Voting for Democrats is the "leaving the house, getting some exercise, and drinking more water is good for your mental health" of societal change. Everyone keeps telling you to do it, worst of all your mom keeps telling you to do it, and it's not a magical cure-all, but it actually works and rotting in your room shitposting does not help in either scenario.

Also like mental health, voting doesn't solve the whole problem! But if you aren't doing this bare minimum thing, the other tools you have aren't going to work as well as they should either. If you get medicine and continue rotting in your room shitposting, you will probably still be miserable. If you get a union at work but don't vote for politicians who support unions, the union won't be able to advocate for its members as effectively and work will still be miserable.

Voting is maintenance. It's like doing the dishes or cleaning the leaves out of the gutters. You're never going to get to a point where you are Done and Never Have To Do It Again (alas,) because time will continue to pass and you will continue to eat meals and the trees will continue to drop leaves into your gutters and right wingers will continue to submit bad bills to every session of congress.

You'll never be done with maintenance. But if you don't do that maintenance, your situation can and definitely will get Worse

Finally a take on the 'vote or else' shit I can vibe with. It's currently like showering with dysphoria- miserable and annoying with no real positive outcome past the current state not rapidly getting worse, but that's better than the alternative of things rapidly getting worse

Can't see a voting point without my reminder that everyone in the USA should be checking their registration once a month.

No, it's not a normal thing, but we're not living in normal times. The GOP is doing everything possible to make sure people can't vote so we all have to make sure we are able to do our part in stopping them.

"Ethnic cleansing is not self-defence"

Pasteups in Paris

"Un-uhlaive? UN-UHLAIVE? Ma'am, that man has been killed. He has been MUHDUHED. To DEATH."

anyway. i think most people left of mainstream US liberal are uh. insufficiently scared of Trump. this has become a cringe take over the years but i think electing him again has a really terrifying set of tail outcomes that are unlikely but possible

like he probably can't end US democracy! that's really hard to do. probably. but he has stated pretty directly that he's gonna try. and i would prefer if he did not

There’s a certain irony about this because many of the same American leftists tend to be very critical of liberal institutionalism, but they’re also relying on liberal institutionalism for why Trump would not be able to simply bulldoze his way into being a banana republic dictator.

Meanwhile, the folks who actually lived in countries that went authoritarian are way more alarmed about Trump because they dont have the US exceptionalist delusion that it can’t happen here.

Not to mention all this also ignores the sheer damage he did and can do even within the boundaries. Reagan wasn’t a dictator, but he was an absolute dumpster fire for the world, and the Republicans already have Project 2025 lined up for if Trump wins.

A lot of people thought Hitler was kind of a joke when he was appointed chancellor in January 1933. It took all of 2 months until his party got a law passed allowing him to make new laws without involving parliament.

Take this shit seriously, please.

soup de jour: soup of the day

soup de jure: soup the government wants you to eat

soup de facto: the soup everyone actually eats

soup de resistance: a very impressive and popular soup emerges...

soup d'etat: ousting the previous soup of the day and installing your own

soup de grace: execution of the deposed soup of the day

after roe v wade got overturned under biden (a constitutional right we had for FIFTY years) i don’t believe any of the goofy “biden is better for domestic issues” rhetoric . you are lying to me and you are lying to yourself

gurl

this is really ignoring how the three branches interact. Was it SCOTUS who overturned it? Yes but Congress and the Executive branch had their own checks and balances that they could have stepped in. But the threat to abortion was a huge selling point for the Democratic party, so they didn't because if it was codified, they'd lose that.

what checks are there for the supreme court? shooting a justice?

source: https://nccs.net/blogs/our-ageless-constitution/checks-and-balances#:~:text=LEGISLATIVE%20(Congress)%20has%20restraining%20power,power%20to%20nominate%20new%20judges.

And if you think that’s a rebuttal to the previous poster, then you don’t understand the thing you’re quoting here.

Here’s what those checks look like IRL:

-The legislature has the power to pass laws that limit the power of the judiciary, but they don’t currently have the ability to do that as the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans and the Senate is controlled by the narrowest of Dem majorities which includes a Dem and one ex-Dem independent who repeatedly gum up any progressive legislation. They have been able to pass other stuff to head off potential future SCOTUS challenges — like passing a national gay marriage law — but don’t yet have the votes to do that with abortion. The way to fix this is to vote for more Democrats, especially progressive ones, in the House and Senate.

-The legislature can impeach SCOTUS judges but they need actual grounds that they’ve done things that are illegal in order to do so. “A ruling we don’t like” is not illegal. There is possibly a case to impeach some of them now because of the evidence of people like Thomas and Alito taking financial bribes from conservative activists and politicians, but again, you need votes for that. And Republicans aren’t going to impeach nor remove from office the people who handed them what they wanted on a silver platter over the screams of the populace. The way to fix this is, again, to vote for Democrats and tell them this is what you want them to do. Keep in mind that we need a supermajority in the Senate to actually remove justices from office.

