Conservatives are going to make it legal to outright murder progressives, so there’s definitely safety in living in a blue state
This sort of stupidity doesn’t help.
This is part of the GOP strategy.
Senator Josh Hawley from Missouri has openly acknowledged that the GOP strategy is to make it so miserable for Democrats in red and purple states that they will move to blue states. That would, in turn, cement Republican power in the White House, Senate and thereby the Supreme Court.
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This is only a viable strategy as long as the electoral college exists.
It’s not going away.
This argument needs to die. The EC is never going away, so stop pinning various strategies and hopes on it somehow magically disappearing. If people spent 1/2 as much time on actually voting and campaigning for center and left candidates as they do complaining about the EC, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in today.
I have worked on campaigns and studied politics for years. With the EC, the current SCOTUS, and the voter suppression and gerrymandering tactics of the last few decades , there is no reasonable long-term path to left, or even center, power. People are allowed to complain. People have been organizing, for years. Nothing has worked, and basic human rights are now being violated in ways and for groups that they hadn’t been before. You’re right that with our current governmental structure, the EC isn’t going anywhere. But democracy’s not about elections alone; it’s about the consent of the governed. A whole lot of us don’t consent, and I don’t think the current institutional infrastructure’s going to survive the blast when that pressure gets too high. And if anything (other than a Constitutional Convention based on the same principles as the EC) happens to the current arrangement, the EC goes too. No one in an underrepresented state would willingly accept those conditions.
HALF the population can’t be bothered to vote in most elections. The country is being dragged to the Right and has been for years now and election after election a massive percent of the population doesn’t seem it is worth going out to the polls. In presidential elections it is higher, but still - there are a LOT and I mean a LOT of elections that could have swung the other way if only a few hundred more people got off their butts and voted. We could have gotten rid of that blowhard Lauren Boebart (however it is spelled) last cycle. She won by only a few hundred votes in an election where less than 60% of the population of that district voted. Apparently Colorado is a mail-in state, so these people didn’t even have to go drive anywhere.
The situation is even worse if you look at demographics. No one had more to lose than the youth of this country and their voting numbers are pitiful. What’s worse is that they have the numbers to change elections. They are a massive group that at this point in time have more people than the dreaded Boomers. Yet their numbers are abysmal.
So when I hear about people complaining about the EC or gerrymandering or a host of other roadblocked set up by the Right for them to get their way on election day, I just think back that these are mostly just excuses. I am not saying that gerrymandering isn’t real - it absolutely is - but even some of the most gerrymandered districts could swing the other way if enough people voted.
If you’re overwhelmed by the enormity of the threat the right poses, and you see structural change is impossible, I sympathize. But blaming people who are struggling for not doing something they see as unlikely to produce positive change and that the state is simultaneously actively making it hard for them to do isn’t helpful. I’ve been politically involved since 2000 (academic study, campaign volunteering/work); Barring major disaster, I’m not seeing voter numbers going up from here significantly without legistative changes. You can yell at clouds all you want, but that’s not the point of leverage you’re looking for.
Making everyone a victim who is on some pre-determined path and they have no control over the things that happen to them is exactly the nonsense that I see the youth are falling for. I see posts by Zoomers all the time that essentially boil down to “we’re screwed, so fuck it” or “I give up” or some such. That’s not the America that I grew up in and I refuse to buy into this idea that change is impossible. Americans need “tough love” - coddling them in this idea of “IF ONLY so-and-so was different” then we could fix the environment/housing crisis/healthcare. Be the change you want to be. Expecting that it will simply be handled to you leads to this apathy and tuning-out that far too many Americans already fall into.
I don’t think you understand. No one in my position thinks things will he handed to/handled for us. (Your word choice is unclear.). I think we’re on the Titanic and we’ve struck the iceberg, we just haven’t done the horrible dying in the North Atlantic part. And if I wanted boomers who’ve probably studied our political structure less closely, spent less time doing actual campaign work, and seen less of the way things work than I have, telling me I’m entitled, I’d have asked one of those guys who likes talking about millennials like we’re children whose biggest problem is not laying off the avocado toast. “Kids today are weak, entitled whiners playing the victim card, and I know better because I’m older” may pass for discourse some places, but not here.
It would be cool if democrats focused more on working class people, rather than just saying they do. That’s literally all they need to do to win back millions of voters.
I totally get your sentiment here, but don’t they do this by (at minimum at least) the legislation that they try to put in place? Student Loan forgiveness. Expanding educational opportunities. Access to healthcare. Providing more sustainable and green energy sources. Better pay and protections for working Americans. These initiatives constantly get shot down by the other side, and then people blame Democrats for not forcing it through. As long as we have one side actively torpedoing the other’s efforts, we can’t put the blame on the people trying to do something. Just my two cents though. Plus you have the uneducated people that align with conservatives that think they are the recipients of their platform’s initiatives, when it really goes to the top 1%. So they stay in power to continue the grift.
