#and voting in enough numbers to take back Congress

[freepassbound]

One major problem is that there is an inherent power differential surrounding the parties' objectives - it's hard to oppose nihilism (which is essentially the platform of the modern Republican Party).

Rendered down to the most general description possible, the basic stance of the Democratic Party is that government can work and can do good and help people; and the basic stance of the Republican Party is that government does not work and cannot do anything and does not (and/or will not) help people.

So what happens is that when Democrats are in power, they attempt to use the government to help people - while having to deal with an opposition that is perfectly willing to violate any previous norm in order to sabotage them. Then when Democrats are in opposition, they want to try to cooperate in order to have a government that will at least help somebody, somehow - but since the Republicans in power don't care, they just tear everything down.

(and in modern times, when Democrats come into power, they usually have to clean up a Republican mess first - Clinton with H.W. Bush, Obama with Dubya, Biden with Trump)

It's way easier to do nothing than try to do something; it's way easier to destroy than create, or cooperate. Plus, in the U.S. government, the minority really doesn't have much power to obstruct (though again, obstruction isn't something that comes naturally to most Democratic politicians, who want the government to function and help people) - in the House everything goes through the Speaker, so the minority can't introduce any bills or call any hearings, or much of anything. In the Senate, it is possible to filibuster almost anything... but since Republicans don't care about passing any laws (they'll let Trump do it all by executive order), only about passing a budget (only takes a majority when done via reconciliation) or seating right-wing nutjobs as judges (only takes a majority thanks to previous rule changes), there's very little to actually filibuster. The only real opposition possible is just performative - which is obviously unsatisfying if you want to protect the government or actually believe you should try to achieve things or help people in government.

“Parties succeed and gain traction by doing far more than by self-analyzing. And my own theory of the case is that core driver and cause of the low standing of the Democratic Party right now is not wokeness or immigration or Joe Biden’s age but the fact that Democrats are simply not effective at advancing the policies they claim to support or protecting the constituencies they claim to defend. Put simply, they are some mix of unable and unwilling to wield power to achieve specific ends.”

— Democrats’ Hamlet Moment Isn’t the Start of a Solution But the Heart of the Problem

[nivalingreenhow]

Okay, now that it's been a few days, and I've had time to process what's happened, it's time to dig into what to do next

Simply put, vote in your midterms. In 2026 33 senate seats will be up for grabs.

*All* house of representative seats will be up for grabs. All 435 of them. Do you know what Trump can do with a congress that's against him? Not much. In 2026 there will be an opportunity to shut this down and give him as much trouble as the republican congress gave Obama. A blue congress means no confirmation for supreme court appointments. It means possibility of impeachment *and* conviction. It means he can be taken out of office, it means that in two years, if enough people vote, he will be effectively shackled

You know what else happens in 2026? Local and state elections. Are you in a state that's dangerously conservative? You can change that. The fact is people don't turn out for mid term elections. They just don't. So even in red states, if enough liberals, progressives, and independents show up, there is an opportunity to take back your state governments.

But the work starts now. Get involved locally. Vote in city counsel elections. Vote for local judges. Vote for sheriff!! Did you know in most places, that's an elected position? You can choose who runs your law enforcement.

Vote for mayor, vote for governor, vote for state legislators. With this administration, the states will be the ones deciding things. Make sure you're creating a place you want to live in. You do have that power. There are several 'red' states that have a higher number of registered democrats than the number of people who voted for Trump. If those people vote in the midterms, then we have hope

This isn't about Harris or the national democratic party and what they've done wrong. This is about your local chapters, the people in *your* communities. This is about your future and the future of this country. Hope is not lost because there are still so many things we can do, and the midterms are the best shot we have at turning this around

[batboyblog]

I've seen this meme and the pop wisdom idea behind it a lot, that if Democrats just manned up like the South Koreans they could stop Trump. SO! its now my job to explain BASIC FUCKING facts to people because they're talking nonsense about easily googlable information.

This is South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol of the center-right, conservative, People Power Party. He was elected President in 2022. Like in the United States, South Korea has mid-term elections, where South Korea's Congress, the National Assembly is up for elections while the President isn't. Unlike America South Korea's National Assembly has only one House. Any ways they had their midterm in 2024:

The opposition center-left, liberal Democratic Party won, overwhelmingly. The election was April 10th, they took office May 30th. Soon the opposition was doing what an opposition given power does, it was fighting President Yoon about his disastrous budget plans and trying to hold the First Lady Kim Keon-hee to account for alleged corruption. If this all sounds a bit like Trump, good job Yoon has been called "South Korea's Trump".

any ways 6 months into having an opposition run National Assembly Yoon declared martial law and sent soldiers to try to shut down the National Assembly. Everyone watched Democratic Assembly Members bravely climb fences and barricade the chamber doors to vote to end martial law. Here's what you have to understand about that vote

190 National Assembly members voted, 172 of them? We're Democrats and their allies. The President's People Power Party mostly stood by him. They keep standing by him in the days that followed. Four Days after President Yoon tried to use the Military to throw out the elected National Assembly and make himself dictator, the first try to impeach him, failed

105 out of the 108 the President's PPP party in the Assembly stood by him, after he tried to coup the country. Only 7 days later after overwhelming public pressure and the arrest of many key Presidential aids did an impeachment vote pass (he still hasn't been convicted)

only 12 PPP members broke with their Party and its President, 12 was enough, but the overwhelming majority? voted to protect the President who just tried to overthrow the country.

SO! Much like Donald Trump President Yoon didn't need to overthrow the country for the first 2 years of his term because he had a puppet Congress willing to go along with his corruption. With-in 6 months of dealing with a National Assembly that stood up to him the wheels came off and he imploded. But even after the most spectacular implosion on the International stage I've ever seen his party stood by him. If the Democratic Party didn't have a majority? and most important a BIG majority, a majority where even a small number of PPP defections was enough to get the 2/3rds they needed Yoon would still be President right now, if Democrats had a 2-3 seat majority in the National Assembly? they would have never gotten the votes to impeach.

We can see overlap in the American experience. In Trump's first term his own party in Congress never challenged him and largely stayed united behind him. In 2018 he lost the midterm elections which meant he was held to account and in fairly short order impeached, it took 8 months from Democrats taking office to an impeachment inquire to get underway. Like President Yoon Trump was not able to function under any kind of pushback. But unlike the South Korean Democrats the American Democrats didn't have an overwhelming majority in the Senate (Koreans don't even have a Senate) so Trump was not convicted. And the second time he was impeached after like Yoon trying to overthrow the Congress and become dictator, there were like in South Korea a handful of defectors from his own party, but unlike Korea The Democratic majority in the 2021 Senate wasn't large enough to have those Republican votes matter

So brave displays are good and important, but they don't mean much without the power, the votes to back it up. Elect Democrats in 2026 and they will, in less than a year of taking office, impeach Trump. Trump can't function with an opposition, he can't do it, he'll do something and they will HAVE TO vote to remove him. But the key is they need to votes to do it, because most Republicans? will go down with the ship, there's no red lines for them, if Democrats don't have big majorities, Trump hanging onto 90% of his party in the Senate will save his ass, again.

[robertreich]

From Robber Barons to Bezos: Is History Repeating Itself?

Ultra-wealthy elites…Political corruption…Vast inequality…

These problems aren’t new — in the late 1800s they dominated the country during America’s first Gilded Age.

We overcame these abuses back then, and we can do it again.

Mark Twain coined the moniker “The Gilded Age” in his 1873 novel to describe the era in American history characterized by corruption and inequality that was masked by a thin layer of prosperity for a select few.

The end of the 19th century and start of the 20th marked a time of great invention — bustling railroads, telephones, motion pictures, electricity, automobiles — which changed American life forever.

But it was also an era of giant monopolies — oil, railroad, steel, finance — run by a small group of men who had grown rich beyond anything America had ever seen.

They were known as “robber barons” because they ran competitors out of business, exploited workers, charged customers exorbitant prices, and lived like royalty as a result.

Money consumed politics. Robber barons and their lackeys donated bundles of cash to any lawmaker willing to do bidding on their behalf. And when lobbying wasn’t enough, the powerful turned to bribery — resulting in some of the most infamous political scandals in American history.

