Journal of Other Forum Analysis (Volume II, Issue 1)

[Besticus Maximus]

If they made their own mountain dew instead I bet most of them would end up happier on average

[Eric Cartman]

How can we come together to stop genocide and work on other important issues as a broader coalition?

We have to first agree on overall political goals that we want to achieve.

Liberals and leftists just don't.

Liberals want to merely expand power in a colonial system that already crushes minorities. Leftists want to actually fix the fucking system.

Just because we agree on social issues (to a point) doesn't necessarily mean we're actually allies. If your ultimate goal is just to put Black and Queer people in the driver's seat of this death machine we call a country, if you were a grown-ass adult legitimately excited about a Black woman being President, then I don't want you in my circle.

This isn't an issue of the future. The fight to revolutionize these systems has been happening since Indigenous genocide and is still happening today.

You either are working towards those goals, or you are not.

Liberals have ultimately conceded that there is nothing to do about these systems because they're entrenched. Not only do they give deference to these systems because of their entrenchement, but they ultimately they enjoy the benefits of these systems (start a reparations thread to get a feel on how much Era actually cares about Black people) and simply do not want to work with progressives at all. They play like they do. They act like they're fighting so hard. They take credit for progressive policies and fights when they finally become electorally viable and popular.

But they are not going to actually do anything significant for the material benefit of all. Ironically, far-right conservatives have realized this already. They know neither party gives a shit, which is why they're so prone to populism. But they're too bigoted and have different fundamental world views about the nature of hierarchy that they can't actually bring themselves to work for revolution either, and so they take the frustration with these contradictions out on minorities, or on other white people when they go off on one with a mass shooting. People here still think Democrats give a fuck and are actually a moral good, and it's like "There's no way you have a college degree and/or an IT job and are still this politically naive."

Ultimately though, these schisms are here, right now. We are fighting, right now. You are on one side of the line or the other. Liberals got it twisted that because we agree on queer rights that we're all on the same team, and that progressives need to get in line and stop being so fucking uppity all the time. Well, now fucking look at them. Liberals have been trying to twists themselves into knots for over a year over the moral consequences of their party supporting a goddamn genocide, and keep blaming the encroachment on fascism on literally everyone but themselves even though they are the most popular political sect in the Western world right now. Clown shoes.

Thanks. It's been an exhausting year of liberals having no awareness around their co-opting and usage of leftist language/values/ideas to make a harmful violent system easier to stomach and then getting mad at actual leftists for calling them out on their bullshit. The system itself is killing us. If you like capitalism we are not in the same club.

If this post was a restaurant dinner, I'd leave a $50 tip.

I'm just going to be frank with this:

If you are a liberal wholly divorced and unaffected by the U.S.'s violence towards brown communities you do not have the right to try and dictate how they should vote - full stop.

The audacity to use their *DEATHS* as argumentative politically convenient talking points to push *YOUR* candidate of choice abetting their genocide is fucking abhorrent, and any one who has done that should be ashamed of themselves.

This really should be the long and short of it.

Either learn how to practice solidarity or go away. Vote then go play your video games.

Then who is a viable candidate I can vote for?

For socialists there are no viable candidates under a bourgeois democracy. For anarchists, they have little interest in propping up the state by voting for people that seek to hold power over others.

Electoralism is not the only way to fight for liberation and a better life for yourself or your community.

Then who is a viable candidate I can vote for?

If the genocide is a deal breaker for you, that means you sit out entirely or vote down ballot.

If the genocide isn't a deal breaker for you, vote Kamala.

I fully disagree, but it is what it is. I do see the reasoning from you but I would rather vote for the person that chop of one arm instead of losing both (and then some).

The thing is, you can't vote for a person that you admit is gonna chop your arm off and then say "I didn't vote for the arm chopping."

You literally did vote for the arm chopping. You disagreeing with the act of arm chopping doesn't change the material support. Indeed, one must ask why you didn't do everything in your power to fight against arm chopping even being on the ballot at all if you vehemently disagree.

Do you have power over your politicians, or do you politicians have power over you?

Voters have the power, yes, but voting against something, when you have two choices, doesn't mean you endorse horrible acts.

Would you throw your vote down if it meant that both arms where chopped off instead of one?

There is no but.

Either voters have checks on their politicians or they don't.

Fact of the matter is that the politicking, strong-arming, and moral shaming by liberals has ideologically flattened what it means to be civically and politically engaged, so that now the only strategical and even moral choice is to vote for Democrats no matter what depravity they decide to enact.

You can't actually push them leftward after election time either because midterms are always right around the corner and you don't want to be responsible for any "in-fighting" that may cost important seats.

This level of loyalty means that you do not have power over your politicians anymore. They are not accountable to you, even discounting the fact that they are ultimately beholden to corporate interests before human well-being anyway.

The fact of the matter is, if you claim you are trying to fight for a better world, some self sacrifice must be eventually confronted because you are fighting systems that inevitably privilege you. Allyship and solidarity should not conditional upon your personal comfort.

I can continue living without both arms. You can't live while being fucking burned alive while hooked up to an IV in a damn tent. So making the calculus that I consider Palestinians my brothers and sisters too, there's nothing I can go through that's worse than what they're suffering. So I'm sacrificing some part of myself, which ultimately is some miniscule amount of comfort even despite the compounding issues I've got as a minority in this hellhole of a country.

If you are not in a state where you can make that calculus, that you are operating entirely upon self perseveration, then just fucking vote so that only one arm is chopped off and keep on living your life. But don't shit on the guy on the operating table next to you who was willing to give more of himself to the cause than you were.

Honest question, do you think that supporting the Palestinian freedom movement will be easier under a Kamala administration or a Trump administration?

Supporting the Palestinian cause under Trump will be harder than under a Harris administration, but it will be comparatively easier than what my ancestors had to sacrifice to progress this world while existing in far more worse conditions.

My people were enslaved and still fought and died for more than where I am now. What the fuck do I look like fearing Trump? Bitch-made behavior. I will continue fighting for what I believe in no matter who is in office. If you are going to stop fighting for your beliefs if Trump wins, then do that. But don't fucking bother me about it.

I really appreciate your posts, your genuine passion and how eloquently you state your mind, thank you. We're blessed to have an admin like you, please don't be deterred in your activism. That goes for everyone else too.

Well I'm happy that you not into bitch-made behavior.

But I'd still and am still advocating for the path that maximizes the odds of a free Palestine.

The path for a free Palestine is all but gone because Gaza is irrecoverable and both parties have made it clear they are not going to be working towards larger Palestinian interests because those interests simply do not align with America's geopolitical and capitalistic goals. Engaging or disengaging from the political process for this one election cycle is not going to materially help this particular situation.

Abstaining is completely fine.

But voting down Jill Stein is also a genocide option with that logic. From Ukrainian point of view. And also in how Trump would enable further genocide globally, including in Africa. Trump does not even have sympathy for his blood relatives, he will not intervene with Israel, Russia or any other genocidal regime.

Harris will not intervene in any genocide happening now except Ukraine's, but only to the extent that it does not kick off a wider world war on the European mainland. We're not putting boots on the ground. If Russia wins through attrition, Ukrainians are fucked.

MENA region and the Global South are fucked regardless. Democrats don't give a fuck about goddamn Sudan or the Congo. Like, are you serious?

What do you mean by self sacrifice?

If my non-vote for President directly leads to a Trump administration, that means that I as a Black trans person will be significantly more in danger of dying as a direct result of it. It's the calculus I made to simply not actively support a genocide, because that is my red line.

If you believe that the only way to reduce harm is to vote for Democrats no matter how much they support colonialism, then vote for Kamala.

Like really, at this point, you have three options: vote for Kamala and all Democrats, vote downticket for Democrats, or abstain altogether. We're adults, and it's the day of. Pick one and move on. What is even to talk about at this point?

