Liberals will lie to you and tell you to “just vote in the primary,” but in reality they simply don’t care about trans rights and do not believe there is ever a right time to challenge transphobic Democrats.
First primary: the transphobes hide their colors so you can’t vote against them.
First general election: the snakes reveal their colors, but you can’t vote against the traitors because “blue no matter who.” They tell you to just vote in the next primary.
Second primary: the same people who tell you now “save it for the primary” shift their tune to “we can’t give up an incumbent seat in a purple district!”
Trans people can see through these bad-faith lies. Yet of course, mansplaining trolls will be sure to breathlessly explain “lesser of two evil” math, as if that’s not an argument we haven’t heard a thousand times and already rejected due to its obvious flaws. There’s never a shortage of arrogant cis people who think they know more about trans issues than actual trans people.
Liberals want your votes, not your voices. Be a good little minority and sit down. Shut up. Support the party. You owe the party your support. The party owes you nothing.
EDIT: A few thoughts to address the comment in the thread here:
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You need to get past your team sports approach to politics. I am not advocating voting against Democrats in general. I’m advocating for not voting for the 1% of Democratic candidates that have chosen to become fascist collaborators and adopt Republican positions on trans rights. To trans people, the Democratic party going TERF is a greater danger than the Republican party winning a slim majority in the Senate. The nightmare scenario here is what happened with Labor. Labor has completely fallen to Nazi collaborators. The UK has regressed in trans rights to now be the most transphobic country in Western Europe, and that happened under the rule of a center-left government. The trans people of the UK would have been better off with another term of conservatives than the transphobic labor leaders they elected instead. We don’t need to elect more Fettermans who will turn around and vote against the party the first chance they get. So many people in this thread believe, “you have to vote for the Nazi collaborators, otherwise the Nazis will win!”
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On saving democracy: you are vastly underestimating how difficult that task is. You seem to imagine you can just write a bill that just says, “democracy saved,” and call it a day. Actually saving democracy is going to require stripping powers from the presidency and dismantling the post-9/11 security state. That requires Democratic leaders of moral strength and conviction. It will take leaders willing to look their constituents in the eye and tell them, “I am going to vote for this bill to dismantle ICE. Yes, that means that occasionally an illegal immigrant is going to murder someone. I’m going to vote for this bill to dismantle the NSA’s illegal programs. Yes, that means we may have more terrorist attacks than we would otherwise. It’s worth it to save our Republic.” Saving democracy requires leaders who are literally willing to vote to kill their fellow Americans. Every power you strip away results in a few more people dying. It’s inevitable. And these transphobe Democrats are fundamentally cowards with no inner moral center. They’ll follow any poll or vote for any policy they think will get them power. This kind of person is not capable of saving democracy. You can’t defeat Nazism by voting in Nazi collaborators, and it’s insane to pretend you can.
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Those arguing that trans rights are a minor or insignificant issue? Frankly, if you believe this, you deserve to have your right to vote taken away. If you’re not willing to protect the vulnerable among your community, you deserve whatever evil befalls you. Karma’s a bitch in that way. We can all go to Hell together if that’s the path you choose.
This piece is yet another attempt to break up the Left, which is exactly how the Right keeps winning. Which is much worse, fyi. Kinda obviously at this point.
You’ll never have perfection. Ever. Not ever. Literally never. We never have. We never will. Get over it and look at the bigger picture. Trans people are far worse off under Republican leadership than Democrat.
Their power is unity. Copy it and start winning, or keep this bullshit up and keep losing. Which btw is absolutely worse for trans people. And everyone except the rich…
Liberals are not left, they are right wing.
Unity is when you throw your own base under the bus.
Liberals aren’t really on the left.
My take has been: Vote for what’s right in the primaries. Vote for what’s practical in the general. Rinse & repeat. It’s either that, or give us some sort of ranking option so we can do some semblance of risk mitigation between the two corporate parties.
I voted for candidates in the primary. And for the most part, I’ll sadly be voting against the more-bad candidates in the general to ensure the greatest likelihood of defeat for the more-bad candidates that I can accomplish with my one little vote.
Edit to add: the timing of the article smells weird to me, as if to suppress Democratic turnout in November.
The timing of comments like this is odd to me. People always start throwing around conspiracies like this just before elections. You must be a Russian bot.
That definitely seems like the most likely answer. Good luck out there!
How’s that working out for you?
man if pro pally or trans folks think the dems have abandoned them, they need to fucking check themselves
anti dem propoganda like this is bullshit
Are you either?
are you crazy?
Only crazy about calling out people who lecture communities they aren’t even a part of.
