Anyway, it is true that democracy will be on the ballot in 2028. But it'll be on the ballot for Democrats well before the general. And the party's task is creating democracy, not defending it. That demands both an attentiveness to structural politics and a willingness to defend the equality of all.
Its up to us to put it on the ballot and to make it an issue. I've stated before that for example, the "no kings" organizing should at least in part because focused on pushing democratic reform agendas in the cities and states democrats control to force this onto the agenda now.
But instead they're crying they're not getting unconditional support when they helped commit one of the greatest human rights violation in a century
I've seen people use the "voting is like a bus" metaphor that this guy ends olhis thread on, and would like to see someone a little more eloquent and insightful than myself take that apart. It just seems like a "clever" way to say blue no matter who.
They want us on the bus that goes a block in our direction, but drives over trans people to get there
Let's face it, it doesn't even do that; it actually goes a block closer to Fashville, and all the transit options from there also only.go towards Fashville. The biggest problem with the bus metaphor is that its premise is a lie.
And it runs over trans people on the way
You're right, it's more like the trans bodies get caught in the tires and they can't move forward at all, they can only reverse.
I think the bus metaphor is fine, but people want to suggest that the bus routes are already finalized when we’ve only just begun the conversation about the service we need THERE IS NO BUS yet, & anyone trying to say that others need to fall in line are skipping over one of the most important parts
We need a new constitution. And a flag that's not afraid of adding new States.
Those willing, by contrast, to trade away the rights and dignity of transgender people or the poor cannot be considered friends of democracy any more than those who were willing to countenance second-class status for blacks and Jews.
And to dump the corporate overlords.
Yup. There is no reason why we should respect a person who says that curtailing our equal rights should be on the table (but is also publicly glad to engage in it), versus one who is just publicly glad to engage in it.
People forget it's not all up to one person anyway. Under Biden trans people were losing their rights left and right because of people not standing up for us. Also that's when roe vs Wade was overturned. If you elect someone that will just "go along with the boys" you're screwed.
Maga made this mistake believing everything their fearless leader said. What will this person do if they have power? Are they going to allow themselves to be heavily influenced?
Yes. I don’t know why some people are so eager to believe we’re in a trolley problem situation. Pritzker doesn’t think so, neither do I.
And if you are in a trolley problem then the people on the track have the right to try and derail it.
People off the track too.
Whole thought experiment is rigged to keep you from considering “damn we should probably just kill the guy who keeps tying all these people to the train tracks all the time huh”
Wikipedia says that's the "fat villain variant" and unsurprisingly people are more enthusiastic about pushing the villain onto the train tracks in order to save the others. (Which is why trans people are being villified/dehumanized so hard right now!)
Newsom and his anti trans media allies are trying to make him inevitable 800+ days before the first primary vote is cast. But he’s not and it’s insane to pretend he is.
He’s gonna come in fourth in South Carolina and that’ll be it.
www.nih.gov/nih-style-gu... #Blacksky
Throw all the heat you can in primaries. But in generals? Vote for the lesser of two evils every time. Kennedy and LBJ had horrific personal views on race. Clinton and Obama had horrendous political opinions on LGBTQ. Nobody ever actuated change by holding their nose and refusing to vote.
There is a 0% chance I’d vote for Gavin Newsom in a primary. There is a 100% chance I’d vote for him in a general against any MAGA candidate.
With all the loud Dems who mistakenly believe Harris actually lost because "Kamala is for they/them", what do you think happens to the democratic party if Newsom runs a transphobic campaign and wins? As soon as the redistricting race is over for California, he needs to be politically annihilated.
To clarify I mean if he wins the general.
I can’t imagine him winning a primary in the current climate. The only people putting him out front as a forerunner right now are Hollywood PR teams. He has no ACTUAL legs. The Dem nomination in 2028 is a LONG ways away, and I’d prefer to NOT buy into the narrative that he’s the favored son.
If the primary process fails to such an extent that he’s the nominee in 2028, I’ll vote for him and primary him and his next time.
If I only ever casted votes for people who were ideologically inoffensive to me I’d have never voted. A lot of hard won things would have never materialized if people hadn’t shown up to vote for the lesser of two evils.
Are you really this blind to the large material differences in the lives of transgender people between a Dem and a GOP administration?
