Liberals will lie to you and tell you to “just vote in the primary,” but in reality they simply don’t care about trans rights and do not believe there is ever a right time to challenge transphobic Democrats.
First primary: the transphobes hide their colors so you can’t vote against them.
First general election: the snakes reveal their colors, but you can’t vote against the traitors because “blue no matter who.” They tell you to just vote in the next primary.
Second primary: the same people who tell you now “save it for the primary” shift their tune to “we can’t give up an incumbent seat in a purple district!”
Trans people can see through these bad-faith lies. Yet of course, mansplaining trolls will be sure to breathlessly explain “lesser of two evil” math, as if that’s not an argument we haven’t heard a thousand times and already rejected due to its obvious flaws. There’s never a shortage of arrogant cis people who think they know more about trans issues than actual trans people.
Liberals want your votes, not your voices. Be a good little minority and sit down. Shut up. Support the party. You owe the party your support. The party owes you nothing.
Gotta love the schordinger leftist, simultaneously responsible for the Dems loosing and not significant enough for Dems to pander to.
SUPPORTING Trans people is an EASY and WINNING Issue? Quick! DO the OPPOSITE!
-LITERALLY Democrats!
Ok, but think of all the conservatives we could win over by screwing over minority groups! The Baileys need to be represented!!
These “Democrats in tight races” are doing what they need to do to win and will toe the Pro-trans party line once they’re elected.
At least Republicans admit they’re evil
Trans people are learning why many of us despise the Democratic party.
They’ve betrayed you, eh? First time?
If anything, it looks like you made it, you’re now just like everybody else in the “big tent”
Remember what Democrats did to labor? Look at it. LOOK AT LABOR NOW
because the gop was going to ever help labor trans folks or gaza?
look, you can change the dems. stop fucking around with centerists and push bernie and aoc types. you will never be able to afford to outspend big money and influence the gop.
oh, I get it, you could vote for jill stein, which is basically voting for trump again?
worked great for gaza
Everything i said is 100% true regardless. Labor was the top issue for Democrats only as long as union members could bribe them more than Amazon.
I’m voting D this election, but yeah. Democrats are being paid by the same people as Republicans, even if you pretend that they’re not. This is the situation we are in, and voting will not get you out of it. I’m voting anyway, I take it you are too… but it won’t change what fuels our parties, which is about a billion dollars per election cycle.
If you want Democrats to stand for GAZA, tell GAZA they’re going to have to pony up a lot more cash, at least as much as Israel
If you want Democrats to stand for trans, come up with few hundred million, and VIOLA! you have a friend (for an election cycle, at least. If you’re lucky, and nobody “donates” more)
Labor was the top issue for Democrats only as long as union members could bribe them more than Amazon.
the rich have been fucking labor far longer than Amazon has been around.
you’re not wrong about the money, or human rights, or gaza, but also, you’ll always have more support from ideologically motivated people on the left than you’ll find on the right.
Who ever wins, trans will only have rights in the US if they keep fight for it. So the question isn’t who make the best promises before the vote, but who is the most likely to accept to negociate after.
Ugh, I will vote Democrat but I havent abandoned any trans people. I understand the party is jist grasping for anything at this point and they think cowering away from speaking with their chest is the only way but I already consider them feckless busy bodies. Its all fucked and let it collapse but I wont sentence anyone to life under a republican white nationalist regime.
You know what. You’re right. Vote red. Pick a Republican. That will teach the Democrats to notice trans people. Or don’t vote, that will surely help.
At the risk of sounding extremely dismissive, because it is, the world is literally on fire and you might not get to win your issue of choice in the next 5 or even 10 elections. Of course every person regardless of majority of minority status deserves to have their basic rights met and to be treated with a modicum of decency and acceptance. Of course. When it comes to elections though, R will come together for any one of no abortion, more guns, less taxes, go church!
