Yep.
Protests, maybe even bombings and assassinations. But no true civil way.
False. She is very smart and savvy, now that she how gotten some time in.
True. She has a voice and is popular, but she is just another representative.
Candidates with (D) next to their name. No Greens, or whatever, and certainly not any (R), with a rare couple of exceptions. It is pretty simple.
65% of them.
…“just because you told them too” isn’t a very convincing reason.
Vote for the (D) or democracy is dead.
…the thing is: I’m not the one you are trying to convince. Many people are already convinced democracy is already dead. “Just vote”: with no actionable plan on what will happen next, is simply not enough.
Nobody knows the future, but many signs are ominous. The divisions are real, the tensions have reasons (inequality, race, environmental disaster looming, demographic change…) and there is no clear way to defuse them peacefully. But this could still go on for a long time: just like stock markets can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent, societies can hold on longer than the disfunctionallity would seem to allow.
I have witnessed radical political change twice in my life: I was a schoolboy in Madrid when Franco died (good news: he is still dead) and I lived in Berlin when the wall came crumbling down. Both cases are in most respects not comparable with the USA at all: Spain was a periferical little State, rather poor and militarily irrelevant, the GDR was a small State too (17 million people), poor according to Western standards and not really independent. Both “revolutions” went rather well in the end, and for both there were plenty of signs in advance. But it did not show on the ground. With hindsight it feels inevitable, but it wasn’t until it actually happened. It was like getting broke: first it went slowly, but then all of a sudden.
That last bit is the one relevant to the USA, I think. Maybe nothing big happens for a long time. But when it happens, if it happens (and the signs are out there for all to see, and as has been shown with the Supreme Court, one side is much better at preparing and long term planning and scheming than the other) it will be sudden. I wish you well. But I will not bet on it.
I fully understand the OP’s mood, specially if (s)he happens to be non white, non male and young.
I have been very frightened for this country many times since Trump was elected and I’m still very frightened. I will in no way be directly affected by the reversal of Roe and yet, I feel terribly devastated by this decision. Millions and millions of Americans have just been stripped of a right they’ve had all of their lives. I never imagined this could happen in this country.
A lot of the fear that I feel is not just the abortion decision itself, but what it says about the court. The reasoning behind the decision on abortion is in direct and obvious conflict with the reasoning behind the CCW decision. It’s so blatant and that is just breathtaking. We actually have a rogue court.
I live in California, but I have family in Oklahoma and in Florida and in North Carolina and so I just can’t imagine a hot civil war, but I just can’t see how this ends well.
It doesn’t help calm my nerves that I was left very uninspired with the response by President Biden to the Roe decision.
I’ve barely stopped crying since Friday June 24, 2022.
Both are women of color who push back against Republican radicalism, that is triggering for American conservatives. It is why they are obsessed with them.
You know, as unfortunate as this recent decision is, women - and America - survived somehow for near a couple hundred years w/ abortion largely illegal.
There were few laws preventing abortion in the US until after the Civil War. The prohibition against it developed incrementally between 1867 and 1880. It was only “largely illegal” for about a century of our 246 years. The institution most associated with prohibiting abortion, the Vatican, was also largely uninterested in the issue until sometime in the 1860s, i.e. a tiny fraction of their existence. Prohibiting abortion is, in the great scheme of things, less normal than you appear to think.
Why this this start in the 1880s then?
I should be a progressive. I agree with almost everything people like AOC says. I want to end oppression and suppression, increase rights and equality, make the world fair and livable.
I also want to win elections. The only route toward those good things is to have politicians in office who will vote for them. Don’t look to the courts; they’re secondary, dependent upon the politicians who appoint them.
The way to winning elections is to win the majority of those voting. No statement is more trite than that, and yet progressives block their ears whenever the truism is brought up. They base voting and candidates on their moral views. This may work in the very long term - gay rights followed the public majority rather than leading it - but the short-term is also important.
The problem is that progressives are too small a percentage of the Democrats to impose their will, and their opinions on most subjects vary greatly from that of the average voter and even the average Democrat. (See this Pew Research page for numbers.) What’s typically called brand-and-butter issues mean far more than moral stances. Republicans used to believe this, too, but their extreme wing has grown in large local areas to dominate, while progressives dominate in only a tiny few and seem not to grow and extend themselves.
I have a solution. The Progressive Creed.
Any action taken that drives people to vote Republican is a moral wrong that outbalances the moral right it is supposed to uphold.
Hate me for this. I don’t care. I want a better country, and this is the only route. Remember, once the Democrats get majorities, progressives have a zillion times better chance of getting their proposals passed and their judges on courts. Compromise is the heart of politics and politics is the only game in town. It’s not pretty. It’s not “right”. The only virtue is that it works and nothing else does.
Veruca screams and plummets down the garbage chute which in turn leads to an incinerator
Yup, sounds like what progressives can expect if they don’t swallow their virtue and make sure the right side starts winning.
The vast majority of progressives agree with this sentiment. But the devil is in the details. Most progressives (at least the prominent ones like AOC) believe that, based on polling, progressive positions on most issues will be more successful in elections.
It is just the centrist two step all over again.
And
FWIW, the NYSRPA v Bruen ruling, though significant, isn’t as absolute or sweeping as many gun proponents would have liked. Chiefly, it did not explicitly strike down “May Issue”- police discretion in issuing permits. Rather it struck down the one most common and questionable reason for denying a permit: requiring applicants to demonstrate a positive need to carry a firearm publicly. As this statement recently issued by California authorities shows, gun control states will still have plenty of discretionary reasons to deny permit applications. I do expect that these will be appealed as too subjective; we’ll see.
Perhaps the most significant thing about the ruling however is that it appears to set a precedent for requiring all gun laws to pass strict scrutiny rather than the current standard of intermediate scrutiny. Again, it will be follow-on cases that determine the scope of this.
Shes a good avocate, but shes not very good at the political game. I dont think you realize that being good at politics is not the same as being a “man/woman of the people”. Its why Bernie never went far in politics and why Biden did. Being good at politics means kissing lots of ass and following orders, which is not a skill set that AOC has.
I dont get why she hasnt left the house yet. She represents the Bronx. Literally anyone that replaces her would make the same impact, just being another cog in the system. She is more useful working for the ALCU or some non profit instead of just ranting to the media 24/7 while her rants do nothing useful.
Battleground states are won with centrists though. Its all about catering to the lowest common denominator with some states. If it wasnt for the electoral college, Id agree that progressives would have a better chance, but when your trying to win over places like Ohio or Wisconsin or North Carolina or Florida that are easily swayed and you have to cater to both sides, your not going to do that with a progressive candidate.
So are you joining the crew here on the SDMB that thinks Democrats should only allow white men to run for office?
Wait, there’s a crew?