If you seriously think those two options are identical then…go try it and report back on how it feels lol

The anal tears you’ll get without lube are what we’re all suffering right now because of people not voting.

If you think every election has just been the same “since Obama”, then I’m afraid you’ve got a narrow view of history. Shit choices in this deeply fucked up country have been part of the electoral system from the start. People have always lamented that neither party gives them a good choice

Not participating hasn’t worked to make things better, though. In fact, those in power try to get people not to participate as much as possible. Politicians go after reliable voting blocks, not people who wilt when faced with a morally complex choice. When the Left doesn’t show up, they go to the right: because xenophobic assholes sure as hell vote.

And yes: this is all why I agree that electoral politics is terrible. We need direct action, parallel power structures, etc. We need better voting systems and representation, and there are problems so systemic that we need to go beyond reform.

TLDR: Voting isn’t going to save us, but not voting may doom us.

Exactly. It isn’t Intelligent Design, it’s Natural Selection. By which I mean there’s no grand plan, it’s just a vicious, bloody system.

Speaking as someone with a PhD in Biology, nature usually sucks. There’s horrifying parasites, predators that will eat you while you’re still alive, and even herbivores can eat themselves into extirpation if not outright extinction.

The metaphor breaks down because there’s a lot of beauty in nature, and I think we need to protect it, but it’s not something we should try to emulate at a societal level. Natural selection doesn’t think ahead, it just happens, and most living things suffer out in the natural world. Most of us are smart enough to do better, I hope.

That’s one of the most frustrating things about this right wing populism. They’re correctly pointing out problems: wealth inequality, expensive housing, warmongering, etc. The problem they then cause is that they blame the source of these problems squarely on some scapegoats and then do things that only exacerbate the existing problems they diagnosed in the first place.

Billionaire donors gaining even more power and stripping the few checks against said power, doing shit all to make groceries cheaper, and now they’re out there blowing up boats in international waters and committing large scale violence against people in this county. Yet… crickets from the folks who voted them in. Just maddening. They just wanted to shit on the scapegoats

Wrong one! I had to do a double take, but I’m pretty sure it’s actually Leavitt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karoline_Leavitt

Late to the party, but I’ll bet at least a few right wingers we’re surprised at the turnout. Maybe helped get a few people out of their bubbles, seeing neighbors and friends out on the street. Maybe not, but I know i saw a lot of older rural folks out protesting last time that I’m sure rocked the perceptions some right wings nuts have about it all being teenage anarchists in the street.

This is not solely a news community.

Right? No childish nicknames, no rage-fueled late night social media posting, no off kilter diatribes during an unrelated speech. He’s just, transparently cool with a child trafficker. It is so mind numbingly damning I’m split between being horrified and fascinated by how his supporters refuse to connect any dots.

I imagine a lot of shit teachers keep their jobs simply because there’s usually not a huge pool of candidates for replacements. Higher wages would help fix that issue, too!

Indeed, it’s good to see what resonates with people who are actual humans and not just bots. Many have been quieter since all the Epstein backtracking, because they were sooooooo invested in it before.

And recently a dude I knew has two posts in a row that are incredible: one is literally cheering for the death of all the venezuelan people blown up in a boat (flag emojis and all), then the next post is him recounting how horrific it is that a political pundit was killed, and people cheering for death like that need to unfriend him. In the second post he is also going on about how Christian he and all these pundits are, which…bruh

Doesn’t matter which one was worse? What’s a few more dead Palestinians, eh?

Yes, Harris and Biden were/are absolute shit. Without being able to see into an alternate universe, I’m pretty sure there’s more people dead than would have been under what was the already terrible status quo. The current regime is making things worse than it already was, which is a hard bar to clear. It’s suffering all around, in Gaza and in the US, and across the poverty stricken areas supported by USAID.

Source?!1?

See also: politically correct (PC) and social justice warrior (SJW)…all just fancy ways to call someone a commie pinko bleeding heart socialist. The Red Scare never really stopped, and neither did the Lavender Scare

I especially like that it’s a recurring bit

There’s plenty of people beyond saving, that’s for sure: but I think people aren’t so immutable. I think people are being made more monstrous by the capitalist system we live in, and the people at the top who exemplify avarice as a path to success. I’m not going to be buddies with ex maga unless they’re really going the extra mile to make up for the damage they’ve done, but I hope at least some can be decent humans.

Yeah, and it also feels “forever ago” when you’re that age. Literally half their lives. So I could understand them thinking it’s “old news”, but when you’re an old and crusty 40 year old, you know that a 60 someone saying heinous shit means that person is deeply twisted.

Yeah, I’m not mad at my Iranian friends because of what their leaders do. I can’t blame them for not starting a bloody uprising. It requires coordinated, collective action, and religious leaders and the uber rich work together to keep true change from happening. The same goes for the USA. Propaganda works, and it’s keeping the people too divided to easily take serious action.

We need to help make change possible, not only chastise people for being trapped in oppressive systems.

Also a content warning for a couple slurs, but the point from Patton Oswalt a while back is roughly the same: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkKo1_RP_0c

I assumed the meme is related to high prices decades ago: for example, I remember saving up allowances to buy Star Fox 64, which cost about 70 bucks in the late nineties.

Fascinating! What other countries do you think would start taking over places without immigration laws?