FWIW: answering a question with a question is often seen as evasive, rude or manipulative.
Most of Woody’s posts and comments are trying to discourage people from voting for democrats. I’m not sure which R they work for but they’re definitely helping maga. It’s their whole profile.
Thanks, it was my first encounter. I think I fixed the glitch now.
Ranking is a fucking lie. You don’t have a femocracy until you have a representative share instead of a winner takes all. You don’t have a democracy if a vote on one state is worth more than others. You dont have a democracy until you get rid of gerrymandering.
Suppressing turnout is always the point. Telling you the gov’t can’t fix things and that you should check the fuck out is the point. The status quo is what they want*, its the game they have rigged and control. If voting didnt matter they wouldnt put so much effort in keeping people from doing it or convincing you to stay home.
The dems are 99% ass, but the GOP would imprison trans people as groomers for taking a dump in the girls room. Its not even close and I’m tired of people’s suggesting staying at home will get them better choices next time.
Can always count on there being a cis person that thinks they know trans issues better than actual trans people.
Remember, trans people are apparently numerous enough to owe our votes to Democrats, but we’re not numerous enough to have our issues be included as basic litmus tests of party candidate eligibility.
Maybe you should have some humility and stop acting like minorities owe you anything after you betray them.
Hol’up…
Where did you get the idea that “trans people are numerous enough”? Numerous in what, exactly? To swing an election?
I’m so confused by all the stuff you’re posting around here. It seems you are VERY misinformed about your position in society as a member of a group, and how that affects US elections at large.
I’m not saying to hold back on your swings or anything, but the crazy vitriol you’re spouting off just seems to say you’re making some wild assumptions that will not play out…
If trans people are so minor that we can’t affect elections, why are you complaining about trans people withholding our votes?
First: I’m not “complaining about trans people” in any way. I’m pointing out the flaw in your logic, and attempting to understand what mechanism you believe you are attempting to enact here because it’s no making sense.
Second: trying to contort other people’s comments to turn yourself into a victim over falsehoods is the weakest of weak discourse, and makes you seem like an unserious person. I hope you don’t engage with people in person like that, because it’s a fast track to being ignored.
This is part of a larger conversation.
I am not assuming that trans people are numerous enough to affect elections. I’m simply taking that as a given based on all the responses I’ve received in this and similar threads. People clearly believe that trans people are numerous enough for our votes to matter, but also somehow so small in number that our issues can be ignored.
You’re doing the Democrat version of the old Nazi trope that Jews were both incredibly weak and subhuman, while also a secret conspiracy that controlled the world. The Nazis simultaneously believed that Jews were inferior subhumans, literally less-evolved and less-intelligent than ordinary Germans AND that Jews were powerful and smart enough to secretly run the whole world.
You believe a similar thing about trans people. Our numbers are small enough that our issues can’t be litmus tests for the party. (No one would tell black democrats that they have to support a democrat that is a member of the KKK. Anti-black racism is treated as a red line by the whole party. No one says we have to support klan members because “blue no matter who.” Trans issues aren’t treated with the same seriousness by folks like you.) Our numbers are small enough that our issues can be dismissed as trivial and unimportant. You’ll dismiss the needs of trans people, and then with the very next breath say that we owe our votes to the Democratic party. Us not voting for Democrats risk them losing the election.
You believe in Schrodinger’s trans person: small enough in number to ignore, but not so small that we can’t be blamed for an election loss.
Again…twisting someone’s words into something completely different than what was said to make whatever point you feel you need to make. Unserious.
All I asked was for clarification about HOW you imagine this mechanism of withholding votes in the numbers you’re talking about. It’s math, not attacking your social standing or worth.
Go and read about people who made serious inroads for their social causes like Harvey Milk or Barbara Gittings. That’s how you get to real social change. Hell, look at Sarah McBride. She sees the social systems for what they are, and is working inside them to affect the changes she wants to happen. Doing this argumentative bluster thing that you’re doing and just attacking people, or threatening to abstain from the existing voting system is going to do shit. That’s just the reality of it.
It comes from every time a trans person says they will never support a Democrat that stands against them, BlueMAGA comes out yelling at them saying they’re the reason Harris lost and will be blamed when any other Dem loses.
The entire “Blue MAGA” is literally manufactured russian republican propaganda. It’s not a real thing, it’s a psy-op to convince idiots to let the republicans win. And you are falling for it hard.
No it comes from the toxic positivity of libs telling everyone to support their destructive party over the other destructive party using the same talking points as MAGA, just with a couple words changed.
