#support your dems

[labelleizzy]

It's important to know what is going on.

Written by US Senator Chris Murphy (D - CT)

Report from the Senate Floor:

Last night in the Senate, something really important happened. Republicans forced us to debate their billionaire bailout budget framework. We started voting at 6 PM because they knew doing it in the dark of night would minimize media coverage. And they do not want the American people to see how blatant their handover of our government to the billionaire class is.

So I want to explain what happened last night and what we did to fight back. The apex of Republicans’ plan to turn over our government to their wealthy cronies is a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations. And they plan to pay for it with cuts to programs that working people rely on. Popular and necessary programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP, are all being targeted.

In order to pass the tax cut, Republicans have to go through a series of procedural steps. Last night, they took the first step which requires them to pass an outline of their plan, but with it, any senator can offer as many amendments as we want. So my Democratic colleagues and I did just that.

Now, we knew that Republicans would largely unanimously oppose them, but we had two objectives here. One, Republicans were forced to put their opinion on record — many for the first time — on the most corrupt parts of Trump and Musk’s agenda. Two, as I’ve been saying, I am going to make every process and procedure as slow and painful as possible for as long as my colleagues choose to ignore the constitutional crisis happening before our eyes.

So what did we propose? We proposed no tax cuts for anyone who makes a billion dollars a year. We made them vote on whether or not Elon Musk and DOGE should have limitless access to Americans’ personal data. We made them vote on whether to protect IVF and require insurers to cover it. Every single amendment Democrats proposed was shot down. On almost every single amendment, Republicans universally opposed it. Every Republican voted against our proposal to prevent more tax cuts for billionaires. The corruption and theft is happening in the open here.

The whole game for Republicans is taking your money and giving it to the wealthiest corporations and billionaires — even if it means kicking your parents out of a nursing home or turning off Medicaid for the poorest children. They know what they are doing is deeply unpopular. They are offering a tax cut to the most wealthy that is 850 times larger than what they are offering working people. Oh and by the way, any tax cuts for working people are going to be washed out by higher costs for basic necessities, like health care and food. It’s a fundamental injustice.

Thanks to your pressure and support, many of my Democratic colleagues have joined my effort to do everything we can to make sure they cannot destroy democracy and steal your money in the dark of the night. We are being loud about what is happening. I’m going to continue to grind the gears of Congress down as much as possible to make it that much harder and slower to get away with this corruption. That’s why the votes lasted until nearly 5 AM.

This is a five-alarm fire. I don’t think we have two years to plan and fight back. I think we have months. It’s still in our power to stop the destruction of our democracy with mass mobilization and effective opposition from elected officials. So we can’t miss any opportunity to take advantage of opportunities to put Republicans on the record and shine a light on what is happening.

And you have a role to play in this as well. I need you to amplify what’s happening, support the leaders who are fighting for you to make sure they can continue speaking truth to power against Musk and Trump’s billionaire cronies, and show up at rallies and town halls. Use every tool at your disposal to send a message loud and clear about how you expect my colleagues to lead and fight in this moment.

Every best wish,

US Senator Chris Murphy (D - CT)

[leninille]

quick cherik request for @mapofyourstars ✨

[navree]

Incorrect, the fact that Biden has dropped out and a candidate with history of supporting medicare for all and being more receptive to a ceasefire in the I/P conflict has made me go from "I cannot morally support the Democratic nominee" to "I am voting for the Democratic nominee despite the fact she isn't perfect in every respect." I'm really happy this played out. The Dems for the most part abandoned the old Obama platform and it feels like its possible an actual progressive agenda could come to pass in my lifetime.

Kamala 2024!

If you weren't going to vote Democratic in this election before Biden dropped out you're a dorkass loser who does not care about any of the issues you're yammering about here and also a fundamentally bad person, and I hope you get run over by a bus.

But you got one thing right in all of this gibberish, Kamala 2024.

[dianastrength]

Fic-Love

Ich habe gerade letztens wieder ein paar FFs nochmal gelesen, weil es einfach so viele unglaublich gute in diesem Fandom gibt 😌

Und weil mich das jetzt brennend interessiert: was sind so eure momentanen Top 5? Egal, ob gerade zum ersten Mal am Lesen, wieder entdeckt, beendet oder nicht, ein "got me through tough times so it's engraved in my system now"...absolut alles willkommen 😊 Gerne mit kurzem Why dazu, muss aber nicht!

