this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2024

130 points (81.6% liked)

Political Memes

5618 readers

1800 users here now

Welcome to politcal memes!

These are our rules:

Be civil

Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.

No misinformation

Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.

Posts should be memes

Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.

No bots, spam or self-promotion

Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

130

If only it were that simple (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

31 comments fedilink hide all child comments

It presents a slight problem when the ones they're bringing in to deal with the shitty politicians are the people who paid them to be shitty in the first place.

all 33 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 day ago

There is a truism as old as civilization itself. I subscribe to it.

If you want to know who is most responsible, you need only find the one who profited most.

There may be rare exceptions, but they are rare exceptions. Our elected officials are just the owner's revolving door, well bribed middle managers. The vast majority of them never rise to the level of oligarch.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (4 children)

You mean like HR 1 For the People Act which passed the house twice but got filibustered and 30 years of campaign finance reform starting with a 1995 bill outlawing large donations (which was passed in 2002 but stricken down by the scotus 5:4 as the basis for Citizens United) that

*checks notes

Republicans refuse to pass?

This is a partisan issue, bothsidesing this is pure ignorance. Get 60 Dem senators and watch it get fixed.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

So here's the deal. Republicans are objectively worse. Full stop. Anyone that thinks otherwise is just wrong.

But that doesn't absolve Democrats. Why did they never enshrine abortion rights into law in the decades since Roe v Wade? Why is it every time they have control suddenly they are helpless to actually deliver on their promises? Why do they refuse to do anything beyond lip service for unions? Why won't they get rid of the filibuster? Why didn't Biden even try to expand the supreme court as soon as it was clear it was corrupted?

Democrats are controlled opposition, that's it. When the plebs start getting rowdy they jump in to control the movement and bring it back in line.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans are going to go against the wealthy who own them. And the sooner we all start working in that reality the better.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Right right, that's all fine, but we need to elect minimum 60 Democrats. Full stop. We need to support electing 60 Democrats. We can all gather around and discuss how to sort out our Democrats after we remove the Republican Menace.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You kinda worked yourself into a dead end there. It's impossible for 60 democrats to win in the Senate with the way the DNC currently acts. The idea that people need to just believe in the DNC is never going to sway the average voter who's getting poorer by the day.

We can all gather around and discuss how to sort out our Democrats after we remove the Republican Menace.

Remove it from... What, exactly? Even if they do win 60 seats, do you think Republicans will disappear from existence? They'll fuck around with their lame duck policies and get their ass handed to them by the GOP the next election. And setting all that aside: They could've just fucking gotten rid of the filibuster. The fact they haven't after what the GOP did during Obama's term should tell you all you need to know.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

DNC don't decide if they win, we do. This is our job to do.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 21 hours ago

And it's never getting done, is the point here. This talk of jobs and duty will never get voters, no matter how much anyone wants it to.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

60 Democrats HAVE been elected before and nothing changed...

Did you even read my comment?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

We had 60 for less than one month almost two decades ago. Since then we've elected less every year and blamed them more every year.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Curious that, if all they need is 60 Democrats, why they didn't seize that opportunity to try and deliver everything they've promised. Working 24/7 to pass bill after bill. And instead just squandered it...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Oh yeah they should have asked the house nicely to vote to reform every system in the entire government in less than one month: you clearly do not want anything fixed, why are you being so disingenuous?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Nice personal attack. I guess I made you uncomfortable in your beliefs.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If me asking an honest question is a personal attack, then clearly the truth is your enemy.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Doesn't matter. Everything is a conspiracy. Everything is the fault of some mysterious cabal.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Sir, excuse me, sir, pardon me you almost left behind this very important /s. These things are mandatory, wouldn't want to lose it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

with a 1995 bill outlawing large donations (which was passed in 2002

That only went thru due to Enron crashing, and was a bipartisan effort from McCain and Feingold that was already in the works, they just didn't have the numbers till Enron's checks stopped...

And it directly led to PACs....

Two senators, Republican John McCain and Democrat Russell Feingold, had a bill to ban soft money. When Enron collapsed in scandal in 2001, McCain and Feingold had enough support to make the bill law.

Feingold addressed the Senate just before the vote on final passage. "In this moment, we can show the American people that we are the Senate that they want us to be," he said.

McCain-Feingold pushed soft money out of the national parties, and a lot of it landed in new bank accounts at small nonprofit groups. These were groups that couldn't coordinate with candidates or party committees, but that shared the same partisan agenda.

https://www.npr.org/2009/12/25/121872329/decade-brought-change-to-campaign-finance

And the wealthy immediately struck back.

In 2004, Swift Boat Veterans for Truth crippled the campaign of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry. And in 2008 groups challenged the integrity of both presidential contenders and plenty of congressional candidates. The attacks are meaner, but these groups — unlike the political parties — aren't accountable to anyone.

That is widely recognized as when Republicans went off the deep end.

Get 60 Dem senators and watch it get fixed.

Don't assume everyone with a D by their name is on your side just because at the national level these days everyone with an R is on the other side.

If we need 60 votes to fix this, and we have 60+, expect just as many to act like Manchin as needed to bring that number down to 59.

We need to treat primaries serious so that if the day comes and we have 60, it gets done.

Because if we have 60 and it doesn't get done, it'll crash turnout.

Just like it did when we were told Biden and 50 senators could get shit done.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It wasn't exactly Bipartisan, it was every single Democrat and also 11 Republicans.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 1 day ago

That is widely recognized as when Republicans went off the deep end.

Obviously it wasn't an overnight switch, although my phrasing is more often used for a sudden change, it was a gradual one over decades so I should have used something else.

