• it/its

// the deer!
// plural deer therian θΔ, trans demigirl
// stray pet with a keyboard
// i'm 20 & account is 18+!
name-color: #ebe41e
// yeah



NireBryce
@NireBryce

[ edit: if you're going to complain about this, you have to actually read it instead of trying to replace it with your own knee-jerk reality you came up with after the first paragraph. Thanks in advance :). I'm fine with discussion but, c'mon. At the very least do a cursory web search on what you're bringing to bear, thanks. ]

T'other day I saw someone say, basically, that the US was lost to fascism, a trump win was inevitable, and thats why you shouldn't vote for biden. Ol' sleepy joe. Who can't make it through a debate and keeps fucking up on live TV (as anyone does... it just doesn't get covered when it doesn't fit into a narrative.)

And I need to ask, why are you yelling about things that the opposition wants you shouting about? That they want you shouting because then they can re-task resources they otherwise would have dedicated to pushing that?

You're choosing neither opponents, nor winners, nor people who you have to feel moral obligations for putting a ballot in -- you're choosing the field and conditions of battle upon which the next four years of anti-fascism will have to be fought. That's all presidential elections are here anymore. Since the 70s, really. This year, as with most years, the vote is for administrations, not presidents. One of the admins puts sand in some of the gears of the machine, and the other one just slathers them with lubricant and turns up the engine RPM.

For the sake of those of us who are or will be busy fighting it, I do ask you to at least stop yelling about the convenient narrative while couching it in concern for elders when you're adding one more drop to the stress that's likely not making things better for them, let alone a whole lot of ableism around armchair diagnoses of Parkinson's that don't actually show. We don't need another generation of anti-fascists to burn themselves out, or the old ones to do it a third, fourth, fifth, sixth time.

I hate the current prez, but as someone who's already fought tooth and nail for 5 years since 2016, then 2 years to counter the pandemic misinfo and rise of the right wing cult there, like. If you aren't gonna help, at the very least stop removing spin from the flywheel. You can't run a candidate and win in 4 months -- not even if every single person left of center went out and canvassed daily starting today, for some milquetoast compromise candidate that everyone knows the name of who would be necessary for the turnout.

this shouldn't have to be said. If you're the milieu yelling about Biden's gaffs after the bad debate performance, and actually fear full emboldened fascism? With the current plans laid out by Heritage and the presidential immunity ruling?

What the fuck are you doing. Are you not thinking strategically? Is it weed? I'd love an answer that isn't just "my social media circles have been bombarding me with this" -- since when does the left toe the narratives of the NYT, MSNBC, and the democrat party with these calls for replacement with four months left?

"But my conscience." I'm sorry I don't remember where the quote is from, I want to say Kali Akuno said it in a speech but I can't find it anywhere on the web: "Even if Malcolm X were president of the united states, he would still be The President of the United States." If you're expecting good people there, I'm sorry to say that's an impossibility, as the country will absorb them. If you want to help fix that, yelling to cause upheaval for the current incumbent to be replaced by someone without much name recognition three and a half months from elections is sort of the opposite way to go about fixing things.

I'm sure someone will spin this as me supporting the genocide of Palestinians, but right now it seems we have two options: the guy who's dragging his feet on military aid that lets them wage a forever war there, and the guy who would gladly start sending tanks over. One of them has room for protest making a difference, the other one would prefer you get shot for protesting military shipments at the docks.

When you do this, you're choosing between all of us willing to fight fascism burning ourselves out for a third time fighting fire after fire after fire instead of being able to build anything on even the month-scale that has staying power. Go build things, even if they're online, that'll help enable us to shift things. At the very least, if you think things have Already Fallen to Full Fascism, you've got 4 months to prepare. WYD writing all this instead of preparing?

Use your heads. Go read some coverage that isn't just a spiral of people saying the same things.

the NYT doesn't need any help from people who consider themselves to the left. Roll up your sleeves because it's going to suck either way. But you can be helpful, or you can help build the walls that will make things even harder.

stop shooting yourself in our feet

you're being manipulated, maybe give a thought as to who you're helping. Go roll up your sleeves instead of this shit, even if that's just analyzing the Heritage leaks. The recent supreme court decisions and Project 2025 have changed the game and raised the stakes even further. Replace someone with four months left? Are you KIDDING ME?

If you're going to be accelerationist, at least mean it instead of sleepwalking there.

C'mon.


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in reply to @NireBryce's post:

the time to run somebody else was like, a year ago or more. am i pissed that the democrats are so fucking bad at this shit? as ever. but its like you said, we're voting for a less hostile administration. i would like for there to be a chance that brown v. board, roe v. wade, obergefell v. hodges, and so many other judicial decisions are written into law. i would like for there to be a chance that america stops supporting israel's genocide. i would like for there to be a chance that trans people are not criminalized. one admin gives us that chance.

also re: your tags, it is entirely possible that some of these people do not understand how the chain of command works if the president can't continue their duties. i got a 4 on my ap us history test and i learned more about how that process works from youtube edutainment than i did in class

I especially hate the "he makes mistakes" narrative, because...I don't know, have you literally ever even heard of Joe Biden? People were absolutely shocked that Obama chose him as a running mate, because he his only reputation since at least the '90s was as a potty-mouthed "gaffe machine."

Asking in good faith: why would it be a bad idea to put Harris at the top of the ticket? Running anyone else would be dumb, but Kamala gets to use the money the campaign has already raised and she has name recognition. I'm not asking because I like her, I just don't see many downsides to running her instead of Joe, and I see a lot of upsides.

I don't have any connections inside the dems so I don't know much about harris, it might work, changing things up late in the game even if it's that is risky though -- most people still associate the president with the admin as like a literal Name Brand, for better and for worse.

strategically I'd still not change things up this late, because of that and also if Harris wins, it's going to be harder to add leftward counterpressure, since the dems will totally play up as Harris, Savior From Trump and 4-8 more years of samey bullshit. I don't think elections are a solution, but like. I'd personally rather the position be more up in the air so protest and the like has more... 'bargaining power' when they don't think they've got a secure pocket figurehead

there's more there but I only have a few mins at a time to write the response today because I've been hella busy.

cynically I feel like the big issue is most people aren't steeped in politics and the scant biden coverage barely covers harris even then. But if it happens, shrug. I don't care for the party either way, I'm just looking at what I've got and the data out there, and trying to put my energy into preparing hard for a loss and if the dems pull it off, those networks and infrastructure will be useful for pivoting into pushing the dems anyway.

I will say, however, that the polls are badly designed because they ask how excited people are about voting for someone, but that doesn't count people who are unexcited about it and voting out of duty or despiration, which I don't know how many that is, but from general sentiment especially from the movement that's formed around halting the genocide of Palestinians (and an international movement for Palestine in general), it does seem like a not-insignificant amount.

If we had more time I probably wouldn't advocate swapping either, unless there was someone who could contest it, because like... the supreme court immunity decision changed the board, if it didn't, I wouldn't be putting time and effort into trying to sway anyone because I don't think the electoral route is particularly fruitful

(and in the OP I haven't tried to sway anyone's vote, just that pushing the narrative about cognitive fxn that's been championed by the NYT isn't actually going to further our goals when the reason the NYT is pushing it is almost certainly that the editorial board would prefer someone softer on genocide. Especially when like... people yelling for you to have your brain checked out and you to drop out probably is not helping the stress that causes things to break down like that)