To stop genocides globally, and particularly in Africa, I do think that Russia needs a regime change as well. It is not just about who is the leader of the US.

The worst outcome from Trump winning, could be no fair elections in the future of the US, and Russian style oligarchy, where preventing conflict globally becomes even more difficult.

With Harris, there would be at least a chance that she will listen on Palestine and Africa, and form a different legacy from Biden.

I think Trump will just give Putin/Israel a complete freedom to do whatever they want.

I don't have control over Russia's regime. Regardless, my goal is ultimately the dismantling of Western colonialism of which I perceive as the bigger threat. Russia is not my highest priority right this second.

Also elections currently are not fair. Money sways the outcome which means corporations have more say than you do. Gerrymandering and the Electoral College means white conservatives have more power than minorities in the cities like me. Voting rights laws and felonious restrictions means that, within a judicial system that targets Black and Brown people at high rates, usually with the support of liberals, my people are already largely disenfranchised from voting anyway, to say nothing of the repeal of the Voting Rights Act. This is what I mean when I say we're on two separate teams. For some reason, you view this system as fair right now. To me, it has never been fair, and the pomp and circumstance made around casting a ballot doesn't actually address the material reality of how American elections are conducted.

Also, Harris is not going to do anything about Palestine and Africa because she's a neoliberal Democrat. Liberation is not on the docket with this belief system.

It sounds like some of us think it won't matter if Harris or Trump is elected, this presidential election doesn't matter, nothing is going to change, and we all might as well give up.

It's not progressives that have given up. It's liberals.

The American left will never be able to get what they want if they are not seen as a voting block, not voting for Harris only makes more genocide and takes power away from your voice. Its simple, the left doesnt get prioritized because they dont turn out

The left gets prioritized when they threaten liberalism. If they try to get socialists on the ballot or start a communist party then the Dems are always there to prioritize disenfranchisement of anti capitalist politics. If you protest against the military industrial complex and start an encampment, liberals will prioritize you, you end up suspended, arrested, banned from campus. If you protest a cop city you get RICO charges or assassinated like Tortuguita. If you show up to the DNC and advocate for Palestine, you will be prioritized by getting kicked out or shunned. Liberals spend plenty of time prioritizing the left, but our priorities aren't the same because liberals have more in common with conservatives than they do with progressives.

Nailed it.

But as always I have to point a finger here, because it's a nice microcosm. ResetEra is simultaneously a place that offers a genuine online sanctuary to a lot of marginalized groups, but also one that is quick to adhere to status quo liberalism, and where leftist thought is often dismissed or just shuttered.

Dead on, the liberal concern with the aesthetics of social justice always rears its head when the opportunity for progress lies in front of them. Never the right time, never the right place, never the right methods and never the right movement. Liberals will do anything to assassinate the characters of progressives because it is only in their presence that their faux desire for equality and justice is laid bare for all to see. This same ground seems to get tread on any thread when members start whining about leftists, never seems to stick.

I don't think pragmatism is giving up nor is peddling a dream of the promised revolution benefitting…anybody.

If your pragmatism leads you to voting for a candidate promising to continue colonialism and genocide, then you have given up any moral high ground that you stand against these things as a hard-line principle. It also means that if genocide is something to renege on when it's convenient, then I absolutely cannot trust you for less pressing matters like police abolition and prison reform. You will throw me under the bus the moment it's convenient.

Ultimately what you're telling me is that you absolutely will vote for these things to continue if it means you can trade off for domestic policy you support like healthcare. That's an understandable utilitarian approach, but it's not actually one that refuses colonialism and genocide wholesale. Doesn't actually matter what you say you believe. Intent isn't action.

I also don't really respect notions from people who claim that revolution is a dream to be peddled and not an ultimate goal to work towards through various means of organization. You can continue cleaning the master's house. I'm trying to actually break the chains and achieve abolition.

To me this forum would be genuinely hopeless with Nepenthe. Your posts are always incredibly thoughtful, insightful, and well written. In a league well above most of the discourse here, including my own, for which I'm very thankful. Echoing the appreciation from others here.

I really don't think you can judge someone as ceding the moral high ground

Yes I can. I just look at your actions and the

I don't respect notions from people who seem to want to tear the fabric of the coalition between "liberals" and "leftists" at a time when we need to be focused on the very real threat at hand.

I don't respect people who think that liberals and leftists ever had a coalition.

I don't respect people who only talk about coalition building in terms of getting progressives to cede rightward.

I don't respect people who are only just now concerned about the threats at hand because they now only affect people they care about when liberals have been asleep at the wheel regarding the suffering of colonized peoples.

I don't respect people who are going to forget about my causes once they get their candidates in office.

We are not, and never have been, on the same side and I'm tired of people perpetuating that lie. What don't you get about that?

Being pro Israel and pro genocide cost the democrats a very winnable election. Right wingers like fetterman and torres need to be removed from the party. They are free to ruin their own lives, leave the rest of us out of it.

But Gaza/Palestine was not what cost her this election.

That's what I'm seeing.

Basically Kamala couldn't get white suburban men to vote for her like they voted for Biden.

White suburban men do not give a shit about Gaza.

They just really don't give much of a shit about anything beyond maintaining their comfort and place within the hierarchy.

Maybe it would have been helpful for Hasan to actually endorse Harris instead of doing this ridiculous post-mortem.

If there's one thing this election has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's that "leftist streamers" are categorically worthless at getting out the vote, whereas rightwing streamers have basically destroyed an entire generation of boys.

Ridiculous takes. This is no different than vote-shaming. The idea that Hasan and other leftist streamers needed to go against their personal beliefs and endorse someone they didn't feel right endorsing is wrong.

It also doesn't even make sense. Hasan was regularly (and rightfully) criticizing Harris. He was kicked out of the DNC for criticizing their treatment of Palestinian voices. His audience would see right through any sort of official endorsement.

And PlanetSmasher, it is not the job of "leftist streamers" to get out the vote. Their goal, whether you like/agree with them or not, is to inform viewers about progressivism and leftist ideals. Leftist streamers don't exist to help liberals get elected.

Torres, Fetterman, and their supporters can legitimately fuck off lol.

Just in general, I think we need to reckon with the fact that we are largely held hostage by a white, undereducated, vibes-based electorate with no actual desire to enact proper civic engagement, and thus they just like voting for strong white men who make them feel cool.

My point is clearly that one side's streamers have weaponized their base and made them vote for Trump, and now we have a Nazi in the White House. If we hadn't lost young men almost entirely to manosphere bullshit, maybe we would've had a chance here.

Meanwhile we have absolutely no streamers of note mobilizing people against Trump, and that's one of a NUMBER of factors contributing to the fact that we lost. We've lost an entire generation because Twitch decided to skew two ways: Nazi and "not voting and here's why".

It's not exclusively because of that. But it's abundantly clear that the online left was completely incapable of drawing in new voters and preventing bleed of young men to the right wing in the face of scum like Rogan, Elon and Andrew Tate, forces that have straight-up directly corrupted a MASSIVE chunk of potential voters and basically lost them to our side forever.

We're losing voters we can't replace. That's extremely bad.

Blaming whites ignores the reality of the situation.

No it doesn't.

You swing the numbers of every Black and Latino man who voted for Trump, Kamala still loses, because they're less than 11% of the electorate. Literally less than the entire population of Black people in this country, who in turn do not actually have enough power to swing elections.

It is always whites fucking around, either by turning out for Republicans or not showing up for Democrats.