The far left doesn’t win in the US, and won’t win, because, son of a bitch, there is not enough fundamental support for Mediterranean furry vegans with one eye who use glow in the dark blowy wheelchairs. And wouldnt you know it, all 900 trans people on Lemmy and their vegan allies cannot storm the palace by themselves no matter how hard you rage post.
Yes it sucks. Conservatives are a bloc. The left is not, and each of the 347 extreme minorities can’t play nice together unless their issue is at the forefront which makes a fundamentally impossible purity test for every candidate. Fuck people who are transphobic and good on people who are good allies, but there just isn’t a competitive counter block because the left isn’t full of group-thinking neanderthals.
I understand that you are mad, but you can’t win shit with 10 people. So do you want the lesser evil or would you rather deal with the obviously worse door number two?
Your last paragraph is functionally right. You can make your own choice and it sucks no matter what you do. Nobody is winning here. That’s how it is. Fuck.
The right is full of brainwashable morons and the left is all full of vibrant and unique non-teaming, purity testing assholes with stupid long Linux socks.
I understand that you are mad, but you can’t win shit with 10 people. So do you want the lesser evil or would you rather deal with the obviously worse door number two?
If our numbers are small enough for our issues to not matter, then stop vote-scolding us for how we chose to vote. With one breath you say our numbers are too small to make our issues a purity test for the party. With the next you say it’s our duty to support the party.
Liberals tell minorities our issues are too minor to worry about and then blame us when we take them at their word and say, “well, I guess you don’t need our votes anyway.”
The vote-scolding is almost never towards trans people, it’s towards people who say the dems aren’t doing enough and don’t vote, and let literal fascism win instead. The message is towards the people who aren’t viscerally affected who still didn’t vote or voted 3rd party, and their vote DID matter in this super close election to prevent literal fascism.
I’m not talking about you at all when it comes to voting. I have said vote how you want. You need my vote and that’s the whole point of this post isnt it? Let’s all hold Dems accountable? By all means let’s do hold Dems to account, but I intend to see it happen at every primary all the way down the ballot, grass roots style not by spitting on the least worst option. Hell, you can run yourself!
But when push comes to shove, I know hundreds of people who get fucked by the country headed right and I know 4 trans people who get hurt either way and it sucks. Considering that picture, vote for fucking Yoda who gives a shit? The fate of the world is not hinging on the angry trans vote, but it might hinge on people who would like to buy 10 years to install some candidates that don’t suck.
I’m in for “whatever is the best possible thing we can get right now”, but if you threaten to take your ball and go home where your dad beats you, then ok, cool power move.
I hate pancakes
Oh so you hate waffles?
You are an awful person and I hope you experience half of the pain we do, you bootlicking piece of human trash.
There is a trans genocide happening in the US, telling us to suck it up while we die, while we are killed is so fucking awful.
It’s really amazing how you expect absolutely nothing from the democratic party, how you paint basic support for the rights of trans people as “far left” and how you then expect us to still support you.
You don’t have to support anybody. Do what you want.
Trump and the right are burning everything down right here, right now, not just you. Im not picking them or not voting to teach dems a lesson. Let’s be really clear: I hate what is happening to trans people, and people of color, and gay people, and Muslims, and Jews who are not aligned with the state of Israel. Not a single one of those hills is one I would die on if it meant more trump.
So call me what you want, sir/madam/xer, but weighing any group against wholesale collapse, I’m choosing the lesser evil. I will campaign and vote in the primaries to go as far left as we can get, but I’m not forsaking the only non far right party for any single group that is smaller than literally everyone. The math doesn’t make any sense.
Nah. I choose collapse. We can all go to Hell together if you’re willing to throw us under the bus.
deleted by creator
Throw trans people under the bus (reality: support trans people but not enough) or literal fascism are your 2 choices. Since option #1 is never acceptable ever we will just go with fascism forever always as they do state-sponsored anti trans propaganda I suppose. Enjoy being sent to camps under fascism and not receiving gender affirming care instead of not being able to play in sports for the same gender. Both sides ig. Most mainstream democrats have stated explicit support for trans people, it’s just not enough apparently.
