Elephants and Jackasses...

I would posit the measure of a great conservative president is that there was no progress. Obama was not the liberal bastion that he's made out to be: we're still mired in the exact same shit we were struggling with since OG Clinton left office. Seriously, look at his accomplishments, take away the D/R label, subtract the religious influence, and tell me how any of that was liberal or progressive? The gay marriage thing? I explained that to a conservative friend of mine as "the government has no right to say you can't marry a Goddamned microwaved cantaloupe with a wig, and they removed that restriction. Your church can refuse to marry em, that's fine." He wasn't transparent, still kept Gitmo open, troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, didn't move the needle on healthcare costs or real wages, and most of the jobs under his presidency were not living wage jobs. But he checked off the liberal boxes for identity politics, all right!

I agree that this style of leadership and this phase of American life is almost over, and Trump's "ascendance" is vital proof that it's jumped the shark but Christ where are the leaders who are going to usher in the next phase? Bernie is the only "leader" that stands out of the pack still, and that comes with a serious reality check that needs to happen first.

I get the outrage that someone who admitted to sexual assault can be president and his Biden Bro is such an asshole that Indiana doesn't like him and he wants to repeal Roe V Wade. It's fucked up. But, it's misplaced at this point and it's just signalling to a larger audience that the left is out of touch.

Literally, every liberal woman I've spoken to with common sense has said, "I'm worried, but nothing's happened yet."

 

I stand corrected. That's what I get for reading something in a couple of news stories and accepting it as fact without checking it out for myself.

 

You're talking about running a steeplechase when we have a GOP that can't even roll over onto its stomach. There's so much groundwork that needs to be laid just simply building back up the institutions that allow us to do more important work before we even think about issues that "really matter."

 

Give me an hour and I'll give you 90 minutes of complaints about Democrats, but I think it's naive to act like the two sides are the same. In the last year alone the Republicans have had the districts of two states ruled as unconstitutional gerrymandering, attempted to legislate permanent power in North Carolina, ran wild with voter suppression efforts after key provisions of the Voting Rights Act were struck down, elected the most grossly unqualified individual ever considered for the office of President, and engineered a legitimacy crisis in the Supreme Court. And all that is before grappling with the notion that core parts of their entire platform are based on "alternative facts," to borrow a term of art from Ms. Conway.

 

Well, first of all, there have been a lot of protests over the past 8 years. To pick just one similar example, there were the Unite Women rallies in 2012. None of them have been the biggest protest in U.S history with millions of people in every state across the country participating in the same protest at the same time, sure, but to say there's been nothing like an historical anomaly in the past 8 years so clearly none of these people actually care is dumb. (Although there were plenty of people where this was the first protest and I hope, if anything, all of those people do keep doing shit instead of thinking this is all they needed to do, but that's a whole other thing.)

Secondly, seriously, have any of the people here who have either been confused about what the point of the marches were or been dismissive of them actually looked into anything about them besides reading articles about them from places that were going to be against them regardless or seeking out pictures of fat women to make fun of? Have you read or watched any of the speeches from yesterday, or read any articles or essays about them from people who were actually going to be involved, or watched or read any of the interviews with the founders or organizers before it started? All of this talk of bubbles and not caring to listen to people from the other side or trying to work together, and you all see the biggest protest in U.S history and don't stop and think "Hmm, maybe I should try and look into this and listen and see what's actually happening?" Because if you, in particular, think that this was solely in reaction to Trump's offensive comments, then you clearly have not done any of that at all. It was a hugely intersectional march. It wasn't even just about all of the usual things women's rights issues like reproductive rights and defending Planned Parenthood. It was about protecting healthcare, and immigration reform, and BLM, and climate change, and LGBTQ rights, and religious tolerance, and Trump's obvious snakeoil salesmanship about protecting the working class, and education, and income inequality, and rights for people with disabilities. There is plenty of shit to choose from when being confronted with Trump's presidency. There were millions of people marching so there were probably millions of reasons why they were there, but even just from looking at a list of speakers without reading any of their words you can at least get an idea of some issues people were rallying behind. And if you were already aware of all the different issues and still think they "actually matter," then that's fucked up. How selfish do you have to be to divide political issues into "Things that matter because they directly affect me personally" and "Things that don't."