Ganz wichtig: das soll keineswegs ein Vergleich oder ein Wettbewerb sein! (I mean, ich selbst hab Stand jetzt 67 Favoriten auf ff.de - guckt da sonst gerne mal vorbei - keine davon hat es weniger oder mehr verdient als die anderen, gelesen und geliebt zu werden.) Es geht einzig und allein um einen Austausch, vielleicht einen kurzen Einblick in verschiedene Genres und Personalities und Empfehlungen, durch die die eine oder andere Person ja maybe sogar was Neues findet ☺

Ich fang mal an:

Let Me Down Slowly (ff.de) by NorthWings

Meisterlich in character und die Autorin hat ein wahnsinnig präzises Gefühl für Zeit- bzw. Szenensprünge. Ich liebe die Sehnsucht in und zwischen den Zeilen und lasse mich sehr gerne immer wieder aufs Neue von manchen Sätzen brechen :')

Closer (ff.de) by Jolie92

Das Push-and-Pull, die Sexual Tension, der Schmerz...es ist eine perfekte Komposition. Jede Leseminute wert. Kann kaum erwarten, dass es weitergeht.

Gefangen (ff.de) by thruthedoomdays; AU

Den ersten Teil habe ich - no kidding - ohne Pause in acht Stunden gelesen. So viel Herz und Schwere und Comfort in Einem...ich hab literally keine Worte dafür, wie sehr alles JK und ihre Verbindung und ihre Realitäten in dieser Geschichte für mich sind. Keine.

Liebe ist auch keine Lösung (ff.de) by Ria

Schreibstil einfach premium. JK in ihrem Umgang großartig getroffen. Heftig. Deep. Sexual Tension at its best (or worst?). Absolut kein Comfort, I'm a sucker for it. Love is pain, oder so.

So it went South (ff.de) by Candyrella

Candyrella hat Poetik im "Simplen" perfektioniert. JK sind schonungslos und ehrlich und verletzt, hier und da ooc, aber halt auf verdammt gute Weise. Besonders die Dialoge, die sind so f*cking echt und zerreißend.

Verlangen - Funkenflug (ff.de) by AlwaysKlako

Diese Story macht einfach Spaß. Atmosphäre, JK, Sommer, die förmlich greifbare Anziehung der beiden - zusammengefasst: intense. Und mit so viel Liebe zum Detail, unfassbar schön.

Ja, es sind sechs. Aus Gründen. Es gibt noch so, so viele mehr und ich bin allen fellow FF-Autor:innen sehr dankbar, dass sie tun, was sie tun <3

Falls ihr gerade die Lust und Kapazitäten habt: @coffifee @alwaysklako @papierflamingo @galli-halli @winterbunny-jk @mistofstars @sarcasmmeetssoulmate @other-people-have-good-names und alle, die mögen 😊

Let's spread some love 🫶🏼

[sapphia]

The idea that the only way you can support a gaza ceasefire is by threatening to not vote for the democrats, and that every other form of political action is meaningless compared to voting, is another example of how American democracy (all democracies really, but America leads the pack) have convinced the public that voting is the most worthwhile political action you can take and the only true way of expressing your voice in politics. It’s the “ultimate action”, voting or not voting, and any political action you take outside of that is to facilitate better voting on poll day, not a valid political action in itself.

And that’s just not true. You can never vote in your life and have more political impact than someone who votes in every election. You can take one single political action that makes more impact anything you will do for the rest of your life. And that’s not to downplay the the small political actions you take, from liking a tweet to conversing with your coworker about a politician or policy, because these are the ingredients that make up the conversation of democracy. Thats why the right have invested so much in bot accounts. “Participating” in the conversation can be more effective than a person’s vote, for the right participant (or the right number of fake participants).

The negotiations are in their final stages, and are being held up by Israel, who won’t be moved faster by US politics or pressure from US politicians. The pressure needs to be maintained on Biden and the democrats, to see this through, to advocate for actual peace and not for a situation that will set this conflict to collide again in ten years time. But it doesn’t need to be ramped up at this point. There is very little, if not nothing, that democrats threatening not to vote for Kamala can realistically do, except convince people not to vote for Kamala.

So carry on doing that if you want, I guess. If you actually cared about Palestine you would probably be more concerned with the terms of the ceasefire, the rhetoric around that and how it leads to shape the solution that will be forced on the region in exchange for peace, and the aid and protections they will need to rebuild free from the tyranny of Israel.

But scuppering an election is a fun side project I guess. As long as you feel you’re doing something to help, that’s what’s important.

[rdlain]

All to say not to be a doomer but if you're in the thick of red-state retardation you definitely SHOULD make their lives as annoying/godawful as possible, calling and contacting daily and all that, but they HATE YOU and won't be changing their minds about making your quality of life plummet even if you speak their language ("quit wasting my tax dollars on stupid bullshit" etc). They're motivated and supported by death-cult christian believers that think it's acting out god's will to punish their citizens, and the corporations/religious fundies like AIPAC that fund them think the same too.

