fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #5649 ]

[ SECRET POST #5649 ]

⌈ Secret Post #5649 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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[Ted Lasso]

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05. [SPOILERS for Jurassic World Dominion]

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06. [SPOILERS for Jurassic World Dominion]

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07. [WARNING for discussion of marital infidelity]

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08. [WARNING for discussion of incest]

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09. [WARNING for discussion of child abuse, sexualization of children]

Notes:

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Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I hope every American in here will get out and vote when the mid-term elections come around. Mid-term elections are just as important as the general and if you care about your rights, you really need to get out there and vote. I know how easy it is to feel discouraged but don't let that stop you. Feeling too discouraged to vote is exactly what republicans want you to feel. Don't give in to them. Keep voting. Vote every single chance you get.

This, honestly.

And not just midterms, don't forget about municipal and run-offs and basically anything else that pops up in your area.

As a general thing, all those tiny little local elections really really matter. My local assemblywoman worked very hard to get more voting sites (teamed up with the local NAACP, etc.) Open, and open early. You've gotta get involved politically, because a lot of the smaller more conservative (and folks who still believe the election was stolen) gameplan has been get your self on the local city council, school boards, etc. All of the local positions. That's how we end up with reps like Marjorie Taylor Greene etc. These are the individuals going into office/hold local spots without any political or activist backgrounds, just some wild shit.

So don't just kick back and say who? Do some research in your area, find out who's running, help campaign for someone you like if you can, and so on. Sorry if it's all a bit preachy, but being involved in your community are the tangible steps you can take even if you feel helpless. I'm sure there are more knowledgeable people out there with better suggestions, but that's what I can offer. They opened up the door with what they've done, and now how many other things will be held into question?

And for fuck's sake, pay attention to your candidates' entire platform. Not just the one or two issues that you personally are focused on right now.

I feel this to some extent-- but also we did. We voted and voted (at least out here where I am) and we still have our state representatives just taking to twitter like ":( codify!" all thoughts-and-prayers style.

Like... yes! Do that! This is what we voted for you to do! Who the fuck are you talking to when you're saying that like you don't have any power?? Write the goddamned law and put it through! Why did we vote at all if you're not going to do anything about it??

Don't get me wrong, I'm still going to vote and all that, it's just... I'm enraged, and I'm disillusioned. And seeing so many Democrats jump on this like an opportunity to fundraise, like yeah ok the real problem here is you assholes don't have enough money to do your jobs-- it's sickening. The whole thing is just fucking sickening.

I get the frustration, because it sure seems like Democrats are worse than Republicans at wielding power when they have it, but also the Republican congresscritters under McConnell only had two goals. Block all Democratic legislation, policies, and nominations that might actually help someone who wasn't obscenely rich, and appoint as many conservative wingnut judges as humanly possible.

Actually helping their poor and middle class constituents by passing laws that cost money and/or giving them things that cost money, or just giving them money, isn't something Republicans do.

So when they aren't in power, they block Democrats from accomplishing much of anything. When they are in power, they shovel money to people who already have solid gold diamond inlaid money shovels, appoint judges, strike down existing laws, and make new laws that don't improve their voters' lives but do make the people their voters hate miserable.

And to actually pass legislation through the Senate, they need Manchin and Sinema to stop being Republicans wearing blue shirts, or enough new Dem senators to make their bullshit irrelevant.

Actually helping people is hard and frequently expensive. Feeding and perpetuating their hate is easy and often cheap.

But I do think Democratic lawmakers in safe districts should be funneling money and influence towards their vulnerable Dem colleagues as well as Dem Senate and House candidates at least as much as they fill their own war chests.

+1000

NAYRT

Much of what you say is true, there are a ton of challenges facing Democrats trying to get anything done. But i don't think that's the whole problem - it's also that Democratic institutionalists don't really seem to want to fight. They say they do but there's no fire in most of them. They don't seem to view all of this stuff as an existential crisis and they don't seem to have a strategy for responding to all the roadblocks and challenges. Their only response to anything is to tell us to vote and donate more and it's an immensely frustrating thing. It feels like the Democratic Party is failing as an institution.

That’s because the strategy that doesn’t involve illegal seizures of power and installing a dictatorship involves voting enough Republicans out of office to allow meaningful legislation to be passed and to hold the Court accountable. Passion looks good on twitter, but voting gets shit done.