Now, don't get me wrong. Every non-white person who actively voted for Trump (white Latinos are still white; sorry) deserves a fucking side-eye, but it should engender a further acknowledgement that conservative and fascistic ways of thinking are not genetically bound to your race. Plenty of minorities are indoctrinated to some degree in capitalistic and hierarchical ways of thinking. Hell, that's why a great deal of y'all are still running around thinking Democrats are actually a force for good instead of seeing them as the capitalists that they are.

Regardless, you trying to blame minorities instead of whites is part of the problem. This is white people's country to do whatever the fuck they want with it, and until they either become a numerical minority or wake the fuck up to the realities of the harm that whiteness imparts, and learn to give a fuck about something other than themselves, then that's just gonna be the case going forward.

For years, we just kept hearing that old racists will die out and the newer generation + minority support will lead to the GOP's disintegration and we'll lock down a perfect, progressive future. So many people were extremely sure about it.

That clearly hasnt panned out, and theres no sign that it ever will with the demographic voting stats we're starting to see post election.

So what do we do next? Do we really not have any agency?

This idea that progressivism is the result of generations just dying has always been a lazy one. Conservatives pass their beliefs down like anyone else. Furthermore, conservative beliefs are further entrenched by the economic and political systems of this country. Conservative thinking is extremely easy and comfortable.

Ultimately, progressive gains are only won primarily through organization at the grassroots and local level. Y'all need to basically just log off Era, get off of Twitter and TikTok and YouTube, find some organizations that are trying to build alternative systems to fill in the gaps caused by capitalistic decay, or if you're willing, start building these systems and lifelines yourself.

Like, what various Black organizations and individuals were doing back all throughout the Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras? What people in places like Brazil and Burkina Faso are doing now? Just copy that. Stop sitting around wondering how white people could act like white people, as if this is a genuine surprise, and get to work.

I'm not even super in love with the online left, but I can recognize that it's not on them to sell their audience (leftists) on a centrist campaign that was doing them no favors. The campaign was supposed to come to them, not the other way around.

The difference you're noticing is that the Trump campaign is ideologically aligned with all the far right nonsense out there.

At the end of the day, here we are. Nazis in the White House, trans rights about to be erased. There were people who could've voted to stop it, and resoundingly, they did not show up last night. A lot of that was due to economics, but a lot of that was due to the internet suppressing left-wing voters and turbocharging right-wing voters.

If even a fraction of those voters could've been prevented from disengaging by social media, or if the online left was better at, as I said before, preventing young men from peeling off and being radicalized into effectively permanent Republican voters by Tate and Musk, we may not have found ourselves in this situation.

Alas, here we are. A failed state, a permanently turbo-fucked Supreme Court, the complete death of women's right to autonomy, and not a shred of meaningful progress for the rest of any of our lives. All we get to hope for until we die is that Trump doesn't make it through the next year because his health finally fails, or that he outright forgets to implement some of the rights-erasing purges he's planning to implement. All we can hope for is that our lives get worse to the smallest margin they possibly can. Because absolutely nothing is going to get better, and we have absolutely zero route to fix this.

Oh, true, but I meant more from the side of the influencer/streamer. I don't think any quid pro quo would be enough of a lure.

You would hope that "preventing the literal death of LGBT and women's rights in the country" would be enough of a lure but this election has proven that's not the case. Which is why we're probably never going to win again, because we have nothing to offer and our base is too wide and wants too many different things to ever mount an effective response to the GOP's completely lockstep "as long as everyone else suffers more than us, we'll take as much pain as you'll give us" mentality.

Trying to quintuple down on leftism by itself isn't going to get us where we need to go. There simply aren't enough leftists to win, and we've lost a huge chunk of potential future voters to the right. If we want to win, we need a big tent party, and a big tent party only works if people actually stay in the goddamn tent. And that means leftists putting the actual country over single issues.

Or we can have another election where people protest vote and life gets worse for everyone, including them, and more non-right-wing people are disenfranchised from ever taking part in politics again, because there's no point in participating if you always lose.

I just want to shut myself in my bedroom and not emerge until 2028. Every moment I think about what the next 4 years will hold just makes me sink further into despair.

Like, will we even have a functioning democracy by then? I can't stop catastrophizing about what's going to happen.

Why limit it to men RE: the Hispanic vote? They account for 15% of the electorate alone and Trump clocked 45% of them compared to 32% in 2020.. I need to see the math to believe we'd have still lost if minority numbers were at 2020 levels because I don't believe that.

White folks are gonna do what white folks do. They did exactly what we thought they would. I'm more worried about why we lost minority support and how to prevent that from getting even worse in the future because if it continues at this rate we're fucked forever. If black men continue ticking up, if Hispanics hit 50+… that's it, that's game. How is that not a wake up call for folks?

Because Hispanic men broke further in 2024 than Hispanic women did (although again, Hispanic people can also count as white, but exit polls don't actually break that group down with any further racial granularity, which is fucking stupid): 19 point difference versus an 8 point difference between the two genders.

Black people in general shouldn't be in the conversation. Trump only made gains with 3% of Black men (5% of the participating electorate), and lost Black women by 2% (7% of the participating electorate).

This is also not counting the fact that voting totals are less overall this year than they were in 2020. Because people- namely whites- stayed home.

And Democrats lost minorities because they're a shitty centrist party with weak-ass leadership. 🤷🏿‍♀️ If you want to fix that, you need to A.) Start making material improvements in minorities' lives, B.) Don't throw them under the bus when electorally convenient, C.) Don't pander to them with bullshit like celebrity endorsements, and D.) Actually stand firm on a consistent platform.

That's how you get minorities to back you. Will white people follow? Who knows? Probably not. But that's the reality of this country.

Exactly what I keep saying, Im a leftist but I have no problem working within the democratic party because I actually want to make progress and if we dont vote our voice will never matter in the party. They dont take us seriously when people think they can protest vote and allow democracy to die

At the end of the day, it sucks. It just sucks. Israel's ethnic cleansing should've been stopped ages ago, but it wasn't. It hasn't been, it wasn't (thanks to Zion Joe) and now it will be allowed with gusto to see out the conclusion Bibi's always wanted from it. We didn't even get a chance to try and stop it with a new administration.

But not only are we going to have to watch that happen, now we stand no chance of protecting the rights of anyone in this country. Women, LGBT folks, minority folks, absolutely everyone except straight white Christian men is going to have their lives effectively destroyed and what the fuck can we do about it? Protesting is just gonna get us shot, and there's literally no chance an armed rebellion can take down the US military.

The only hope we had for a future was standing together when it mattered most. Whether it was due to economics, idiotic paranoia about immigration, or Gaza, or any number of other factors that suppressed turnout, we didn't, and now we get to reap the "reward" of our inaction. The absolutely ridiculous drop in Dem voters pretty much nationwide means that we, as a party and as a culture, failed to show up when it mattered.

There's nothing to be done but sigh.

This isn't really directed at you specifically but in general I'm not sure if it's sinking in for some people just how bad we lost this, how wide this condemnation of the party spread.

The popular vote flipped by 10 million votes. I'm speechless even typing that out. He won every single swing state.

This was a systemic beatdown. This was a complete denunciation of the democratic party as a whole. Narrowing your focus on one specific issue like Gaza or one specific demographic is missing the forest for the trees.

Again, I don't think this was a single issue thing. I literally said Gaza did not matter.

The Democratic Party is such a shitty, centrist, corporate-ass party that it routinely alienates its own bases, and it paid the price for it.

That's really the long and short of it. Any other analysis you could come up with, or any confusion on how they could be repudiated, does not matter if you are not simply willing to admit that smug centrism coupled with an unwillingess to improve people's lives is not a good platform.

What it means is what we know already: The Dems are out of touch, with the general public

This is true, because unfortunately the general public is incredibly right wing. It's really depressing!

I love the idea that not exciting your base or having policies in line with what they actually want turns out to mean that your base is wrong. Yeah screw all the people who didn't vote for Kamala! They call themselves liberal so she or any other dem candidate should automatically own their vote!