[jewishbarbies]

he’s building a “facility” at Guantanamo to hold the people he’s deporting. At GUANTANAMO BAY. fuck every goddamn non voter and third party piece of shit in this country. is this what you wanted? because you got it, you selfish bitch.

[greenteacology]

i hate it when people act like voting for a third party candidate is exactly the same as just not voting lol

[reallycoolsoup]

yeah the dems suck ass but if that guy wins we don't GET to vote third party next time

I feel like you misunderstood my post

I was basically saying I want the democrats to actually move left, to appeal to there voter base, and to stop funding a genocide

And I really don't think me voting third party will make Kamala lose, if she loses it's cause she failed, she could easily win the Michigan vote by saying she's going to stop arming Israel, should could easily win the younger vote by not funding the police so they can beat down protestors, she could easily win a large voter base if she campaigned on universal healthcare, she could easily win the latin Americans voter base by not being so fascist about the border

None of those things are in my control, my control extends to the ballot box right now, and if this is "the most important election of our lifetime" like the last 4-5 then they should actually give people something to vote for

Not just vote against Republican

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

Not gonna get into it on the post because discourse™ but I too enjoy Shaun's YouTube videos but find his views on voting etc a bit iffy. I didn't actually come across them on his twitter but I watch his streams sometimes and it comes up there too.

Like to be clear my own plan here is like. Lie to my local Labour MP about not voting for them if they don't get their shit together, but when it comes to it vote for them anyway because what else can you do. Like there's a very real additional human cost to the least awful guy not getting in so I can't really morally justify actually witholding my vote. But I CAN justify pretending (to them) that I'm considering it. And it seems like he's one step further than me on the extremity scale in that he advocates for actually witholding your vote and it's like. Look I get all your reasons. Labour in the UK/Democrats in the US are complicit in some truly awful things right now and I'm absolutely furious about it. But what could you achieve by witholding your vote that you cannot achieve simply by lying about it?

To be clear I'm absolutely one of the most truthful (honesty is a different matter and I don't feel qualified to comment on my own, but in terms of literal truth-telling I CAN claim this) people I know. But this is one of the few situations where I'm like. I think the most ethical thing to do is to lie actually?

Yeah no I'm in total agreement with you there.

At the end of the day, actually withholding your voting or voting for the Green Party as a protest vote are the most useless political actions you can take. Your intention with it doesn't matter when the outcome is the Tories or Republicans getting more power and enacting more of their policies that are going to hurt the vulnerable people that you care about.

It's very LARPy. You insist you're doing something principled and meaningful and acting like a "good leftist", but you're not. Intentions don't automatically equate to outcomes and in this case, we know that they are not synonymous.

Meanwhile, things like directly threatening to withhold your vote can do something, especially at a local level where the candidates are much more likely to actually hear that threat.

I mean, in general, there's a lot more you can do politically at a local level. Local politicians can better hear your demands and are much more likely to meet them. You can often communicate with them one on one and because a lot of people are barely bothered to get involved when the Big Election rolls around, you can get shit done because no one else is there to oppose you.

It's one of the things that really irks me about the withdraw-your-vote crowd because they act is if electoral politics is useless, and completely ignore the very existence of local politics.

Also one of the things I find very frustrating is the way critiques of the labour party or of the democrats are almost never followed up with any action. Like if you want to shift these parties further left, get involved with them. Starting your own party is not gonna work because you won't be able to get the votes or the seats or whatever to have any real power as a party. Good thing there's two nominally left-wing, already existing parties that you can very easily get involved with and push for more leftist policies within them.

When people like Shaun talk about genuinely abstaining from voting and from electoral politics in general, I feel the exhaustion seep into my bones. They're basically advocating for us to hand political power over to the right wing on a silver platter because well, the platter itself wasn't of perfect quality so let's just give the whole thing away, ay?

[red-dragon-archfiend]

I have a few issues with "Vote blue no matter who" but I think if you sincerely believe it you have GOT to keep that shit quiet and out of the ears of Democratic politicians. Not to be a cynic but like 90% of the time when Democrats do good things it's because they want to get reelected and if Democrats become convinced that they don't have to try to build voter enthusiasm they're just gonna stop

[eak1mouse]

"[...]Let's not take the soul-sucking path of sacrificing the most persecuted for that which we deem to be most popular. I know that there are transgender children right now looking out at this world and wondering if anyone is going to stand up for them and for their simple right to exist.

Well, I am. We are. We will.

I know that amidst the ongoing assault on our institutions, it is easy for people to fall into despair about our democratic system. But I love this country too much not to fight for it. You're here tonight because you do too. And when I think about that love, I think back to all the times in our history when our ancestors had to fight back against tyrants and racists and those who couldn't understand that freedom and justice are our foundational promises in this country.

