The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges, begging on the streets and stealing bread.
Anatole France, 1894
Think of the kids.
But don’t do anything.
“No kid should ever have to sleep on the streets, so we made it borderline impossible for them to physically do so. Hopefully their bootstraps figure out someplace they can sleep, because we sure as hell didn’t. You’re welcome.”
It’s more like “no kid should ever sleep on the streets so we provide them with shelter and support”, but that doesn’t make a good internet rant m
Instead the message is “no child should ever sleep on the streets. We made it impossible to sleep on this bench because it’s for people we want here.”
So you would prefer that there is no shelter and more benches for homeless children?
I think the message is perfectly clear, and people online are just looking for reasons to be upset (not that they would do something about it, just posting angrily).
I would prefer shelter and no anti-homeless architecture. But I get that you prefer anti-homeless architecture and no shelter, since we’re being uncharitable.
I live in a country where if you don’t have a job the government will pay for your rent and utilities, indefinitely.
Additionally, I have a deal with them as well: If they don’t sleep on the benches I will not sit in their beds. Works wonders.
I live in a country where if you don’t have a job the government will pay for your rent and utilities, indefinitely.
Well, good for you. I live in a country that doesn’t. I live in a country where your perspective is classist and callous.
the thing about Democrats and ‘liberals’ is that its a broad coalition of ideologies and political groups competing for power and having to compromise. we all want to bring about our vision of society and help people, but small differences lead to huge schisms. also, monied interests have undue amounts of power over our institutions.
conservatives on the other hand are completely united by cruelty and adherence to rigid heirarchies (in spite of how dysfunctional they are), and basically the only issues they ever have in their own base is that something isn’t causing enough pain to people they hate.
i feel it is important to hold our representatives accountable, but saying things like both sides are exactly the same or complaining about liberals as if they are one cohesive entity has no value outside of pushing people away from politics. there are VERY specific people and groups that are making very bad decisions for Americans, like AIPAC or other big donors that simultaneously fund people like Andrew Cuomo and Donald Trump
Yah I love how places like Lemmy are packed to overflowing with “radical leftists” who scream murder at liberals and moderates and how broadly appealing progressive policies aren’t going far enough to address [issue X].
Guys, we’re getting literally murdered out there, figuratively and literally. If there was ever a time to start building larger coalitions, it’s now. No, you’re not getting everything you want. No, we’re not having a revolution, we don’t have the military. Yes, you will have to compromise. And if you hate that word because you think it means walking alongside someone you despise…
Tough shit.
Pick an issue, gather allies, overwhelm it, then repeat for the NEXT issue and realize nobody is coming, you may not see a better world in your lifetime, your immediate sense of resignation at this fact is manufactured. Get your shit together. Your personal problems are clouding your thinking.
They’re winning because they don’t recoil in horror at the idea of working towards mid-way goals or making deals they find distasteful, that’s how they pushed the overton window off the fucking map.
But yeah, lets continue to fuss over if our flags represent enough people and if [popular content creator] said the word “retard” once, while our administration builds camps and readies for war for funsies.
edit: just because I’m ready to soak up hate on this, you all also need to make real friends. You don’t build movements in discord, not ones that have impact at least. You are medicating your loneliness while the world burns outside. Get out and push through the discomfort of your introversion, your ADHD, your ASD, your sexual identity insecurity, your looks or your accent or WHATEVER it is that you think is keeping you from being social and building community. We lost because we’re isolated. Online groups don’t count. Don’t reply to me, go outside.
Big tent liberalism is exactly what got you the anti-union, pro-war, pro-fracking, anti-immigrant democratic party of today. Every single time someone argues for speaking to a broader base it’s used as an excuse to move further right. And it isn’t working. Please, for the love of god, learn from the past three election cycles.
If you have a way to make it work without compromise let me know, I’m all ears. Expert Mode: something that doesn’t involve waiting for some charismatic and perfect savior figure to somehow come out of the sky and start successfully advocating for socialism. Nobody is coming.
Because what we’re doing now isn’t working.
