Democratic lawmakers have faced eruptions of anger at town hall meetings across the country this week, as constituents have coupled their fury over President Donald Trump’s actions with deep frustration over what they see as a feckless Democratic response.
I don’t see people screaming at Bernie, AOC or Tim Walz. Wonder why that is…. Oh maybe it’s because they’re actually willing to notice the frustrations of their base.
“Wait you want us to fight for your rights, like you elected us to do? I dunno, that sounds like effort. It’s much easier to agree to what Republicans want and it theoretically looks good on paper that we wanna work with Fascists. Maybe we’ll get some of their voters this time!”
“I know we campaigned on fighting fascism but that was more of a ‘if we win’ thing”
we’re holding up ping pong paddles, there’s nothing else we can do!
"As we all know, we only do what we want when we win. Your house rep doesn’t still work when they win their seat, right? …They do? They still try to get things done?
Well, uh, you know you can’t do what you want when you’re in the minority of Congress. Wait Republicans did exactly that for 15 years? And got all their demands with the filibuster and delaying?
Well republicans would just use that as ammo for their messaging. Please ignore they’ll do anything we do as massaging, from tan suits to mustard. We have to give them what they want, there’s nothing else we could do!"
The Republican demands were to NOT do things, which can be moved towards by filibuster and delay. The Democrat demands are to DO things, and filibuster and delay would just get the Republicans what they want, while being able to blame the Democrats for all the negative effects that are surprising to their constituents. They need to find better messages and ways to get those messages out, absolutely, but it’s not a mirror image to the Republican situation four years ago.
So about that government shutdown…
Yeah Republicans aren’t pushing forward things in Congress to give Trump/Musk more things, totally. Trump hasn’t had any cabinet picks either.
“We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas.”- The Democratic Party
“But please donate to my campaign to STOP this. We will soon, I promise”
My god I am so sick of the emails.
I used to get emails like “Contribute to X because I will fight for our schools to provide school lunches to everyone!” And I’d donate.
Now, the emails are just “Donald wants to kill education. GIVE ME MONEY.”
So you can use that money to buy another sign that says “Pweeze stop”?
yeah, they have gotten so much fucking money. I could have done more good just spending that same amount on potatoes, or paying people to dance.
Like, I think someone in the DNC should be out there, putting out answers. What did they do with the money they got? Where did it go? Time for an audit.
Most expensive concert tour ever.
I think we know they wasted it all on ridiculous useless bullshit, and even if they had won, it would have been more useful to spend it on potatoes.
The amount of “gib monies plz” messages I got infuriated me. Like you aren’t doing diddly squat why would I ?!?
We got a make them actually work for their money. If they want us to donate then they should do something they said they would do.
I think our society is ducked up enough that economically it makes better sense to have a loyal audience of easy marks than a wide audience of fickle donors. Donald Trump figures this out years ago and has been cultivating/brainwashing that audience since.
Idk how to counter it except that maybe if we gave people cheaper/free essential goods (housing, school lunches etc) they’d be less inclined to go insane and support scammers like trump or the modern democratic party.
Here’s a 100 texts from candidates running for city commissioner in TN and you live on the west coast.
Pretty much exactly the answer I’ve gotten from all my reps.
Another constituent, Donya Williams, complained Ivey didn’t know the people in his district well enough — because he admitted earlier that he didn’t know who popular podcaster Joe Rogan was until the middle of the 2024 presidential campaign.
This explains so much. They are as ignorant of the current state of things as the “apolitical” voters who thought Trump would be fine this time.
French aristocracy? Who ordered French aristocracy?
Chickens can at least peck a bit. These dems aren’t even that tough
A rooster can fuck you up.
We are alone in this. The dems are better, but they are at fault here too because their entire strategy is being better then the republican which allows Republicans to be as awful as they please
I think we may may finally be getting our message across. Here’s why:
Last night, Adam Schiff, one of the Democratic lawmakers I respect the most, was on Kimmel, and was very rough not just on the HitlerPig Crime Family, but also Chuck Schumer.
But what really struck me, was that the very honorable, polite, and respectful Adam Schiff took the opportunity to basically say “Fuck You” directly to the president - TWICE!
Kimmel asked him if he had said thank you to HitlerPig, and Schiff said he used a different two-word phrase, but one of the words was “You,” and everyone got it and laughed. At the end of his interview, he made another joke that was another very obvious disguised “Fuck You.”
They were obviously baiting HitlerPig into a tirade, but seeing Schiff go on national TV and saying Fuck You to HitlerPig twice marks a very new direction in messaging for the Democratic party. I hope this is the beginning of pivoting from appeasement to Hard Ball.
Schumer and Pelosi don’t have street fighting skills, they are from the era where Republicans weren’t all violent dixiecrat trash.
Schiff and the newer ones don’t bring harsh words to gunfights.
They’re boomers. They never had to fight dirty. Theyre part of the Democrat gameplan to compromise on everythin
They did have to and chose not to.
That’s awesome. I’ve started to get some social media feeds on YouTube from Adam Schiff and they’ve been pretty provocative and direct, which is desperately needed.
Ocasio-Cortez/Sanders 2028
Democrats: No we need to do this
This is why we lose. Fucking unite for something, geez
if Americans are going to just sit and wait, the US won’t be recognizable in 4 years, and there sure as hell won’t be a free and fair election
Many Americans are not. There’s protests happening everyday, across the country. It’s, not being talked about but it’s absolutely happening.
Besides bluesky, can we start seeing more of the protests here on lemmy? And see it flood the pages here? If someone just posts one a day from each location, that will kick start enough people to join
Be safe. Be discreet. The administration is violent right now and accelerating. They are violating civil and human rights. Get involved in your local offline chapters, please. These places are being watched too and pictures may be used to nab others that attend. They also may be used/posted for predatory reasons. Protect yourselves and your comrades in arms. Unless you know what you are doing (and even then think 2x), do not bring your phone to protests. Keep it charged in a place you frequent.