The gap between the rich and poor in America reached astronomical levels. Large numbers of Americans lived in squalor.

Anti-immigrant sentiment raged, leading to the enactment of racist laws to restrict immigration. And voter suppression, largely aimed at Black men who had recently won the right to vote, was rampant.

The era was also marked by dangerous working conditions. Children often as young as 10, but sometimes younger, worked brutal hours in sweatshops. Workers trying to organize labor unions were attacked and killed.

It seemed as if American capitalism was out of control, and American democracy couldn’t do anything about it because it was bought and paid for by the rich.

But Americans were fed up, and they demanded reform. Many took to the streets in protest.

Investigative journalists, often called “muckrakers” then, helped amplify their cries by exposing what was occurring throughout the country.

And a new generation of political leaders rose to end the abuses.

Politicians like Teddy Roosevelt, who warned that, “a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power,” could destroy American democracy.

After becoming president in 1901, Roosevelt used the Sherman Antitrust Act to break up dozens of powerful corporations, including the giant Northern Securities Company which had come to dominate railroad transportation through a series of mergers.

Seeking to limit the vast fortunes that were creating a new American aristocracy, Congress enacted a progressive income tax through the 16th Amendment, as well as two wealth taxes.

The first wealth tax, in 1916, was the estate tax — a tax on the wealth someone accumulated during their lifetime, paid by the heirs who inherited it. The second tax on wealth, enacted in 1922, was a capital gains tax — a tax on the increased value of assets, paid when those assets were sold.

The reformers of the Gilded Age also stopped corporations from directly giving money to politicians or political candidates.

And then Teddy Roosevelt’s fifth cousin — you may have heard of him — continued the work through his New Deal programs — creating Social Security, unemployment insurance, a 40-hour workweek, and requiring that employers bargain in good faith with labor unions.

But following the death of FDR and the end of World War II, when America was building the largest middle class the world had ever seen — we seemed to forget about the abuses of the Gilded Age.

Now, more than a century later, America has entered a second Gilded Age.

It is also a time of extraordinary invention.

And a time when monopolies are taking over vast swathes of the economy, so we must renew antitrust enforcement to bust up powerful companies.

Now, another generation of robber barons is accumulating unprecedented money and power. So once again, we must tax these exorbitant fortunes.  

Wealthy individuals and big corporations are once again paying off lawmakers, sending them billions to conduct their political campaigns, even giving luxurious gifts to Supreme Court justices. So we need to protect our democracy from Big Money, just as we did before.

Voter suppression runs rampant in the states as during the first Gilded Age, making it harder for people of color to participate in what’s left of our democracy. So it’s once again critical to defend and expand voting rights.

Working people are once again being exploited and abused, child labor is returning, unions are busted, the poor are again living in unhealthy conditions, homelessness is on the rise, and the gap between the ultra-rich and everyone else is nearly as large as in the first Gilded Age. So once again we need to protect the rights of workers to organize, invest in social safety nets, and revive guardrails to protect against the abuses of great wealth and power.

The question now is the same as it was at the start of the 20th century: Will we fight for an economy and a democracy that works for all rather than the few?

We’ve done it before. We can — and must — do it again.

[technofeudalism]

liberals are incredibly fascinating. they truly believe that someone like Pete Buttigieg wouldn't be able to win the presidency because he's gay and not because he's a soulless, McKinsey ghoul who only shows up in your Midwestern town to lay people off. and they truly believe that AOC can't win because she's Latina and a woman, not because she has generally shitty political "gut instincts," can't read a room as easily as other progressives and comes off as dishonest when she doesn't stick to her guns.

it's always identity. it's never honesty, it's never someone's genuine nature, it's never the policies they propose and whether or not they truly believe that they're going to help people. Kamala Harris didn't lose because she refused to put her foot down on Gaza or because she wanted to start the Golden Age of African-American Crypto Investing or because she offered $25,000 cash down payment assistance when the average home price is $370k~ and growing by 1%~ per year (almost $40k~ for those bad at math). she lost specifically, solely and only because she is a Black woman.

that's why no Black person or woman of color has ever won a race in a historically red district in the history of the United States, i guess. please ignore the fact that Barack Obama won the State of INDIANA in 2008, that Black women literally just filled 2 major Senate seats and will serve concurrently, making them the first 2 Black female senators to do so and that Congress as a whole (despite still yet being overwhelmingly white) is more diverse than it has ever been before.

the problem, dear liberals, is not the Queer, Black or Hispanic or female face. you will always face hurdles in America as someone from this background running for a political office. the point is to overcome these hurdles by offering things that people want to vote for. believe it or not, despite the fact that he didn't change a single solitary goddamn meaningful thing, Barack Obama talked a pretty impressive game about how he was going to bring "Hope" back to the country and ran on progressive policies. as a result, he turned out a record number of people of color and people aged 18-29. combined with his share of the white vote, it was enough to win the presidency.

you cannot promise people nothing over and over again and expect them to sign up for your cause. it has never worked in the history of politics. it does not matter who you are. America is a racist, misogynist country. the answer to breaking these patterns is to make an attempt to speak past those things to the hopelessness everyone feels right now and putting the focus on corporations and billionaires. but in order to do that, you can't take money from them and you can't agree to do their bidding behind closed doors. you're gonna get caught and you're gonna look fake as fuck.

[militantinremission]

Enter the Elites... But will it help?

Black America has begun to Stand On Our Square & it's obvious that the Democratic Party doesn't know how to deal w/ it. I said that 2024 is a 'Year Of Affirmation' & as Black America reaffirms Our Agenda, the DNC continues to send out Democratic Shills that do Kamala Harris more harm than good. The latest Tools out of the DNC Toolbox are Magic Johnson & Barack Obama. Magic is not known for his Public Speaking, but there he was- trying to Sell the Soap to Black Men at a Rally in Flint, Mi. What I first noticed, was Magic's 3rd Party reference to the Black Community; I guess he isn't Black anymore, he's 'Magic'. It was pretty clear that he didn't write what he was reading. Magic sounded like a White Man from the Jim Crow South: "We gotta get Our Black Men to Vote". This despite The Fact that the ONLY Demographic Group that votes at a larger percentage than Black Men, are Black Women.

Magic Johnson is beloved for his outstanding Professional Basketball Career, his victory over HIV, and his success in Business. I don't know who he is beholden to, but I suggest he stays out of Black Politics; especially at a Time when We're taking note of Who's with Us & Who isn't. Politics isn't Magic's lane, & he risks doing real damage to his Social Capital. Unfortunately, Magic Johnson is just one of many Black Celebrities & Elites stepping up to Democratic Microphones. It's comical to see this recent spotlight on Black America, when you consider how unapologetic The Democratic Party has been in BLATANTLY ignoring Our Concerns over the last 3Yrs. Not long after his inauguration, Joe Biden spoke to CBC Members on a Zoom Call. They were trying to ferret out Biden's 'Black Agenda', but he told them that they need to work w/ Latinx because they will be the Majority in 2040. The CBC fell back, but the Black Grassroots aren't settling. Joe Biden TOTALLY reneged on his Promise to 'Have Black America's Back'. Among the Measures that The Biden-Harris Administration ignored were:

A George Floyd Justice in Policing Bill

An Anti-Black Hate Crime Bill

An Anti-Lynching Law that focused on Black Lives

A Measure to 'Defund' or divert resources from Militarized Units of Police Departments to Mental Health Outreach & EMS Units

$4.5B in Aid to Black Farmers

Joe Biden's 'Lift Every Voice' Act

Kamala Harris' 'Lift Act'

Democratic Shills are quick to say that the Biden- Harris Administration didn't have the numbers to get ANY of that legislation through Congress, but They had no problem gathering enough Bipartisan support to Sign Off on:

An Asian Hate Crime Law

A Federal Gay Marriage Law

Aid & Comfort to 100,000 Afghani & 100,000 Ukrainian Refugees, in addition to MILLIONS of unvetted Illegal Immigrants

