hold ANY meaningful office, because they aren’t serious or consistent parties. But of course again, her point was never to win, it was to make the republicans win by diluting the dem vote.
You’re not a good spokesperson for your cause, quit while you’re behind.
The leftist parties in my state are constantly running local programs to help the most vulnerable, as well as pushing more public organization and education drives. Pretty damn meaningful to the people who depend on their help. So again, what the fuck are you talking about? You think these things aren’t happening, because you don’t look at them?
Tell me what the “serious parties” are doing to help our community right now. I see Dems helping confirm Trump nominees. I certainly don’t see them helping any of us. Matter of fact, we end up having to fight the Dems in Atlanta from trying to shut down organizers as much as we have to fight republicans.
You’re not even a good spokesperson for a human being. Too fucking clueless and too dedicated to bootlicking genocidal maniacs.
I’m referencing the major third parties that have traditionally drawn relatively large amounts of votes in our general elections, mostly green party historically. Parties that stay on the ballot through election day and can draw that meaningful 1% number that sways elections historically.
DSA obviously does a lot and has meaningful seats in Congress and state and local office, but they aren’t the third party that stays in to knowingly sway elections when we get close to election day. They are adults that concede to the lesser evil (in our current broken binary system) when the tea leaves are clear and for the greatest good.
The DSA national org is compromised by Democrats. That’s why they always happily concede. It’s controlled opposition. Which is why there was a bigger push for the PSL last election, though the Dems tried to sue them off the ballot.
Please, hold hard ideal outcomes closely as the things that help shape your mission and personal principles AND THEN figure out how to change the system that exists.
Sounds like you have an outlook on the world that only serves to forgive you personally for not changing anything. You hold that hard line on your unrealistic ideals no matter what… because it’s FUCKING difficult to actually change anything. So you can try, fail, and sleep well telling yourself that you screaming at the sun was noble.
Democracy inherently contains compromise. Grow up, play a longer game, be happy with tangible progress over time that you can hand off to kids following you with a blueprint that can lead to that ideal over time. If not, you’ll spin your wheels with nothing ever meaningfully changing - and then you’ll die having accomplished nothing.
Funny how liberals only talk about compromise with conservatives. Never the left.
Thankfully, the conservative & liberal boomers are dying off. We can end this psychotic devotion to capital above all else.