It’s literally both sides rebranded. It’s a psy op and it’s working on people like you.
You don’t represent all of us, slow your role. Jesus Christ can we at least keep the actual real fascists out of office while working on making things better at the same time?
Why didn’t the “working on making things better” start in 2020? We could’ve kept actual fascists out of power, if we’d started then, instead of breathing a sigh of relief and acting like everything was fixed forever.
Why are you commenting about things you clearly don’t know anything about?
Well, if it’s so obvious, answer the question.
Because you’re JAQ-ing off in bad faith. The question is bad faith. If you were politically engaged you’d be aware of everything done during the Biden administration to correct republican destruction, but you’re not, because you’re here in bad faith.
I don’t know about you but I don’t have a time machine. I’m stuck in the present timeline. If you’ve got a way back to try and fix this mess, believe me when I say try it and don’t worry if it destroys the current timeline.
Even though I recognized the trajectory toward authoritarianism back in 1996 with Pres. Clinton’s Third Way triangulation, and have been saying, guys, we need to start making things better sooner rather than later since then, the past is indeed the past. So, what’s the plan? What are we doing beyond “vote blue” right now to ensure that we don’t have to vote for anti-trans Democrats next time, too?
I love this question, because the answer can be so many things depending on your set, setting, and availability. Engage in local politics and community support.
Show up for meetings and listen. Share your thoughts and opinions as you become informed or find you have questions. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Join a local committee. Run for a local office or go further if that’s your path.
Get acquainted with your local town office, rec center, senior center, etc. Start volunteering. Serve meals, maybe deliver some. Support a food bank - donations, pickup from local business donors. Promote Progressive voices that are supporting workers’ and people’s rights. Support people doing everything described in the previous paragraph.
Gogol Bordello said it first: Think global, act local. Installing a president with true progressive values isn’t a path to success unless there is wider congressional support, so start developing grass roots support or support those that are developing such.
Conservatives have spent 50+ years slowly and steadily doing this and fucking over progressive voices all along the way with exuberant neoliberal support on embracing corporate money and influence. It’s a long road back. We need to stop accelerating towards stupidity and it’s the right wing authoritarian cultists that have their foot stuck on the gas pedal so keeping them out of power would be super neato as far as I’m concerned.
I’m not claiming the trans folk owe the dems shit. I am say the least I can do for marginalized groups is hold my nose and vote for the people who currently aren’t executing policy to harm those groups.
Voting for a third party?! Tsk-tsk!
You can always count on two things when a trans person points out how trans people are being taken for a ride by the democrats:
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There will be a cis person there to haughtily explain “lesser of evil” math, as if you’re just a stupid tr#nny who is too dumb to understand it, rather than someone who is fully aware of the argument and recognizes that it’s complete bullshit.
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There will be a cis person there calling the trans person a foreign agent or Republican plant. Remember, liberals want your vote, not your voice.
Thank you for proving me right.
It’s realpolitiks and it’s nasty but frankly speaking not much can be done within the current political system and the actions that can be done without said system most folks don’t have the taste for and the police state makes it pretty damned hard to enact and get away with it. Personally I wish we could just murder and string up every politically powerful transphobe and transphobe enabler but that’s how you suicide by cop as of right now and would be politically damaging.
It’s a well known issue amongst those of us who are more traditional rednecks, sure you could just shoot the anti-worker pissrag but that by itself is ineffective unless you keep doing it and with modern forensics and surveillance the old ways simply are ineffective.
But I’ll also admit that my baseline reaction to any authoritarians is basically to just want to kill them. Can’t really see past that but in this case I can’t really theorize how to get politicians to just shut the fuck up beyond putting a knife to their throat and asking about their life insurance policy so FUBAR.
Lol you are so wildly off base it’s actually hilarious
Edit: I’m trans, ya big ole goofball
Woody’s entire account is just trying to get people not to vote for dems. The trans angle is new to me though.
So glad the upvote/downvote ratio trends toward rational thought on this one. There is hope for lemmy after all.
this shit was ridiculous
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i solved it
trans voters abandon democrats at their peril
satisfying
That doesn’t really work unless the candidate is honest in the primary. So you vote for someone thinking they’re one way and they double cross you.
Yes this is also about Fetterman
Bottom line: Everything sucks and will forever. Because people suck and always will.
Vote out of spite.