I'm not arguing against voting. What I want is a sense of drive and an understanding of the stakes of the situation. I want to know what meaningful legislation Democrats are going to pass to deal with these issues. I want to understand how they're going to sell that legislation in a coherent way to the American people. I want to understand what their plan is for winning enough seats in the House and Senate to pass that legislation. I want Democrats grappling with the fact that their current electoral and political strategy is not an unalloyed success and that it may need to be changed and improved. I want to see the Democrats fighting as hard as they can for every House seat, every Senate seat, every state legislature, every governorship. I want them to understand that it is their job to win our votes and I want them to have a strategy for it and carry that strategy out. I don't want to see Democrats getting lost in endless internal power struggles and internecine Beltway intrigues, and then telling us it's our fault when they lose, and not taking any responsibility for it and just blaming us for not voting more.

What, you need to be inspired to vote? You need to be courted? Like this is a country club membership being sold to you?

This is your life. Your civil rights and liberties. If Democrats suck, then think of voting as less about supporting your team and more about fighting your enemy. That's how the Republican voters do it. Their leaders are consistently shown to be dishonest, hypocritical, and actively working to harm their own base, but they vote anyway to fight the black transgender atheist agenda that they believe to be coming for them.

AYRT

That isn't what I said at all. You're responding to stuff I never said. These things aren't conditions for me to vote. I'll vote no matter what.

However - I don't think that simply telling people to vote is enough. I think we need more from the Democratic Party. I think these are the standards that they need to meet to be an effective political party in the current crisis.

And while I agree with you that people should vote for Democrats no matter what - I think it's practically a lot easier to convince people to vote for your party if your party is effective and knows what they're doing. Maybe people shouldn't need to be convinced to vote but many people do. And that is literally the Democratic Party's job - to convince people to vote for them and then deliver once in office. Right now it doesn't seem like they're up to it.

NAYRT--There isn't a magic strategy that will work to fix this, though?

Like, they have plans. None of them work without enough legislators working together, and I don't think they'll go in for murdering Republican legislators with Dem governors or something.

I vote in my local elections on up for the furthest left candidates who can actually articulate that they have a plan and what it is. Passion is awesome, but "I support the environment, PoC, legalized drugs, UBI, immigrants, and taxing the rich at 90%" is a statement of support, not a plan.

But then, I live in coastal California, so I am often picking between two leftist candidates, and almost every local office has a Democratic candidate of some description running.

In places where the only candidates are Mitch McConnell clones (evil, willing to break the rules to get his way) and Marjorie Taylor Greene clones (evil, thinks rules are an invention of Demoncratic baby eating lizard people) I can see how voting feels hopeless.

The dramatic, shut the government down via refusing to vote on or pass any legislation, debt ceiling default, no budget agreement so the federal government shuts down shit that the GOP does? Won't work for Democrats because at least some of them actually want to help people.

And if Democrats copied McConnell's strategy? The GOP would be fine with it, because their goal is to a) break the government beyond repair and b) enrich themselves and their rich donors c) make life suck for everyone who's not a rich cis straight white able-bodied evangelical Christian man. The Dems copying their "shut down the government, it's useless anyway" strategy gives them exactly what they want and nothing that Democrats do.

I wish nation wide ad campaigns that listed concrete stuff the Democrats have tried to give people (help with the cost of baby formula and gas, protection from price-gouging, cheap insulin, free pre-K school/daycare, guaranteed paid sick and maternity leave etc) and stuff they've actually given people that Republicans have already or want to take away (cheaper healthcare, cleaner air, cleaner water, subsidized internet, universal free school lunches, increased child tax credit etc) were a thing.

Maybe it's illegal to run ads that aren't about a specific candidate? Because I've never seen an ad that lays out "we want to give you things that make your life better, and Republicans keep stopping up, and the Republicans want to take away the good things the government currently does for you so they can take your taxes and give you nothing."

If you are 30 or under, then the numbers do not support the claim that you voted and voted.

NAYRT and I'll be 39 in a couple weeks, but I think people arguing passionately about politics in a thread about a dramatic life-ruining Supreme Court ruling are not likely to sit elections out.