-The key word there is new judges. Biden appoints people when someone resigns or dies (and the Senate plays ball with confirming them, apparently, as they stalled Obama’s appointment after Scalia’s death because… what’s that? Right, they were controlled by Republicans. It’s that pesky voting again!). Unless he decides to pack the court, a thing I personally would love for him to do, but which is unpopular to the extent that it likely lost Dems a few Senate seats in the 2020 election. The way to fix this? 1. Vote for Dems, particularly Joe Biden, because you want a Democrat packing that court, not Trump; 2. tell Biden and those Dem politicians running for Congress that you support court packing and why (directly, as in phone calls and letters, not on social media); 3. Talk to the squishy moderates in your life who just feel some kind of way about Biden having that much power but also are mad about Dobbs or worried about voting rights or sick of gun violence or whatever it is for them, about how if they truly care about the second thing they need to get over their discomfort with the first thing and why. How if things stay as they are because they don’t like the optics of a Democratic president packing the court, the reality is that the SCOTUS is the one that instead has nearly dictatorial power over a public that overwhelmingly disagrees with them. Once again, this is a thing you should be saying to them probably one-on-one, in person or texts or DMs or whatever, tailored to whatever will best convince each individual — not to your entire Twitter feed or Tumblr dash.

So yeah, “Biden can’t stop the Supreme Court as things are now” remains accurate, and you still have to fucking vote. And the OP’s takes would still fail any civics class.

So Australia has a yearly tradition going back over 20 years, that every Australia Day we all gather round our screens to watch an ad for a certain product. It's so ingrained in our consciousness that the ads don't even really relate to what they're supposed to sell anymore, we all just know.

This year the ad broke containment, and non-Australians are having their brains melted by this bizarre tradition, so international followers, lets see if you can work out what this is trying to sell before the last few seconds.

This ad is actually brilliant for all that is also bonkers.

Also, I have had that trophy conversation IRL

It’s actually insane that our 80 year old, lifelong Catholic, cis male president is more accepting and defensive of trans people than a huge chunk of this website.

I wouldn't argue that he's the most pro trans world leader. He is. He just is. There's no competition.

Also worth saying, Democrats are the most pro-trans (indeed pro-LGBT) major party in the world, there might be some minor parties here and there that are more aggressive but in terms of parties that govern whole nations? none are more united behind trans rights than the Democratic Party

You’re right that it’s dumb to say they’re the same, but I don’t even see him as dragging his feet to protect the lgbt community tbh, when he was the one to vocally support gay marriage a decade ago even before Obama did. His administration has taken numerous actions to support and defend lgbt rights in a time when not only are we seeing the biggest backlash to gay and trans rights and visibility in recent memory, but so-called progressive and left-leaning parties in other countries are throwing trans people to the wolves for political points; given his refusal to dip into what would be a really politically easy decision to start babbling bullshit about trans people in women’s sports or misinformation regarding minors transitioning, I think his administration is better than simply not being outwardly hostile like Republicans. Here are some White House fact sheets on what the administration has done thus far (I’m just putting these here for future reference for anyone curious): 1, 2, 3, 4

No new years day will be like waking up to hollyweed on January 1, 2017

We will never experience this again.

🦀🎉🦀🎉🦀 Henry Kissinger is dead 🎉🦀🎉🦀🎉🦀

there is no magic "the new generation will be more progressive as the old one dies" btw history has only had things get better because of people who didn't act like it was inevitable and acted like things needed to get better here and now and that will always be true

there was a whole generation of boomers who fought for a better world, not as many of them survived as the ones who shaped a worse one. generation warfare is not real. they are not , and have never been your enemy for simply being born before you, and as you get older the youth will not be yours because the enemy has always been the ones holding power and abusing it

if your leftism doesn’t include fighting antisemitism then I’m really not interested in your leftism

I can feel the leftist goyim trying their best not to look at this or think about it. I see you. I see how easily y'all accept antisemitism when it’s against people you don’t like, and it pisses me the fuck off.

Congrats on being an antisemite then. OP never mentioned Israel. Conditioning whether or not you think antisemitism is bad based on someone’s stance on a conflict in another part of the globe is antisemitic.

Antisemitism is bad regardless of someone’s politics just as racism is bad regardless of someone’s politics. This isn’t fucking difficult to grok.

OP please don’t be antisemitic

Antisemitic asshole:

Hello, Beautiful. Star Trek Picard "Vox"

"No one remembered my birthday-" Well, but did YOU tell anyone it was coming up and you wanted to celebrate it with them?

"I wish someone would see through it when I tell people I'm fine-" Well, but have YOU considered not lying when people ask you how you're doing?

"I am so resentful of my friend because they keep doing this thing that really bothers me-" Well, but have YOU directly communicated that the thing is bothering you?

"I am burning out because my friend keeps expecting me to help them with serious struggles-" Well, but have YOU tried to establish the boundaries you need to feel okay?

"No one ever asks me about this thing I really care about-" Well, but have YOU brought it up yourself?

"I miss my friend but they haven't texted me-" Well, but have YOU been reaching out to them?

Sometimes people are mean, uncaring assholes, in which case you get to be mad. But sometimes you just need to communicate better. Try communication before you assume someone doesn't care!

This is the first use of my art degree