This is sarcasm in case it doesn't come across.

It's not about "automatically owning the vote". It's simple calculus. Republican voters will always swallow their bile and vote red, even if they hate the candidate deep down inside. We have seen this again and again - party, and voting AGAINST the other party, always trumps principles or morals or personal desires. Meanwhile, we do not have enough people who will vote blue no matter what to outweigh them, and that's why we lose. And as long as we have significant portions of the party who are single-issue voters who would rather let everyone die than vote for incremental progress, we're never going to win again.

That's the calculus. There are simply not enough voters to counteract the red wall unless we stand together and put the long-term future of the country over the immediate now. It's the one and ONLY thing Republicans have figured out and we continuously fail to understand and implement at any reasonable scale.

And now that we've effectively surrendered the young generation of new voters, we have absolutely no means of making up this deficit unless absolutely EVERYONE is willing to lock arms and do the barest minimum and vote against the Republicans. If we can't do that, the country is over and that's all there is to it.

So what's the solution? It feels like even trying to get simple messaging out now is hopeless due to the disinfo on social media and TV brainwashing the masses. Facts don't matter anymore.

The solution for the Democratic Party is to entirely overhaul their platforming, messaging, and leadership so that they are on record for materially improving people's lives, actually are exciting to vote for, and are capable of being the adults in the room and taking accountability for their hypocrisies and fuck-ups instead of blaming "stupid, evil voters" or whichever minority is convenient.

They're probably not going to do any of that, in part because they're neoliberal capitalists, a political group that fundamentally sees no benefit to improving people's lives in a timely manner because capital matters more than human welfare, and also because a large part of the outcome of this is because white people just didn't want to vote because they're just okay with fascism. So the solution for the average person is to start organizing locally to build up both progressive political power in their communities, and to create stop-gap systems that will help the most vulnerable populations a la the Black Panthers.

You as an individual have options, more options than many of our ancestors did, or even people fighting right now in countries that are far more turbulent than what we're going to face.

Indeed, all of this fucking doom and gloom and hopelessness is also why I can't stand you liberals sometimes. People in worse conditions get up out of bed every day to fight and even just live their lives, and some of y'all are literally in shambles proclaiming that everything is over because of this election. You want to be useful in the coming fight? Then pull your fucking pants up and get to work looking up some organizations to join.

It's why I'm getting to the point that I'm starting to believe the only route forward is a Second American Great Depression starting in the next two years and basically dominating the middle of this upcoming term. The country basically needs to completely die economically to make people angry enough to wake up and realize Republicans can't be counted on for shit except pain. Only at that point will we be able to run a populist candidate who can weaponize that rage.

I don't think anything less than that is going to be enough to shock the system into rejecting the model the GOP is shooting for. Who knows, though.

Eminem and Taylor Swift are two of the biggest artists ever. They couldn't change this outcome even though they asked people to use common sense and not vote on Trump. I don't think people care that much about the opinion of streamers as some think.

People don't actually care what pop stars think about anything. Honestly, they never have, and it's one of the miscalculations the Democrats keep making. The public's parasocial relationship with musicians and celebrities only goes so far, and it typically doesn't extend to actually listening to them when they speak up, especially if all they're doing is regurgitating (what feels like) talking points they were fed by a marketing agency.

But they clearly DO listen to Twitch streamers, ESPECIALLY Twitch streamers who tell them what to think and who appeal to their worst instincts and coddle their darkest thoughts. We wouldn't have systemically lost young men entirely this election if Tate, Rogan and other people like them weren't so good at appealing to them. And we have absolutely no one capable of doing that in reverse on our side.

hasan is legitmately the only leftwing streamer putting in the work to stop young men from falling down an right wing pipeline.

Going to be quite the shock to the young incel and tech bro crowd when porn and violent video games get banned thanks to project 2025

Nope. Everything you just said is factually wrong.

[Jansen]

BTW Melody is using alters now and has decided they are an anarchist

[Lonewulfeus]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/joe-biden-to-address-the-nation-and-the-transition-of-power-at-11-am-et.1029546/page-4#post-131333265

Kamala should do what Mike Pence couldn't.

Jesus 

[books]

I'd blow my brains out if I had to listen to Neps bs for the next 4-8 years.

[Besticus Maximus]

[HaughtyFrank]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/joe-biden-to-address-the-nation-and-the-transition-of-power-at-11-am-et.1029546/page-4#post-131333265

Kamala should do what Mike Pence couldn't.

Jesus 

Always wondered what the reaction would have been if they left had done a January 6th. Maybe I get the chance to see it

[Jansen]

Poor Biden. Barely knows what's going on anymore and now everyone hates him

[Polident]

How do you learn how to make estro?

Fucking useless mods there.

I’m not going to post it but the troll term for bathtub hrt is good in an awful way. They (multiple) should’ve tried to reclaim and own it.

[Jansen]

There you go, clickycal

https://diyhrt.wiki/

You're welcome 🤗

[Eric Cartman]

"ChatGPT, write me 20,000 words to excuse me having to stop playing Overwatch for an hour to go vote.

Sprinkle in some anti-white racism and liberal (small l) use of the word 'neolib' please"


Meanwhile Bdubs is wondering if he can afford his next treatment while she says "Sure thing, boss" in her lovely suburban home. You can't make this shit up.

[Steven Snell]

Pardon my ignorance on the subject. But what is the DIY HRT exactly?

[Eric Cartman]

bonus: a few pages earlier echos was apparently complaining about not being able to get a date

[i mg]https://i.imgur.com/YQtl1D1.png[/img]

Dammit which one of y'all have an account I NEED to see this!

I do, that's how I posted that

the content is hidden unless you've posted in the thread so I would have to be like "hi everyone, been questioning a lot lately, and well, I think my egg is cracked! cooking up my first tubful right now"

egg post

[Eric Cartman]

Pardon my ignorance on the subject. But what is the DIY HRT exactly?

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
Cream-colored ponies and crisp apple strudels
Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles
Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings
Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes
Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eyelashes
Silver-white winters that melt into springs

[Besticus Maximus]

Pardon my ignorance on the subject. But what is the DIY HRT exactly?

Similar concept to  the communion wafer/wine iirc

[wsippel]

Pardon my ignorance on the subject. But what is the DIY HRT exactly?

"Do It Yourself Hormone Replacement Therapy", also known as bathtub estrogen. Hormones extracted from birth control pills and sold online to self-diagnosed transsexuals.

[Chudder Barbarity]

Never change PlanetSmasher, never change.

I really don't think the world needs his stupid opinion in every single thread on the site.

This hypocritical moron whines about every single game that comes out but now he's asking people not to complain about this piece of garbage? did they finally make a game braindead easy enough that he can actually complete it lol?

[Uncle]

How do you learn how to make estro?

Fucking useless mods there.

I’m not going to post it but the troll term for bathtub hrt is good in an awful way. They (multiple) should’ve tried to reclaim and own it.

what are you talking about

are you talking about troonshine

[DocWager]

So begins the Troonshine Wars.

[DavidCroquet]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/joe-biden-to-address-the-nation-and-the-transition-of-power-at-11-am-et.1029546/page-4#post-131333265

Kamala should do what Mike Pence couldn't.

Jesus 

Kamala should have sex with Mike Pence’s wife???

[Hap Shaughnessy]

Spoiler:  (click to show)(click to hide)

https://www.resetera.com/threads/kamala-harris-opens-michigan-rally-by-addressing-gaza-and-palestinians-%E2%80%9Cwhen-i-am-president-i-will-do-everything-in-my-power-to-end-the-war-in-gaza%E2%80%9D.1026633/page-12#post-131180574

How can we come together to stop genocide and work on other important issues as a broader coalition?