Roughly $175B to support an Ultraconservative (Neo Nazi) Ukrainian Oligarchy

Over $30B to support The [Ethno] State of Israel's Zionist Agenda of Genocide & a 'Greater Israel'

Magic Johnson was still catching lumps from the New Black Media, when Barack Obama made a stop on the Campaign Trail (in Pittsburgh?) to give Black Men yet another scolding. In his Address that was equal parts Condescension & Accusation, Barack Obama had the audacity to tell 'The Brothas'(???) that Kamala Harris:

Grew up like Us

Knows Us

Went to College w/ Us

Understands 'The Struggles' & the Pain & Joy that comes out of that Experience

Worked harder & did more (like We did) to 'achieve' the 2nd highest Office in The Land

Barry needs to go back to Martha's Vineyard & stay Radio Silent. His Legacy is not as shiny as he thinks. Black America lost 54% of Our Collective Wealth on his Watch, while Mainstream America gained $35 Trillion in Wealth. The more he speaks, the more he spotlights how different He & Kamala Harris are from Us. As I stated before, Barack & Kamala don't have a 'Black American' Experience, they both have an IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE. Neither grew up in Black Culture or spent their Formidable Years in the Black Community. The Truth is that BOTH began their 'Black Experience' as Young Adults (in Black Elite/ Boule settings). How many Black Men did Barack have access to before Reverend Jeremiah Wright? The Fact that the First [Noticably] 'Black' Man & Woman in The Oval Office AREN'T from 'The Soil' is not lost on Us. We also see how BOTH aspired to the Highest Levels of Power in just 2 Generations; This has not been the Experience of Indigenous Black Americans in 248Yrs.

Michael Harriot, Ta Nehesi Coats, Van Jones, & a growing number of Mainstream Black Journalists are taking a harder political line. Nina Turner was first to pubically call out Obama for his condescending language towards Black Men, but she has been joined by Roland Martin & a growing number of Media Bootlicks that are starting to See the Light. The accusation of Sexism & Misogyny levied on Black Men Collectively, is unfounded. A recent CNN Poll showed 69% of Black Men voted for Hillary Rodham Clinton in 2016, higher than the 60% that voted for Joe Biden in 2020. Barack himself favored an Open Nomination Process, over simply placing Kamala at the top of the Democratic Ticket. Rumor has it that He favored Gavin Newsome & Sen. Mark Kelly; does that make Barry a Misogynist? Nina Turner told a CNN Panel that the Black Men she spoke to have reasons for moving away from the Democratic Party, but NO ONE in Mainstream Media is talking about those reasons. Society regards Barack Obama as the'Chief Negro Whisperer', but he seems clueless about what motivates Black Men.

The Aftereffect of Barack's 'Address to Black Men' has been a barrage of comments on New Black Media Platforms. CNN's Abby Phillip had a Panel of 'Black Men' to discuss Barack's Message, but the Panelists featured were questionable at best. No One can deny that Barack Obama has lost his luster w/ Black America, & Mainstream Media Outlets are beginning to admit that this is a Trend that started after Obama's First Term in Office. Blackfolk committed to Obama's Agenda of 'Hope' & 'Change'; We could not fathom that he would put EVERYONE ELSE before Us. We made excuses for his disregard of Black Specific Issues. Obama's 'Beer Summit' w/ Skip Gates was a head scratcher. Flint, Michigan was a Wake Up Call. Mother Emmanuel Church, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Freddy Gray, & Michael Brown made it clear that Barack WON'T protect Us. His interview w/ Ta Nehesi Coats on the topic of Reparations brought it Home that Barack had no intention of doing ANYTHING for Us. We touted Obama as One of Our Own, but he was far from it. We validated him & he used that validation to publicly scold Us. 8Yrs later, Barack Obama's 'Big Daddy' Routine has gotten stale & his language towards Black Men is unacceptable.

Some of Us question Obama's motivation. Were his comments really a gaff, or was this part of a larger narrative? We know that Barack was behind Joe Biden's decision to 'drop out' of the Presidential Campaign, & We know that Kamala Harris wasn't his first choice to replace him. If earlier rumors regarding a plot by Obama, Nancy Pelosi, & possibly Chuck Schumer to destroy Joe Biden's 'Legacy' are true, Barack looks more Clinical than Clueless. The Harris-Walz Campaign tried to mitigate the damage by quickly putting out a 'Plan for Black Men', but EVERYONE KNOWS that Affirmative Action set a precedent on Race Specific Policy. Congress will reject ANY Plan for 'Black Men' before Ed Blum or SCOTUS does. In other words, this 'Policy' is more Word Salad. A closer look at this Harris- Walz Policy reveals more of the same 'Rising Tide' Legislation that Dems only offer Black Voters. It ignores Issues that Black Men say are important.

The Harris-Walz Campaign may have a better understanding of Black Specific Issues if they appeared on Platforms other than The Breakfast Club, Roland Martin Unfiltered, All The Smoke, The Shade Room, & Call Her Daddy. New Black Media has REAL QUESTIONS. We want to know about Kamala's Policy Platform & 'Black Agenda', but We also want to know more about Kamala personally:

What's the deal w/ her Father's Lineage?

Where is his Birth Certificate?

What Year was he born- Was it 1938?

Who is Beril/ Beryl Finegan?

If her Grandmother died in 1960, WHO is the woman pictured holding her as a baby?

Who is Iris Finegan?

Are the Black People pictured w/ her in Jamaica actual Family Members or Plantation Hands?

Did she know about Doug Emhoff's indiscretions?

If her Father (& Step Mother) currently live crosstown from her & Doug in Washington D.C., why is he absent from her Campaign?

Kamala has been making herself more available to Media, but it has not worked in her best interest. The Harris-Walz Campaign has no other options w/ Election Day being less than 3 Weeks away, & her support leveling off. The DNC can keep sending out Shills to get Blackfolk 'In Line', but without a Clear Message & SPECIFIC STRATEGY to actually move America 'Forward'', Kamala just looks like she's repeating the same Menu of Word Salads across different Platforms. We're not the only demographic moving away from the Democratic Party, but We appear to be leading the Exodus. As for Black Celebrities & Elites, it's Time to choose Sides... You're either On Code or you're Not.

-The Smart Play, is to Bet on Black.

[biot08]

I remember a common enough thought exercise when I was in school, was what would I do, in America, if Nazis took over like they did in Germany.

Who would stand where? What would we do? Of course none of us would tolerate the situation. We would all speak out, we would all fight.

The question seems to be being asked right now.

The answer is pretty simple, it turns out.

Vote. Meaningfully. It's not enough to not vote for Trump or the Republicans who back him. Vote for the greatest chance for victory.

Blue, all the way down the ticket. It's not progressives versus authoritarianism. It's about realising that too many tried to 'send a message' already in 2016, and we know how that turned out. We know the rules of the system. They are not unchangeable, but if you want them to change, you need to preserve democracy.

This time, we vote Kamala/Walz. In a landslide. Even if you are in a 'safe' district. Even if you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that your state will go full blue at the electoral college level. Make the American people's voice obvious. Drown out the man who wants to be Hitler. Make it -obvious- that this is a losing political strategy.

Trump did a lot of damage in 2016. That was with an unprepared GOP. This time, they are prepared, and they are ready. If they take power this time, they may not ever give it back without the use of violence. And that violence will absolutely be disproportionate, mostly against people you care about.

There is no scenario here where a third party candidate wins. And there is no scenario where the system, resilient enough to survive a civil war, can be accelerated into collapsing for your glorious revolution or whatever it is some people seem to be hoping will happen if Trump wins.

We got this. The Electoral College is absolute garbage, but we got Biden in 2020 despite the January 6th attempted coup and other extremely hostile actions from people who were supposed to uphold the system and instead tried to betray it. They will be trying again.

But if we get out the vote, we get out the numbers, we can make victory inevitable and obvious to anyone and everyone who is watching, and drown them out.

We can establish a foundation with which to build the progressive future we really want.

We can move the window to the left. We can make sure laws get passed to enshrine queer rights. We can make sure immigrants are protected and get to live lives with dignity. We can improve our lives, and the lives of those we care about!

But we need foundation, first.

