People are storming the streets and town halls, Elon is dissolving the whole country and Trump is busy tending Putin’s toes. Where the fuck are the democrats in all this crisis? It feels AOC is doing all the heavylifting while all the rest of them smug bunch are just watching with “told ya dis was gunn happen” drawn on their face.
Please tell me my ignorant ass is just blatantly wrong because I ain’t getting any news.
You’re not wrong. Dont look to the Democrats to help. Look at progressive parties and independents on the left.
Nothing.
Plenty have been directly pressuring Republican congresspeople by rallying in their district like Sanders did this last week.
Direct legislative action is difficult without control, but in terms of effective messaging and pressuring Republicans by threatening the midterms is probably one of the more effective strategies they have.
Bernie is an independent who ran as a dem only for them to kneecap his campaign.
Direct legislative action is difficult without control
lol no it’s not. You create a bill called “Keep America a Democracy” or “Defending America from Russia” and then when the Republicans all vote “No” you have the best political weapon you could possibly get.
That’s called politicking, which they absolutely should be doing.
You’re indirectly getting laws through by twisting arms and making deals instead of just having a majority.
Isn’t the better question, what can they do? I’m not saying Democrats aren’t without fault in all of this, but now that the US has jumped the democracy shark, I’m not sure there’s much anyone can do to put this shitty little genie back in the bottle. Short of House and Senate republicans having a coming to Jesus moment, I think we’re all on board the autocracy train for the duration.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to demand from your politicians to do something. The onus definitely isn’t on us to have a 10 point plan on stopping authoritarianism. And they should definitely be able to do more than just finger wagging.
How about try? Maybe even get off the couch? Oh, what if they came out and actually didn’t help Trump get his picks approved?
Republicans always manage to gum up the works, yet Democrats can’t seem to bring themselves to even try.
Not owning a branch of government has never stopped republicans. They would rather get dragged out kicking and screaming. Democratic politicians have largely abandoned their voting base and claim their hands are tied and there’s nothing they can do, because they are too used to being able to just skate on through without much experience fighting from a disadvantage.
They can do things like organizing their voter base to fight back in constructive ways and pass local legislation, unify the party on voting for certain politicians, inform their voters about special elections, bills and places they can help out, push a more populist and or progressive agenda, and stop fucking abandoning and lying to their own voter base. They need to be willing to physically lead their constituents
Republicans are so cohesively brainwashed because the republicans have been targeting media and disinformation for decades. They organize extremely well at the local level, and are willing to do almost anything for power.
The democrats need to show equal fervor for defending democracy and they’ve just been cowards so far, telling people to just vote and tell their family to vote democrats, essentially telling us, “we cant do anything so its your problem and responsibility now”
ETA: democrats had 4 years to plan and time to come up with a response to Project 2025. Its weird to me everyone just took “oh its not trumps plan” at face value.
What are the democrats actually doing to help?
I hope we don’t start getting the same sort of lists that we got about Biden’s accomplishments, where they counted Obama’s accomplishments, had multiple duplicate entries, counted proposals as accomplishments, and considered a fresh coat of paint on air force one as an accomplishment.
Stop looking left and right and start looking up and down. This is a class war! The rest is distraction to divide us.
Nah, look to the left. Vote green or communist.
Vote when? In another four years?
Ain’t nobody got time for that!
I was actually thinking about this. What if Trump is just a Martin shkreli
Hear me out. The board of directors for pharma used Martin as a Patsy to do something illegal. Martin takes the heat while the board reaps the benefits and they throw Martin to the Sharks.
What if this whole thing was all an act and they’re all using trump as a power grab. He’s tearing it all down and it benefits all of them, Democrat and Republican. When trump leaves, there will be so much power given to the owner class in the country while regulation and oversight is not what it was.
This is essentially what trump is doing with musk. He’s going to"fire" musk as soon as he’s done enough damage then go back to claiming he’s making America great by rehiring people to replace the ones musk is firing. Only the replacements won’t be as competent then leave the crippled departments to the Dems and republicans will say “look at how poorly the Dems are running the place”
I think it’s the other way around. Rich people like Musk helped trump reach the white house. Now they’re making him do their bidding. Trump isn’t the master like his base thinks. He’s a puppet for the rich.
They have slowed some appointments in House committees.
The Senate Democrats have stayed late to filibuster nominations
Democrats have an upcoming opportunity to refuse to pass a budget with the trillion dollar tax cuts that Musk and other billionaire are trying to somehow justify with every fibre of their being. This means that everyone in the House (including purple state Republicans) have to be in lock step, even 2-3 R-defectors will mean it doesn’t pass.
Democrats have been proposing amendments left and right, into the night… House members have suggested excluding people with wealth over $10M, $100M and $500M, all voted down. Senators like Andy Kim for example, have put on their Instagram pages, what they are trying to do.
Congresspeople are doing their job harder than they ever thought they would have to, but we should expect more.
I do think all the Democrats, should take more opportunities to visit their states to make people aware of what’s going on, what they’re doing in Congress to try to stop the worst stuff happening, and what ordinary people can do to push back as well. I think members should also boost each others message because probably pages like AOC’s have a lot more viewers from a district than their own district’s House Rep.
Perhaps a better question is, “What are you doing to help?”.