We have to first agree on overall political goals that we want to achieve.

Liberals and leftists just don't.

Liberals want to merely expand power in a colonial system that already crushes minorities. Leftists want to actually fix the fucking system.

Just because we agree on social issues (to a point) doesn't necessarily mean we're actually allies. If your ultimate goal is just to put Black and Queer people in the driver's seat of this death machine we call a country, if you were a grown-ass adult legitimately excited about a Black woman being President, then I don't want you in my circle.

This isn't an issue of the future. The fight to revolutionize these systems has been happening since Indigenous genocide and is still happening today.

You either are working towards those goals, or you are not.

Liberals have ultimately conceded that there is nothing to do about these systems because they're entrenched. Not only do they give deference to these systems because of their entrenchement, but they ultimately they enjoy the benefits of these systems (start a reparations thread to get a feel on how much Era actually cares about Black people) and simply do not want to work with progressives at all. They play like they do. They act like they're fighting so hard. They take credit for progressive policies and fights when they finally become electorally viable and popular.

But they are not going to actually do anything significant for the material benefit of all. Ironically, far-right conservatives have realized this already. They know neither party gives a shit, which is why they're so prone to populism. But they're too bigoted and have different fundamental world views about the nature of hierarchy that they can't actually bring themselves to work for revolution either, and so they take the frustration with these contradictions out on minorities, or on other white people when they go off on one with a mass shooting. People here still think Democrats give a fuck and are actually a moral good, and it's like "There's no way you have a college degree and/or an IT job and are still this politically naive."

Ultimately though, these schisms are here, right now. We are fighting, right now. You are on one side of the line or the other. Liberals got it twisted that because we agree on queer rights that we're all on the same team, and that progressives need to get in line and stop being so fucking uppity all the time. Well, now fucking look at them. Liberals have been trying to twists themselves into knots for over a year over the moral consequences of their party supporting a goddamn genocide, and keep blaming the encroachment on fascism on literally everyone but themselves even though they are the most popular political sect in the Western world right now. Clown shoes.

Thanks. It's been an exhausting year of liberals having no awareness around their co-opting and usage of leftist language/values/ideas to make a harmful violent system easier to stomach and then getting mad at actual leftists for calling them out on their bullshit. The system itself is killing us. If you like capitalism we are not in the same club.

If this post was a restaurant dinner, I'd leave a $50 tip.

I'm just going to be frank with this:

If you are a liberal wholly divorced and unaffected by the U.S.'s violence towards brown communities you do not have the right to try and dictate how they should vote - full stop.

The audacity to use their *DEATHS* as argumentative politically convenient talking points to push *YOUR* candidate of choice abetting their genocide is fucking abhorrent, and any one who has done that should be ashamed of themselves.

This really should be the long and short of it.

Either learn how to practice solidarity or go away. Vote then go play your video games.

Then who is a viable candidate I can vote for?

For socialists there are no viable candidates under a bourgeois democracy. For anarchists, they have little interest in propping up the state by voting for people that seek to hold power over others.

Electoralism is not the only way to fight for liberation and a better life for yourself or your community.

Then who is a viable candidate I can vote for?

If the genocide is a deal breaker for you, that means you sit out entirely or vote down ballot.

If the genocide isn't a deal breaker for you, vote Kamala.

She actually thought there were no other candidates for President.

I fully disagree, but it is what it is. I do see the reasoning from you but I would rather vote for the person that chop of one arm instead of losing both (and then some).

The thing is, you can't vote for a person that you admit is gonna chop your arm off and then say "I didn't vote for the arm chopping."

You literally did vote for the arm chopping. You disagreeing with the act of arm chopping doesn't change the material support. Indeed, one must ask why you didn't do everything in your power to fight against arm chopping even being on the ballot at all if you vehemently disagree.

Do you have power over your politicians, or do you politicians have power over you?

Voters have the power, yes, but voting against something, when you have two choices, doesn't mean you endorse horrible acts.

Would you throw your vote down if it meant that both arms where chopped off instead of one?

There is no but.

Either voters have checks on their politicians or they don't.

Fact of the matter is that the politicking, strong-arming, and moral shaming by liberals has ideologically flattened what it means to be civically and politically engaged, so that now the only strategical and even moral choice is to vote for Democrats no matter what depravity they decide to enact.

You can't actually push them leftward after election time either because midterms are always right around the corner and you don't want to be responsible for any "in-fighting" that may cost important seats.

This level of loyalty means that you do not have power over your politicians anymore. They are not accountable to you, even discounting the fact that they are ultimately beholden to corporate interests before human well-being anyway.

The fact of the matter is, if you claim you are trying to fight for a better world, some self sacrifice must be eventually confronted because you are fighting systems that inevitably privilege you. Allyship and solidarity should not conditional upon your personal comfort.

I can continue living without both arms. You can't live while being fucking burned alive while hooked up to an IV in a damn tent. So making the calculus that I consider Palestinians my brothers and sisters too, there's nothing I can go through that's worse than what they're suffering. So I'm sacrificing some part of myself, which ultimately is some miniscule amount of comfort even despite the compounding issues I've got as a minority in this hellhole of a country.

If you are not in a state where you can make that calculus, that you are operating entirely upon self perseveration, then just fucking vote so that only one arm is chopped off and keep on living your life. But don't shit on the guy on the operating table next to you who was willing to give more of himself to the cause than you were.

Honest question, do you think that supporting the Palestinian freedom movement will be easier under a Kamala administration or a Trump administration?

Supporting the Palestinian cause under Trump will be harder than under a Harris administration, but it will be comparatively easier than what my ancestors had to sacrifice to progress this world while existing in far more worse conditions.

My people were enslaved and still fought and died for more than where I am now. What the fuck do I look like fearing Trump? Bitch-made behavior. I will continue fighting for what I believe in no matter who is in office. If you are going to stop fighting for your beliefs if Trump wins, then do that. But don't fucking bother me about it.

I really appreciate your posts, your genuine passion and how eloquently you state your mind, thank you. We're blessed to have an admin like you, please don't be deterred in your activism. That goes for everyone else too.

Well I'm happy that you not into bitch-made behavior.

But I'd still and am still advocating for the path that maximizes the odds of a free Palestine.

The path for a free Palestine is all but gone because Gaza is irrecoverable and both parties have made it clear they are not going to be working towards larger Palestinian interests because those interests simply do not align with America's geopolitical and capitalistic goals. Engaging or disengaging from the political process for this one election cycle is not going to materially help this particular situation.

Abstaining is completely fine.

But voting down Jill Stein is also a genocide option with that logic. From Ukrainian point of view. And also in how Trump would enable further genocide globally, including in Africa. Trump does not even have sympathy for his blood relatives, he will not intervene with Israel, Russia or any other genocidal regime.

Harris will not intervene in any genocide happening now except Ukraine's, but only to the extent that it does not kick off a wider world war on the European mainland. We're not putting boots on the ground. If Russia wins through attrition, Ukrainians are fucked.

MENA region and the Global South are fucked regardless. Democrats don't give a fuck about goddamn Sudan or the Congo. Like, are you serious?

What do you mean by self sacrifice?

If my non-vote for President directly leads to a Trump administration, that means that I as a Black trans person will be significantly more in danger of dying as a direct result of it. It's the calculus I made to simply not actively support a genocide, because that is my red line.

If you believe that the only way to reduce harm is to vote for Democrats no matter how much they support colonialism, then vote for Kamala.

Like really, at this point, you have three options: vote for Kamala and all Democrats, vote downticket for Democrats, or abstain altogether. We're adults, and it's the day of. Pick one and move on. What is even to talk about at this point?

To stop genocides globally, and particularly in Africa, I do think that Russia needs a regime change as well. It is not just about who is the leader of the US.