Blue, at every federal level. Give America a president and a congress that is actually interested in governing.

[posttexasstressdisorder]

Dear MoveOn member,

We have some very good news to share, and it may surprise you. But history tells us we must seize this moment ... or else.

Here's the news: Federal courts ruled against the Trump administration 96% of the time in May.1 Yes, 96%!

That's why Donald Trump is increasingly attacking the courts and judges. It's straight out of the authoritarian playbook.

Political scientist Adam Bonica describes "the authoritarian script:

Court rules against leader

Attack judges as biased/dangerous

Delegitimize judicial system

Create permission for threats

IF NO MASS RESISTANCE → Purge the courts

IF MASS RESISTANCE → Forced to retreat."2

Bonica warns, "Every authoritarian who successfully destroyed judicial independence did so because civil society failed to unite in time. The key difference? Whether people mobilized."3

Mass resistance is our way out of Trump's authoritarianism. And while there's so much to fight, job No. 1 is to stop Trump's massive budget bill that House Republicans just passed, which would reshape American government and be the largest upward transfer of wealth in American history—at a time when wealth inequality is already at record levels.4

Trump will be at his pinnacle of power if he can twist enough arms to sign this bill into law. We cannot let that happen. Full stop.

But here's the thing: The bill is also a huge opportunity for us to organize, grow our coalition, and mass mobilize. It's truly a horrific piece of legislation that would harm millions—ripping away people's health care, leaving people to go hungry, ending the only plan our country has to curb climate change, and so much more. And it's all to give the ultrawealthy massive tax breaks.5

The Senate is now considering the bill. Trump wants it on his desk by July 4, which means time could be running short. Our first goal is to slow down the bill, giving us crucial time to help Americans understand how it would harm them and their neighbors, organize, grow our numbers, and mobilize like our lives depend on it. Because they do.

We also need to hold accountable House Republicans in moderate or blue districts who voted for the bill, so that they can't possibly vote for final passage once it comes back from the Senate for a final vote.

This work couldn't be more important and urgent. But we need your help. We've been putting up hard-hitting billboards and plastering social media with ads in the districts of six of the most vulnerable House Republicans in Congress, all of whom represent moderate or blue districts. Now we need to expand those ad campaigns to show the harm and chaos these members of Congress would cause to their own constituents. We need to ramp up this work to reach more people and to mobilize at scale.

As a grassroots organization, we can do this work only with you. Will you donate $5 a month to power, continue to build, and sustain this work for as long as it takes to stop Trump’s authoritarianism?

Yes, I'll chip in $5 a month. (If you've saved your payment information with ActBlue Express, your donation will go through immediately.)

No, I'm sorry, I can't make a monthly donation.

Federal judges are blunting Trump's impact. But they can hold for only so long. The rest is up to us. And time is of the essence. Join us.

Thanks for all you do.

–Nakia, Tes, Corinne, Alex, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "May 27, 2025," Letters from an American, May 28, 2025 https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-27-2025

2. Post on Bluesky by Adam Bonica, May 26, 2025 https://bsky.app/profile/adambonica.bsky.social/post/3lq45lt6pnt2t

3. Ibid.

4. "The Largest Upward Transfer of Wealth in American History," The Atlantic, May 22, 2025 https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/05/big-beautiful-transfer-of-wealth/682885/

5. "There’s a reason Republicans want to hide what’s in their newly passed megabill," MSNBC, May 22, 2025 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/republican-house-bill-medicaid-snap-cuts-tax-cut-trump-rcna208380

Want to support MoveOn's work? The MoveOn community will work every moment, day by day and year by year, to resist Trump's agenda, contain the damage, defeat hate with love, and begin the process of swinging the nation's pendulum back toward sanity, decency, and the kind of future that we must never give up on. And to do it MoveOn needs your ongoing support, now more than ever. Will you stand with MoveOn?

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PAID FOR BY MOVEON POLITICAL ACTION, https://pol.moveon.org/. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. MoveOn Political Action - PO Box 96142, Washington, D.C. 20090-6142.

This email was sent to Byron Beyer on May 29, 2025. To change your email address or update your contact info, click here. MoveOn's privacy policy was recently updated. To read our new privacy policy, click here.

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I'd like it better if it wasn't YetAnotherFundraisingEmail sent to someone who has absolutely zero funds to send anyone.

[unitedwestand2025]

MEN Plz read and discuss: Life and Control without Empathy

Women's bodies, health and pregnancy are complicated topics. Recently had a conversation with a man that ..truely was CLUELESS about many things. I would like to discuss these topics so maybe others can learn a bit more about women and our issues. First women have periods about every 28 days, some of us are not exact and may be 26-30 days. If we are highly stressed or sick we may not have a period for an additional week or so. If we lose enough body fat we stop having periods like olympians..like I did for 9months in college and I was a virgin at the time. If we go to a clinic then it may take a few days and by this point it is after 6 weeks. For some women this is EXTRA horrible. They are NOT thinking they are pregnant because they have NOT been having sex. Then they find out then that they must have been drugged and raped. If we go to court about rape ... (UNLESS we have video tape) many times we are told it is "He said She said", called a whore or slut that should have kept our legs together and the man is patted on the back. Like the Belgium medical student that was told he did rape her but he was too "talented" so no jail time. Bonus he is going to be a gyno or female doctor so golden ticket to violate female patients. Above example is not the US. Here in the US we have someone in the oval office that is a convicted sex offender and rushed confirming Brett K. into making laws for this country. He is enforcing his version of the laws even though he was accused of sexual assault and no FULL FBI investigation was allowed to transpire before confirmation. We were told that it is up to the states to determine how much human rights women are allowed. We already had a civil war and the result was that states do NOT have the right to take away human rights from certain groups. We were told that if you did not like the laws of one state you could go else where. Now states are trying to classify getting healthcare in a different state is a convictable crime. 5 States want to equate getting an abortion to murder chargeable with DEATH penalty. South Caroline is voting on this currently. Other states want to give MORE time in jail to a woman than her RAPIST and they only go to prison about 2% of the time. (The death penalty is NOT pro-LIFE) Women have many health complications during pregnancy/birth that put OUR lives at risk. Ectopic pregnancy, placenta abruption, normal Gods abortion where if we do NOT receive an abortion for a pregnancy that can not make it to term WE will die.

Navaeh Crain Porsha Ngumezi Josseli Barnica Savita Halappavanar These are just some of the women that doctors were not able to treat because the laws are written vaguely. If courts find they violated the vague law then they could go to prison for many decades. These women were MURDERED by CONGRESS and their families should SUE these congressmen. (Murder by congress is NOT pro-LIFE)

It is religious people pushing that "conception" (2 cells) is a "baby"(which it is not) and it is murder. Here is what the bible has to say.

