Words have meaning

It’s incredibly sad that this has been turned into a meaningless phrase.

That’s stupid bullshit and you know it. The Civil War was a war between one group of guys and another group of guys. We cannot use the same term to describe both groups of guys. The historical accounts would make no sense.

And history has ALWAYS referred to rebels and insurrectionists by the name they give themselves, it’s nothing unique to the Confederacy. Pretending it somehow “legitimizes” the Confederacy is pure bullshit dreamed up by someone who wants to puff up his “I am so very very woke” cred. It’s a solution in search of a problem.

What do we call George Washington’s army? The same name they gave themselves, the Continental Army. What do we call Irish nationalists during the Troubles? The same name they gave themselves, the IRA. What do we call the militant Islamic fundamentalists who took over Afghanistan as the US pulled out? The same name they gave themselves, the Taliban.

The fact that you think referring to a rebel group by the name they gave themselves has ANYTHING to do with ANY kind of narrative means you are being either disingenuous or ignorant.

There are many, many ways to fight against bigots and racists nowadays. This is not one of them.

Historical revisionism is a goddamn plague and should be met with a firm slap to the face any time it’s suggested, even if it’s in favor of the side we agree with.

I don’t know what kind of fucking obsession gen Z has with labels, but you need to chill the fuck out about it. Calling the North “the United States” instead of “the Union” does absolutely fuckall to make anything better whatsoever, and it chips away at the foundations of historical accuracy.

I would vote for Newsom…as President of the breakaway Republic of California

It’s in the title, dude. First place.

The year is 2028

AOC wins the Democratic nomination

Lemmy immediately ridicules AOC as a shitlib centrist and says that to save democracy, we must protest vote for [insert name here].

Exactly. If I were her, I’d fuck off to Europe and send a big fat middle finger to everyone asking for help.

Is that in the best interests of the American people? No. Is it an entirely understandable reaction? Yes.

Harris polls in 1st place

Lemmy Leftists: “no one wants Harris!”

Y’all are in a bubble.

Oh FUCKING NOW we need unity?!

Fuck you people forever.

I give Ada a lot of credit. In the early days, I had the following interaction:

TOPIC: Something about sexual/gender preferences, I don’t remember, asking people their preferences

Me: responds with my preferences (I’m straight cis male, I like women so I’m down with post-transition trans women but pre-transition don’t turn me on)

Some random user: respectfully asks if I would be willing to date a pre-transition trans man

Me: I guess, but it probably wouldn’t work due to the fact that what I like about their body, they hate

Some of those professionally offended people took a misleading screenshot of my response and started screaming about “chasers”.

Ada did an admin post to the community backing me up and calling those idiots out.

So unless she’s changed a lot, I don’t think she’s a troll. It would have been easy to go with the mob but she stuck up for me.

My proposal is that Democrats start lying.

Go on Tiktok, claim you’re gonna pass a law capping rent at $500/mo.

Go on MSNBC and say “clearly we can’t do that, it will cause severe economic shock, but we’ll look at expanding rent control and increasing housing stock”

There’s no consequences anymore. Just tell people what they want to hear. Say crazy populist shit. Have your donors purchase media outlets and juice the algorithm. Have botnets spread misinfo and disinfo. Then when you’re in power enact reasonable policy.

Voters don’t like boring, reasonable policy. That’s not enough drama. Start saying wild shit.

What do you mean “those occasions”? It’s happened once in the last 30 years. For like 3 months.

Taking in infinite immigrants and providing food shelter and healthcare for them and their lineage until the end of time ALONG WITH all of the disadvantaged citizens is not economically sustainable.

I disagree.

You’d effectively be turning the U.S. into the world’s homeless shelter.

Fuck yeah we would.

Give us your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.

Here’s the thing about immigrants: they start businesses. They get degrees. They make money. They pay taxes. They drive the economic engine forward. They’re not helpless fucking children, they are smart and driven and capable adults who happen to not speak your language and may have browner skin than you.

But they pretty much called it a day

Maybe if you fuckers would give them back the same majority that allowed them to make the initial law, they could actually fucking do anything.