The worst outcome from Trump winning, could be no fair elections in the future of the US, and Russian style oligarchy, where preventing conflict globally becomes even more difficult.

With Harris, there would be at least a chance that she will listen on Palestine and Africa, and form a different legacy from Biden.

I think Trump will just give Putin/Israel a complete freedom to do whatever they want.

I don't have control over Russia's regime. Regardless, my goal is ultimately the dismantling of Western colonialism of which I perceive as the bigger threat. Russia is not my highest priority right this second.

Also elections currently are not fair. Money sways the outcome which means corporations have more say than you do. Gerrymandering and the Electoral College means white conservatives have more power than minorities in the cities like me. Voting rights laws and felonious restrictions means that, within a judicial system that targets Black and Brown people at high rates, usually with the support of liberals, my people are already largely disenfranchised from voting anyway, to say nothing of the repeal of the Voting Rights Act. This is what I mean when I say we're on two separate teams. For some reason, you view this system as fair right now. To me, it has never been fair, and the pomp and circumstance made around casting a ballot doesn't actually address the material reality of how American elections are conducted.

Also, Harris is not going to do anything about Palestine and Africa because she's a neoliberal Democrat. Liberation is not on the docket with this belief system.

It sounds like some of us think it won't matter if Harris or Trump is elected, this presidential election doesn't matter, nothing is going to change, and we all might as well give up.

It's not progressives that have given up. It's liberals.

The American left will never be able to get what they want if they are not seen as a voting block, not voting for Harris only makes more genocide and takes power away from your voice. Its simple, the left doesnt get prioritized because they dont turn out

The left gets prioritized when they threaten liberalism. If they try to get socialists on the ballot or start a communist party then the Dems are always there to prioritize disenfranchisement of anti capitalist politics. If you protest against the military industrial complex and start an encampment, liberals will prioritize you, you end up suspended, arrested, banned from campus. If you protest a cop city you get RICO charges or assassinated like Tortuguita. If you show up to the DNC and advocate for Palestine, you will be prioritized by getting kicked out or shunned. Liberals spend plenty of time prioritizing the left, but our priorities aren't the same because liberals have more in common with conservatives than they do with progressives.

Nailed it.

But as always I have to point a finger here, because it's a nice microcosm. ResetEra is simultaneously a place that offers a genuine online sanctuary to a lot of marginalized groups, but also one that is quick to adhere to status quo liberalism, and where leftist thought is often dismissed or just shuttered.

Dead on, the liberal concern with the aesthetics of social justice always rears its head when the opportunity for progress lies in front of them. Never the right time, never the right place, never the right methods and never the right movement. Liberals will do anything to assassinate the characters of progressives because it is only in their presence that their faux desire for equality and justice is laid bare for all to see. This same ground seems to get tread on any thread when members start whining about leftists, never seems to stick.

I don't think pragmatism is giving up nor is peddling a dream of the promised revolution benefitting…anybody.

If your pragmatism leads you to voting for a candidate promising to continue colonialism and genocide, then you have given up any moral high ground that you stand against these things as a hard-line principle. It also means that if genocide is something to renege on when it's convenient, then I absolutely cannot trust you for less pressing matters like police abolition and prison reform. You will throw me under the bus the moment it's convenient.

Ultimately what you're telling me is that you absolutely will vote for these things to continue if it means you can trade off for domestic policy you support like healthcare. That's an understandable utilitarian approach, but it's not actually one that refuses colonialism and genocide wholesale. Doesn't actually matter what you say you believe. Intent isn't action.

I also don't really respect notions from people who claim that revolution is a dream to be peddled and not an ultimate goal to work towards through various means of organization. You can continue cleaning the master's house. I'm trying to actually break the chains and achieve abolition.

To me this forum would be genuinely hopeless with Nepenthe. Your posts are always incredibly thoughtful, insightful, and well written. In a league well above most of the discourse here, including my own, for which I'm very thankful. Echoing the appreciation from others here.

I really don't think you can judge someone as ceding the moral high ground

Yes I can. I just look at your actions and the

I don't respect notions from people who seem to want to tear the fabric of the coalition between "liberals" and "leftists" at a time when we need to be focused on the very real threat at hand.

I don't respect people who think that liberals and leftists ever had a coalition.

I don't respect people who only talk about coalition building in terms of getting progressives to cede rightward.

I don't respect people who are only just now concerned about the threats at hand because they now only affect people they care about when liberals have been asleep at the wheel regarding the suffering of colonized peoples.

I don't respect people who are going to forget about my causes once they get their candidates in office.

We are not, and never have been, on the same side and I'm tired of people perpetuating that lie. What don't you get about that?

Moving threads because that one was locked:

Being pro Israel and pro genocide cost the democrats a very winnable election. Right wingers like fetterman and torres need to be removed from the party. They are free to ruin their own lives, leave the rest of us out of it.

But Gaza/Palestine was not what cost her this election.

That's what I'm seeing.

Basically Kamala couldn't get white suburban men to vote for her like they voted for Biden.

White suburban men do not give a shit about Gaza.

They just really don't give much of a shit about anything beyond maintaining their comfort and place within the hierarchy.

Maybe it would have been helpful for Hasan to actually endorse Harris instead of doing this ridiculous post-mortem.

If there's one thing this election has proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's that "leftist streamers" are categorically worthless at getting out the vote, whereas rightwing streamers have basically destroyed an entire generation of boys.

Ridiculous takes. This is no different than vote-shaming. The idea that Hasan and other leftist streamers needed to go against their personal beliefs and endorse someone they didn't feel right endorsing is wrong.

It also doesn't even make sense. Hasan was regularly (and rightfully) criticizing Harris. He was kicked out of the DNC for criticizing their treatment of Palestinian voices. His audience would see right through any sort of official endorsement.

And PlanetSmasher, it is not the job of "leftist streamers" to get out the vote. Their goal, whether you like/agree with them or not, is to inform viewers about progressivism and leftist ideals. Leftist streamers don't exist to help liberals get elected.

Torres, Fetterman, and their supporters can legitimately fuck off lol.

Just in general, I think we need to reckon with the fact that we are largely held hostage by a white, undereducated, vibes-based electorate with no actual desire to enact proper civic engagement, and thus they just like voting for strong white men who make them feel cool.

My point is clearly that one side's streamers have weaponized their base and made them vote for Trump, and now we have a Nazi in the White House. If we hadn't lost young men almost entirely to manosphere bullshit, maybe we would've had a chance here.

Meanwhile we have absolutely no streamers of note mobilizing people against Trump, and that's one of a NUMBER of factors contributing to the fact that we lost. We've lost an entire generation because Twitch decided to skew two ways: Nazi and "not voting and here's why".

It's not exclusively because of that. But it's abundantly clear that the online left was completely incapable of drawing in new voters and preventing bleed of young men to the right wing in the face of scum like Rogan, Elon and Andrew Tate, forces that have straight-up directly corrupted a MASSIVE chunk of potential voters and basically lost them to our side forever.

We're losing voters we can't replace. That's extremely bad.

Blaming whites ignores the reality of the situation.

No it doesn't.

You swing the numbers of every Black and Latino man who voted for Trump, Kamala still loses, because they're less than 11% of the electorate. Literally less than the entire population of Black people in this country, who in turn do not actually have enough power to swing elections.

It is always whites fucking around, either by turning out for Republicans or not showing up for Democrats.

Now, don't get me wrong. Every non-white person who actively voted for Trump (white Latinos are still white; sorry) deserves a fucking side-eye, but it should engender a further acknowledgement that conservative and fascistic ways of thinking are not genetically bound to your race. Plenty of minorities are indoctrinated to some degree in capitalistic and hierarchical ways of thinking. Hell, that's why a great deal of y'all are still running around thinking Democrats are actually a force for good instead of seeing them as the capitalists that they are.

