This is the story that we need to be focusing on until election day. None of the other stunts matter. If anything this post should be pinned. We should keep our eye on the ball even if the media won't.

Trump threatened to send the military and the national guard after people on the left and Democratic politicians. This is blatant and open fascism. In any other election Trump being openly fascist would be the October surprise. Everyone needs to see this.

The rule of law means that no one is above the law, not even the president. If the president is above the law then we do not have the rule of law. Being labeled a felon is the idea of a punishment, but since there are no consequences to this sentencing there is no punishment.

At least imposing a fine would have been consistent with precedent. At that point it would have been an issue with our laws being to lenient. That would have been a much more easily remedied problem than doing away with the rule of law, a founding concept of modern western civilization.

The rule of law was dead when the Supreme Court ruled presidents have immunity for core constitutional responsibilities and presumed immunity for official acts in Trump v. United States. This is another nail in the coffin.

The fact they feel the phrase fuck tankies is acting as a barrier to their participation in 196 should be a wake up call for them to examine their political views.

Unlike their use of the word liberal, which they use to refer to everyone to the right of them on the political spectrum, we are using the word tankie for a single specific group. Tankie means authoritarian communist. Please keep the sign.

I'm not a fan of the nepotism and I don't plan on defending it. Biden claims he needs to do this to keep his family safe from an unfair system. If he's going to do stuff like this and acknowledge our institutions are flawed how about do stuff for the American people, Ukraine, or anyone without the last name Biden. The peaceful transfer of power to fascism, but his family got theirs leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

If pollution under Trump is as bad as he is promising the idea of hitting 5 degrees C by 2075 doesn't seem that far fetched.

It's 2024 so that's 51 years from now. I'm 31. If I'm not dead by then I would be 82. So I could, in theory, live to see it.

I didn't want to believe it but they're already in the comments. We need to be vocal. Kamala is a great candidate.

I see a lot of people in comments sections, including this one, saying we should let states secede because they would lose federal funding and this would punish those states. I get that a lot of this is people joking around. But I would like to point out this isn't an effective way to punish the fascists who are actually causing problems.

The fascists in control of those states are usually wealthy individuals and won't be harmed by this at all. The people who will be harmed by this is our fellow people. Also, not everyone in those states identify as Republicans. Take Texas as an example where a majority of people are not Republican.

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/party-affiliation/

Only 39% of Texas adults identify as Republican or lean Republican. 21% have no lean and 40% identify as Democrat or lean Democrat.

We are much better off pressing sedition charges against Abbott and his cabinet members if he actually tries something more serious than this or keeps this stunt going for too long.

The discourse around Biden exiting the race is moot because the only one who decides if he continues is Biden. Biden is still running so nothing changes. Biden is who we need to vote for to keep our democracy.

Biden had a bad debate performance. It was a missed opportunity to pick up new voters. Biden demoralized his base. But we're still stuck with him, because there is no external mechanism to stop him from running.

The most effective tool we have to prevent the christo-fascist takeover this November is voting. The debate did not change that.

So any president can engage in insurrection as recognized by a court completely unpunished as long as they aren’t an officer in the military and “only a civilian”?

It's even weirder, because she is saying this phrase, "any office, civil or military, under the United States” does not cover the office of the president. Which is a terrible ruling as the president is a civilian officer and thus covered by section 3 of the Fourteenth amendment. The ruling comes off as a blatant misreading of the text.

Maybe this legal system does deserve to be burned to the ground if it’s that ignorant.

Our government is being infiltrated by fascists at all levels. We need to vote the fascists out.

Always remember that we had a democracy. Fascists took it from us by leveraging the flaws in our institutions to take power.

The people who lie about our history do not value democracy, our freedoms, or us.

The Uncommitted Movement's goal to get high uncommitted voter turnout in the primary so that Joe Biden changes his outdated views on Palestine and Israel is great.

However if people vote uncommitted in the primaries because they are convinced Biden is Genocide Joe then they aren't going to want to vote for Biden in the general election.

Biden wasn't viable because he has cognitive decline. Kamala will mop the floor with Trump in debates.

TLDR If you care about the Palestinians then vote for Harris because her being president is useful for reaching a ceasefire.

The other post about this topic got locked as I was typing a reply. I feel like my comment is relevant to this discussion so I would like to leave it here. I would think this reply, the original comment, and this post are tightly related and are all about the same thing.

