It's also now beside the point. Voting on bills is irrelevant if the executive branch ignores them and sends in its goon squad, with the full backing of the Supreme Court. After January 20th, congress no longer mattered. That was the whole plan.
I forget who said it, but last year someone said Washington is full of monsters and cowards and it’s your job to bully the cowards into fighting back against the monsters
They work for the powerful, there's a difference. Power truly does reside in the people and, without our support it's not possible to hold on to power. I mean this in the most practical sense possible, and I don't mean elections either. You can't hold on to power when there's no one to follow.
It’s all predicated on the false, smug assumption that things can’t get worse than they already are. It can absolutely get worse - and it absolutely will, if we cede the very little power we still have.
Smug cynicism is a good way of putting it. And if you ask, "So what should we do?" the answer is often, "Take to the streets!" by which they mean engage in the self-indulgence of public emotional displays while harassing traffic or hanging around after dark to see if a riot starts.
Right, people say stuff like this as if average people didn’t bust their ass with to help elect Sienna, Gallego, Fetterman and company only to get stabbed in the back
This is exactly the type of cynicism that has so many Americans cheering on Donald Trump and Elon Musk. They've convinced themselves that government is so broken that it has to be torn down.
One is directly derived from the other, in fact. Knowing that Democrats in positions of leadership do this shit as a main strategy is why nobody believes they'll actively resist. Something about... class interests, I think.
The plan is for Musk to destroy the dollar and the economy and replace it with crypto. This is why you see Trump go from "crypto is trash" to having his own crypto coin.
I definitely agree that his own crypto coin was just created to fleece people but his change about crypto in general is because of Musk's influence and his plan to replace the dollar with crypto.
Yeah his plan is the only one grifters like him have the leverage buy out take over immediately break everything to justify selling off the unprofitable parts and buying back the services from your self and friends at higher cost. Renegotiate contracts to get back handers run up a load of debt
That "meowmers" account on the other site is a far-left chaos agent and posts nothing but antisemitism and that "both sides are the same" and was glad the Dems lost.
People like that can fuck off.
Where are the calls/emails to our elected representatives getting us? Oh, yeah, that's right. Dems are introducing two new bills that won't get passed. Hakeem Jeffries said just yesterday in a press conference that democrats have no leverage. Meanwhile, the damage is done and continues to be done.
I've actually have seen them do multiple things that people like you were explicitly telling them to do, such as deny unanimous consent, and try to do rallies outside. The result is that people like you just collectively mock them for it and also pretend it never happened.
I was. I’m also for a diversity of tactics. Some should call representatives, some should deny unanimous consent, some should hold rallies outside, some should attend rallies, some should just focus on mutual aid
We shouldn't fault Bernie Sanders and the rest too harshly for declaring an intent to work with DOGE and the President on their own priorities, as silly as that sounds now, it's natural for politicians to seek leverage on their personal issues and try to appear bipartisan.
Even if representatives work for billionaires they can still be pushed, especially when elites are divided, as they often are in a large complicated nation like the US. Even bought and paid for members of the FCC flipped to support net neutrality when 3 million people contacted them.
Yeah man, the seemingly limitless degrees of corruption & anti-democratic conduct you'll accept from your ostensible "representatives" has corroded the very core of democracy, astute observation.
We must write our elected leaders. It’s a must. But in truth, our elected leaders do little to help us feel heard when we write them. The typical response is autogenerated and fundraising-adjacent.
It's not 100% wrong though. There was no prepared plan what to do about Dobbs v. Jackson, no plan to drop DNC funding for anti-abortion candidates, not enough to fight for abortion at state levels, weak public messaging. The overall lack of urgency in any matter is very frustrating.
Yeah, but we then we have his Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas debacle (1 SCOTUS seat!), as well as not using his VP position to try to pressure Justice Bader Ginsburg into letting someone younger take her place. Of course, hindsight is always 20/20.
I just think shutting up a sexual assault victim vs. a creepy, unqualified right-wing nut candidate turned out to be a bad move. And so was the peaceful transfer of power to a self-admitted dictator wannabe who already attempted a coup once. Latter was OK in principle, but with disastrous result.
If Dem leaders were operating in good faith they’d be:
1) identifying the *rump regimes distracting feints vs their main attacks
2) saying focused resistance is required
3) highlighting Dems have no political power and economic resistance (boycotts/sttikes) are required (the focus)
Good news! They are in fact doing all these things. I've seen multiple examples of each of them come across my feed here on Bluesky just this week, and I know there's more I don't see.
Watch “Promised Land” movie. The ruling class owns both parties in a two party-only system. There are good Dem leaders but corrupting money neutralizes them. The political system isn’t the only avenue to change. But of course, when oligarchs TOTALLY control it, that’s what they want you to think.