Regardless, you trying to blame minorities instead of whites is part of the problem. This is white people's country to do whatever the fuck they want with it, and until they either become a numerical minority or wake the fuck up to the realities of the harm that whiteness imparts, and learn to give a fuck about something other than themselves, then that's just gonna be the case going forward.

For years, we just kept hearing that old racists will die out and the newer generation + minority support will lead to the GOP's disintegration and we'll lock down a perfect, progressive future. So many people were extremely sure about it.

That clearly hasnt panned out, and theres no sign that it ever will with the demographic voting stats we're starting to see post election.

So what do we do next? Do we really not have any agency?

This idea that progressivism is the result of generations just dying has always been a lazy one. Conservatives pass their beliefs down like anyone else. Furthermore, conservative beliefs are further entrenched by the economic and political systems of this country. Conservative thinking is extremely easy and comfortable.

Ultimately, progressive gains are only won primarily through organization at the grassroots and local level. Y'all need to basically just log off Era, get off of Twitter and TikTok and YouTube, find some organizations that are trying to build alternative systems to fill in the gaps caused by capitalistic decay, or if you're willing, start building these systems and lifelines yourself.

Like, what various Black organizations and individuals were doing back all throughout the Reconstruction and Civil Rights eras? What people in places like Brazil and Burkina Faso are doing now? Just copy that. Stop sitting around wondering how white people could act like white people, as if this is a genuine surprise, and get to work.

I'm not even super in love with the online left, but I can recognize that it's not on them to sell their audience (leftists) on a centrist campaign that was doing them no favors. The campaign was supposed to come to them, not the other way around.

The difference you're noticing is that the Trump campaign is ideologically aligned with all the far right nonsense out there.

At the end of the day, here we are. Nazis in the White House, trans rights about to be erased. There were people who could've voted to stop it, and resoundingly, they did not show up last night. A lot of that was due to economics, but a lot of that was due to the internet suppressing left-wing voters and turbocharging right-wing voters.

If even a fraction of those voters could've been prevented from disengaging by social media, or if the online left was better at, as I said before, preventing young men from peeling off and being radicalized into effectively permanent Republican voters by Tate and Musk, we may not have found ourselves in this situation.

Alas, here we are. A failed state, a permanently turbo-fucked Supreme Court, the complete death of women's right to autonomy, and not a shred of meaningful progress for the rest of any of our lives. All we get to hope for until we die is that Trump doesn't make it through the next year because his health finally fails, or that he outright forgets to implement some of the rights-erasing purges he's planning to implement. All we can hope for is that our lives get worse to the smallest margin they possibly can. Because absolutely nothing is going to get better, and we have absolutely zero route to fix this.

That should be his slogan.

Oh, true, but I meant more from the side of the influencer/streamer. I don't think any quid pro quo would be enough of a lure.

You would hope that "preventing the literal death of LGBT and women's rights in the country" would be enough of a lure but this election has proven that's not the case. Which is why we're probably never going to win again, because we have nothing to offer and our base is too wide and wants too many different things to ever mount an effective response to the GOP's completely lockstep "as long as everyone else suffers more than us, we'll take as much pain as you'll give us" mentality.

Trying to quintuple down on leftism by itself isn't going to get us where we need to go. There simply aren't enough leftists to win, and we've lost a huge chunk of potential future voters to the right. If we want to win, we need a big tent party, and a big tent party only works if people actually stay in the goddamn tent. And that means leftists putting the actual country over single issues.

Or we can have another election where people protest vote and life gets worse for everyone, including them, and more non-right-wing people are disenfranchised from ever taking part in politics again, because there's no point in participating if you always lose.

I just want to shut myself in my bedroom and not emerge until 2028. Every moment I think about what the next 4 years will hold just makes me sink further into despair.

Like, will we even have a functioning democracy by then? I can't stop catastrophizing about what's going to happen.

Why limit it to men RE: the Hispanic vote? They account for 15% of the electorate alone and Trump clocked 45% of them compared to 32% in 2020.. I need to see the math to believe we'd have still lost if minority numbers were at 2020 levels because I don't believe that.

White folks are gonna do what white folks do. They did exactly what we thought they would. I'm more worried about why we lost minority support and how to prevent that from getting even worse in the future because if it continues at this rate we're fucked forever. If black men continue ticking up, if Hispanics hit 50+… that's it, that's game. How is that not a wake up call for folks?

Because Hispanic men broke further in 2024 than Hispanic women did (although again, Hispanic people can also count as white, but exit polls don't actually break that group down with any further racial granularity, which is fucking stupid): 19 point difference versus an 8 point difference between the two genders.

Black people in general shouldn't be in the conversation. Trump only made gains with 3% of Black men (5% of the participating electorate), and lost Black women by 2% (7% of the participating electorate).

This is also not counting the fact that voting totals are less overall this year than they were in 2020. Because people- namely whites- stayed home.

And Democrats lost minorities because they're a shitty centrist party with weak-ass leadership. 🤷🏿‍♀️ If you want to fix that, you need to A.) Start making material improvements in minorities' lives, B.) Don't throw them under the bus when electorally convenient, C.) Don't pander to them with bullshit like celebrity endorsements, and D.) Actually stand firm on a consistent platform.

That's how you get minorities to back you. Will white people follow? Who knows? Probably not. But that's the reality of this country.

Exactly what I keep saying, Im a leftist but I have no problem working within the democratic party because I actually want to make progress and if we dont vote our voice will never matter in the party. They dont take us seriously when people think they can protest vote and allow democracy to die

At the end of the day, it sucks. It just sucks. Israel's ethnic cleansing should've been stopped ages ago, but it wasn't. It hasn't been, it wasn't (thanks to Zion Joe) and now it will be allowed with gusto to see out the conclusion Bibi's always wanted from it. We didn't even get a chance to try and stop it with a new administration.

But not only are we going to have to watch that happen, now we stand no chance of protecting the rights of anyone in this country. Women, LGBT folks, minority folks, absolutely everyone except straight white Christian men is going to have their lives effectively destroyed and what the fuck can we do about it? Protesting is just gonna get us shot, and there's literally no chance an armed rebellion can take down the US military.

The only hope we had for a future was standing together when it mattered most. Whether it was due to economics, idiotic paranoia about immigration, or Gaza, or any number of other factors that suppressed turnout, we didn't, and now we get to reap the "reward" of our inaction. The absolutely ridiculous drop in Dem voters pretty much nationwide means that we, as a party and as a culture, failed to show up when it mattered.

There's nothing to be done but sigh.

Wait, no, maybe this is his slogan.

This isn't really directed at you specifically but in general I'm not sure if it's sinking in for some people just how bad we lost this, how wide this condemnation of the party spread.

The popular vote flipped by 10 million votes. I'm speechless even typing that out. He won every single swing state.

This was a systemic beatdown. This was a complete denunciation of the democratic party as a whole. Narrowing your focus on one specific issue like Gaza or one specific demographic is missing the forest for the trees.

Again, I don't think this was a single issue thing. I literally said Gaza did not matter.

The Democratic Party is such a shitty, centrist, corporate-ass party that it routinely alienates its own bases, and it paid the price for it.

That's really the long and short of it. Any other analysis you could come up with, or any confusion on how they could be repudiated, does not matter if you are not simply willing to admit that smug centrism coupled with an unwillingess to improve people's lives is not a good platform.

What it means is what we know already: The Dems are out of touch, with the general public

This is true, because unfortunately the general public is incredibly right wing. It's really depressing!

I love the idea that not exciting your base or having policies in line with what they actually want turns out to mean that your base is wrong. Yeah screw all the people who didn't vote for Kamala! They call themselves liberal so she or any other dem candidate should automatically own their vote!