But Democrats being better than Republicans on average for decades doesn't mean every Democrat is good now. And every Republican being shit now doesn't mean that was always the case.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Dems could just... Choose to get rid of the filibuster.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

There have been more Republicans than Democrats in senate since 2015 so removing the filibuster just gives Republicans everything they want with simple majority votes.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

What? The Dems have the Senate right now no?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago)

No, they don't. Dems have 47 seats currently, 4 Independents caucus with the DNC to select majority leader who calls votes.

In a month it changes over to GOP majority control because last election more people voted for Republicans.

If any legislation gets introduced that the GOP doesn't like, the GOP can filibuster it and it wont pass without 60 votes.

That includes budget bills that allow the entire US Military to operate and all of its members to get salaries and healthcare coverage, as well as general budgets for the rest of the federal government including congress, airports, and regulatory offices. Thats why shitty budgets with antitrans policy is getting passed.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 day ago

This was a riskily bad meme.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Been happening since Watergate and the right decided instead of running good politicians, they'd make a propaganda machine to convince their voters that down is really up.

This allowed them to dive even further into corruption, and take a bunch of dirty money that helped them in elections.

The wealthy elites quickly realized political bribes were so cheap, there was no reason to bribe only one of the only two options.

That brought the rise of neoliberalism, and both parties only caring about the wealthy and deregulating campaign finance and journalistic integrity because both allows them to take more bribes.

Kamala had a ~$1,500,000,000 campaign in like a month and a half.

There is zero reason a campaign (much less one against a candidate as bad as trump) should ever cost that much. The money and time of modern campaigns isn't spent on getting votes, it's spent on raising more donations from the rich. They never reach a point where they meet the fundraising goal, even after the election I was getting spam asking to donate to Kamala/DNC. Because the "victory fund" nonsense gets rolled over to the next candidate chosen by the party before primaries even start.

Whoever the party backs in 2028 will be able to use that to compete in the Dem primary.

The whole thing is completely fucked, and it's a game we literally can't win with the DNC if they just keep doubling down. Their chair election is in about a month. Depending on how they vote we'll see if the party reinvents itself, or if it's truly a lost cause and we need a new party. One who's focus is on getting votes and not as much money as possible

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Well put. It blows me away how many people think that problems are straight forward when in reality, they're all intertwined together

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

It blows me away how many people think that problems are straight forward when in reality, they’re all intertwined together

I mean, it shouldn't be surprising...

It's the result of decades of propaganda, most people don't notice anything political until at most a teenager. So most under retirement age don't know anything else. And the ones who are old enough, can't remember and are the main propaganda targets.

For most Americans we've spent our entire politically active lives where both parties bow to the wealthy and instead focus on wedge issues and pressured to vote for their "team" even tho they don't want them, just to stop the other "team".

Hell, I know all about this, have for a while. But I've still voted straight party D for decades because I legitimately don't have a choice. The problem is conservative voters are by nature more likely to motivated by fear of "them". There's actual brain differences that can predict party affiliation with like ~70% accuracy, which is fucking huge when you consider ~1/3 of voters don't vote or waffle between the two options.

Larger/more active amygdala? You're a conservative and fear is a huge motivater.

Larger/more active prefrontal cortex? You're a "bleeding heart liberal" who wants everyone to be taken care of.

It's not like it's set at birth, even well into adulthood your brain can change. But without completely going on another tangent, for decades now the part of our education system that develops the prefrontal cortex has been getting sliced off. So I don't understand why people were surprised the people coming out of that system are more conservative.

We aren't born well adjusted humans, it takes work to socialize us like any other animal. And we just stopped putting in the work.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

A few things because this take is so cynical I think it hurts political engagement overall. A campaign donation is not a bribe. There is nothing wrong with spending money to help your party win in a system where that's legal.

Also i might have misunderstood but it seems like you were implying Kamala didn't spend her campaign money on her campaign. You can find a breakdown of her campaign on open secrets and 80% was spent on advertising and marketing the rest went to admin, salariers etc. You can find a list of expenses to scrutinize them further.

There is no carry over fund, the fund raising that was done after is due to campaign spending more than the funds and trying to cover the debt.

The DNCs problem is the right wing propaganda machine. They have the policy that appeals to majority of the voters. They have the politicians that appeal to the majority. They just need to make people realize it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

A campaign donation is not a bribe. There is nothing wrong with spending money to help your party win in a system where that’s legal.

...

Legal is not "right", especially when I explicitly stated that both parties are deregulating campaign finance.

Do you have any idea what the "victory fund" is? It's bankrupting Dem state parties and the first election states received less than 1% of the funds they were supposed to.

See it works by "bundling" the max to a candidate and the max to a bunch of state parties, then the lump sum is sent straight to the DNC/candidate in a joint access account. Prior to this grift someone had to actually send that money to the state party for them to use.

But I mean....

Even just knowing what a PAC (let alone a super PAC) is should show you that political.bribery has been legalized.

Nothing wrong with an individual giving the ~3k candidate max, but Elong Musk just paid a quarter of a billion to get trump elected.

I didn't read any of your comment past that first sentence, because it is such a fundamental misunderstanding that explaining anything else would change drastically after you get that. Before anything else is covered you need to accept the current reality that the only two political options in America are actively working to legalize political bribery

And it's clearly effective, because it's working on you....

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

You are just wrong. A campaign contribution/donation is not a bribe no matter the amount. A campaign contribution only becomes a bribe if there are illegal strings attached which on the dems side there is little to no evidence for.

The campaign spending is clearly and openly spent on the promoting the candidate to voters. You are lying about campaign money being spent on donor fundraising and you have no evidence to suggest any of the donations came with strings attached. You think because one party acts like one way the other must be doing the same.

I think you fundamentally misunderstand how the system works and you are thinking in the realm of conspiracy instead of just looking at how things are.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Left is correct.