I'm not advocating learned helplessness, I'm merely pointing out people (almost certainly correctly) feel it's pointless because Congress is completely broken
I think people need to step this up a notch then. Stop calling your reps and go protest at their offices. Find your local Democratic Party, join it, and push the old heads out.
I don't agree with her, but it's too bad the same "try to understand their perspective" energy that's conjured for conservative fascists isn't applied to this kind of disillusioned left-wing voters.
Reps have many people to answer to and a long list of demands with severe consequences if they're not fulfilled. Those are the people who get what they want
You get what you want by having leverage. Calling your representative doesn't give you that
Can we acknowledge that a large majority of establishment dems are in fact two-faced and work firstly for corporate donors and their constituents after. Can we have that conversation, or no?
Anytime a non-establishment dem tries to move us forward, they’re gridlocked by the establishment.
Sure, but at the same time, people don't, as a rule bother to call and write their representatives. If constituents don't communicate what they want, the path of least resistance is to do what donors want. We can't rule out the tactic of bugging our reps when it's never really been tried.
Calling reps is hardly the only metric by which their actions are guided. I accept that cynical defeatism isn't constructive, but it is not borne of nothing. We have been let down by a lot of these folks over & over again. Our criticism is valid - not adequately addressing it leads to this.
They don't get hit with a lot of calls and emails though. Once they finally did, they responded and shifted their messaging quite rapidly. It's a little ridiculous to claim calling reps is useless when we don't do it much. So it is kind of borne of nothing.
I get that the failures are not always 100% their fault. Manchin and Sinema, GOP obstruction last 4 years killed many chances to do good things. Dem party is a big tent vs homogeneous GOP so everything is harder. Just sucks to feel like we lose even when we win. Not a new dimension to the party.
additionally, it’s wild to me that we are being told to call our reps to explain how much we don’t want “incredible horrendous measure/policy” to go into effect. We shouldn’t have to remind them to stick to values that got them elected. I could understand it it’s something small… lol but come on.
So, you're mad that democracy requires civic participation? It always has. It always will. If you don't want to call your reps, your job is to campaign for somebody better who is primarying them. Or run for office yourself. Those are your options if you want democracy.
No. I’m mad that ppl who campaign on defending/progressing human rights, being pro-working class, and pro public resources have to be reminded to be those things after they get in office because corporate donors are telling them not to be.
Exactly. Some are even voting for cabinet picks - Wright, Bessent, Noem, Duffy, etc, all w/D votes. Rubio was unanimous!! What is the point of doing that? We have to call their offices to explain why we don't like this? Especially because they don't need D votes for any of these! Useless groveling.
This is when we find out who they work for.
If your rep works for the people, give them full support.
And if your rep works for the billionaires…Vote. Them. Out.
The cynicism is corrosive, but the real rot comes from the realities that give legs to statements like that. C'mon corporate lobbies, AIPAC, donors and PACs, Democrat failures, gerrymandering aren't fantasies: shouldn't stop anyone from pushing, but it should remind us what to push for.
I think it has more to do with older conservatives being comfortable on the phone with a stranger. Younger liberals will use an app to dodge a phone call.
That’s fair! And it’s not like you can just type through an app—the email forms make you enter first name separate from last name, the whole address, etc. kind of annoying.
But if people can't even be honest that a large portion of Congress owning and trading stock is inherently a bad thing without making excuses, then I don't know what to tell you.
Lmao that’s so meaningless. I own stock too, because I put my very limited savings in a stocks & shares savings account, mostly in some passive ETFs that just track the market.
I’m frankly surprised it’s only 53% among people *much* richer than me!
the average congress member could quit tomorrow and make way more money as a lobbyist and on company boards. plenty of them are already rich and spend millions of their own money trying to get elected.
what they are about first and foremost is power, and therefore re-election
Fair, but that isn't better. That still means that they are beholden to corporate and wealthy interests in order to jump to a more lucrative job after.
Corporate money and refusing to call it out on a party level is killing the DNC.
I suspect weirdly that it doesn’t matter if you believe they are crucial to restoring democracy or if you think they are bought. If you think they are bought then primary them. If you think they are crucial campaign for them. What is corrosive is letting either perspective convince you to sit and /1
do nothing. That’s the marvelous trick that people that want America to die don’t want you to realize. What kills America isn’t believing one thing or the other. It’s eventually believing it ultimately doesn’t matter and giving up. Giving up is what kills America. Disagreement has existed this /2
Whole time and we survived it. If you hate what some politicians stand for,even if those politicians are democrats and ostensibly the party against Trump billionaires, then get involved. If you think they’re the only thing that can save us, get involved. They want us to sit calm. Screw that, thrash!