This is sarcasm in case it doesn't come across.

It's not about "automatically owning the vote". It's simple calculus. Republican voters will always swallow their bile and vote red, even if they hate the candidate deep down inside. We have seen this again and again - party, and voting AGAINST the other party, always trumps principles or morals or personal desires. Meanwhile, we do not have enough people who will vote blue no matter what to outweigh them, and that's why we lose. And as long as we have significant portions of the party who are single-issue voters who would rather let everyone die than vote for incremental progress, we're never going to win again.

That's the calculus. There are simply not enough voters to counteract the red wall unless we stand together and put the long-term future of the country over the immediate now. It's the one and ONLY thing Republicans have figured out and we continuously fail to understand and implement at any reasonable scale.

And now that we've effectively surrendered the young generation of new voters, we have absolutely no means of making up this deficit unless absolutely EVERYONE is willing to lock arms and do the barest minimum and vote against the Republicans. If we can't do that, the country is over and that's all there is to it.

So what's the solution? It feels like even trying to get simple messaging out now is hopeless due to the disinfo on social media and TV brainwashing the masses. Facts don't matter anymore.

The solution for the Democratic Party is to entirely overhaul their platforming, messaging, and leadership so that they are on record for materially improving people's lives, actually are exciting to vote for, and are capable of being the adults in the room and taking accountability for their hypocrisies and fuck-ups instead of blaming "stupid, evil voters" or whichever minority is convenient.

They're probably not going to do any of that, in part because they're neoliberal capitalists, a political group that fundamentally sees no benefit to improving people's lives in a timely manner because capital matters more than human welfare, and also because a large part of the outcome of this is because white people just didn't want to vote because they're just okay with fascism. So the solution for the average person is to start organizing locally to build up both progressive political power in their communities, and to create stop-gap systems that will help the most vulnerable populations a la the Black Panthers.

You as an individual have options, more options than many of our ancestors did, or even people fighting right now in countries that are far more turbulent than what we're going to face.

Indeed, all of this fucking doom and gloom and hopelessness is also why I can't stand you liberals sometimes. People in worse conditions get up out of bed every day to fight and even just live their lives, and some of y'all are literally in shambles proclaiming that everything is over because of this election. You want to be useful in the coming fight? Then pull your fucking pants up and get to work looking up some organizations to join.

It's why I'm getting to the point that I'm starting to believe the only route forward is a Second American Great Depression starting in the next two years and basically dominating the middle of this upcoming term. The country basically needs to completely die economically to make people angry enough to wake up and realize Republicans can't be counted on for shit except pain. Only at that point will we be able to run a populist candidate who can weaponize that rage.

I don't think anything less than that is going to be enough to shock the system into rejecting the model the GOP is shooting for. Who knows, though.

Eminem and Taylor Swift are two of the biggest artists ever. They couldn't change this outcome even though they asked people to use common sense and not vote on Trump. I don't think people care that much about the opinion of streamers as some think.

People don't actually care what pop stars think about anything. Honestly, they never have, and it's one of the miscalculations the Democrats keep making. The public's parasocial relationship with musicians and celebrities only goes so far, and it typically doesn't extend to actually listening to them when they speak up, especially if all they're doing is regurgitating (what feels like) talking points they were fed by a marketing agency.

But they clearly DO listen to Twitch streamers, ESPECIALLY Twitch streamers who tell them what to think and who appeal to their worst instincts and coddle their darkest thoughts. We wouldn't have systemically lost young men entirely this election if Tate, Rogan and other people like them weren't so good at appealing to them. And we have absolutely no one capable of doing that in reverse on our side.

hasan is legitmately the only leftwing streamer putting in the work to stop young men from falling down an right wing pipeline.

The only.  

Going to be quite the shock to the young incel and tech bro crowd when porn and violent video games get banned thanks to project 2025

But Nintex promised.  

Also a bunch of the experts in that thread are learning for the first time that Hillary and the media deliberately pushed Trump in 2015 after somebody posted that eight year old article.

[AnnoyedCanadian]

Democrats should not be listening to leftists, ever. The Hamas Piker simping over there is insane right now.

Leftists will never budge on an issue if you don't agree with them 100%. And I say this as someone who is pretty fucking liberal. They are insufferable to deal with and communicating with them is like playing a fucking game. Don't use the wrong word / phrase or they'll hate you forever.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

Harry or Tub Men!

[AnnoyedCanadian]

ComedySmasher

I have absolutely zero interest in another Batman game, so if that's all they have to offer I guess WB's not getting my money.

Batman is fucking boring, and beating up the same villains over and over again is old and tired. Find other characters to focus on.

Then don't play the games and shut the fuck up maybe?

Like you were going to give them any money anyhow. You joyless cunt. Do you actually enjoy anything in life? This man is pussy repellent incarnate.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/the-us-is-in-the-worst-timeline.1029696/#post-131327310

User banned (permanent): Troll account

No, this is a good timeline.

[Hap Shaughnessy]

Starts here:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/donald-trump-is-the-47th-president-of-the-united-states.1028550/page-69#post-131303886

User banned (3 months): concern trolling over a series of posts

[Hap Shaughnessy]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/kamala-harris-opens-michigan-rally-by-addressing-gaza-and-palestinians-%E2%80%9Cwhen-i-am-president-i-will-do-everything-in-my-power-to-end-the-war-in-gaza%E2%80%9D.1026633/page-2#post-131114502

User banned (permanent): Concern trolling around antisemitism, a long history of concern trolling serious topics

It is offensive to equate Jewish people and Zionism.

I'm not sure that's the majority position when Jewish advocacy groups like the ADL count anti-Zionism as antisemitism. I agree that Zionism and Judaism are different things as Jewish folks can be anti-Zionist.

I guess she didn't want to have to elaborate or risk that precious donor money too long before Election Day. Having to wait to see if there's even a shred of sincerity in the words of one obviously cynical politician after a year of slaughter is despicable but that's where we are

Absolutely.

[AnnoyedCanadian]

Starts here:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/donald-trump-is-the-47th-president-of-the-united-states.1028550/page-69#post-131303886

User banned (3 months): concern trolling over a series of posts

Top of the page Beyonce

[garamonde]

ComedySmasher

I have absolutely zero interest in another Batman game, so if that's all they have to offer I guess WB's not getting my money.

Batman is fucking boring, and beating up the same villains over and over again is old and tired. Find other characters to focus on.

Then don't play the games and shut the fuck up maybe?

Like you were going to give them any money anyhow. You joyless cunt. Do you actually enjoy anything in life? This man is pussy repellent incarnate.

Has anyone done the math on misery per post on PlanetSmasher? 

Not easy with 125k (!) posts to look into, I also wonder, is he the top poster on ERA? Who's second?

[DocWager]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/kamala-harris-opens-michigan-rally-by-addressing-gaza-and-palestinians-%E2%80%9Cwhen-i-am-president-i-will-do-everything-in-my-power-to-end-the-war-in-gaza%E2%80%9D.1026633/page-2#post-131114502

User banned (permanent): Concern trolling around antisemitism, a long history of concern trolling serious topics

It is offensive to equate Jewish people and Zionism.

I'm not sure that's the majority position when Jewish advocacy groups like the ADL count anti-Zionism as antisemitism. I agree that Zionism and Judaism are different things as Jewish folks can be anti-Zionist.

I guess she didn't want to have to elaborate or risk that precious donor money too long before Election Day. Having to wait to see if there's even a shred of sincerity in the words of one obviously cynical politician after a year of slaughter is despicable but that's where we are

Absolutely.

Surprised that’s what got him, and not the other awful shit he’s said in the last few weeks. Bet you this isn’t permanent. This isn’t the first time they did this to him.