That’s kind of a broad question, and there’s at least two contexts in which I can answer it. One is on a personal level, and one is more on the level of “what should the DNC do if they want to win another election”.
Personal answer first. Quite simple:
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join a union
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engage in mutual aid
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read theory (yes really)
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local politics (no matter how local) matter, act like it
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vote for politicians and their policies because you believe in them, not because other guy bad. If your choice is between Hitler and Hitler wearing a funny hat, voting uncommitted is not only your democratic right, but your duty. If you guarantee your vote to a politician regardless of what rhey do or advocate for, the politician has no reason whatsoever to listen to you or cater to your needs. None.
Now if you’re asking as a card carrying DNC member with influence:
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Do not capitulate to right wing framing. You will never win at being right wing, the right wing is much better at that than you. Concretely, engage in counter messaging. For example, when it comes to undocumented immigrants, frame them as a boon to society (which they are) and aggressively fight anyone who claims they commit more crimes (they don’t, in fact they commit fewer per capita), don’t say “I agree mr republican, and my border policies are just as draconian as yours, if not more, just as they should be!” Same with fracking, genocide, crime, taxes, etc. Be an alternative, not a weak derivative.
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Don’t fund a genocide. So easy. All you have to do is not send 17.8 billion in military aid to any country committing a genocide. You see a country committing genocide? Do not send 17.8 billion dollars in military aid. If you can’t help yourself and have to send the money anyway, don’t go bragging about it on your campaign trail, you fucking idiot. More generally, people do not like war, and prefer not to spend billions on some country they’ve never been to. Trump managed to position himself as the peace candidate TWICE because the dems kept falling over themselves to prove how fucking hawkish they were. This is pure incompetence.
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Start advocating for worker’s rights. Stronger unions, higher minimum wage, forced and paid parental leave, paid sick leave, and so on. These are deeply popular positions, as polling shows, also among people who normally vote republican. A one time tax credit is not worker’s rights.
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Start advocating for universal health care again. Or at least fucking mention it every now and then. The US is the only nation in the developed world (and beyond?) that doesn’t have this, you can gain so much on this.
Follow these simple steps and you’ll win your next election!
So wait for a charismatic and perfect savior. We see what happens every time someone of this stature reaches the actual federal election stage.
I’m talking about what people can do here and now, which is built coalitions and not have purity tests about who is in it, just focus on single-issues like the right has done successfully over and over and over.
For some reason whenever someone says “compromise” every lefty immediately pictures “submitting on trans rights and abortion” or something.
I’m saying as individuals, you and me, scared lemmy browsers who don’t think they have power: build social connections, make more friends, build activism groups, start in local communities and keep it fixated on solving ONE populist problem that we can get a much wider array of people behind, like childcare or school lunches or yes healthcare and unions, social security or other public safety nets and the whole long laundry list of items we want, but instead of overwhelming a population, local or national, with a huge list of inclusivity and ideals, we attack one thing at a time. I have watched the right do this over and over and each time they fucking WIN.
Again, your notions of an ideal candidate you would vote for are spot-on, I would vote for that person in a heartbeat, most would, but that person doesn’t exist and they won’t exist until they can ride on the momentum of grass-roots movements to tackle populist issues. The democrat party is not our ally here, not without a mandate under it and if we’re more clever about building those mandates and then tying them together when it’s time, we might have success.
But I’m getting really pessimistic here. Voter turnout is not the problem. Everyone, everywhere, is avoiding mixing. The atomization of our world is the problem. We had the highest voter turnouts and youth involvement in the last several elections than we’ve ever had, and they voted Trump. That’s my whole point, that’s the key we have to fight against, how someone like a brazen fascist and idiot can sway so many people, and it starts with re-mixing our values and perspectives and this may take some kind of “compromise” that may make a lot of isolated lefties really uncomfortable, like having conversations with people you don’t like, like accepting people who hate you into your protest so you can both tackle a problem you both hate. If we can cross that boundary we can start mixing together again and pulling people out of this programming that corporate media does. Isolationism is killing our whole world and all our hope for the future.