“I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage” - Barack Obama, 2008
The same Barack Obama that helped achieve the following during his time as President of the United States:
Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act adding perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability to the existing hate crime law.
Lifted the ban on travel to the United States by those infected with HIV
Signed into law the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal Act of 2010
Under his presidency, the Pentagon ended the policy that barred transgender people from serving openly in the military.
I was certainly disappointed when I heard him say what he said, but I also could read between the lines. I was disappointed it took him so long to finally become a vocal advocate of marriage equality (thank you Joe Biden for opening your big mouth, I mean this sincerely), but I none-the-less voted for him and in the end I am so glad he was in that office instead of McCain or Romney.
Can we please not fall for the bait. Look at not only their actions but also the situation they are in. Yes, Bill Clinton signed DOMA into law, but it also passed with veto-proof majorities, making a vote against it only performative. Yes, Clinton instituted Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, but this was a time when homophobia was absolutely ingrained throughout the US. My own parents said some pretty horrible things about queer people, and now they are (mostly) accepting of the multiple queer people we have in our family.
If you’re going to be upset at anyone, be upset at your family, friends and neighbors not doing shit (even I could be doing more). Supporting trans rights arguably is less risk to us than someone vying for political office who could end up extending protections for trans people. It took a wave of challenging conversations within families as well as increased positive visibility in the media (and arguably the passing on of a generation) to get to a situation where politicians could openly support any kind of queer family without facing immense backlash.
What good politicians do is say something that appeals to the masses, while dogwhistling support for the thing their constituency wants. I think generally dems have been doing this, but somehow “I think trans people absolutely need medically necessary care” is not clear enough, when almost every state has included gender affirming care as medically necessary.
Keep voting lesser evil TM. Surely they will move left after the elections and not sell out to right wing donors…
The DNC should have been purged of centrists but you all wanted to stick with them. Now this is what you get.
Now this is what you get.
yeah this worked out so well for palestine huh? you ignore the entire thing then the hard right nazis get their way, that’ll go great
It actually has worked amazingly well for the Palestinian cause.
Yes, on the ground, things haven’t improved in Gaza, but they also haven’t gotten any worse. The vast majority of the deaths were during the Biden administration. Trump has mostly just continued Biden’s policies in terms of Israel/Palestine.
What has improved is that the Democratic party has moved majorly to the left on the issue of Gaza. The base has completely turned on Israel. The candidates are slowly changing their stances. Progress is being made.
But it took Democrats actually losing the general election over Gaza for this to happen. The party chose to skip the primary and forced all pro-Gaza voices out of the room. Their arrogance cost them an election they should have won. And as a response, real change is happening.
The folks who said, “voting against Biden will do nothing for Palestine” were flat-out wrong.
what a self absorbed, ghoulish take on the deaths trump has goaded bibi onto.
well you showed the dems and now things are going great!
I don’t know what I was expecting from a scientist made of wood. Lignin for brains I guess.
Voting for the lesser evil is how we ended up with legalized gay marriage.
“Lesser evil” can be rephrased as “greater good”
We should remove all the water with piss in it from the swimming pool then go swimming.
Dem centrists already abandoned students, medical professionals, the poor, immigrants, anyone needing civili rights, or free speech. The wonder is that trans people ever thought such a fairwether friend would be at their side for more than a single election cycle. The republicans are fascsists and the dems are donation whores who stand for nothing except cashing checks from their corporate Johns.
If I’m wrong please explain to me what the dems will run on in the midterm election. What are the issues they are caring deeply about and championing? Does anyone know?
And BlueMAGA wonders why I have only ever voted third party at every single level.
At this point, I’m still with the vote blue crowd. We’re in serious damage control and voting for our lives. When the option is this vs. Nazi authoritarianism. You vote for this!