(To clarify I think there’s a clear distinction between the outcome of the actions behind supporting democrats vs not. We wouldn’t be HERE if more people had and not being here is better. My point is that the death of former democratic countries comes when people stop feeling doing anything matters)
This doesn't actually include a link to the study and is just trying to solicit donations. Also, members of Congress don't care about what polls nationally, but they do care about what’s popular or unpopular in the districts in which they are elected.
I don’t like it, but I also can’t exactly blame people for feeling this way. God knows the people we elected to protect us have been doing their damndest to prove the person here right.
I always go for the throat. "Oh so doing nothing is super helpful." Then say 'well should...' and I say are you going there right now Susan? Or are your comments fighting fascism right now?
What is the best messaging to get them to listen? I used to call and plead nicely, but when I switched to firmer, angrier language implying complicity, even outright blame, they started doing more. I don’t like being mean though. I’ll do it bc this is more important than my feelings, but still🤷♀️
Yeah, the majority has been there before but people are apathetic about pushing for better representation. Gonna be hard to get people to care with all the other bullshit happening.
Not when 1/2 parties is fascist. Fascism isn't doing democracy, they're not listening,they don't care, they want their agenda
The GOP should have been deplatformed a decade ago, but Liberalism/feckless Dems let it live,& now Do-Nothing Dems are a dead party. Liberalism is dead,& that isn't cynicism
if only there were some political mechanism to replace the representatives that work for the billionaires with representatives that work for the public. oh well time to keep doomposting.
I think the malapportionment crisis combined with low turnout is at the root of a lot of these. The more people you represent, the less any one voter’s voice matters, which depresses incentive to get involved and vote, leading to a downward spiral where you need to win a smaller and smaller (cont…)
…share of the electorate paradoxically as the amount of voters you represent increases. We need to massively increase the size of the house, adopt proportional representation, and do *something* about the Senate. But that’ll probably require a Constitution 2. Which we may be heading for.
yeah. tbh I am cynical af about everything you’re describing but I refuse to accept that the conclusion should be to give up and actively discourage others.
Honestly, even if this is true, try anyway. Worst that happens is it does nothing. You’re right where you are now. Best that happens is this is wrong, and it DOES help.
Just don’t end with a call. Keep going. Get involved locally. Help the groups around you however you can.
My point is that the only difference between your question and the dunked-on person's statement is the degree to which you believe that your sitting representative can actually be influenced, and that it's no less valid for someone to believe that the current crop is largely apathetic toward us.
I believe there is a difference between throwing your hands up and saying nothing matters, and expecting better from our elected officials. If mine was muddy messaging, I guess I’ll blame the constant state of frustration. But philosophically, there is a difference.
Yup. Hope and fear are on the same spectrum. Hope can be about refusing to accept fear. Hope can be addictive, avoidant, and destructive. It has it’s place, but it’s not always appropriate.
Your account is less than a week old and this is your second-to-oldest post. I’m assuming the reason you’ve given up hope is because you’re three years old and a single day feels like an eternity for you, much less the better part of a week.
Ya that’s stupid for sure. But being online always had and will have trolls and bots. These people have this weird idea of a Golden Age of the Internet that existed independent of these things.
It really does make a difference. A lot of members get call reports at the end of the day/week. If a member doesn't get them personally, their office management definitely do. A few dozen calls or more on a given topic translates into pressure that members and their teams feel directly.
Yeah but right now they are a minority in both house and senate. Even if all of them vote the way we want them to, they will still lose. Not being cynical, just factual.
It's a near certainty that this person also chastises people who don't vote (I mean, these people *should* be chastised, but I'm just pointing out the likely hypocrisy here).
Leftist critiques of the Democrats as neoliberals and corporatist overlords is just so tiresome at this point. Think we need to create a nihilist commune where these folks can navel gaze together about mistreatment of Bernie and AOC’s selling out and let everyone else get stuff done.
Idk how you can watch what the Dems have done in the last 3 months and come to the conclusion that leftist criticisms of their effectiveness are incorrect.
Republicans were previously able to obstruct a lot while not having a majority. Meanwhile, certain Dems (Fetterman being the last disappointment) not only do not help stop the rot, but vote for Trump's odious and unqualified people.
Both camps seem to think that the other camp is quite skilled at sabotaging them. If we can leave each other be, and instead focus fire on the GOP to destroy them first, honestly I wouldn't even be upset about any subsequent left/lib fighting.
I’d say it’s more a symptom of oligarchy. You’re implying that we have democracy, but we don’t actually. We haven’t for a long time. We have reps who care about elections, stock portfolios, power, manipulating and gaslighting. Been that way since Reagan. Some folks are burned out. Imagine that.