Blue wave would be a death sentence as much as a red wave then.
here’s the bot ^
Here’s the thrice Trump voter ^
if that’s what you think baby face 👶
vote blue no matter who, execute trump and his cronies
then punish his supporters
i will defend my trans friends to the bitter end, violently
i’m fucking sick of you trolls, coming for russians next
Yeah, you’re definitely how it got to where it is. Yikes.
who you voting for then? you seem to have it figured out
I don’t think mail-in voting will be a thing and so I won’t be able to receive my ballot from safely outside of the USA. I will not be braving the polling booths, since I’m unwilling to risk any more of myself for a country that doesn’t like me anyway.
Maybe there’s time to do another peaceful protest.
oh so you’re not in the united states, you don’t plan on voting, and you’re going to sling insults at people who are trying to at least show others they aren’t alone
got it, you’re in here wasting time and stirring the pot
Not as much. You have no grasp.
Just what the world needs. Attacks on the left wing to help justify Republicans again…
right around election season
odd timing <.<
No. I and others hold these views constantly. You just only pay attention to politics during politics season.
Or maybe you’re just a Republican bot account. After all, I see comments accusing leftists of being Republicans, but only near election season. What odd timing that is!
fuck off
i’ve been watching you act deranged in the comments, i wasn’t going to block you but i can tell you’re another energy vampire
And see what happens right now. I detest you muricans for that false pride (“they’re also bad”), that led to Trump even winning the popular vote. It has global implications!
An election is (almost) always damage control, it’s lunatic to think a party/person will do everything that you stand for… I have never voted for a party because I like them, or I support all their positions in europe…
You can get active politically through whatever means, but at the same time you need to avoid the worst.
Absolutely.
It’s like writing articles "Hitlers opposition sucks because they blocked the building of 3 synagogues. Never mind the other 150 they approved, its those 3 that are important…
Oh, but they’re still better than the others, so vote for them, but complain about it until the election, which totally won’t discourage them in a country where voting isn’t mandatory
Also, just remember, the personal opinion of 2 senators is what matters.
It’s like writing articles "Hitlers opposition sucks because they blocked the building of 3 synagogues. Never mind the other 150 they approved, its those 3 that are important…
More like, “99% of Hitler’s opposition doesn’t oppose synagogues. But it’s your duty to vote for any synagogue-burner as long as they also oppose Hitler.”
With FPTP, a candidate from one of the twoajpr parties will win. You’re voting against the greater evil. Primaries are where you vote your conscience and hopefully get the candidate you want on the ballot.
Thats how it works in practical terms. When you protest vote against the lesser of two evils, you are throwing support to the greater evil.
Thank you for proving me right.
Go buy some lottery tickets. You’re bad at math.
You’re not right. Read fhe room.
As I keep pointing out, the problem with this argument is that it presumes that the United States is a law of nature, eternal and unshakable, simply the backdrop for our political battles. It is not. That much should be obvious with how much the fascists have managed to dismantle in such a short time.
Yes, FPTP means that a candidate from one of the two major parties will win. But also, every time a candidate from one of the two major parties wins, we get closer to authoritarianism (slowly with Team Blue, directly with Team Red), and the destruction of the United States. Both things can be true. There’s not always a solution to our problems, or a correct course of action.
We have to do something other than FPTP with the two, current major parties. Well, no, actually, we don’t have to. It’s only if we want to save the United States (and protect vulnerable minorities) that we do.
Either you work with the current ‘legal’ democratic system, and vote for the lesser of two evils, and then work within the system to push for what you want with media, lobbying and peaceful protests; or you go with some sort of violent illegal acts - which will probably just get you in jail. If you don’t vote for the better candidate who can win, and just sit on your arse complaining, you won’t get much respect.
Yes, those are the options. I chose to advocate for peaceful-as-possible legal reforms of the current system, e.g. the big cities should ‘secede’ from state control, while remaining part of the Union, not unlike the free imperial cities of the Holy Roman Empire. The point here is that voting in the “respectable” way for the lesser-evil party has not, and will not, save us from eventual authoritarianism, any more than the right configuration of deck chairs will keep the ship from foundering. (Well,a better analogy is that one party wants to rip the hull open more, while the other wants to run the pumps even if they can’t keep up with the flooding, and repairing the hole isn’t an option under the regulations.)
Maybe it won’t save us, but voting the lesser of two evils will reduce the immediate damage. Better to have someone adjusting the deck chairs than stabbing people and throwing them into the water.
And we can push in other angles of reform at the same time.When is this pushing other angles of reform ever gonna start? If it didn’t in 2020, I have to wonder. I’m just not satisfied with “everybody gets stabbed, but a few years later” as the best possible outcome.
Not sure. What have you done to start it?