In other words, If the chemo sucks, we’ll deal with it to survive the cancer. Because then we can live and fight another day. Give in and opt-out, and you’ve no place to complain that the cancer is killing you.
Vote like lives depend on it- because they do. We can fix this kind of stupid, we CANNOT fix MAGA stupid.
VOTE.
I agree, we must at all costs keep doing what we’ve always done. How else are are we ever going to turn this ship around?
… or you could be like this person- and not vote and see how much change happens.
Not voting has led to immense change. You just don’t want to see it.
Look at how much the views of the Democratic party have shifted in the last two years due to Gaza. It took Democrats losing an election for AIPAC democrats to become politically radioactive.
Parties losing elections are the most effective means of forcing change within a party. Hell, that’s how we got neoliberalism in the first place. The old party of the New Deal had its coalition fall apart. Clinton adopted the triangulation strategy as a way of responding to the losses of the Reagan years. I don’t consider that to be change for good, but it’s another example of change.
Major change in parties only usually happens after election losses. Otherwise it’s far too easy to just keep going with the status quo.
Lmao…. You don’t vote, you get trump. Plain and simple. And I’m so fucking done with all the bullshit excuses you people hurl at anyone that disagrees with you.
You helped bring trump. Take a bow.
Right right but you can’t stop there. Voting is the easy part. It’s everything else that makes a real difference.
Exactly. It doesn’t even have to be that complex, spending some time educating self and then sharing that education with friends and family can make a huge difference.
Such a small minority (1% of 1%) stokes such overwhelming fear.
Then don’t bitch when we chose not to vote to support your bigoted candidates.
Even if you can’t be an empathetic human who accepts that everyone should be safe and allowed to exist as who and what they are, you can still be selfish and recognize that attacking transgender rights is also attacking YOUR rights.
If you are referring to the commenter, I think their point is that the fear is irrational in large part because it’s such a small group of people.
I would add to that, there’s no evidence that being trans itself has caused anyone any harm. Even studies of gender affirming treatment shows that an overwhelming number of people treated see an increased quality of life afterwards (98% or more, with the reduce quality being attributed mainly to increased transphobia from others, not regret of the treatment itself).
Yes.
And my point is that even with it being a small group- positively tiny in the scheme of things- it’s still important to protect their human rights.
Because if we erode their right to be who they are, we erode our own right to be who we are- that includes the right to be women who are good at sports, or men who suck at sports.
That includes being a male nurse or so woman firefighter.
Or whatever they’re telling us is appropriate/innapropeiate for what ever one has going on.
They’re using transphobia, fear and hate to attack everyone. Trans persons are vulnerable and need protection, not just because they need and deserve being safe… but also because what happens to the most vulnerable of us will eventually happen to all of us.
I don’t think anyone in this thread would disagree with the principle that the legitimacy of a human right isn’t dependent on the size of a group.
And you are correct that what happens to one group can happen to all. I would take it a step further and say that this is already happening with transphobic laws. Cisgender people are becoming victims of them too. https://www.advocate.com/news/lesbian-mistaken-transgender-arizona-walmart
ya know, i’ve been an ally for a long fucking time
but simply pointing out it sure looks like this is the exact same playbook that put trump in office again and sparked this nightmare leads to downvote brigade
this is the fucking stupid ass shit that causes divide and leads to bad people gaining power, that’s all i’m trying to fucking say in here
My take has been: Vote for what’s right in the primaries. Vote for what’s practical in the general. Rinse & repeat. It’s either that, or give us some sort of ranking option so we can do some semblance of risk mitigation between the two corporate parties.
I voted for candidates in the primary. And for the most part, I’ll sadly be voting against the more-bad candidates in the general to ensure the greatest likelihood of defeat for the more-bad candidates that I can accomplish with my one little vote.
Edit to add: the timing of the article smells weird to me, as if to suppress Democratic turnout in November.
Edit to add: the timing of the article smells weird to me, as if to suppress Democratic turnout in November.