I was too young to do anything but grind my teeth and foam at the mouth in the 2000 election that put Bush II in power, and voting against him and losing in 2004 fucking sucked. I missed the 2002 midterms by dint of being actively suicidal after dropping out of college, but I've never missed an election since. And I know plenty of people my age who have voted in every election since they were able to, and all my 20 something coworkers at my current job turn in their ballots every election, too.

But then, universal mail voting and ballot drop off for two weeks prior to the election make it super easy, even if you're working three jobs and studying for finals. I can see how places that outlaw mail voting and have one poling place for a city of a million+ people with lines stretching for blocks and no shade or places to sit is a different animal.

I'm certain the OP votes, and I'm sure everyone in our respective circles do. But the numbers across our age demographic are still paltry af. It's so frustrating because as the largest existing cohort, millennials should be getting to the point now where we can make government policies work in our favor the way boomers did when they reached their prime working years, but we're not. Year after year, endless articles talk about how the shift will happen any time now, how the political landscape will change, but here we are still living in the world they created.

Do you believe that the Democratic Party is doing everything they possibly can do, as well as it can be done?

No, I believe in voting to keep Republicans out of power. It's bullshit but it's the only thing that matters in this two-party system, and conservative voters get it. I've known since a 5th social studies project that they were coming for abortion rights.

I agree that everyone should vote, I just don't think that yelling at everyone to vote is sufficient or the end of the conversation.

NAYRT--no; I feel like the "lacks passion" problem so many apathetic reluctant or would-be Democratic voters cite really does stop them from jumping through the flaming hoop voting obstacle course that Republicans have been constructing for decades.

But as someone who is spoiled for choice on Democratic candidates (I live in coastal California) I don't always vote for the furthest left candidates who are usually tied for "most passionate" with the far right nutjobs, because passion is all they have.

Often it's not just that they don't have plans, it's that they're anti plan and anti politics because planning and politics are something that politicians (derogatory) do. Like, dude? You are trying to be elected to a job where that is the job.

Republicans can afford to run on passion and charisma because the entire party runs on proving that government is broken and only exists to "steal" tax money, so they can suck at planning and legislating and score "wins" by "owning the libs lol." I don't vote for leftist candidates who say the same shit about how worthless the government is, I vote for leftist candidates who have a plan to shape government priorities.

I work at a library. Under the previous Republican mayor and split city council, the plan was to fire 1/3 of library staff and close 2/3 of library branches.

Our current mayor is a Democrat and all but one city council members are Democrats. Not all of them are leftists, but some are. We kept all our staff, got raises for the first time in a decade(!) and are eliminating hourly positions and replacing them with full and half time benefitted ones, and will be expanding our hours further as more staff are hired. We have more community programs and more books to share with patrons now.

If Democratic voters want everything on their checklists instead of watching their representatives claw and struggle to get, say, a watered down American Rescue Act passed and then not be able to do much else, they need enough Democrats and leftist legislators to drown out the Manchins and Sinemas in their ranks and not need to go begging Republican votes to get shit done. That's how they can pass legislation to get people fired up.

I hope I live long enough for the federal government to reflect my mayor and city council basically going "lol we don't need you" at their single sad token Republican.

THIS. The candidates I've voted for in my local elections aren't all super liberal, but you know what? They've gotten shit done and that's what matters most.

Vote blue no matter who because the right WILL vote red no matter who. They don't CARE about likability or anything like that. They don't care about passions or whatever. They just care about being on the same side.

I vote blue no matter who. I find this attitude condescending and actively harmful. There are problems with the Democratic Party, we do need to address those problems, and we do need to convince voters to vote for Democrats.

You sound privileged, white and wealthy enough to leave your state. We're in fucking survival mode right now. We don't get the luxury of much choice.

Re: Roe v. Wade thread.

(Anonymous) - 2022-06-26 01:17 (UTC) - Expand

This strategy will work up to a certain point. Always be sure to research your candidates, regardless of party. Know their history. Know enough to recognize a DINO (Democrat in name only), an obvious Republican jumping parties, a candidate who'd rather rant about Jesus instead of actually follow his teachings, or basically anyone who doesn't seem to care about the needs of all the people.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ SECRET POST #5649 ]

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NAYRT

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