Probably not getting a minimum wage hike.

Silvanus

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Oh, for Bast's sake. Way to go to those 8 (and the DNC higher-ups who didn't lobby them) for squandering the good will they had.

Outside of abortion (which shouldn't be a right), what rights are you expecting to be taken away? Most of the Republican Party is conservative, changing things that are already in place requires big motivation, and there's only really that one issue that has it. Republicans had absolute legislative majority and the presidency for the first 2 years of Trump. Where did you see people's rights being swept away?
Well, let's see... there were the workplace/ health discrimination protections stripped away from gay people, and the right to serve in the military stripped away from trans people.
 

TheMysteriousGX

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Well, yeah, but what right have the GOP tried to strip away from tstorm823, who live in the UK, specifically?
 

tippy2k2

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I can say that what you are saying is true.

I can also say I understand people who dont want theirs or other's rights taken away
It is an absolute shitty Rock and a Hard Place to be.

I'm not going to pretend like it's not going to suck for a lot of people. Shit, I'm not even going to pretend like I think it might make one fucking dent in The US Political System given how stacked the deck is against everyone without a Trust Fund.

But I can't in good conscious look at The Democrats and say "Those guys are fighting for me". That's not to say that I won't vote for a Democrat but I will never vote for someone ever again just because they have a D next to their name.

I get why there are people who are legitimately and rightly scared of Republicans being able to take control. I'm in a position in life as a straight white dude where none of my rights are going to get fucked with if Republicans take control. That being said though, we've had 20+ years of this VBNMW setup where Democrats act like Republicans with a D next to their name and look where it's gotten us.

Republicans STILL get their cracks at governing because everyone is stuck under this political systems thumb as Democrats do their best to be Republicans with a Pride Flag. Democrats promise a $2,000 relief check immediately and they promise to fight for $15 minimum wage and then fold the millisecond it doesn't go their way (whether this is just plain incompetence as they're just shit at their job or they don't actually want any of that stuff either but have to pretend to fight to stay in power is frankly, negligible to me as the results are the same).

Republicans get all the ammo they need to convince people that Democrats don't care about you and people who might have been willing to give Democrats a crack either don't go vote because why bother or they flat out switch over to a guy like Trump because "Fuck it, might as well gamble on the Maverick and see what happens". The cycle continues.

I'm not going to sit here and pretend like my "protest vote" or whatever you want to call it is going to all of a sudden break these chains. This shit show goes WAY above my paygrade and my tiny little part likely isn't going to do a thing. But much like my post in the Amazon thread a while back, all I can do is my tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny tiny TINY part and hope that enough people decide Enough is Enough and join.
 

Phoenixmgs

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Because as we've seen today, Democrats don't give a flying fuck about us either. They serve the same masters as Republicans and since the VBNMW crowd will worship them anyway, they have zero reason to change.
They're both the same party so I don't get why people think one party are the good guys and the other are the bad guys. There's no reason to vote for either party.
 

tstorm823

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Well, let's see... there were the workplace/ health discrimination protections stripped away from gay people, and the right to serve in the military stripped away from trans people.
You mean conservative justices enhanced workplace protections, and people on perpetual hormone therapies were taken off active duty? Not seeing problems here.
 

Silvanus

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You mean conservative justices enhanced workplace protections, and people on perpetual hormone therapies were taken off active duty? Not seeing problems here.
This is laughable. The Trump administration argued twice in court that anti-discrimination legislation does not protect sexual orientation, and removed references to sexual orientation that was previously included in anti-discrimination guidance. Now, was this in order to provide new legislation to more accurately fulfil this function? Fuck no. They replaced it with nothing.

Your characterisation of the trans military ban is just playing to the despicable old trope about hormone therapies placing an enormous burden on an employer-- the same nonsense thats been used to justify anti-trans discrimination in employment for decades. Its roughly equivalent to employers and governments in the 50s arguing that hiring women into the workforce is an undue burden because they're all hormonal wrecks. Its sheer stereotyping and isn't honestly worth taking seriously.
 