One thing I’ve learned this election cycle is how few people have any knowledge of utilitarianism. Genocide is better than genocide+1. Not acting is a moral choice, and frequently a cowardly one.

There is utilitarianism the ethical philosophy and there is utility. Utilitarianism is still a form a moral reasoning as it subjectively elevates the maximization of happiness and well-being. And what constitutes happiness and well-being is not universal. Utility is a method of analysis used to determine how effectively a stated action advances a stated goal. Utility relies on empirical evidence, observation and math, and is goal agnostic.

For many people on Lemmy, their goals are probably roughly summarized by wanting to end Israel's genocide, Palestinian statehood, and general prosperity for the Palestinian people. Harris has stated multiple times that she wants a ceasefire. Trump has stated he thinks Israel needs to be allowed to finish what they started. Trump has also stated he's going to be a dictator on day one and that his followers are never going to have to vote again.

Moral reasoning that is consistent with our goals paralyzes us in this case. Voting for a candidate whose administration oversaw and contributed to a genocide of Palestinians is subjectively immoral. Voting for a candidate who is threatening to complete a genocide of Palestinians is subjectively immoral. Not voting or voting third party when the candidate threatening to complete a genocide of Palestinians is favored by the electoral college in a FPTP system is subjectively immoral. We can subjectively state one of these options to be the lesser evil, but we have no empirical way to measure evil. Thus in theory, there is no way to form a consensus with subjective moral reasoning alone.

For people whose goal is to support the Palestinian people, it is useful to elect Harris, because someone in power who wants a ceasefire is a useful step to actually getting a ceasefire. Where as Trump will allow Israel to complete it's genocide and end our democracy. This would allow Israel to continue it's genocide indefinitely without US citizens ever being able to influence US foreign policy again.

Everyone is prone to moral reasoning. It's intuitive and philosophers have been doing it since ancient times. In this case, there is a consensus around wanting to help the Palestinian people. But any given moral reasoning derived from our goal doesn't necessarily lead us to a course of action that can help them. With a clear goal in mind, utility provides a clear-cut and consistent answer in the form of voting for Harris. edit: typo

Trump led an insurrection against the US and was allowed to be president again despite not being eligible to do so.

Grifters excepting cash when it is handed to them is not surprising. The grifter working for the Trump administration is not surprising.

Have a coconut. 🥥

edit: Also, you missed the 196 Wizard War.

Yes, and now they are proudly declaring they aren't going to put down the shovel. They want to keep digging this hole we're in.

There is no bottom by the way, they will just keep digging until enough people learn the lessons. If we wait to see how bad it can get it will only get worse.

This test screwed me up in first grade. I thought it was some kind of grammar test so I kept asking if it was a verb, a noun, or an adverb. The test giver was some researcher and was convinced I wasn't taking the test seriously because I wouldn't say wugs. He got kind of angry and I found the whole thing to be kind of distressing. I asked to stop and he just got even angrier and said something like, "No one has ever had trouble with the wug test before". I was convinced I was bad at grammar for years after that. Anyway, wugs! =)

Today I learned pnw is pacific northwest. =) Also, side quests are a thing and sound fun.

We have to stand up to fascists even when they threaten us with violence otherwise the fascists win. There is no sign up sheet to stop fascism. There is no safe way to stand against fascists. There is no future worth living in under fascist rule. Fascists do not go away if the society that spawned them stays the same.

If threats to someone's safety is where we decide our resistance to fascism ends that is where our freedoms end. We do not have to shame this woman, but we do have to disagree with her decision. If we allow her decision to be incorrectly labeled as a reasonable strategy for self-preservation then we will all be living in a christo-fascist dictatorship.

It's liberty or death. That idea is one of the last remaining cornerstones of our democracy. If living is more valuable to use than freedom then we will be incapable of stopping the fascists.

Fascism proceeds one step at a time. One day you wake up and everything is different. Today is that day. The people saying to stand up to fascists got it right. The people calling them armchair warriors and telling people to choose life over liberty lost the plot. The fascists plan is to take power by any means necessary and then kill the people they hate indiscriminately. To stop them we must stand against them even if that means risking death.

Schumer is going to make sure whatever the Republicans decide to put in a bill gets passed to prevent a shutdown. He works for New York billionaires who would lose money over a shutdown.