Ok then serious candidates should differentiate themselves from the GOP and not operate under the false frames made up by republicans - otherwise they shouldn't be a D candidate 🤷♂️
But plenty of Democrat politicians like undermining the party, after transferring from the Republican party. -STARES WITH DEATH IN HIS EYES AT THE CLINTONS-
Tell us, oh wise one, using this map bsky.app/profile/shel...
Are you really this unaware of the material conditions that the homeless people of California are being subjected to right now, by a Democratic governor?
Feels like they should stop leaning towards the backslide to appeal to right wing freaks then.
are you unaware of how trans people are screwed under UK's "liberal" gov't right now?
are you trans
there being no response to this and only this question is l o u d
Are you trans and voting against your own interests?
tell us more about trans interests
are YOU trans and voting against your own interests?
Maybe read the thread again champ.
are you really this blind to the large material differences in the lives of transgender people between a newsom and a beshear administration
i really fucking hate this brain virus you blue wavers all have now where criticizing a politician for the harm they abet is actually worse than the harm itself, and makes it retroactively the critics fault
Biden could have NOT aided a genocide just as Newsom could have NOT asked a fucking Nazi transphobe to come on episode 1 of his podcast and agreed he has some good points. observing that they chose to do the bad thing doesnt make the bad thing our responsibility ffs
Have you noticed Trump?
jfc i cant wait until that fucker dies at least partly so you guys cant scream BUT TRUUUUUMP over and over forever at anyone who proposes raising the bar out of hell
Nothing can happen until the GOP is defeated
At which point you will pivot perfectly smoothly to "nothing can improve because that's might let the GOP back in", or possibly "nothing can happen because of all the centrist Dems who vote to block progress and aren't disciplined by the party and we can't do anything because an R might get in".
The problem you're facing here is that we have seen this playbook time and again. There is nothing a "centrist" Democrat can do that you won't defend or justify by pointing at the Republicans, even when the conversation is about a primary where their opposition is more progressive Dems and not Rs.
Remember when Biden said he would get the Equality Act passed in his first 100 days, and then that went nowhere and now everyone is fucked? Dems fear of action results in no there being no difference, just a slight delay.
Elect more Dems
Dems had control of Congress for the first 2 years of Biden’s term and instead of twisting arms LBJ-style #GenocideJoe blew his political capital on a bipartisan infrastructure bill that built more roads for cars. He promised donors that nothing would change if he was elected and that’s what we got
You must be enjoying Trump.
Every president for the last 40 years has been an extension of Reagan, and I hold triangulating, shifty Democrats responsible for that. So there is no joy in Trump or with the Democrats who brought us to this place — including Biden, who deported more Haitians than any POTUS in history.
Close, but the answer is elect *better* dems.
The best Dem that can be elected
If the best dem that could be elected was a republican running as a dem would you vote for them?
Say what you will about Biden, he campaigned to the left, winning swing states, but then left all those promises to voters behind. Remember when he promised to codify Roe if Georgia gave him the Senate? Harris never really even tried to run to the left: just a bunch of GOP-lite luxury podcasts.
Like I said. Enjoy Trump.
Genocide and ICE still would have been churning on. But I’m sure you are fine with kinder and gentler fascism and all other lesser evilism that doesn’t interrupt brunch.
...is surely not Gavin Newsom, a guy so unlikeable that a sizeable part of his own party base is saying they will not vote for him.
[the dems trying to just be republicans at all times] no they have to do this because uhhhh it'd be worse as the dems haven't finished metamorphosizing into demons
The transphobes literally say that Newsom's position helps them bsky.app/profile/gbbr...
Oh yeah. Riley Gaines is pro Newsom. Playing you like a fiddle.
Gavin Newsom is pro Riley Gaines, he agrees with her position on trans people in sports. He had Charlie fucking Kirk on his podcast and agreed with his transphobic position! But you just don't give a shit about trans people
And Dems moving more towards the hostility and bigotry of the GOP is supposed to improve things how exactly?
So it's ok to throw people under the bus as long as you're throwing them more gently than the other guy?
So yes blind. You are going to cause great harm to trans people just like the Genocide Biden people killed Gaza.
Genocide Biden literally killed thousands of people in Gaza before Trump took over thay role. Why are you blaming those criticizing it? Was the lesson of the holocaust to ignore it the next time it happens? This was a large reason Biden became very unpopular and lost a lot of support. Harris too.