Been telling anybody who’d listen that we’re on the path to authoritarianism with the two major parties since '96, donating to and promoting media organizations that spread the message, voting, contracting my representatives, and trying to influence local government.
rather not vote if i dont get what i want too bad biden and kamela 🤮 i regret nothing not my problem nation got what they deserved. both times biden and trump until both parties 2 party system uniparty dies.
Notice this person is basically telling you to vote republican without saying so
You don’t owe them shit and are free to abandon them, though given the situation in the USA right now, it will be at your peril.
Time to roll over and die then I guess.
Yes, the options are bleak and the honesty is thin on the ground when it comes to politicians, but this narrative has wandered back into “chop off your nose to spite your face” territory just in time for the election. Weird how that always happens.
Doing nothing allows the absolute worst people to seize more power and hurt more people. If you’re that disillusioned by the whole process then you should be looking up schematics for guillotines, not trying to drag others down into your apathy and ruin.
Forgive my ignorance if you can, what laws or policies are top priority for trans people? From the linked article and your post I’m not even sure what to focus on for individual candidates.
Before I go to the trouble of writing a long explanation, can you show me what you’ve researched first on the topic? Don’t take it personally, but this kind of comment can easily be sealioning, so I want to see you put in a bit of effort before I do the same.
I will never be a single issue voter. There will never be a perfect candidate. I may disagree with a candidate on 3 of 10 things. And that’s oka, it’s better than if I disagree 7 out of 10 things on.
You would vote for a high-ranking member of the Ku Klux Klan as long as they supported Medicare for All.
That’s a really odd take.
Doesn’t mean it’s incorrect. It’s what lesser evil thinking leads you to.
Bullshit. It is extremely unlikely that I would have 7 of 10 things I agree with a person like that.
Tell me, what is your voting strategy?
Tell me, what is your voting strategy?
Be as much concerned about the power balance within each party’s coalition as which party wins the election.
Democrats showing yet again that they would rather lose support from their most progressive voters than their most moderate swing voters.
Did you read the article? I don’t even think OP did based on their post…
Why do you think any commentary on an article has to completely parrot its points? It’s a reaction, not a summary.
hey, come back and see the comments
pretty sure unanimously we all see this as some fake ass bullshit up in here
Perfection is unachievable, but go ahead and either don’t vote, vote independent or even vote for the open hatred party. It’s your foot your shooting.
Being a decent human isn’t perfection, it’s the bare minimum.
Your definition of decent is likely not the same as someone else’s. The worst person you can think of thinks they’re a good person.
And yet the worse person I can think of has no shame when they are shown how little decency they actually have.
OP didn’t even read the article they posted before providing commentary as if they did…
What’s the point of including an article if you didn’t even read it???
Why do you think any commentary has to directly mirror the points of the article? I did read it and then posted the thoughts it inspired in me. I did read it. You just have a poor understanding of literacy.
Seriously, I am getting a rash of crap for not following the rules. Apparently this is how you post what you want and not follow the rules.
Look…just going to be super honest here and say a Super Minority group of maybe 1-2% making electoral threats doesn’t math out, and in the bigger picture of things happening right now only amounts to extortion, and the Gay Community at large can explain to you why this doesn’t work in great detail.
The words you posted don’t even match the tenor of the article you’ve linked, so I’m feeling this is just a misguided way of putting some bluster out there. At best, you need to side with the people trying to protect you, but in the realm of all logic you’ve apparently decided to make a threat towards them if you don’t get exactly all the things you want on your checklist.
It’s like yelling “You better give me the money, or I’m going to rob this bank here” to the cops, but you’re standing in a Wendy’s parking lot, and you have no weapons.
Look…just going to be super honest here and say a Super Minority group of maybe 1-2% making electoral threats doesn’t math out, and in the bigger picture of things happening right now only amounts to extortion, and the Gay Community at large can explain to you why this doesn’t work in great detail.
Then don’t bitch about how we chose to vote. If we’re not numerous enough for you to consider our issues to be of worth, then don’t be surprised when we don’t support you.
You seem to think I’m complaining about something, when my words obviously don’t do anything of the sort. You’re doing this “Royal We” and acting like you’re the representative for a larger group of people, which your are not. I’m simply pointing out the flaws in your statements and trying to understand what you’re trying to to say. As others have said, you’re not making a lot of sense.
Cool vote for trump then and shutup
Leftists; “Don’t vote for the 1% of Democrats that are openly transphobic. Make being a transphobe political suicide for any Republican.”
Liberals: “cool, guess you want Trump to win.”
You’re literally telling me to sit down and shut up. You want our votes, not our voices. Typical arrogant liberal.
You have zero voice now, how does it feel
