Chebucto Regional Softball Club

@graydon @futurebird

It would be extremely gratifying to watch Trump decline precipitously and then die ignominiously while the entire P2025 effort collapses under a shattered economy, and JD Vance struggles to make appearances without getting pelted with rotten vegetables.

@graydon @futurebird

I do feel like there's this attitude in the United States that's like

"surely the magical ~*Medical Technology*~ of the vast and all-powerful Empire can keep Presidents alive no matter how sick or old they are! SURELY!"

Basically, if it were *anyone else* but the President of the United States, we'd all be pretty certain the dude is gonna cark it sooner rather than later. But for some reason, because he's POTUS, we just can't fathom it.

It's wild that people still follow or respond to the fascists' social posts. Like, I couldn't even tell you what they are or how to access them.

To me, the fash are a voiceless, faceless, meaningless and amoral horde of beasts. There is nothing they can say that is worth my ears perceiving it. The watts necessary to process their nonsense are energy I could better use shitting in their eyes.

@futurebird

I guess the eternal modern USian argument in politics is: if you vote for Democrats, do you get a seat at the table?

In my experience, the answer is 'no', at least for leftists, queer people, poor people, and trans people, most of the time.

I still vote because it takes minimal effort and I no longer value it as a measure of anyone's affirmative intent.

@futurebird @richpuchalsky

Was the political progress sui generis, or was it driven by the outside efforts?

We live during a time when the value of a vote is near to nothing, if only because politicians don't actually care what the people want; they have their own constituents, and they are not *us*.

No politician will change substantively unless they believe their power is on the line. Default voting in a duopoly is just us giving our power away.

@futurebird @richpuchalsky

Set aside moral considerations.

Is voting for lesser evil *effective*, is the question you should be asking yourself.

If you've been paying attention, the answer is obvious.

Just in case (sigh) it's NO.

@futurebird @richpuchalsky

At some point, folks like me who voted lesser evil despite knowing better had to reckon with the fact that despite voting for lesser evil - or maybe *because of it* - greater evil won. And when you had that moment of reckoning probably determines whether or not you voted for Harris.

Now it's other "lesser evil" folks turn: you've gotta realize that your actions are 100% not effective at preventing harm, because Trump *is still free*.

@futurebird @richpuchalsky

He broke strikes, ignored environmental disasters, and let his FDA run off the handle. His "signature legislation" was classic tax policy BS that passes for "regulation" under Democrats

Now, was he nominally "better" than Trump? Sure. Why not. At a certain point though, does it matter if you only sniped the toddler in the head, not the head and heart? One is less than the other, but you'd have to be a little deranged to think they're different

@futurebird @richpuchalsky

Biden, for example, killed 3x more people than Trump re: the pandemic. But people are like "he said the right stuff! he got the scientists to say stuff! wheeee" and the numbers just don't register in their heads.

Biden started the logging of protected lands. Biden started leasing protected land to oil companies. Biden deported and denied asylum to more people than any previous President. Biden committed crimes to send weapons to Israel.

@futurebird @richpuchalsky

I guess at this point when I encounter "lesser evil" advocates, I'm torn between sharing what Hannah Arendt thought of lesser evil, and showing that the "lesser" is so minuscule that it's hard to find, if it exists at all.

In modern US politics, we confuse aesthetics with substance so frequently that it's no wonder there are still people who think "lesser evil/harm reduction voting" is an effective or even necessary way to run anything

@richpuchalsky @futurebird

I don't even think it's transparent that trans people or immigrants would have it better under a Harris administration. After all, the Democrats voted mostly en masse for Laken Riley, which as a law is pretty much a nuke dropped on due process and oversight of law enforcement, and their attitude toward trans people has been indistinguishable from their attitude toward queer people in the 90s: ew, but I guess I'll let you vote for me.

@futurebird

The white moderate has such a sanguine attachment to the police state (as long as the right people are running it, natch) that it's probably an unvarnished good when they learn a hard lesson about what police are and why they exist.

This No Kings protest will teach everyone who goes that police are not there to "protect and serve", but to suppress the people and guard the ruling class. I, for one, welcome my newly radicalized compatriots