Genesis 2:7 "BREATH of life ... became a living being". Exod 21:22 - 21:23 A pregnant woman is beaten and loses the child= monetary value he deserves. If woman dies then the man must die. Numbers 5:21, abortion instructions The bible does say though that wearing 2 fabrics together is a stonable offense. This is why we have SEPERATION of church and state. Our laws have said for decades that a person with a FULLY developed body, heart and brain is only alive if they have enough brain waves. If they do not have this we take their still beating heart out of their body and give it to someone else. We have done this millions of times for decades and it is NEVER Murder. A woman is NOT just breeding stock she has rights. When she is raped the rapest should go to jail. When she is BLEEDING OUT or with sepis she should be allowed healthcare to save her life. (We should also NOT be jailed for miscarrying and fined like the the woman in GA) The standard of care for men is if you are stabbed /have an accident and are bleeding out they TREAT YOU. Women are told you are not close enough to death can you come back tomorrow and when your organs are shutting down MAYBE we can save your life. OUR LIVES matter. Women do NOT get pregnant on our own but we are the only ones risking our lives, being jailed for having miscarriages or threatened with death of health complications... or die from death penalty. All risks, responsibilities, judgement is dumped on us. Now govt is gutting funding for Medicaid to help us pay for delivery, and healthcare the children we are FORCED to have even if we cant afford it. They also gutted program to feed kids at school, at home with food stamps / food pantries. HOW is this about LIFE when GOVT will not help us CARE for the LIFE? Nope they'll just judge and jail us for this too. Look up the "American Plan" or IF you want to reduce abortions then mandate the OUTPATIENT procedure to have reversable vasectomies for MEN. MEN take some responsibility for YOUR actions. Or maybe us women need to start looking at the bills for Life starts at ejaculation bills in 2 states . Men ....YOU will be charged $1000, $5000 for doing lefty, righty or backdoors that do NOT lead to pregnancy. We can mandate the ERs start treating you like they do us and NOT giving you medical care when you are bleeding out, clots, septic. If it is acceptable for us ...then it is for YOU too. ------------- OR maybe after looking at how we LET women die from miscarriages want to KILL her if she wants to abort to SAVE her life, give her barely anything to FEED these children... we admit no one cares about the life, they just want control. Govt gutted these programs to help raise kids to GIVE MORE money to oligarchs. They want us UNeducated breeding stock for workers they can make money from. STOP punishing women for not wanting to have kids we can't afford to take care of. Stop saying we do NOT have a right to our own LIFE by denying us healthcare. WE ARE PEOPLE and our lives matter. PS I LOVE men that understand they do NOT want the govt controlling their bodies and SUPPORT women in having that SAME right to bodily autonomy as them. YOU are real MEN, Thank you. I HATE assholes who say "YOUR body, MY Choice." If you are a man who stays SILENT to all this then YOU are complicit! At this point ...F U!! Women are DYING and they are going to jail with fines because they miscarried. IF..IF you loved us you would help stop this.

[cazort]

I've seen a small number of people on Tumblr advocating for voting for Jill Stein, the green party candidate, and a lot of them seem to take for granted the idea that she is better than Harris. None of them really make a convincing case for her, they just seem to assume that she is, particularly on the issue of Palestine.

But here's the thing. I don't even think she's a good candidate. Like I consider her borderline unacceptable, whereas I consider Harris to be a genuinely good candidate. It's bad enough that if I were in a state like Maine or Alaska that had ranked choice, I'm not even sure I would rank Jill Stein above Kamala Harris.

Why don't I like Jill Stein?

Inexperience. She has only held one political office, the town meeting (like city council) of Lexington, MA, a city with population under 35,000. This community is an extremely affluent community that leans very far left; in 2020 nearly 81% of the community voted for Biden and under 17% for Trump. Interestingly, in this own community where she served as a local elected official, in her 2016 run she still only got 1.3% of the vote, so she isn't even popular in the one place she has the most experience. She has never held state- or national political office and she has lost every other election she has run in. Her lack of experience is related both to her ability to win (people are unlikely to vote for someone who lacks experience) and her ability to do the job if she were to win. And it's not unrealistic for independents and third-party candidates to get elected to bigger offices. There have always been a few in US congress and it would be more attainable to get into a state congress; a few green party members have done this recently: Shane Robinson served in the MD state house until 2019, Henry Bear and Ralph Chapman in Maine. One, Fred Smith, even got elected in Arkansas as a green party candidate although he later changed back to a Democrat. The point is that there are even people in her party who are more experienced.

Disregard for the consequences of her actions. She threw at least one national election, the 2016 Presidential election, for Trump, and we are still suffering the consequences. Jill Stein's actions contributed to outcomes including the loss of abortion rights, all sorts of horrible environmental consequences, all sorts of negative consequences for immigrants, and a long list of other problems. This scenario is fully preventable; it could be prevented for instance by calling on your followers to only vote for you in states with ranked choice and non-swing states, and then giving a conditional endorsement of the next-best candidate and calling on your supporters to vote for them in swing states that lack ranked choice. She could have made this call and prevented the calamity we lived through, but she didn't. This shows great irresponsibility.

Age. She is already getting very old; she is currently 74 which is only 7 years younger than Biden and 4 years younger than Trump. Age was one of my biggest objections to Biden, was a big factor in me disliking Trump, and is a major reason I think Harris is a big improvement. And Jill Stein is much closer to Trump and Biden in age than Harris. Age is a big concern for me because older people are likely to be or become out-of-touch on many issues and also may experience cognitive decline.

Platform. Jill Stein's platform is objectively worse (and weaker) than the national/global green party's platform. One of my favorite things about the green party is that they tend to take a systems approach to environmentalism, through things like carbon tax which work with the market rather than against it. In countries where the green party has a significant number of seats in the legislature, like Germany where they control 117/733 seats in the Bundestag, they often end up cooperating with pro-business parties like Libertarians and even the center-right party on some issues, and this makes them better able to achieve their goals. But Stein takes a more stereotypically liberal "tax and spend" and regulatory approach making her not much different from the mainstream of the Democratic party in this regard. I.e. she supported the "green new deal" which is supported by many Democrats and to some degree by nearly all Democrats. This approach makes it less likely she would be able to appeal to and/or cooperate with moderates and independents.

Lack of a realistic plan to win. There is a realistic path for an idealistic third-party candidate to win the presidency, and it is through getting ranked choice implemented in more states first, thus removing the spoiler effect. And it particularly through embracing TVR (total vote runoff) over IRV (Instant Runoff Voting, which Alaska and Maine use currently.) Jill Stein hasn't even mentioned TVR, and although she has voiced support for ranked choice, it is not a point that she emphasizes particularly strongly. She is not active in the Fair Vote movement which is the largest movement to implement ranked choice in most states. To me, this sends the message that she's not really in it to win, she's just here to make a statement.

She's not a serious candidate, not a good candidate, and not an acceptable candidate.

I don't say this lightly, but I think that if I wanted to, I could mount a more successful third-party campaign for the presidency than she has. I think I would be a better candidate for president than she is. And I think I could make a more realistic path towards those goals than she has.

And I don't even think I'm particularly good. I know other people who could probably even do a better job than me. This is not saying I or these other people would be good candidates. It's more saying how I just see Jill Stein as being inadequate.

And this is why I think Jill Stein is a really lousy candidate. She is not the idealistic third-party candidate to break us out of the two-party system.

And when you see this, you see that all the people pushing her as "the only good candidate" are really pushing anti-vote propaganda. They are trying to manipulate the left into throwing the election.

This election cycle we have a legitimately good candidate: Harris. She ticks all the boxes. She is younger than Biden. She is more progressive yet while being rooted in reality enough to bring in moderates. She has called for a ceasefire in Palestine, and has been critical enough that she's attracted ire and backlash from the Israeli hardliner and AIPAC-funded crowd. And her track record as Attorney General when you start scrutinize it, is surprisingly and refreshingly good. Go look it up and see for yourself.

[mass-convergence]

About Shutdowns

Hi. It’s December 20, 2024.

If you’re in the US (or if you’re not but get blasted by news that happens in our country regardless because ‘Murica) you probably have heard about some stuff that’s been happening in regards to our budget.

Strap in folks this is a long one but bottom line up front: we shouldn’t be rooting for a government shutdown. It’ll fuck a lot of shit up and it’ll hurt a lot of people (and not the ones you’d want to “hurt” because Congress will still be getting paid through this shitfest).

Basically, in the most oversimplified way I can summarize: Congress every year has to pass a budget. Said budget allocates funds and such for the continuing functioning of our government - this is known as appropriations. This budget/appropriations (will just call it a budget from here on out) has to be passed before the fiscal year is up (so by the beginning of October). Sometimes Congress gets locked in some kind of back and forth over the bill - like in 2018-2019 it was over the stupid funding for the stupid border wall that Trump wanted to build. This tends to keep Congress from passing a budget. If Congress doesn’t pass a budget by the deadline, the government effectively shuts down because well … we don’t know where the money’s supposed to go. Sometimes Congress gets its shit together enough to pass something called a Continuing Resolution or CR - which basically lets them kick the can down the road for a bit so they can squabble more about what to do with the money. Sometimes Congress can’t even agree on the CR. And so the government shuts down.

Well, this is basically what’s happening right now in the US. There was a fight over appropriations back in September which lead to Congress passing a CR to fund the government through December. They had another CR lined up for vote this week to fund us through March. It was a behemoth of a bill that included stuff like disaster relief for the areas impacted by hurricanes this year, relief for the Maui wildfires, and funds to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. It wasn’t a popular bill but there was at least enough support that it could get through Congress and fund us through March.