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tstorm823

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This is laughable. The Trump administration argued twice in court that anti-discrimination legislation does not protect sexual orientation, and removed references to sexual orientation that was previously included in anti-discrimination guidance. Now, was this in order to provide new legislation to more accurately fulfil this function? Fuck no. They replaced it with nothing.

Your characterisation of the trans military ban is just playing to the despicable old trope about hormone therapies placing an enormous burden on an employer-- the same nonsense thats been used to justify anti-trans discrimination in employment for decades. Its roughly equivalent to employers and governments in the 50s arguing that hiring women into the workforce is an undue burden because they're all hormonal wrecks. Its sheer stereotyping and isn't honestly worth taking seriously.
a)If I'm thinking of what you are, the language they removed was replaced with general language directing compliance with court orders so the change hardly existed, and became actually more expansive when the court made their interpretation of trans workplace issues.

b) Its not about the burden on the employer, it was about having those in combat be as little dependent on regular medication as possible. You dont want soldiers ever captured, but you definitely dont want them captured and missing their pills, so you send out soldiers without those medical needs, which is something Obama gave trans soldiers a specific exception to.
 

Silvanus

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a)If I'm thinking of what you are, the language they removed was replaced with general language directing compliance with court orders so the change hardly existed, and became actually more expansive when the court made their interpretation of trans workplace issues.
You are mistaken. SCOTUS thankfully shot down the amicus brief, though it shows the administration's willingness to strip anti-discrimination coverage. But the federal contractor rules? The DOJ "interpretations"? They weren't replaced with anything. Discrimination was barred before, then explicitly allowed. Why would anyone expect otherwise?

b) Its not about the burden on the employer, it was about having those in combat be as little dependent on regular medication as possible. You dont want soldiers ever captured, but you definitely dont want them captured and missing their pills, so you send out soldiers without those medical needs, which is something Obama gave trans soldiers a specific exception to.
Then why didn't Trump just rescind the exception? Why did his ban cover people who aren't on ongoing hormone therapies? You're aware not all trans people are on them, and that this was a blanket ban regardless.
 

tstorm823

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You're aware not all trans people are on them, and that this was a blanket ban regardless.
It was explicitly not a blanket ban, and had no effect on people who were not yet medically transitioning.
 

Silvanus

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It was explicitly not a blanket ban, and had no effect on people who were not yet medically transitioning.
This is categorically untrue. It has a directive which specifically concerns medical procedures in section 2. Section 1, however, instructs a return to the policy of "generally prohibiting the accession of openly transgender individuals into the United States military and authorising the discharge of such individuals". No restriction mentioned for that policy on the basis of whether they're medically transitioning.
 

ObsidianJones

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The dems are guilty of the degradation of the standards. By refusing to ever get better any time they win, they've allowed Republicans to get worse. Now the dems just have to stay better than actual insurrectionists and they're fine. They know that if they stay slightly better than the Republicans they can still progressively do worse by Americans every election. They're not better than Republicans they're just a step behind.
I disagree.

The problem with Democrats isn't that they refuse to get better any time they win. The problem is that anyone with Democratic sounding ideas can be elected as a democrat, but not have uniform ideas on how to achieve policy. Or what policy to even back.

In short, when Democrats are usually voted in, the individual with Democratic ideas are voted in. When Republicans are voted in, they usually fall in rank and file with the Republican (for lack of a better word) Hivemind of the day.

This Democratic Party is home of the actual liberals of the Squad and Sanders, who will hopefully gain more followers. The Corporates that drove others (including myself) away like Pelosi and Schumer. And Senator Joe Manchin. Who basically feels to everyone that he is a Republican Plant.

And we do need to spend time talking about Manchin. Who is really the most powerful man in American Politics today. Who must force the Democratic party to kowtow to his non-uniform demands to have any legislation signed. And has been doing so since he came into office

Manchin is the perfect example of a red state politician who styles himself as a different kind of Democrat in a party where the progressive wing can often generate eye-catching headlines.