Except talking to people I don’t agree with is exactly what I do. I am doing it to you now! Think about that! I regularly get in arguments online with the opposite side on reddit. I talk to people here I don’t agree with too. I’ve spent plenty of time talking with people offline too, though often with less aggression. I doubt I am the only person doing this. In fact I have seen evidence of others doing this. So I am not sure where you get your ideas from to be perfectly honest.
The above is actually the exact opposite of what leftists are normally told to do, yet so many do it anyway. I am really wondering what is going on in your head mate. Me thinks you are delusional. Having people argue against each other often justs radicalises them further, this is a known fact. It doesn’t help “deatomize” them or whatever you are talking about.
As for working with people you hate: you shouldn’t be forced to protest with people who hate who you are because of prejudice. That’s not something you should ever ask of anyone. It’s perfectly reasonable to use violence against such people in fact. It might even be effective. Things are often solved through killing after all, that’s what war is. That’s how the Nazis were beat last time.
Except talking to people I don’t agree with is exactly what I do. I am doing it to you now! Think about that!
It’s literally ALL i wanted out of this.
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Who exactly are you going to form groups with? I am a bit lost on where you would even get started on something like that. Most groups I have seen advertised or have any success are extremists I wouldn’t want to be a part of. I don’t want to go back to being a Trotskyist just to have any meaningful impact. You berate neurodivergent and queer people specifically as not getting off their ass, yet those are the kinds of people in the ranks of these organisations. It’s not like your average person is going to go and join the Labour party either.
Not all situations are like America. Here in the UK the backsliding is happening with the traditionally left leaning party who got in power using after massive fuck ups by the conservatives. So the right wing lost hard, but the other party have moved towards them. So you can’t even say it’s an issue with the alt-right like America. Instead it’s actually an issue with the left wing party and left wing moderates. Voting for and allying with them has enabled this behavior. It has enabled them to go after transgender people specifically. Ironically the conservatives might have actually done better in this case, as they haven’t expressed issues with queer people in recent times to my knowledge.
We are facing a huge problem that nobody seems to be able to identify, which is not voter turnout. The sad, horrible truth is the last couple election cycles we had record turnout and more young people involved than ever before… AND THEY VOTED FOR TRUMP. It’s going to happen all across the world as more and more people have access to their little algorithmic ideology bubbles.
So what’s the problem? Atomization of groups. Everyone is isolated and not exposed to each other’s perspectives and it’s making a vacuum that corporations are easily leveraging to get their right-wing puppets installed so they can make line go up. This atomization is literally turning people delusional, and if we don’t push back on it we are going to lose not just the USA but all democracy and organization.
We fight it with activity and community and socialization. If it takes screaming at people to get off their asses, I will do that and I will do it in ways that piss people off if it gets attention.
You berate neurodivergent and queer people specifically
Exactly the kind of bad-faith, seething, atomized perspective I want to fight by forcing people like YOU to listen to people like ME who will say things to piss you off and make you reconsider what someone else is saying. We need to do that not on Lemmy but out in bars, in family gatherings, in social media, in public lectures, in town council meetings and so on. Withdrawing now will kill you all. I am being dead serious. This avoidance of conflict except with people who want the same outcome as you is ruining our entire world.
I already talk politics on normie social media, and in bars, and even to colleagues sometimes. I do all these things, for all the good it might do. You don’t fully understand who you are talking to, the demographic you are trying to address, anymore than you understand politics outside of America. Queer and Neurodivergent people are already some of the most radicalised people who fight the most. They make up a good chunk of the alt-right, and much of the alt-left too. You have just spent too much time talking to the chronically online individuals or whatever the term is.