Well. There was enough support until certain people interested in “government efficiency” decided to complain to their Twitter followers. That effectively torpedoed any GOP support for the bill. Which means we now are less than 24 hours from the government shutting down due to a lapse in funding.

This is not a good thing.

I’ve seen some people (including my own mother) who are frustrated with the current dumpster fire that is our political situation basically taking the “FAFO” stance. They’re essentially rooting for the government to shutdown because people need to see what they’re going to get because they voted for Trump (disregarding that half of the US didn’t even vote for the guy). I understand the frustration and I even understand the reaction of “you made your bed now lie in it”.

However we should not be rooting for a government shutdown.

On the larger scale - this would negatively impact our economy, which according to the last election was something people really cared about. The federal government is the largest employer in the US with around 3 million employees. If the government shuts down then a portion of those employees would be furloughed (hard for me to find exact numbers on this - most reports just mention a nebulous “hundreds of thousands”) which means they can’t report to work. Other employees like the military, law enforcement, etc. who are deemed essential for the protection of life and property would have to work but won’t get paid until the shutdown is over.

“Yeah but I hate the military and cops”

Yeah well other essential government workers include: medical staff, fire fighters, air traffic controllers, and meteorologists for the NWS (who work 24/7 putting out life saving forecasts and warnings). All those people won’t get paid either.

When you’ve essentially stopped paying 3 million people - that has negative impacts on the economy. Because if you’re not getting paid, you go to spending whatever money you do have on the bare essentials and nothing more. I don’t think I need to explain why that’s a bad thing for the economy.

On the more personal level:

A lot of government employees are paid on something known as the General Schedule or GS scale. It goes from 1 to 15. As of 2024: GS-1 employees earn ~$25k per year and GS-15 employees earn ~$144k. In terms of number of GS employees per grade - this Reddit post from a few years ago shows the breakdown (and I checked on FedScope and the data is about the same for 2024 so I’m just stealing this dude’s graph).

So we have a fair chunk of folks in the GS 5-9 range then another chunk in the GS 11-14 range. Makes sense, GS 5 is a common starting salary for a federal employee who has a bachelors degree. Depending on the agency you can progress to the next pay grade after a year (my job basically has a progression where you increase a grade each year until you get to 12). Base pay (so if you’re working anywhere in the US that’s not expensive as fuck to live in) GS 5-9 salaries are ~$40k to ~$60k per year.

For an 80 hour pay period that’s $1500-$2300, ignoring taxes. Again - you may make a bit more if you’re working somewhere expensive. Still, as someone who started out as a GS-7, that’s still a paycheck to paycheck existence. And I live alone and I don’t have any student loans to worry about. I could make ends meet but I had zero savings and if I missed a paycheck I would have been in trouble.

Now imagine if I had a family. And if I were the sole income owner for said family. Even as a GS-12 (-~$87k per year or $3,400 per pay period) I would be struggling if I had to support a family.

During these shutdowns? You’ve got federal employees who are lining up at food banks because they can’t afford groceries. You’ve got people like me who are essential workers and thus have to show up for their 40-hr (or more) per week job but since we’re not getting paid, we have to take on temporary side gigs like Uber drivers or whatever… on top of our full time jobs.

And it’s not just the employees getting screwed over by this. It’s also everyone who relies on the government programs that are going to have to push pause while the shutdown happens. Social security checks and stuff will still go out but things like WIC, SNAP, etc will be impacted. You still may get those benefits but depending on how long the shutdown lasts, those programs could run out of funding. Loans and stuff will also be impacted since the people who are in those offices processing the paperwork for said loans will go into furlough status and therefore won’t be working at all during the shutdown. Regulators and inspectors for agencies like the FDA and USDA may also be put on furlough, putting food safety at risk.

Look there’s a lot more stuff I can say on this - the federal government is a behemoth of an organization that has its hands in a lot of stuff necessary for the continued functioning of our country - but in the interests of not writing an entire novel about this I will conclude with this:

A government shutdown is bad and should not be rooted for. Please go yell at your representatives to get their heads out of their asses and pass a goddamn budget.

I’m speaking as a private citizen and not as a representative for the government.

[that-starlit-wanderer]

In the spirit of "elections are decided by low- or no-information voters and most people vote based on vibes," another long-term issue for the Democrats is that a large number of voters are going to see them as the party of inflation going forward. If Donald Trump was smart and committed to the long-term electoral success of the Republican Party he would be doing anything and everything in his power to reinforce that perception by keeping inflation as low as possible throughout his second term.

The good news for Democrats is that Donald Trump is not very smart (at least about economics), and I don't think he gives much of a fuck about the long-term electoral success of the Republican Party once he's no longer in charge. So he could very well squander that.

But after 1968 an entire generation of American swing voters regarded Democrats as the party of pot smoking, flag burning, and chaos in the streets and they won one presidential election in 24 years as a result (and that required one of the biggest political scandals in US history up to that point to make it happen)*. Republicans absolutely have an opportunity here, I just don't think they're smart enough or, more importantly, disciplined enough to take it.

(*Although Democrats also maintained congressional majorities throughout that time, so maybe that's a counterpoint. I think politics was a lot less nationalized back then though and the two main parties were a lot less homogeneous. Conservative Democrats who supported Nixon/Reagan and frequently voted with Republicans in Congress were still a large faction within the party back then.)

[beardedmrbean]

Jayden Camarena, in Northern California, is contemplating blowing off the 2024 presidential election. Evan McKenzie, in battleground Wisconsin, is looking for any other candidate than the current front-runners. In Philadelphia, Pru Carmichael isn’t even convinced this race matters.

These young voters live in different cities, work different jobs and have varying political beliefs. But among the things they have in common: They voted for Joe Biden in 2020 — and now say the president can’t count on their support in 2024.

“I genuinely could not live with myself if I voted for someone who’s made the decisions that Biden has,” said McKenzie, a 23-year-old working at Starbucks and as a union organizer in Madison, Wisconsin. “I didn’t even feel great about" voting for Biden in 2020, he said.

The feeling helps illustrate why Biden’s ratings and support among young voters have dipped noticeably in recent polling. In November, NBC News’ latest national poll showed Biden locked in close competition with former President Donald Trump at the moment for voters ages 18-34, a sharp drop from the margins Biden enjoyed over Trump in the 2020 election, according to exit polling.

“We’ve been seeing this in our data and focus groups actually since May,” said Ashley Aylward, a senior researcher at the Democratic polling firm HIT Strategies. “And to me, it’s because the 2024 campaign season for Democrats hasn’t started yet.”

Polling a year out from an election is a snapshot in time, and Biden and his party have time to bring young voters back into the fold. But Aylward and others said it will take work.

“This is the alarm bell that we needed to make sure that not only the Biden campaign, but every other Democratic operative out there and all the campaigns down the ballot — state and local — actually invest in young people, because we know how much they can change the outcome,” Aylward said.

NBC News spoke with voters who responded to the poll, as well as other voters 18-34 who supported Biden in 2020, but who now say he hasn’t earned their vote for next year, to get a clearer picture of why they are unhappy with Biden and what they want to see him do to earn their support back.

“It’s so complicated, because it almost feels like if I were to give my vote for Biden, I will be showing the Democratic Party that what they are putting out is enough, which is the bare minimum in my opinion,” said Camarena, a 24-year-old living outside the Bay Area.

Voters cited a number of policy areas that disappointed them, including insufficient moves to address climate change and Biden’s inability to fully cancel student loan debt or codify Roe v. Wade, as the president deals with a closely divided Congress. However, Biden’s response to the Israel-Hamas war may be having the greatest effect on his relationship with this voter bloc.

The NBC News national poll, conducted more than a month after the start of the Israel-Hamas war, shows 70% of voters under 35 disapproving of Biden’s handling of the war.

McKenzie cast his first presidential ballot three years ago for Biden, when the Democratic candidate carried Wisconsin narrowly, in part thanks to young voters like McKenzie. He said he urged his friends to vote for Biden then, telling them, “You’ve got to do this.”