You don’t need a college degree to work in the trades. This is a point of contention because I’ve heard people say many times they don’t want their tax dollars going towards someone’s liberal arts degree. I’m a wastewater operator. I have a degree but allot of the people I work with don’t.
I agree - we need a much higher focus on trades. My education angle wasn’t towards post graduate though. My wife is an elementary school teacher and teachers are underfunded, continually having their curriculum watered down, and we are seeing across the board privatization of education and erosion of the foundation of education itself. That’s diminishing access to education.
Eh, they are becoming so extreme that they are leaving some of their voters behind. They were supposed to win the house in a landslide and they barely hung on. They are losing special elections because their candidates are too extreme. Even the Supreme Court can’t stomach some of their gerrymandering on race. I don’t buy this.
This. The GOP has lost something like 12 out of their last 10 special elections. If demographics have their way, there is a decent chance the GOP won’t even be a national party by 2028.
I wish democrats would make moving to places like Montana, the Dakotas and Wyoming a priority
Who’s going to give up their entire quality of life to be a small snowflake hoping to make an avalanche? For the politics, it’s a very small contribution. But for the family, it’s huge. You’d be losing job prospects, friends and family, activity availability, local politics, healthcare quality and access, and most importantly: being treated like a person if you aren’t a right-wing cishet white male of means.
Almost no one’s going to take that trade and they shouldn’t.
I think more Democrats moving to swing states like Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, Pennsylvania, North Carolina would be higher priority if people are free to move wherever purely based on political reasons.
Why would we want to live in a shithole state like that?
If you bring enough people with you, it wouldn’t be a shithole state.
You’d have to bring a whole city. What I’d be losing moving from D.C. to Wyoming is not fixable by bringing a few friends. Museums? Enough population that shows and bands play there regularly?
Also, who can actually convince friends and family to move themselves across the country to a shithole for politics? Have you done that?
The idea is to move there in enough numbers to overwhelm the GOP majority and make the state not be a shithole anymore.
Yeah, it’s hard enough to get blue voters to stay in those red shitholes. Why would any sane person who already lives in a blue state want to move to a red one?
It’s such a weird time in the U.S… Also, it might be a better choice to go to a battleground state.
That’s what I did. Moved to AZ, which is a purple state, from CA. I joined a writing group here, and one member is an out gay conservative. No way could he have been that outspoken in a casual writing group in CA, he’d have been chased out.
As someone more on the liberal side of things in general, it’s incredibly refreshing to be able to hold a good-natured conversation with him involved where he didn’t feel worry or concern about discussing his ideas.
We have another lady in the group who writes hardcore far-left poetry, and those are always followed up by great conversations. She’s nice and not condescending to the conservative guy.
I love being in a purple state, I wish more states were battleground states.
I live in a purple state in a rural area, and I HATE it. Not because there are conservatives, but because massive numbers of these conservatives are trembling with fear of the other and if they think that I am on their “side” for whatever reason, they won’t hesitate to say the most ignorant, racist, bigoted shit about “those people” - essentially anyone who isn’t straight and white, while demanding prayer of the exclusively evangelical variety in public meetings. Their world view is so insular that it’s suffocating to be around.
Interesting. I don’t live in a rural area, so maybe that’s why I’m experiencing more of a balance. No one here that I know who are conservative say any of that stuff, and they didn’t say it around me before they knew my political leanings, either.
I joined a writing group here, and one member is an out gay conservative.
I find it unreal that an LGBTQ person would actually even consider the current Republican Party as a viable option.
How many of them do you talk to though? They certainly exsist, so seeking one out to talk about their experiences and views with might help you understand where they come from, even if you disagree with them.
I know a lot of people in the LGBTQ community. I have yet to meet someone who would vote for a Republican. But I’ll certainly ask about it if I ever meet one.
I’m not surprised. Since the LGBTQ community is fairly political, they’re not very accepting of LGBTQ people who don’t align with them politically. There are lots of LGBTQ people who don’t want to be part of the community because of how rigid it is in that regard.
These are what the LGBT people that I’ve met has said specifically.
Other than that, it’s likely that there are some who lean conservative but don’t speak up about it for fear of being shunned by the community.
The LGBTQ community is being assailed by the GOP at the moment. Literal physical threats. Whatever was left of support for the GOP from that community is quickly dissipating.
I don’t know if you’ve misunderstood, but I’m not a conservative, I just enjoy having political discussions with them, especially when they seem to be a contradiction in today’s world of party-line politics.
The wealthy want us to fight a culture war to distract us from the class war we should be having.
.
In any war the only winner is the rich. If the rich lose, then it’s called a revolution instead.
It was the bourgeois that win in France, not the peasants.
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Democracy is good for the oligarchs. Trump is a populist. The oligarchs definitely don’t like him. Even the Koch family is against him.
You’re being down voted, but you’re correct.
This is a good thing. The only way the red states will change is by getting worse and worse. They will have no doctors, teachers, nurses, lawyers, or corporations that will purposefully live or do their work there if they can help it. If you are a woman, a person of color, a migrant, an LGBTQ person, a child, or anything other than an old white man, the red states are no longer safe for you.