As I said here we had a landslide loss for the right wing party. Mainly because the British people won’t tolerate the kinds of scandals that the politicians got up to, certainly we wouldn’t tolerate Trump here. The outcome though was the left wing party doing the bad stuff instead. It’s not about compromise when people’s rights are on the line. I am not saying don’t vote where you are, and I certainly voted where I am. It’s just at this point that strategy isn’t working as well as it should. While screaming at people is great, I don’t even know what to tell them to do. Whoever I would tell them to vote for either won’t get in, will do harmful things, or are far too radical for normal people to go for, or some combo of the above. Not really convinced that screaming works either. Honey catches more flies than vinegar. Especially with someone like you who is screaming at the wrong people in the wrong way for probably the wrong reasons.
You have just spent too much time talking to the chronically online individuals or whatever the term is.|
I have, and I know it, and those are who I am speaking to the most because that’s who are here in sites like this in the most numbers. I am here trying to rally people, even if it’s out of spite and anger and offense, to stay involved.
The last presidential election we had has had some of the highest voter participation and youth participation in history, and they still voted for Trump, so the problem isn’t exterior, it’s coming from inside the house, and as long as we’re lamenting and feeling like shit about it, we’re falling into their trap.
I keep telling you I am not an American, and things don’t always or often work that same way outside of America. Though there are parts of Europe struggling with similar issues now. None of what you are saying makes that much sense in the UK. There are young people who want radical right wing policies, but they aren’t voting for the mainstream conservative party. They are voting for Reform UK, causing the right wing vote to be split. This split is a large part of why they lost the last election by a country mile. Meanwhile Labour moving right, combined with repeated scandals by the conservatives has lead to even life long conservative voters changing sides. Them moving right has also lead to them being critical of transgender people. Our Labor prime minister has gone so far to say that even transgender women who have a legal certificate should not use Women’s spaces. It’s crazy honestly. This is the same guy that’s pro-nationalization and pro-regulation.
You keep saying we even though we aren’t even in the same situation. It seems all you care about is the USA. Honestly I personally think the USA needs to hurry up and collapse already since that’s what seems to be happening anyway, and the slow collapse will just cause more issues.
If you want people to cooperate better and get along together the best thing you can tell them to do is to not get involved in politics at all. Politics is a lot of what is causing this division and “atomization” as you call it. Neurodivergent people are easily radicalized by extremists of both sides both alt-left and alt-right. You are better off telling them not to get involved at all if you want people to follow community and stop forming cliques. Of course you aren’t going to do that, because you actually have an agenda yourself. I wouldn’t tell people to do that either for the same reason. Although actually you could do some targeted voter suppression and disenfranchisement with right-wing people if you wanted to steer things in a left wing direction. If all you care about is winning the vote then you need to start employing and using the same tactics as the alt-right use against everyone else. Pushing radical ideas and policies would be a good step in the right direction, since that’s exactly what the alt-right do.
Both sides currently yell and scream at anyone that doesn’t agree with them unequivocally. I don’t agree with everything liberal, and a few conservative viewpoints I do agree with. But for the most part I consider myself to be a moderate.
But vocalizing that I disagree with how to do something and both sides will either call me a libtard or a MAGAt.
This is something both sides have an issue with. So stop saying both sides is wrong. Here is an example that disproves that statement completely.
All I want is a party by and for the people. Not billionaires. Done with idiocracy and insanity.
Having this opinion in 2025. Amazing
People want their on brand copium. Facts, reality and emotional maturity be damned.
deleted by creator
Most of the -ism’s get you here. The only one that doesn’t: Peppa Pigism
‘Isms’, what does that word mean?
Words with the -ism suffix. Like capitalism, authoritarianism, veganism, etc.
So, no named ideas? Only deluzean thought-soup?
Is it cool if im super neitzchean about it, since that doesnt end in ‘ism’?
What about ideas from stirnerism?
It’s stirnerean -doesn’t apply
Generally called -ism.
Working class: “Can we have meaningful reform?”
Conservatives: “No.”
Liberals: "No 😘 🌈 "
I’m frustrated with the reflexive “both sides are equally bad” response that shuts down any meaningful analysis of what’s actually happening in our politics.
I’m not naive about the Democratic Party’s problems. They struggle with internal divisions, sometimes cave to corporate pressure, and they’ve made compromises that disappointed their base. But when I look at voting records, policy proposals, and legislative priorities, I see meaningful differences that have real consequences for people’s lives.