The timing of comments like this is odd to me. People always start throwing around conspiracies like this just before elections. You must be a Russian bot.
That definitely seems like the most likely answer. Good luck out there!
How’s that working out for you?
Suppressing turnout is always the point. Telling you the gov’t can’t fix things and that you should check the fuck out is the point. The status quo is what they want*, its the game they have rigged and control. If voting didnt matter they wouldnt put so much effort in keeping people from doing it or convincing you to stay home.
The dems are 99% ass, but the GOP would imprison trans people as groomers for taking a dump in the girls room. Its not even close and I’m tired of people’s suggesting staying at home will get them better choices next time.
Can always count on there being a cis person that thinks they know trans issues better than actual trans people.
Remember, trans people are apparently numerous enough to owe our votes to Democrats, but we’re not numerous enough to have our issues be included as basic litmus tests of party candidate eligibility.
Maybe you should have some humility and stop acting like minorities owe you anything after you betray them.
You don’t represent all of us, slow your role. Jesus Christ can we at least keep the actual real fascists out of office while working on making things better at the same time?
Why didn’t the “working on making things better” start in 2020? We could’ve kept actual fascists out of power, if we’d started then, instead of breathing a sigh of relief and acting like everything was fixed forever.
I don’t know about you but I don’t have a time machine. I’m stuck in the present timeline. If you’ve got a way back to try and fix this mess, believe me when I say try it and don’t worry of it destroys the current timeline.
Even though I recognized the trajectory toward authoritarianism back in 1996 with Pres. Clinton’s Third Way triangulation, and have been saying, guys, we need to start making things better sooner rather than later since then, the past is indeed the past. So, what’s the plan? What are we doing beyond “vote blue” right now to ensure that we don’t have to vote for anti-trans Democrats next time, too?
I love this question, because the answer can be so many things depending on your set, setting, and availability. Engage in local politics and community support.
Show up for meetings and listen. Share your thoughts and opinions as you become informed or find you have questions. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Join a local committee. Run for a local office or go further if that’s your path.
Get acquainted with your local town office, rec center, senior center, etc. Start volunteering. Serve meals, maybe deliver some. Support a food bank - donations, pickup from local business donors. Promote Progressive voices that are supporting workers’ and people’s rights. Support people doing everything described in the previous paragraph.
Gogol Bordello said it first: Think global, act local. Installing a president with true progressive values isn’t a path to success unless there is wider congressional support, so start developing grass roots support or support those that are developing such.
Conservatives have spent 50+ years slowly and steadily doing this and fucking over progressive voices all along the way with exuberant neoliberal support on embracing corporate money and influence. It’s a long road back. We need to stop accelerating towards stupidity and it’s the right wing authoritarian cultists that have their foot stuck on the gas pedal so keeping them out of power would be super neato as far as I’m concerned.
Hol’up…
Where did you get the idea that “trans people are numerous enough”? Numerous in what, exactly? To swing an election?
I’m so confused by all the stuff you’re posting around here. It seems you are VERY misinformed about your position in society as a member of a group, and how that affects US elections at large.
I’m not saying to hold back on your swings or anything, but the crazy vitriol you’re spouting off just seems to say you’re making some wild assumptions that will not play out…
If trans people are so minor that we can’t affect elections, why are you complaining about trans people withholding our votes?
First: I’m not “complaining about trans people” in any way. I’m pointing out the flaw in your logic, and attempting to understand what mechanism you believe you are attempting to enact here because it’s no making sense.
Second: trying to contort other people’s comments to turn yourself into a victim over falsehoods is the weakest of weak discourse, and makes you seem like an unserious person. I hope you don’t engage with people in person like that, because it’s a fast track to being ignored.
This is part of a larger conversation.
I am not assuming that trans people are numerous enough to affect elections. I’m simply taking that as a given based on all the responses I’ve received in this and similar threads. People clearly believe that trans people are numerous enough for our votes to matter, but also somehow so small in number that our issues can be ignored.