They chose to kill children rather than win. Don't pin it on us because you decided you were okay with thousands of dead children in another country. That's your guilt. That's your projection. B/H handed it to Trump. The left wanted to beat Trump. The only path to victory included arms embargo.
yeah it was literally a "let us say our piece. do the absolute bare minimum. pretend you give a shit" and biden was too busy going around congress to send even MORE bombs to israel and harris was like "im talking lol" the dem party has no soul. neither do its leadership!
Yes thank you.
Answer the question, dipshit.
I'm a trans person from a deep red state who moved to a deep blue state. Let me say for all the positives that dems give us, it ain't enough even in places where they have the power. Dems like Newsom are throwing us under the bus and are now blocking protections. www.politico.com/news/2025/03...
I spent 13 years in the closet because I couldn't voice my feelings as a minor without being put through conversion therapy, I spent another five years drifting from place to place trying to get my life together, and I finally was able to get on HRT at 24.
I feel so much anger at the years I could've saved if we lived in a just system. I'd have accomplished my goals by now if I was able to medically transition when I first came out. Despite all that, dems like Newsom think that I shouldn't have been able to medically transition until just last year.
I was planning on ending it all before I found the strength to come out, before I chose joy over survival. If Newsom's views, or even a compromise to the right on Newsom's views, were national policy, 19 year old me wouldn't have made it to 20. Let alone 26.
All I can think of when dems discuss sacrificing trans youth like they're some pawn is that 19 year old with no hope for the future or people like them. When dems talk about abandoning trans inmates I think about how they're beaten and raped, I'm reminded of when all that happened to me.
Dem support for trans people is younger than you give it credit for. I'm not even 30 and I'm older than your party's support for us. What you're referencing is a blip, one that many in your party seem to be walking back on.
Guys this is a bot
Yeah. I’m the bot who’s trying to hurt trans people by helping the GOP.
Obama was against gay marriage in 2008. During his presidency, he ended DADT, endorsed gay marriage, and appointed the SCOTUS justices who gave us the Windsor and Obergefell decisions.
We’re supposed to “politely” accept being ground into dust by those who are supposed to help us stop openly rampant, racist criminals: bsky.app/profile/john...
Our Constitution guarantees the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Republicans pretend that groups they don't personally belong to are damaging other groups, to justify their bigoted legislation. It's best to live in a blue state.
It's on the ballot for every election forever because we failed to rid our country of nazi-magat scum.
Consider the alternative before dying on the hill of a purity test. Also, has it ever occurred to you that they may say one thing to get elected and then do the right thing once they are?
We all have rights or none of us do. Some people don't need it personalized like that, but for those that do, there it is. The social contract is just like due process. There can be no carve-outs because any carve-out inherently means nothing is guaranteed for anyone
The ‘greater good’ people have always made me extremely nervous
they're fascist. honestly, even the (rare) ones sacrificing themselves. one sacrifice is never enough. choosing that route for yourself dooms the next person just as much as choosing them. one for all. all or none.
💯
Yeah, trans people are not part of that, just a sacrifice to benefit the normal, regular people. Because that will definitely get the right to work with us, they won't just move to the next group.
Exactly- in the club until you’re not in the club
I also think a lot of these "greater good" people would be singing a different tune if the prospective candidate wanted to strip rights from them specifically instead of a group of "others"
And once you're not in the club, you get smacked over the head with it
It’s always someone else who has to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, strangely.
a thing that gets me a lot is that it's just plain a bad strategy to get votes and generate the necessary enthusiasm for a candidate. it's trying to win with an inside straight, where everyone, for no reason, in trade for nothing, just agrees to get treated like shit and fakes enthusiasm for it
it's a poison pill strat. pre-emptive caving consistently helps fascism. Caving adds credibility to the fascists and removes it from the dems. overall credibility hits undecideds, more than single issues, (otherwise they wouldn't be undecideds)
people will say "but they SHOULD vote anyway" and should isn't will. they can bitch and moan and whine about it but there's no enforcement method to make people vote and gutting of vote protections - and groups like OFA that register people and get them to polls - makes voting more difficult.
They also ignore the fact that for members of the group thrown under the bus, it's not a binary choice between vote dem or not vote at all. If both sides screw you then why not vote for the republicans to get revenge on the people who just betrayed you? Spite is a powerful thing.