When we say history repeats itself, it's not because the villains and battles don't evolve with the ages. They do. But the fight itself remains elemental. It's always men who would be king, blaming the suffering of the masses on those who look different or sound different or live differently. And since the dawn of time, the triumph of good over evil has relied on those who believe in empathy and kindness, summoning the steel spine needed to defend those values that by their nature leave us vulnerable to attack. This community knows that. You have lived and breathed this fight for generations. Our hope, our hope lies in this room.

The fact that we are still here today means that we have the faith and courage that we will win the battles that really matter.

Now, when I first ran for governor in 2018, I started every single stump speech by saying, [...] everything we care about is under siege by a racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic Donald Trump.

And I ended every single speech with a question to the crowd: are you ready for the fight?

So here we are again. Everything we care about is under siege. And so I guess I just have one question for all of you tonight.

Are you ready for the fight?

Are you ready for the fight?

[...]

Let's go get 'em, everybody!

Let's go get 'em!"

- JB Pritzker at HRC's LA dinner 3/24/25,

Transcription by Parker Molloy at The Present Age

Sign the ACLU's petition to defend Trans rights at the Supreme Court here.

[iwatcheditbegin]

​I tried to temporarily refrain from bashing democrats as much as usual, as the MAGAs are actual jokes who want to cause harm. But I’ve never seen a party so reluctant to the concept of a future as they continue to lose young voters. Why are we picking more 80 year old fossils over young members who seem to actually reach the public ?

[ckerouac]

So, I really love the selection of Tim Walz for VP and it’s taken me a moment to articulate why. I mean, obviously, Dem bonafides, he’s sharp, he’s funny, etc etc. But everyone in the Veepstakes fits that bill, Harris was spoiled for good choices.

But Walz offers something that the other men in contention don’t that I think will be incredibly useful in combating Trumpism.

He offers an example and an off ramp to the section of men who felt like they were Republicans by default, and so support Trump by default. There are a lot of Trump voters who are full on obsessive, but that’s not who we’re talking to. We’re talking to folks who grew up in Republican areas, or felt their hobbies didn’t line up with who a Democrat was, or didn’t feel represented by their image of a Democrat. You want to see it so you can be it, you know? Which is why Harris is so inspirational to a lot of segments of folks, but Walz is too.

He served in the military. He went to a state college. He’s your favorite teacher from your public high school. He’s your football coach who actually cared if you were passing your math class. He’s the guy you looked up to at school when your family sucked but this guy cared, and he helped you get out and make something of yourself.

He’s the neighbor who helps you jump your car. He’s your uncle who takes you hunting. He’s your Dad who loves teasing you at the Stare Fair. He’s you when he makes a mistake like his DUI and takes responsibility for it, and when he has the chance makes sure other can come back from similar mistakes. He’s you when you and your wife want so badly to be parents and IVF gives you the family you wanted. He’s you when he says ‘it had to be me’ and used his standing and power to protect vulnerable kids sponsoring the GSA at his school.

He gives the real life example to these men that they can be that football, fishing, hunting family man who wants to provide for his family, be that powerful, respected member of the community and use that power to feed kids in school. That it’s normal to enthusiastically work for a boss like Harris. That yeah those other guys are fucking weirdos, and you’re not a weirdo, are you?

That there’s a place in the Democratic Party for them. That they don’t have to default to being fucking weird.

I hope those guys see this example of masculinity and go… yeah, that’s me. That’s who I’m gonna be.

[lilyginnyblackv2]

I won't say that Cory Booker is a politician I always agree 100% with, but that isn't what matters right now. The thing that matters is that he did something. He didn't just speak, he read the voices of the people to not only the senate, but to a plethora of other Americans and to people all around the world. This got social media and legacy media attention. It has got people talking. It is going to help create momentum. My senator, Chris Murphy, has started going to Republican districts in other states to hold Town Halls. This is a similar tactic that we've seen AOC and Bernie Sanders doing. It is a positive and successful tactic that shows the every day people, whose voices aren't being listened to by their elected officials, that Democrats are listening to them. If you have a Democratic senator, call them and tell them to do something similar. Tell them that other senators and Democratic leaders are holding their own Town Halls in Republican areas and districts and that is working. If your Democratic senator or house member, etc. doesn't have a Blue Sky, TikTok, or Reddit account, tell them to get one. Those are the three social media sites that have a lot of left leaning activity going on. Reddit is where the 50501 Movement started, TikTok has a lot of younger people, and Blue Sky has a lot of left leaning individuals that left Twitter. Mention to your Democratic representatives to go on Podcasts and voice their words, take part in protests, and make good trouble.

Cory Booker has been talking in the senate for over 20 hours now

He’s not filibustering. He’s protesting the current administration.

[hjemne]

I am so fucking glad that the lib dems are the best anti-tory party in my constituency because holy shit I don't wanna be made to vote for starmer