He now says he won’t be having those conversations this election cycle. He’s angry at the president for his handling of the Israel-Hamas war, and the threat of losing the White House to the Republican Party has done little to win over his vote.

“I want to show the Democratic Party as a young person that you still need to earn our vote and if you don’t, the consequences will be your career,” McKenzie said. “A Republican getting elected isn’t the end. It is the beginning of a much larger fight.”

Big promises unfulfilled

In 2020, Biden carried young voters by more than 20 points against Trump, but some of that support appears to have been tepid — and tied to enormous campaign promises from Biden that he has not been able to deliver as president of a closely divided nation.

“I mean, he made a lot of really big promises in his campaign and virtually none of them were followed through on,” said Austin Kapp, a 25-year-old living in Castle Rock, Colorado. “I mean, he could have codified Roe v. Wade, he could have stood up for the rights of people all over the country, he could have done a lot of things, but he didn’t.” ________________

While Biden and Democrats pushed to codify the protections of Roe at the federal level, congressional realities made legislative efforts impossible. A vote to codify Roe in May 2022 failed in the Senate, with Biden lashing out at Republicans afterward and urging voters to “elect more pro-choice senators this November, and return a pro-choice majority to the House.” Democrats kept the Senate but lost the House in November 2022.

Biden also backed a rules change to the Senate filibuster, which would have allowed legislation to pass by simple majority instead of a higher, 60-vote threshold, but the change was blocked in a bipartisan vote.

Biden wasn’t Kapp’s first choice as a candidate in the last election, and this year he plans to vote third party if the contest is a Biden-Trump rematch. He graduated from school just last spring carrying both private and federal student loans.

When asked how he felt about his loan repayments beginning soon, Kapp groaned: “Oh, yeah, that was another thing.”

“It’s kind of sad to see that the quote unquote lesser of two evils that we were all promised, is this,” Kapp said of Biden.

Camarena agrees. Though she is vehemently against Trump, she says she only supported Biden in 2020 reluctantly.

“It was more of a well, [Biden]’s better than Trump, you know?” she said.

Camarena’s feelings toward Biden now are worse. She works for CalFire and is passionate about addressing climate change. She says she was “turned off” when the Biden administration approved the controversial Willow oil drilling project in Alaska.

“It made me really angry,” she said. “He painted himself as, you know, trying to advance or improve climate change.”

When she talks to other voters her age about Biden, she says, the sentiment is similar and discouraging. “It feels like the best option that we have isn’t good enough,” Camarena said with a sigh, adding, “It can feel really powerless.”

Worried voters cite higher prices

Sentiments like these among a constituency Democrats rely on to win elections mean campaigning in 2024 will be critical, maybe even more so than in previous elections, said Daniel Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute.

“I think on some level, you can say that the Biden-Harris team have not been as aggressively pitching their accomplishments to voters and maybe that they don’t feel like they’re in campaign mode yet,” he said. “You certainly see this with the economy, which the sort of macroeconomic indicators have been positive for quite a while and keep surprising analysts that things seem to be doing much better than folks thought they would.”

While the economy is performing stronger than when Biden first took office, Olivia Thompson, a 26-year-old mother in Elko, Nevada, says she doesn’t feel those improvements.

“Not even a little bit, and I’m living it firsthand,” Thompson said.

Her family of five lives paycheck to paycheck. She says Biden earned her vote last election based on promises for a more prosperous future.

“I was more excited about the fact that he was saying that he was gonna fix the economy and get everything back on track and then everything just skyrocketed,” she complained. “All of like our grocery bills and gas — it just never went back down.”

Thompson plans to vote for a third-party candidate in November.

Some of the economic anxiety voters have may be because they’re not hitting the same economic milestones that their parents did, said Aylward, the Democratic opinion researcher.

“I think it would do Biden wonders if he came out with a really, really clear plan for that to help these young people’s anxiety,” she said. Millennials and Generation Z voters "are seeing just how far out of reach buying a home is or saving money and, of course, student loans are really the first barrier and piece to that.”

Several voters said they supported Biden on the expectation he would tackle the student debt crisis. The administration successfully erased $127 billion in student debt — more than any president in history, but after the Supreme Court ruled against his original plans to cancel up to $400 billion in student debt, that failure became the lasting headline.

“Whether you like it or not, Biden has done a number of things, but young people are just far less likely to give him credit, good or bad, on anything that he’s done,” Cox said.

McKenzie, who graduated in the spring, said he remains unimpressed by the accomplishments of the administration.

“I’m glad it’s the most ever" canceled student debt, he said. "It’s still not even close to what was promised,” he added. “And I think that that’s sort of what I’m going into this campaign feeling, like broken promises all around.”

Combating that sentiment will be crucial to winning back support.

Cox said he thinks the Biden campaign "is in deep trouble at this stage.” He said, “There’s still plenty of time, but the trajectory is not good for him.”

Camarena is one voter leaving the door open for her mind to be changed.

“I think that there is a chance” of Biden winning back her support, she said, adding that she expects the president to call for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war.

“If he would do that, that would make me reconsider. Though, she said, she would "still be a bit skeptical.”

Another voter said it’s already too late.

Carmichael, of Philadelphia, hoped the Biden administration would remind her of the Obama days. She says she is disappointed by both Biden and Trump and wants to spend her time focusing on local community care and voting in local elections.

“I don’t think the presidency has too much of an effect on what happens in my day-to-day life,” she said.

Carmichael won’t be supporting Biden in November. If the choices next fall are Biden and Trump, she says, she will likely leave those boxes empty.

“I gave him one shot and it was not worth it,” she said.

[lesbiangummybearmafia]

Ok so 1953 was 70 years ago... 2053 is only 29 years away. This is my point the conservatives and Republicans in this country want to drag us all back 70 years ago if they had their way. I chose 1953 out of thin air, but pretty much any year of 50s. Because white men controlled everything back then. It's the 21st century for fuck sake, we're closer to 2053 now, are we all going to sit idly by allow them to this? Y'all realize we could easily vote all those old white bastards out of congress if enough got up off our butts and actually went out and voted, no matter what it takes. The only reason they stay in Congress and everywhere else is because more old conservatives and Republicans get out and vote. And I get those fuckers make impossible in alot of places to vote if we aren't one of them. But we gotta be fuck you, we're stronger, smarter, better, younger, more determined to have a better future. So we're not going to let their bullshit trickery and straight up cheating stop us from voting we'll get it done. Even just to piss those motherfuckers off. Vote for people of color, lgbtqia+ candidates, trans candidates, vote for not Republicans or Democratic candidates (if they get enough votes they'll win), vote for candidates that are younger then 50!! Just fucking vote, because even if think it does nothing, if dislike/hate conservatives/republican/fascist politicians voting against them will piss them the fuck off, prove them wrong about all of us, make them look stupid (which is always fun) and hopefully save our democracy. Because those motherfuckers are chipping away at it, it now huge fucking pieces their taking off not little pebbles. Just look at all laws they've passed at the state level to restrict our civil liberties, control free speech by banning books, passing laws to control women's reproductive rights, first the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade now having state after state passing insane laws banning abortions. In every case is a clear indication how much conservatives man don't care about women or our lives. Then the onslaught of laws targeting the trans community, limiting their access to health care they need and unleashing a wave of transphobic all over ourcountry. Also laws targeting the lgbtqia+ community, banning drag shows, that in theit history never hurt anyone. There a celebration.

We the people, remember there are way more of us then any political party, any amount of politicians, no matter how much powerful they think they are. We our number them! We are louder, we are angry, we are feed up, we are tried of the lies, we are tried of all the bullshit, we done being told what America should be like. Because that definition doesn't work anymore, we're gonna give America a new definition for right now! For the 21st century, for 2023 because we're not going the fuck backwards no fucking more. The only direction is forward, into the future, we want to know what America can be in 5, 10, 15, 20 years from now. That is not some conservative, Republican, fascist, authoritarian old white man wet dream!!! Nope, not happening not on our watch assholes!