You’re doing the Democrat version of the old Nazi trope that Jews were both incredibly weak and subhuman, while also a secret conspiracy that controlled the world. The Nazis simultaneously believed that Jews were inferior subhumans, literally less-evolved and less-intelligent than ordinary Germans AND that Jews were powerful and smart enough to secretly run the whole world.
You believe a similar thing about trans people. Our numbers are small enough that our issues can’t be litmus tests for the party. (No one would tell black democrats that they have to support a democrat that is a member of the KKK. Anti-black racism is treated as a red line by the whole party. No one says we have to support klan members because “blue no matter who.” Trans issues aren’t treated with the same seriousness by folks like you.) Our numbers are small enough that our issues can be dismissed as trivial and unimportant. You’ll dismiss the needs of trans people, and then with the very next breath say that we owe our votes to the Democratic party. Us not voting for Democrats risk them losing the election.
You believe in Schrodinger’s trans person: small enough in number to ignore, but not so small that we can’t be blamed for an election loss.
Again…twisting someone’s words into something completely different than what was said to make whatever point you feel you need to make. Unserious.
All I asked was for clarification about HOW you imagine this mechanism of withholding votes in the numbers you’re talking about. It’s math, not attacking your social standing or worth.
Go and read about people who made serious inroads for their social causes like Harvey Milk or Barbara Gittings. That’s how you get to real social change. Hell, look at Sarah McBride. She sees the social systems for what they are, and is working inside them to affect the changes she wants to happen. Doing this argumentative bluster thing that you’re doing and just attacking people, or threatening to abstain from the existing voting system is going to do shit. That’s just the reality of it.
It comes from every time a trans person says they will never support a Democrat that stands against them, BlueMAGA comes out yelling at them saying they’re the reason Harris lost and will be blamed when any other Dem loses.
I’m not claiming the trans folk owe the dems shit. I am say the least I can do for marginalized groups is hold my nose and vote for the people who currently aren’t executing policy to harm those groups.
Voting for a third party?! Tsk-tsk!
That doesn’t really work unless the candidate is honest in the primary. So you vote for someone thinking they’re one way and they double cross you.
Yes this is also about Fetterman
Bottom line: Everything sucks and will forever. Because people suck and always will.
Vote out of spite.
man if pro pally or trans folks think the dems have abandoned them, they need to fucking check themselves
anti dem propoganda like this is bullshit
Are you either?
You can always count on two things when a trans person points out how trans people are being taken for a ride by the democrats:
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There will be a cis person there to haughtily explain “lesser of evil” math, as if you’re just a stupid tr#nny who is too dumb to understand it, rather than someone who is fully aware of the argument and recognizes that it’s complete bullshit.
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There will be a cis person there calling the trans person a foreign agent or Republican plant. Remember, liberals want your vote, not your voice.
Thank you for proving me right.
Lol you are so wildly off base it’s actually hilarious
Edit: I’m trans, ya big ole goofball
So glad the upvote/downvote ratio trends toward rational thought on this one. There is hope for lemmy after all.
this shit was ridiculous
It’s realpolitiks and it’s nasty but frankly speaking not much can be done within the current political system and the actions that can be done without said system most folks don’t have the taste for and the police state makes it pretty damned hard to enact and get away with it. Personally I wish we could just murder and string up every politically powerful transphobe and transphobe enabler but that’s how you suicide by cop as of right now and would be politically damaging.
It’s a well known issue amongst those of us who are more traditional rednecks, sure you could just shoot the anti-worker pissrag but that by itself is ineffective unless you keep doing it and with modern forensics and surveillance the old ways simply are ineffective.
But I’ll also admit that my baseline reaction to any authoritarians is basically to just want to kill them. Can’t really see past that but in this case I can’t really theorize how to get politicians to just shut the fuck up beyond putting a knife to their throat and asking about their life insurance policy so FUBAR.
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