On issues I care about (healthcare access, climate action, voting rights, ext.) one party consistently proposes solutions and votes for them when they have the numbers. The other party doesn’t just oppose these policies, they fight tooth and nail to undermine them, delay them, or dismantle them entirely. That’s not a matter of opinion. That’s a matter of public record.
When Democrats fail to deliver, it’s often because they lack sufficient majorities or face procedural roadblocks. When they do have power, they’ve passed significant legislation on infrastructure, climate investment, and healthcare expansion. Meanwhile, when Republicans have unified control, their priorities have been tax cuts for the wealthy and rolling back environmental protections.
I understand the appeal of cynicism. It can feel sophisticated to dismiss all politicians as equally corrupt. But that cynicism serves the interests of those who benefit from the status quo.
If you can’t tell the difference between someone trying to reform a broken system and someone actively working to keep it broken, you’re not offering insight. You’re providing cover for obstruction.
Does this mean Democrats are perfect? Of course not. Should we hold them accountable when they fall short? Absolutely. But pretending there are no meaningful differences between the parties just because neither is perfect makes it harder to build the coalitions we need to create the change we actually want to see.
From my detached non American (but still a citizen of the planet so likely to get fucked hard by the way Americans vote) point of view, seems like Americans are continually letting perfect be the enemy of least bad. “Well since Democrats are kinda bad in these instances maybe we should just go fully fascist theological doom cult. That will force the Democrats to improve, or kill us all.”
American here…I think it’s actually more the opposite. Everyone is being told to vote for the lessor evil and no one is getting what they want. That’s what caused all this to begin with imo… The Magas torched their party trying to get something different to happen politically (not to excuse them or anyone). This is all on the 2 party system, if we make it out of this I think ending that system is one major change that will need to take place to avoid repeating the cycle. Basically, we lost our Republic a long time ago when Congress stopped representing us and became owned by billionaires.
I have written and rewritten my response here trying to find the right tone. I feel like we are closer to agreement here than might be immediately obvious. I think a lot of what we are seeing now is a result of 50+ years of people who find the idea of your republic distasteful seeking every method they can to erode it away. All the details are just components of this project, seems to me that MAGA is a result of years of stoking xenophobia and anti-intellectualism. Turns out if you spend decades laying the groundwork you can make the situation seem completely hopeless to a whole populace. I sincerely worry the long term goal is to perfect the formula for dismantling democracy and then start exporting it to the rest of the world.
Or I could be a fool, I don’t know and I don’t want to rewrite this again. Sorry that this was so rambling.
I agree with you that the parties are not the same. The GOP are outright evil puppets of the billionaire class. The Democrats are ineffectual cowards who’ve made careers out of paying lip service to the right thing, and every now and then doing something helpful if it’s convenient for them and doesn’t piss off their billionaire donors. A lot of the time that ends up translating to the same results for most people.
I don’t buy the “sorry, our hands are tied” line we always get from the left. Dems throw up their hands even when they do have majorities. The first meaningful opportunity the Democrats had to obstruct Trump’s agenda, after the left base had been screaming for weeks for their representatives to do something, Schumer rolled over immediately. I can’t take this party seriously anymore.
the left
Democrats are definitely not leftist. Center right would be more apt.
Conservatives: "No. Kill the trans people and put gays in jail. Women belong in the kitchen. "
Liberals: "No 😘 🌈 "
Lemmy: both said no, so they’re the same!
I feel like this shouldn’t have to be explained, but “Both sides bad” does not equal “Both sides equally bad” or “Both sides the same”
There’s not a leftist on Lemmy who wouldn’t rather be patronized while being stomped on than being cussed at while being murdered.
And yes, I voted. No, it didn’t help. It was moderates who didn’t vote, not leftists. Leftists believe in harm reduction while advocating for harm elimination- the two goals aren’t contradictory. Trump stole the election so it’s all pretty much moot anyway.