They’re burned out and bitter. Who can blame them? But they’re certainly not the big problem in the scenario you’re referencing. Folks who enable the scenario are the problem…
Corrosion to the core of our 'democracy' started w 300M Americans never having read/studied G Washington's Farewell Address, in where the authors plainly explain: "alternating projects of faction is a despotism unto itself.." & always results in "tyranny" (Federalist 47)
Like we have now
Comments
It brought us The Squad, who voted w/ the GOP more often than either Manchin or Sinema.
And it made Bernie Sanders a multimillionaire.
Cynicism: Therefore no one else has any power & it's pointless to try any levers we do have.
The latter is never justified.
Who are we to give up now? Our ancestors lived under absolute monarchs and *they* still used what power they had.
If they are going to break the law, if they are going to pass vile legislation, make them do it, don't do it for them.
It would be a direct transfer of billions of dollars from the federal government to the wealthiest people on the planet.
Call your representatives, and tell them what you want from them.
Then you can come back and vent all you like.
The system is broken, pretending it’s not is delusional and counter productive. The first step to fixing things is recognizing the problem.
People like that can fuck off.
I’m all for putting pressure on them to act, but I think we can be clear eyed about what we are up against without indulging in smug cynicism.
Obviously some things they can't do since they don't have the majority, but there are definitely some things they can do -- at the very least, optics.
Better to fight than give up, even if the fight may be doomed to fail. Go down swinging having tried.
Sounds very maga
Pay them no mind
If you think the system is rigged, then you have to work even harder to make it work for you.
Anyone who tells you not to bother is working for the enemies.
Two things can be true.
Biden could have gotten himself elected president in 1980 or 1988. And had Reagan or Bush I's picks.
Or, he could have invented a time machine, held a coup killed Garfield, and named Bogart president.
Or, been born in the 1770s and ...
1) identifying the *rump regimes distracting feints vs their main attacks
2) saying focused resistance is required
3) highlighting Dems have no political power and economic resistance (boycotts/sttikes) are required (the focus)
Read Art of War
“Why? I’m just going to die eventually anyway.”
Call them and ask them to do something, their first thought is "what happens if I don't?" If it's nothing, then they won't do it
You get what you want by having leverage. Calling your representative doesn't give you that
Anytime a non-establishment dem tries to move us forward, they’re gridlocked by the establishment.
D voters/supporters need to constantly do this - call, volunteer, donate! - we do every cycle & nothing happens.
If your rep works for the people, give them full support.
And if your rep works for the billionaires…Vote. Them. Out.
Most of them exist to make money from their insider trading positions.
I think the fact that many Americans no longer have faith in the system should be setting off alarms at the DNC, but it won't.
Sounds good!
Enjoy losing elections for the foreseeable future.
But if people can't even be honest that a large portion of Congress owning and trading stock is inherently a bad thing without making excuses, then I don't know what to tell you.
I’m frankly surprised it’s only 53% among people *much* richer than me!
what they are about first and foremost is power, and therefore re-election
Corporate money and refusing to call it out on a party level is killing the DNC.
Just shows they don't work for us.
It’s also very funny to look at the last fifty years and not conclude that things have gotten better for the rich.
Is that what we're meant to conclude from this?
So enough time left in the day to build a guillotine a plan B.
"I don't wanna do anything, i just wanna be mad all the time"
Glad I left that hellhole, don't know why anybody is still over there
https://www.forbes.com/sites/briannawiest/2019/11/04/millennials-hate-phone-calls-they-have-a-point/
The GOP should have been deplatformed a decade ago, but Liberalism/feckless Dems let it live,& now Do-Nothing Dems are a dead party. Liberalism is dead,& that isn't cynicism
from gerrymandering, the increased financialization of campaigns, the raw number of people reps represent, partisanship
we *are* a democratic society losing touch with our democratic roots
Just don’t end with a call. Keep going. Get involved locally. Help the groups around you however you can.
Either way they need to be told in the strongest possible terms to *fuck off*
Everybody would be better off if people like Meowmers were being used for worm food.
Seriously dude you don’t know me or what I get up to in the real world. Go touch grass.
Lets see how the budget fight goes.
I live in CT and am very happy with Murphy, and fine with Blumenthal and Larson.
If they felt like they couldn’t win with the left, they’d tack to (or lose to someone from) the further right
https://bsky.app/profile/youranoncentral.bsky.social/post/3lhp43qjlr22h
Corrosion to the core of our 'democracy' started w 300M Americans never having read/studied G Washington's Farewell Address, in where the authors plainly explain: "alternating projects of faction is a despotism unto itself.." & always results in "tyranny" (Federalist 47)
Like we have now