Political Memes

Minimum wage: Dems ran on $15 since 2015. Reality? In 2021, 8 Senate Dems killed it. “$11 is more reasonable”, Result: 20 states still at $7.25.

Corporate taxes: Biden’s 2022 “win” (15% min tax) affects 150 companies. Meanwhile, Amazon paid 0% in 2021. Dems folded on closing offshore loopholes.

And that has to do with the national party line... in what way?

Military spending: Obama’s “cuts” were a theater. He ended ground wars but quadrupled drone strikes (civilian deaths went up 400%).

1. Saying that "cuts" were a theatre by pointing to drone strikes makes no sense. Budget cuts are fucking budget cuts, I'm sorry that you don't think that wasting less money on implements of war instead of human needs is a good thing?

2. Civilian deaths did not go up "400%".

3. Drone strikes went up as a replacement for traditional air and artillery strikes, not as a sudden spike in military activity.

Biden signs $886B budget, higher than Trump did.

Much of the increase was a pay raise for troops and assistance to Ukraine; furthermore, the increases of the Biden years were significantly lower, by percentage, than during the Trump years. But sure, both sides same. What's Trump's position on Ukraine, again?

Healthcare: 2009: Dems had 60 votes. They gutted the public option to please Big Pharma donors.

Yes, and the Blue Dogs were massacred in 2010 and 2012 because of this.

Dems had 4 months at 60 seats in 2009

And as anyone who actually follows politics can tell you, four months is a blink of a fucking eye, and the fragility of that fillibuster-proof majority was exactly why ramming the legislature through was so important.

and 18 days at 50+VP in 2021. Both times, they negotiated against themselves.

I'm sorry, do you think the Democratic Party is a hivemind? It's a big-tent coalition in a situation where they literally could not lose even a single vote to pass any legislature?

What exactly were you expecting from a razor-thin margin in a big-tent "Everyone who isn't the fascist ghouls" coalition? Socialism in a five year plan?

Harm reduction in a burning building is not a permanent solution.

YES, THAT'S THE POINT OF HARM REDUCTION

You’ve got to be a right wing troll. I’ll say it one more time, I very much support saving the Palestinian people but I don’t believe for one second that Chuck Shumer would do anything about their current horrible conditions.

No, he wouldn't. But Trump has very much made their previous horrible conditions worse.

But the increased level of Palestinian deaths doesn't matter - you have to justify your decision to enable the murder of Palestinians to yourself by any means necessary. After all, otherwise you might feel bad, and that's worse than any number of dead Palestinians.

I’ve got to ask, what is your goal in attacking my position? Are you trying to change my mind? Are you trying to convince others to take your position? If yes to either, how effective do you believe your strategy has been?

My goal is to emphasize that murdering more people out of some pathetic sense of self-righteousness is, itself, fucking murderous, and that what is peddled as moral purity is literally enabling genocide and fascism out of a petty and bizarre sense of self-aggrandizement.

The fucking fact of the matter is, the 2024 election is over. There is no 'redo'. Millions of Palestinians are going to die, and a significant percentage of them are going to die directly because of the increased level of support given to Israel by Trump.

My goal in pointing this out is the slim, slim chance that maybe one person who sees this, too used to getting asspatted for enabling genocide, might be shaken enough by it being pointed out that they effectively enabled the literal fucking Nazis by inaction to not let delusions of moral purity let the literal fucking Nazis win the next time an issue like this comes up.

Fuck's sake. Imagine if there's a fucking civil war in this country and purists decide they'd rather let the Nazis win than work with the dreaded shitlibs. There are, unfortunately, ample examples of just that happening during civil wars.

But hey, let's cultivate the attitude of "If there are only two, unequally bad choices available, rather than choose the less bad option, choose the worse one out of spite!", what the fuck could go wrong, eh?

If you really care about the Palestinians then why not try to pull people to your side rather than doing the equivalent to a “thoughts and prayers” post that won’t change anyone’s mind?

I care about the Palestinian people. Unfortunately, the last chance we Americans had to make a serious difference in how many of them were going to die going forward was in November 2024, and we, the American people, said, as a supermajority, that we either didn't care if more died going forward, or that we supported it. A minority of around 1/3 of us said we would like Palestinian murder to not escalate.

There is no 'pulling people to my side' for Palestine at this point. I can (and do) donate to humanitarian orgs and point out that Israel is committing genocide, but my strongest period of influence is over, and failed.

All I can do is try to remind people of the fucking horror of enabling more Palestinian deaths because you didn't get your way in the hopes that the next time a crisis like this happens people might take the less-bad option instead of the worse one.