By focusing on the fact that Democrats version of bad is better than the Republican version of bad, it only helps to ensure that the Democrats are the best we can hope to achieve. There is nothing wrong in wanting actual good and instead of ‘least bad’.
I don’t live in the US so I don’t have first hand experience but both on lemmy and on reddit it was mostly leftists who were spamming “genocide Biden (without mentioning that trump was even worse)”, something about inflation (like it wasn’t a global issue) and other issues where gop is clearly worse. All as a reason to not vote Democrat.
Calling a genocide a genocide should not be a partisan issue, and if you think we need to temper our discussion of genocide so that your preferred genocider can win a fucking election then you are a genocide denier.
The way for the dems to differentiate themselves on this issue was to stop doing a genocide. They couldn’t do that, and so they enabled the worse option because they were just too horny for killing brown kids.
There we go!
You’re angrier at leftists for correctly calling out the dems’ genocide than you are at the dems for their genocide.
I’m angry at leftists helping elect trump thus creating MORE genocide.
How do you know they were leftists? I don’t know where you are from, but it’s been known that bots and foreign powers have been attempting to influence U.S. elections since at least Trumps first term, and let’s be honest it’s extremely likely that it has been going on for far longer than that.
Biden IS pro genocide, So is Harris, So is Trump. I don’t think it’s bad to point that out. Using it as a reason to vote for a Fascist instead is loony tunes, and as someone who frequents Leftist spaces I can tell you not a single person on reddit or Lemmy proposed any such nonsense who was taken seriously and wasn’t’ immediately down-voted into oblivion.
Now you can ask them yourself in the reply to the above comment. Here’s a direct link, if it works: https://programming.dev/comment/17635908
I think you might be reading too much into that statement. They were saying that the Democrats have failed to differentiate themselves on that specific issue, and that’s an objective fact.
They also said that Trump was the worst option.
I agree with them that we shouldn’t have to keep quiet about what a shit human being politician A is, on the off chance that it might cause a complete idiot to vote for politician B who is just as bad on that issue and worse in just about every other way.
An idiot is going to idiot no matter what you do, and it’s not on us to cover up for liberals and their shit candidates.
If the Democrats want us to stop discussing what trash human beings their candidates are, there is a simple solution for that. I’m sure you can figure out what that is if you think about it.
No matter where you are in the world, this is going to affect you as well. You should be just as mad at the Democrats for putting an unelectable piece of shit up against Trump as I am, not making excuses for them and blaming leftists. We didn’t have Jack shit to do with it.
The DNC had ONE job, put up a candidate that could beat a fascist dictator. That should have been the easiest job in the world.
They fucked up. And now we are all paying for it. Quit trying to shift the blame where it doesn’t belong.
The American people had one job, not to elect the fascist. The DNC should have been able to ran a dirty diaper and win. The American people elected the president, not the DNC. This is on them. (Let alone the fact primary voters decide decided who the candidate was, not the DNC).
And now those voters are on the internet blaming the DNC, the voting machines, the weather and a thousand other things. Nah bros, this one is on you all.
Americans don’t believe that inflation is a global issue. They think it’s a new thing called greedflation [because our country and our time period are exceptional].
Ok, but the people at Covenant House aren’t the ones who decided to put the anti-homeless architecture in place.
Anti-homeless architecture is meant to encourage homeless people to actually go to homeless shelters where they might get help finding affordable housing, not to mention help for whatever issues they have going on in their lives. It’s meant to combat the problem of some homeless people choosing to avoid getting help and continue to bury themselves in drugs/alcohol and sleep on things like public benches, where they prevent other people from using them for their intended purpose.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting people to get the help they need and stop being an inconvenience for the rest of their community. Are you against homeless outreach programs too? Do you think people should just be allowed to set up shack wherever they please in public spaces? I’m not trying to pretend that the lack of affordable housing isn’t at the core of the problem, but even if we had enough of that, there’d still be mentally ill people and drug addicts that would prefer to live on the street, just to avoid social workers pressuring them to address their problems.
Fuck you.
Ah yes, petty insults
The leftist huckster’s crutch