You idiots keep NOT VOTING DEMS IN and then complaining when Dems don’t have the numbers to accomplish anything. They’re not sitting with their thumbs up their asses intentionally refusing to pass legislation because they just love being assholes to their own constituents. I can see why you’d make that mistake if you’re not paying attention, because that IS the Republican method. But Democrats are people, not ghouls, so on the rare occasion that you dumbshits vote enough of them in, they accomplish great things.

They had the presidency and both halves of Congress for the first two years under Obama

They had a majority that could override Republicans for all of like 2 months

And again during the first half of Biden’s term.

Never had a supermajority, even though they did get a few epic bills in through some brilliant legislative maneuvering.

and all they gave us was Mitt Romney’s health care plan

Obamacare has saved literally thousands of lives and saved countless more from poverty inducing medical costs and you act like that’s nothing. It’s the single best piece of legislation in the last 50 years at least. And we did that with just a few months of power.

Anyway. For your actual specifics

The Democratic leadership keeps actively stopping attempts to corral the ability of congressmen to get rich off inside trading

Biden calls for ban on congressional stock trading - never taken up by Repub led Congress

Democrats make last-ditch effort to ban stock trading by lawmakers

• Opposed/blocked by Republicans in Congress

Trustbusting has basically been forgotten

FTC Sues Amazon for Illegally Maintaining Monopoly Power

United Health Lawsuit Named Among FTC’s Biggest Wins

Big Pharma Braces for More FTC Suits Over M&A Bound for Approval

Gaza I’ll give you. That’s really the only hugely popular (among non-republicans) issue they refused to support.

Can you name any?

Democrats haven’t been in power for decades.

Sure!

• All people are equal before the law. Discrimination is abhorrent, and people’s personal freedoms should be respected until they harm others. Liberals and Leftists pretty much agree 100% on this so I won’t spend more time on it.

• Capitalism is the most powerful social engine for beneficial progress that the world has ever seen, but we need to keep it under control. It’s like an engine - harnessed, throttled, and controlled explosive power to drive us forward at a manageable pace. Strong regulations, strong unions, progressive taxes, and heavy government incentives are the ways we keep capitalism under control. Currently, it is OUT of control and is doing far more harm than good.

• Taxes on the rich should be higher, loopholes should be closed, and enforcement should be stepped up. There’s no consensus on exactly how much higher, but they all agree they should be higher.

• At the same time, we recognize the potential economic effects of taxing the rich. If we’re not careful, they’ll just move their money elsewhere. So we want to raise taxes to the extent possible without triggering flight of the wealthy.

• Everyone deserves a minimum standard of living. Food, shelter, and healthcare are human rights and should be free for those who can’t afford it.

• Immigrants are good for the economy. Even the illegal ones. We should be making immigration easier.

• Climate change is real, is man-made, and it is our duty as humans to do our best to fix it. However, we can do so to a large extent without causing hardship among everyday people, by making intelligent changes upstream from consumers. We can have economic growth AND tackle climate change, if we’re smart about it.

Obviously, left-leaning liberalism is a wide-ranging ideology but these are the main ones that came to mind immediately. The biggest difference between liberalism and Leftism is that Leftists want to tear down capitalism and Liberals want to control it.

Leftists in America are a tiny minority that happens to be in a kingmaker role because the Dems and Repubs are nearly evenly matched. There is no vast silent majority of Leftists. You’re in an internet bubble.

YOU need to get onboard with OUR ideas.

I know you absolutely have an agenda that perfectly dovetails with the Russian one, except you occasionally (and seemingly accidentally) veer into sanity for brief periods. Makes conversation more fun.

I truly wish we could have a good faith conversation about the extreme shortcomings of the Democratic Party. That’s a good and valuable conversation to have. But Lemmy is absolutely INFESTED with “hello there, fellow Leftists” types who exclusively attack Democrats and are deafeningly silent about Republicans.

I consider the majority of this site as MAGA-compromised enemy territory. Any criticism about Democrats without at least a preferatory “Republicans are way worse” is immediately suspect.