In 2010 Manchin aired a campaign ad in which he literally shot the text of a cap-and-trade bill while vowing to oppose certain parts of then-president Barack Obama’s signature Obamacare bill. In a sign of how important the landmark healthcare bill became to all corners of the Democratic party in 2018, during his second regular Senate re-election campaign, the West Virginia senator this time shot an anti-Obamacare lawsuit.

More recently, Manchin has reinforced his trademark conservative Democrat identity by keeping some wiggle room on $2,000 stimulus checks to Americans making $75,000 or less. Manchin’s murkiness has spurred Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the liberal congresswoman from New York, to set up a political action committee to embrace $2,000 checks.

“The Pac – No Excuses Pac – is intended to defend the Democratic agenda of Joe Biden, the Build Back Better plan, from the fringes of the Democratic party like Joe Manchin,” said Corbin Trent, the co-founder of the Pac. “Make no mistake, he is the fringes of the Democratic party.”
But with all of that, this... Frankenstein that was passed still benefits people. It isn't what we wanted. It always could be better


But potentially lowering the Poverty level to something we haven't seen in over a decade is nothing to sneeze at. Having money actually reaching those who need it the most is something we haven't seen in a while.

It's not my level of care that I want to see people have, but I'm (and I'm hoping all of you) just going to use this as a jumping off point. We can not rest because we can not afford the Democrats to rest. We turn up the heat. We got this passed, we can do much better. What can we do and who can we get rid of (Hi Manchin!) to start having our policies reach the people uninterrupted.
 

Agema

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In short, when Democrats are usually voted in, the individual with Democratic ideas are voted in. When Republicans are voted in, they usually fall in rank and file with the Republican (for lack of a better word) Hivemind of the day.

This Democratic Party is home of the actual liberals of the Squad and Sanders, who will hopefully gain more followers. The Corporates that drove others (including myself) away like Pelosi and Schumer. And Senator Joe Manchin. Who basically feels to everyone that he is a Republican Plant.
Senators like Joe Manchin represent heavily Republican states (although some awkward Democratic senators throughout the years also have not). These senators are extremely vulnerable to being voted out of office, so compensate by throwing meat to those of their voters that otherwise would tend to support a Republican. And here the basic problem for the Democrats is the Senate composition full stop, because each state is provides 2 senators, but as the low population states lean Republican, the Republicans need fewer voters per Senator. Or to put it another way, with the seats split half half, Democratic Senators represent about 185 million Americans and Repubican about 145 million; by national voter proportion, the Senate should be 56% Democrat and 44% Republican.

Unseat Manchin, and the replacement is most likely a Republican. As disappointing as Manchin is, he's still better than an actual Republican - even if for no other reason than he allows the Democrats to qualify as the majority and exercise effective control over a large number of committees and procedures, plus the ability to squeeze more legislation through, even if it's the unambitious stuff.
 

tstorm823

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This is categorically untrue. It has a directive which specifically concerns medical procedures in section 2. Section 1, however, instructs a return to the policy of "generally prohibiting the accession of openly transgender individuals into the United States military and authorising the discharge of such individuals". No restriction mentioned for that policy on the basis of whether they're medically transitioning.
You're referring to the explicitly temporary part. The part that was "we don't think this policy was well thought out, so we're going to roll-back to the long-standing position and build from there instead". Like, it's specifically temporary.
 

immortalfrieza

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As disappointing as Manchin is, he's still better than an actual Republican
This is the core of the problem with American politics. "Y is bad, but X is WORSE!!!" We've spent decades settling for terrible politicians over and over to the point where even as our only 2 options get worse and worse we not only don't just drop both and go for an independent or stop voting entirely, but our justification for picking whatever boil down to "It's not as bad as the other guy." To the point we're voting in guys who actually belong to the other party but claims they aren't just because voting for the guy that claims they actually are the other party is just slightly worse.

I wouldn't be surprised if in a couple decades at the most we would have our politicians openly murdering people on the Senate floor on the regular and STILL getting voted into office, because that one only killed 20 people today and the other guy killed 22.