We will not go gentle into that good night! We will rage, rage against the dying of the light!! In other words will not allow our democracy to be killed by traitors to our country that even now spit fascist ideals in Congress, in Governor offices, state legislators, mayors officials, city councils, school districts. Just look at horrors that been unleashed on Florida because of Ron DeSantis who is without doubt a fascist and an authoritarian!

That why the next elections are so important. Why it's so important to register to vote at

And go out vote or to make it easier if your state allows voting by mail, that what I do. I'm in Arizona, they send me a ballot in mail, I fill it out. I can either mail it or drop it off. It's great!! To see if your state has voting by mail go to.

Some other voting resources:

https://rockthevote.org

https://vote411.org

(Helps if your homeless and want to vote)

(Helps people with disabilities to vote)

[runawaymarbles]

@grison-in-space I hope you're right! Genuinely, I hope you're right. I agree that we definitely need a mandate in congress, and should push people for that. The midterms are going to be vital.

However.

I also want to point out that when Roosevelt came into power, the government had not just been gutted on purpose. The IRS is probably not going to be able to leap into action because they'll have been running on a skeleton crew for four years. He's gutting every regulatory agency--getting those back is going to take time. The private sector is going to move in on anything they can, and getting that back is going to take a lot of things including the courts, which are currently not in our favor. We need to hope and fucking PRAY that the current makeup of the Supreme Court stands when we get a Democrat in office, because if Trump gets to replace Alito and Thomas, we're pretty fucked for longer.

(I will also point out that Roosevelt was president for 12 years, which brings a level of stability to those programs that we will never have unless we start electing Democrats to back-to-back eight year terms which we haven't done since uh. Uhhhhhh.)

I want you to be right. But I also want people to be realistic. Because what I think the most likely outcome right now is, is that people go in expecting the New Deal, they don't get it, and then four years later they say "why should we even bother? they're all the same." Just like they did this time (despite the number of unsexy bills the Biden Administration DID get through.) That is what this post is about.

@titleknown I thought for a while about whether I should respond to this, frankly, because I started off reading you in good faith, and then I got to "OP is probably one of the most rancid centrist-lib post I've seen." Which, I love to imagine the communities you hang out with if you think I'm a fucking centrist. (I'm picturing something to the left of my liberal arts college, where I was persona non grata because I committed the social sin of thinking Bernie's gun control record wasn't good enough.) Congrats on being surrounded by super cool radical leftists all the time! Must be fun. Bet your chore chart is hella organized.

Anyway.

. fuck you if you think "We shouldn't demand so much of our Dem candidates" like OP, like fuck you so much.

What we should demand and what we should expect are two very different things, my friend. I'm not sure if you've noticed but presidents go into office with a huge agenda and they accomplish...some of that. Like by all means, we should push the platform left. But we have to keep supporting their partial wins in order for them to keep pushing for more. What this post is about is being realistic about what we are going to have in our hands in 2032.

While the Repubs and the Dem brass are part of it, people like you are a tar pit and a crab bucket that keeps us from fucking organizing or even being able to vote for for better.

I'm against organizing? Wow, that's news to me. Exciting for my sleep schedule though. A bunch of days have just opened up for me.

I have no sympathy for wonkish twerps like OP who childishly pretend at "real" politics that leads to the slow decay in the lives of the former.

Why do you think that getting food safety regulations back is slow decay? Why do you think that getting the CDC back is slow decay? why do you think that getting environmental regulations back is slow decay? Why do you think propping up the IRS so we can fund any of that stuff is slow decay?

And if we're not going to try and rebuild it better, to try and rebuild the capacity to build better as fast as we used to, what the fuck are politics even for?

like I said above, the New Deal came at a very fucking different time in history, with different circumstances. We should rebuild it! We should rebuild it better! But it's going! to! take! time!

That's the entire point of this post!

I don't know if you remember this but eight years ago we elected this racist buffoon who stomped around on as much as he could, so then four years ago we elected this guy who we were kind of "meh" on because at least he was better than the other guy, and then last year some contingents decided that since the other guy didn't align with them on everything, he was just as bad as his predecessor so who cares, they're all the same, why even bother.

I don't actually think we disagree that we should bother. We probably don't actually disagree on that much, politically.

But when it's time to vote in 2032 and we don't have all the things we want because they're going to be starting from underground, I hope you'll push back against the people who dramatically throw up their arms and say there's no progress 'til The Revolution So Why Should We Get Out Of Bed as vehemently as you pushed back against me saying Doing Shit Takes Time <3

Hey. Look at me. Please leave yourself a note somewhere you'll see it later that says "it is going to take years if not decades to get the United States government to the level of functionality it had in November of 2024." If we elect a democrat in 2028, we are not going to be up and running by 2032.

Please make sure you have a reminder in your phone reminding you to not look at 2028/32/36 Democratic candidates and say "why are they not promising/delivering Cool Shit?" because you are going to understand that to get Cool Shit we must have competent people running a decently funded government, and we are not going to have that.

We are not getting UBI. We are not getting single payer healthcare. We are not getting free college or free preschool. We are not redistributing wealth on a large scale. We are not getting free internet. We are not getting ranked choice voting.

If we are lucky, we are going to get an IRS that can collect taxes, qualified schoolteachers, research grants, Social Security, and a government that thinks maybe it should be a priority for people around the worlds to not have AIDS, malaria or TB.

[shieldmaidencreative]

POLITICS: Shooting our economy in the face continues

So now he's crashed our economy. China is pushing back, and while the numbers don't make sense (we import far more from them than they do on us, so reciprocal tariffs back at us don't do much), I think they are putting their foot down to try to put a stop to all this insanity. I keep seeing people act like Trump is playing 3D chess. No he's not, he's a toddler thinking that he's going to beat Kasparov with tic-tac-toe strategy, because he just learned about it on the playyground. Rather than pretending this man, who can't even string coherent sentences together and bankrupted casinos, is some sort of economic savant, how about we acknowledge the more likely scenario: that he's a narcissistic mad man who eliminated all people that would put guard rails around him, and gets off on crushing the world under his heel? He already made "deals" with Canada and Mexico his first term; then he renegotiated them at the beginning of this one (by which I mean, as insultingly as possible tossed them out the window), and now he has thrown them out again. I do enjoy seeing the finance and tech bros, who put Trump in again because they thought he'd be "good for the economy", losing their minds right now. If I have to be on this sinking ship, I want to see the oligarchs flailing in the water among the icebergs like the rest of us. Seeing them grasp at straws, trying to apply logic to a mad man's whims, is laughable. I pulled all my money out the market before this happened, because I just didn't trust it. I didn't trust the bounce yesterday. And I don't trust anything now. How can you have any stability with someone who lies constantly, listens to any poor idea that flits by his window on a whim, and has no loyalty? Maybe this will awaken some of Congress enough to assert their powers, there are certainly grumbles. We shall see. Those who are saying this isn't a big deal, don't understand the economy at all. This will hurt, ALL of us. It may take a few weeks for you to feel it...but then again, magybenot. And once again, I am so embarrassed by how we are treating those who have been our allies for decades. In a silver lining, it looks like the Trump/Elon falling out I've been so eagerly awaiting may be on the horizon. After Elon threw all that money at the Wisconsin election and lost, I think that Trump now sees him as a "loser" (one of Trump's most eloquent and favorite put-downs, tapping in at a whole two syllables). I haven't seen the two of them in public together since that election, though I may have missed it. Elon is openly blasting the tariff massacre on X. Certainly doesn't look like a honeymoon, at any rate. The death of expertise may result in the death of us all. Does anyone else find amusement in so many people overlooking all the glaring terrors in Trump's personality and voting for him "for the economy", when he literally said he'd do this? It's schrodinger's politician: if he says what you like he's telling the truth, if he says what you don't like he's just bluffing. I can't think of one thing this administration has done that I've supported. They've taken problems that I acknowledge should be addressed (government bloat, figuring out how to balance domestic spending with international interest), but it's like pointing out a smudge on a faberge egg and the solution was to smash it with a Gallagher hammer. So stupid. So stupid.

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED ON HIS DICTATOR PARADE FOR $92 MILLION!!!

Again, where is DOGE here??