I basically refuse to go to most of those states if I can help it. Florida? You couldn’t pay me to set foot in that state. I feel they same about Texas and many others.
I want conservatism to thrive. It does have a place in a healthy political system. But, my friends, the conservatives are the moderate Dems now. I don’t know what else to call the Republicans, other than fascists or cult members. It is a sickness that any person in their right mind should run as fast as they can from.
The truly upsetting part about this is that there are people that are desperate to leave those fascist states, that can’t for a variety of reasons outside their control. I wish things were different. This is just insanity.
I want conservatism to thrive. It does have a place in a healthy political system.
What place is that? Conservatism at it’s core is about maintaining the aristocracy/hierarchy. That’s what it started as, and it’s never wavered from that mission. All of the claims towards ‘conserving what is good’ or ‘fiscal responsibility’ or ‘protecting individual rights’ are just that: claims. They have never acted in ways that would back those claims up unless their actions also helped maintain/promote the aristocracy. The rest is just noise and propaganda designed to make their positions sound palatable.
I don’t see any place for that in a healthy political system.
I disagree with you, but respectfully. Conservatism is basically just people who, for a variety of reasons (not all of them bad), generally vote for the status quo. This is human nature. Progressives are willing to push forward but also sometimes without regard to some of the consequences. Also human nature. Some people are bold and some people are timid. Having both around in a balanced way helps us all move forward with careful thought. That system is good overall.
The problem is that conservatives are really moderate democrats now. The modern Republicans are not conservatives. They are fascist cultist morons. I believe I explained myself fairly well in my first post. You might want to read the whole thing next time :)
I disagree that it is “good” overall. Conservative policies have always stood in the way of any movement to treat all people equally because the status quo benefits a sections of the population. Slavery. Racism. Sexism. Etc. None of these needed to be “conserved” and we would be a better society if we had been able to address them sooner. Also, conservative power structures when threatened by progress default to authoritarian in brutal fashion. The Holocaust. The Civil War. The Inquisition. Etc. And this is just in the West.
The modern Republican is not an aberration. It is the final form of Conservatism.
I have seen no proof that the consequences of rampant Progressivism are in any way equal to the horrors of rampant Conservatism. The idea that we need to validate Conservativism to “balance out” Progressivism seems to me to be a dangerous myth that is paid for with the blood of oppressed people.
I have seen no proof that the consequences of rampant Progressivism are in any way equal to the horrors of rampant Conservatism.
There have been many cases in history where the forces in society seeking positive change have caused untold damage to their societies. The French Revolution started out with the oppressed peasantry seeking liberation from a decadent and constrictive nobility, but ended in hundreds of people getting their heads cut off before the pendulum swung back and Napoleon took control, and briefly created one of the biggest empires in European history. Napoleon was less conservative than the Ancien Regime but he certainly wasn’t a revolutionary.
Another example is the Bolsheviks, who started out as oppressed workers in Russia who wanted liberation from an exploitative and authoritarian tsar, but as soon as they actually gained power, were usurped by a complete megalomaniac who sent thousands of people to labor camps, destroyed most of Russia’s social institutions in order to subsume them into the state, committed numerous genocides (some more direct than others), and destroyed Russia’s demographics and long-term economic prosperity with a breakneck-pace industrialization. Joseph Stalin’s ideological offshoot, Mao Zedong, also did similarly horrible things in China, like the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, despite starting out as the leader of a peasant rebellion seeking liberation from literal feudalism.
Apart from the Nazis, who can only debatably be considered “conservative” considering they didn’t really wanna conserve much of anything about society, conservative insanity doesn’t tend to be anywhere near as destructive to society in the short term as progressive insanity is. Instead, conservative insanity causes society to completely stagnate, remaining behind socially and technologically while other societies rush ahead, as happened to Tsarist Russia.
Seeing all this, you’d have to be either biased or stupid to deny the necessity of conservativism in society. Progress is often necessary, today included in many areas, but society must have a conservative wing to prevent the progressives from changing things which are better off left alone.
The nazis are reactionaries which means they want to go back to feudalism. If you knew about how horrible feudalism was you would have supported the french revolution and the october revolution.
Florida Republicans are working reeaally hard to kill their state’s entire economy right now. Attacking Disney (the state’s biggest employer) and undocumented immigrants (the backbone of the state’s agricultural industry and a key part of the labor force for various others such as construction and hospitality), driving away teachers by taking away their right to actually teach, etc.
Then we get to watch 100% Red states shoot, disease, and work themselves to death. Then we move back in and get their stuff.
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profit!
Well, this is no better than /r/politics. Enjoy your echo chamber, commies.
Yeah so many have been moving to Texas its ridiculous. We can’t even build infrastructure quick enough. We’re beyond full at this point.
If I move it will be because my town was 110F in the shade Monday, not because my neighbors are morons.
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