I've seen a depressing trend of Democratic politicians embracing anti trans talking points and compromising gender affirming care for young people. This is extremely concerning as states and the federal government are undermining access to care now more than ever. Democrats standing by trans people has far more dire consequences now than ever, yet we're being treated as politically disposable by people who used to campaign on lgbtq issues like Gavin Newsom and Pete Buttigieg.
I can't say I'm surprised. Liberal papers like the New York Times has been uncritically promoting unscientific transphobia for years that claims alternatives exist to gender affirming care. My guess is that people see a person transitioning as an unfortunate thing, desperately wishing there was another way. They ignore the fact that gender affirming care is both the best treatment for dysphoria, and one of the most successful treatments for any mental condition ever discovered.
To put it simply, making gender affirming care harder to obtain for kids will kill many of them. Kids being kept from care by their parents already drives people to suicide, and a slimy politician preventing supportive parents from helping their kids will do the same. Every time I see people claim these guys are our best shot at beating fascism, I die inside. I have no doubt that they'll eventually axe care for all adults like everyone who was originally "worried about fairness in sports" is currently pushing for. The only way they won't is if we make it a costly issue for them.
Because when the other side is explicitly promising a theocratic fascist dictatorship, you have to pick the lesser evil to even have a chance of things getting better without large scale violence.
A lot of things need to change to get to the point where we're not picking between two evils, but those changes have to start at local and state levels, and it takes time to propagate to the federal level.
Trans rights being side-tabled for a bit is better than them and every other "undesirable" getting sent to concentration camps.
It's not that we're simping for the Democrat leadership, it's that we're smart enough to realize it's currently a binary system and the other option is exponentially worse.
What happens then, when the "lesser evil" gets in power, and rolls back 5% of what the facists did, bomb a bunch of innocient people, give mountains of money to their rich friends, and continue to attack "undesirables"?
Yes you are
But that's not true. The other option is only slightly worse, and Democrats keep spending their time trying to get as close to that line as possible.
If they want our votes, they should try doing what we want, like supporting basic human rights, instead of supporting the fascists.
Vote for the next lesser evil until its all rolled back and we have a non imperial foreign policy.
If you don't work to build a leftist movement you'll never have one. Voting for harm minimization is still helpful as we build.
And hows that been working out? The lesser evil keep marching towards the right. They even fight against anyone who says we can do more than just roll-back 5%.
Or we could just vote for leftists, instead of right-wingers who lightly cosplay as leftists in the hopes that one of these days, they'll change course and become actual leftists.
We've not been doingi it. Non voting is the biggest block for decades now.
Like I said
Yes we have. We did it under Obama, and Biden. Guess what happened? They rolled back %5 of the facist policy, beefed up the rest, gave handouts to their rich friends, took away more civil rights, and bombed the fuck outta people.
And I'm saying: I am building one. By voting for actual leftists, instead of cosplayers.
Non-voting is still the winner in those; further we don't have a consecutive lesser evil in those, so that does not help as much as it could.
Still,
Not everyone is going to have a leftist in their local and state ballot. Its rather privileged of you to say this is not helpful to the rest of us.
If you think the Democrats are only slightly better than Trump and the rest of MAGA, I have a bridge to sell you.
Both:
But yeah, go ahead and tell me how much better the Democrats are.
What happens is that there's 5% less fascism. And also it doesn't increase by whatever amount the fascism party would've increased it by.
The other things would've also happened (and more even!) under the fascism party.
I don't want 5% less facism, I want a party that fights against facism, instead of supporting it. The Democrats spent their time building out the tools for fascism, then put on their shocked-picachu face when the facists use those tools.
Nobody wants just 5% less fascism. But your options are full fascism or 5% less.
What are you gonna do? Not vote for either party? You just removed a vote from 5% less fascism.
The reality is, there is a fuckton of fascists in america. If you want no fascism you gotta for for less fascism first, to signal to the political parties what you want. When they see that less fascism gives them votes, they will shift towards less fascism until there is none.
Just like Americans signaled so much that they want more fascism, that both the republicans and democrats got more fascists.
Aparently the Democratic leadership does, since that's what they keep doing.
That is not true, but the Democrats have convinced a lot of people that it is true. We have a ton of options.
You mean the same party that have spent the past few decades ignoring their voters? The same party that helped build out the tools that the facists are using, even when their voters didn't want those systems?
A vote for Democrats tells them that, even when they support things like facism, genocide, and taking away human rights, you are gonna stick with them. I'm not going to, because I am against those things.
Don't worry, I'm not American, I don't have to stick with no American political party.
You claim that you have other options. Which ones are those? The third parties that will never win because the system strongly favours a 2-party system?
No, the third parties that can win. The same types of parties that have taken control before, in the US and other countries.