Supporting a national strike, canceling Amazon, leaving FB, might be a good start. Contacting you representative who doesn’t represent you seems to be futile. Maybe flash protests?Certainly, maybe you can make a new AskLemmy post for that.
I do think all the Democrats, should take more opportunities to visit their states to make people aware of what’s going on, what they’re doing in Congress to try to stop the worst stuff happening, and what ordinary people can do to push back as well. I think members should also boost each others message because probably pages like AOC’s have a lot more viewers from a district than their own district’s House Rep.
Good they are doing some legislative opposition, but you’re right they need to be doing more to push back outside of congress.
I’ve wondered if the they started buying ads on mobile games with a quick few lines to tell people what they have done or what the republicans are doing would work?
you by-pass large media, you get a younger audience and it gets a message out there quickly.
They’ve been doing as much as they can, such as stalling votes and filing lawsuits. They have literally no power, so there isn’t much they can do short of committing violence.
HOWEVER, one thing they could be doing is more attention-grabbing stunts. The octogenarians in party leadership don’t understand that attention is the most valuable commodity these days. If they formed a human shield to block people getting into the Senate chambers to further delay Trump’s nominees, they’d get heaps of attention and far fewer people would be asking what they’re doing to stop the fascist takeover. At least their objections would be visibly plastered all over TV and social media rather than confined to the vote tallies in the Senate.
Down the road, when (or if) Trump needs to have actual legislation passed, he’s going to have a major problem in the House. The House Republican caucus can’t agree on what to order for lunch, so they’ll likely need Democratic votes to get any legislation passed. This is the only area where Dems have a modicum of power.
Well, they certainly didn’t help by running a candidate that got destroyed in the only primary she ran in. I’m hoping they will step up and run some solid candidates next round. It’s fucking embarrassing they lost to Trump…twice.
Based off their reactions to every thing that’s being going on it seems to me that they have learned absolutely nothing.
If the 2028 election was happening tomorrow I think the Democrats would lose again.
If the 2028 election was happening tomorrow I think the Democrats would lose again.
Absolutely. They’d probably try to court Mitt Romney to run under their ticket.
They’re already posturing Pete Buttigege to be their next chosen one. I wonder if the dems will even bother with primaries this time around.
Pete Buttigege
Jesus christ. And when he bombs they’ll go, “everyone wanted a younger candidate!”
when he bombs they’ll go, “everyone wanted a younger candidate!”
The worlds on fire and they’re worried about the color of the wallpaper.
Nothing. Democrats are fucking useless. They have no power now because they blew the election in every single way possible. They did literally everything wrong. It was almost as if they tried to lose on purpose.
People always try to claim I’m an asshole for saying democrats are just republicans other division.
They try to claim I’m saying bOtH SiDeS. No. I’m saying there aren’t two sides. There’s republicans, and republicans disguised as democrats. Just there to give the illusion of choice. You don’t have choice. You have corporate masters who own the media, who decide what news you see, they own the land, they own the companies. The republicans are there to be the ticketmaster, and take all the blame. The democrats are there to be the band performing at the local concert hall. To give the illusion of hope.
Well besides Pearl Jam, and maybe a handful of others, every band likes ticketmaster. They get to raise their prices, ticketmaster takes the heat, and the customers still pay. It’s like pro wrestling. The good guy and the bad guy are fake fighting in the ring as a showcase of the battle for all to see on a public stage. Then they go back to the dressing room, and they’re buddies. Once they’re out of public eye, the good guys and bad guys are all the same. Sharing family photos, having a beer. All part of the same system.
Just look at the country. Democrats take one step forward, three steps to the side, and then republicans push them back three steps. Gradually over the coarse of time republicans make advancements in their agenda, and it holds. All of the democrats advancements get erased a few years later. We’re still living with NIXONS signed bills. We don’t even have most of Obamas signed bills anymore.
And its because they were never meant to last. The democrats give hope, and a few years later after nobody is looking, republicans cancel it. Meanwhile republicans sign a bill and it’s there forever. And yet…no serious 3rd party has ever come about. There’s never been a 3rd party in my lifetime that anyone (who wasn’t an oblivious baffoon) ever thought had a serious shot at winning. It’s all the same system. Just like pro wrestlers are all working for the same system, politics is all the same rigged system. It’s all owned by corporations, and big money interests. Your vote means nothing. Regardless of if your guy won.
Your vote means nothing
I was with you until this, and maybe this is what people take issue with. Our vote fucking DOES mean something because if more folks voted against Trump, things would be a LOT less terrible.
They would still be unacceptably shitty though, no argument there, and I’ve been trying to show people for a long time myself that “Dems & Repubs vs. us” is a much more accurate description of the conflict than “us dems vs. us repubs”.
Even so, our vote matters a fucking lot when the Republican half of the regime is doing this kind of damage. I can’t really imagine anyone coherently arguing otherwise unless they are also arguing for immediate armed revolution. Voting matters, more of it would help with the far-reaching horrible outcomes of this administration in particular.
the republicans are in complete control of every branch of government and there is very little democrats can do other than talk really loud
Isn’t that the only thing they do
They’re busy with strongly worded letters, no doubt.
While at night getting paid by corporations to do their bidding?