They’re saying “sure they’ve spread broken glass in front of the voting booth but our forebears would have crawled across it to vote!” while standing next to a broom they refuse to use.
something i've been on for years, because i'm always told to be Pragmatic and Realistic, is that i believe the dems could win without giving lefties like me much of anything policy wise if they just invested in basic fundamentals and infrastructure vis a vis getting people to vote.
my understanding of why they won't ever do this is that they have consultants telling them, truthfully, that the people those efforts would empower to vote don't pay their bills. that's not their favored electorate and they're not interested in expanding it beyond the same crowd the republicans have
Well they’re going to keep on losing then.
yeah that seems to be their plan
things like the 50 state strategy, OFA, and ACORN did. real basic stuff. more in registering voters. more in making sure people have TRANSPORTATION to the polls, which is incredibly important in a country like ours with atrocious public transportation. helping with early voting, etc.
this is the kind of stuff Georgia volunteers for dems did years back that resulted in those surprise victories. they really put the fucking work in, and they did it early, too. they were registering people at police protests. the national dem response was 'thanks for the free work' and bouncing.
hell, it was worse than that, it was also repaying all that work with 'oh by the way we fucking love Cop City and we'll arrest your ass if you're against it'. they expect unpaid volunteers to do everything for them, with no investment, no infrastructure, no anything, and even arrest them sometimes.
'sure we cracked the skulls of all the people who just a couple years before were helping us win and registering people and driving them to the polls but surely they'll just get replaced by some other chumps who'll do the same work for us for free' while the war chest goes to more loser consultants.
Weird that these same people aren't turned off by someone like Gavin who's cool with some people being disposable. Strange. Odd.
just tearing my hair out for years. the dems wouldn't have to give me healthcare. they wouldn't have to even budge on popular shit like weed. if they would just fucking stop spending the money on fake jobs for family and friends to kiss their ass and gave it to no-name organizers in states.
like they're not just gambling on "everybody we throw under the bus supports us anyway and shuts their mouth about their criticisms", they're also gambling "throwing all these groups under the bus won't depress enthusiasm of organizers, or of voters who are not these groups but support them"
i don't think they're gambling; i think they're playing to lose if the GOP wins, the Dems get all the institutional cruelty they could ever want, AND they get to blame "the leftists and their goddamn purity testing" for it, while witless "blue no matter who" rubes continue to blindly fellate them
aiming to win over a well to do suburban massachusetts guy who votes republican locally but democratic for president and has big opinions on public schools and 'just doesn't know about all this trans stuff', and trading a freshly 18 trans voter, their supporting parents, and friends, for it
just incredibly bad fucking electoral math. the actual people that would vote on 'i'd vote dem if they just got a liiiiiiittle bit more transphobic' are not great in number and they are also not generally in states dems need to worry about losing in the first place.
Yeah, but here’s the thing, that well to do suburban guy isn’t just offering Dems his vote, he also has *money*. At this point, I think the DNC is basically just taking bribes to lose elections. That’s a huge problem.
"every minority will agree to not just vote for us but continue to give us unpaid volunteer labor to help us win even as we treat them like shit to win over a fraction of the leftover squishy republicans we haven't already gotten in the 30+ years we've run this strategy" is not a pragmatic strategy!
just always on my hobby horse of "obama '08, even when being cowardly about gay marriage and doing Purple America stuff, did not run a campaign primarily fueled by telling his own supporters 'fuck you and eat shit' and palling around with the most extreme right wing people in the GOP"
I also think the 2016 and 2024 elections showed just how important the catastrophically bad economic situation in 2008 was for Obama's win.
2016 is a difficult election to use as an example for anything because, much as ppl hate to admit it (and as lousy a candidate/shitty human being as she was), clinton won the popular vote by nearly 3 million. 2016 shows one thing: america has a weird-ass electoral system.
Our times are dark not only because of the right's actions but because this evidently needs to be said to those who oppose it.
all very well spoken, you are greatly appreciated. ❤️
damn. I gotta read your book, huh?
Good thinking guys, tell your friends, hop in we’re making democracy
Trump et al have exposed everything that's wrong with our country. Unless we acknowledge and address all of it, we're not really going to get anything resolved. See also the entire Biden presidency - half measures don't cut it
yes. i loathe "accelerationism" as "it's good actually to make things worse and undermine the protections we have, to Wake People Up," but also trump called a lot of bluffs. it's worth learning more from that than "calling bluffs works" or "bullying works." like "*why were they bluffs*??"