I get what you’re saying, but if a protest is not seen, was it really effective?
It’s working when they don’t want people to see it. The revolution will not be televised. This isn’t something for media. That is cheap and doesn’t actually change things. People need to leave the house, build community, collaborate and organise, in person. Social media won’t protect you when ICE knocks, but a neighbour will. It’s not real life.
Exactly my thoughts. We’ll get trump 3.0.
I think Walz/Ocasio-Cortez would be a much more popular and palatable suggestion for the electorate, even though I personally prefer your proposal
Nah, we tried appealing to the center shit and that got us nowhere. Go hard on restoring working class America. Fuck racism, sexism, and ignorance - that shit got us a slow slide down to where we are now .
Kick the fucking oligarchs out and tax the fuck out of them. Rich should mean enough money to be very comfortable and never worry again, but not enough to buy elections.
That’s naïve as fuck and it’s not worth the risk. We need to eject these fucking assholes. AOC on the VP will draw in all the same people who she would otherwise attract as president. Bernie is too old for many, many people. Walz is a leftist who can speak in safe, simple White-America terms aand appeal to people who would are wary about AOC. Yes, it sucks that America is sexist, but it also sucks that we are plummeting into fascism. This is a winning ticket.
Now thats a ticket I think a lot of Dems could get excited about. Focus on economic messaging, maybe put trans issues on the downlow (WITHOUT throwing us under the bus, not suggesting go full McBride) and youre golden
I feel that Sanders is probably too old and that he can pass the torch on at the next election. It’s sad, but I still don’t think we need an 80 year old running for office.
nah fuck that. Bernie will go out in a blaze of glory, double middle fingers to the sky, falling straight from the oval office into a coffin after guaranteeing All Americans get equal access to universal healthcare and a secondary four year/vocational school education. He’ll take money out of politics and raise taxes on the 1% so hard they’ll revert back into normal fuckin people. He’ll invest in High speed rail, green energy, while simultaneously legalizing weed.
The man has been working his whole life towards these goals, I say we help him get there.
My money is that we’ll say the same thing about him in 10 years
I think after Biden and then Trump, people will be completely fed up with old white guys. I seriously doubt even Santa Claus could get elected. I’m in my 60s and a huge Bernie fan but we need some younger people on the ticket.
They’ll get disappeared long before they get a chance to be on the bill
Well holding signs and doing nothing didn’t work?
May I suggest a major and I mean major leaflet campaign?
Steady on. Next you’ll be saying it’s time for the slogan t-shirts.
Nah, we need to bring in the big guns for this one. Stickers with slogans.
Red Dwarf reference in the wild eh?
Guilty as charged… Wondered whether it would just slip through on a mostly US based site. Spangler maintained the ruse I think.
I did series re-watches every few months.
Now take this - https://youtu.be/Ar7u8zBbUJE
Are we allowed to glue the leaflets to bricks?
As long as it gets the message across.
Is an M67 a Leaflet?
In this timeline, sure.
As an Aussie watching what’s happening over there, all I’ve got to say is that the days of honourable dueling are gone - your leaders need to understand that you’re in a dirty street fight now!
My brother taught me there is no such thing as a fair fight.
Your brother is correct
They need to understand that they are fighting for the country. And when they don’t treat the Republicans and billionaires as the enemy they deprive us of the power to fight at the ballot box.
So we have to go to the soapbox. Like lemmy.
And when that fails, many of us (not me) will find they have nothing else to lose and go to the ammo box, like mangione is accused of.
And the rest of us will go to the jury box and vote not guilty.
Honestly instead of pushing me to the democrats, this has just gotten me to hate both sides, just hate one a little less.
Ah yes, the tru endgame of “the highroad strategy”. Simply doing nothing as the fascists pillage the Government. At least the Dems are holding their noses high as everything burns around them!
I’m sure they’re excellent patrons of the arts, such as the fiddle
Whats the best wine pairing with fascist takeover?
You need to do more than finger waggle, treat Republicans the way they treat us
Ocasio-Cortez, at an event in Las Vegas, Nevada, said Trump has “handed the keys to Elon Musk and is selling this country for parts to the richest people on the planet for a kickback.” But she also had sharp words for her own party.
“We need a Democratic Party that fights harder for us too,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “But what that means is that we as a community must choose and vote for Democrats and elected officials who know how to stand for the working class.”
Leftists:
So if I there’s nobody on the ballot who I think will fight for working people I don’t need to vote for them?
No no, you must always vote against your interests, even if the person closest to your values doesn’t like you or wants a better future.
No, you need to run
“My plan is to eliminate jobs. People have better things to do” is not a winning message, but it’s the only one I believe in.
So they’ll support the working class now, right?
…Right?
We can do this the easy way or the hard way - not that a pressure campaign to reform the Democratic Party will be easy, but it’d be sure a hell of a lot easier than trying to primary them out or form a new party. We should try to change them but we need to prepare for every eventuality.
The fact is that nothing is going to change if we can’t change or replace the Democrats first.
We’re working on it.
In SF for example I’ve started working my ass off for Saikat Chakrabarti (former AOC Chief-of-Staff) to unseat Nancy Pelosi in 2 years.
Truly, for all the people I talk to who say, “but what can I do? I live in liberal stronghold X”. NOW is your chance to do something important.
Hold your Democratic leaders accountable, contact them, threaten to throw all of your time and energy into supporting their primary opposition, make them sweat. If they don’t step it up, follow through on your threat and start getting involved with alternative leaders who are ready and eager to fight.