What do you think's a better idea: Organizing to remind Trump and his administration that we're their bosses and this is what we care about and if you follow through on what you've told us you will or could or might do, there will be consequences of you and your people losing power (because that is literally the only thing that 99% of politicians care about)? Or sitting around and doing nothing while we wait and see if something follows through and then raising hell after the fact when rights are already taken away and trying to get the far more impossible effort done of repealing something or enacting counteracting legislation to protect us again? In the case of things like Planned Parenthood being defunded or access to abortion being limited (or removed entirely) or ACA being repealed without an immediate better replacement, people will literally die while we're all fighting it out trying to get that back. (Although these issues don't actually matter.) I'd rather that not happen in the first place.

Congress has been in session for two weeks and Trump's been president for two days, and there are already steps being taken to repeal ACA without a replacement, defund Planned Parenthood, and make abortion illegal, along with announcements to eliminate or throttle departments focusing on climate change, alternative energy, domestic violence, sexual assault and rape, reforming community policing, civil rights, and environmental protections. (Plus other horrifying things that are not related to these marches.) Sure, maybe some of these things won't make it through the system controlled by the people who have been jizzing all over themselves for at least 8 years while fantasizing about all of these kinds of things happening, but, probably not.

 

Normally I would think it's dumb of someone to expect that protests have immediate defineable results less than 24 hours after they happen (man, no one on here understands what protesting is about, do they) but actually it wildly succeeded in one of it's far less romantic goals. The numbers hugely outnumbed Trump's inaugural festivities (you know, unless you believe him and his press secretary's BLATANT disregard for facts) and if not unanimously overshadowed them in media coverage depending on the outlet at least greatly distracted them. Trump is going into office with the lowest approval ratings, after losing the popular vote, and winning the electoral vote at one of the lowest margins (again, unless you buy his blatant disregard for facts), and was greeted on his first full day in office with the largest protest in U.S history. When you have a president that cares about celebrity, popularity, and "winning" above all other things, that matters. If there's ANY president who could have his opinions and beliefs and actions completely swayed by whoever's speaking the loudest in largest numbers, it's this guy, because the only thing that matters to him is being popular.

Plus, it did things like show people who don't live in areas where Trump won less than 10% of the vote that they're absolutely not alone, and hopefully they'll be inspired and invigorated to organize and take action and, hey, maybe even run for congress, where it's a lot more needed and important and effective than a bunch of liberals getting together and fighting for change in, you know, Brooklyn.

It also sent a message globally that, despite the fact that now Trump is the face of America and in all appearances it looks like we've all united behind him and all the values and platforms and policies that go with him, that is very much not the case. Not only does that matter in terms of allyship, but also enemies. It is extremely important to me that we're not projecting any kind of message whatsoever that we're just all casually falling in line.

I wish him/them luck on finding a revision or replacement of ACA that's not solely concerned with giving the wealthy tax cuts and genuinely fixes things that aren't working well for the people for whom it's not working well (although that's pretty much as simple as requiring states to actually cooperate with it instead of intentionally breaking it, but that's never going to happen) without screwing the fuck over all the people for whom it's working very well, and for convincing congresspeople to vote against their own interests in measures that would reduce corruption. But pretty much everything else? Nope.

 

If we're going for a scent metaphor, I would say the Democrats haven't showered after hitting the gym, and the Republicans fell into the Bog of Eternal Stench from Labyrinth.

 

Honestly, I'm not buying it. I've seen nothing but the normal political bullshit out of the Democrats that you'd see out of any modern political party. The Republicans on the other hand are offering legitimately seditious shit.

 

I'm deliberately avoiding talking about specific policy to take the agree/disagree element out as much as I can. Yes the Democrats leaned on the scales for Hillary in their own primary, similar to how the Republicans (much less effectively) put their finger on the scale for anyone-but-Trump. That's the normal kind of political scumbaggery I expect, and I expect it happens in Canada and the UK and elsewhere. The other things the GOP has engaged in, that I listed, are without precedent in functioning first world democracies.

 

But you can't make a better system by voting in the worst possible candidate. The parties will chase the votes, and if the votes show that they want a complete dumpster fire, that is what the parties will provide. At this point in history, the GOP is clearly the worse of the two options. Voting for them pushes both parties in exactly the wrong direction.