Young people have not been as enthusiastic supporters of the Biden administration [even] before President Biden was elected. So what’s different about Gen Z generation in particular, who’s known to be politically active, also very diverse and caring about a variety of social issues, is that when they’re disappointed in what the government is doing or what the leaders are showing them, they’re willing to take the issue in their own hand and try to intervene, try to get involved sometimes by speaking up by their vote.
But by and large, they have voted more than other generations have as youth, regardless of how disappointed they say they are in the government. So if the past couple of elections’ trends hold, young people have been disappointed in the government and their elected leaders, but they voted.
[Bolding added]
The big thing is that movements start from local political offices and can grow from there.
It can start with representatives, the rare senator, or even taking over of a party at the state level:
Participate in local elections, back primary candidates. Once the numbers are there at the nationwide level, we can push for a more representative electoral system.
We can push system that uses ranked choice voting like Alaska did. We can also increase the size of the house of representatives to better match the idea of representation the founding fathers had for us. It’s been nearly a 100 years that the house was capped at 435
The founding fathers had envisioned a house that grew with the size of the country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Apportionment_Amendment
This laid the intent that we have 1 rep per 30,000 people and increase the constituents per rep by 10,000 each time the house reached another 100 seats.
Or in other words, the max constituents represented by each rep in the house should be:
30,000 + RoundedDown(Number of house seats/100)*10,000
So at 400+ seats (1 rep per 70,000) would make sense for a country of 28 million. Really, with the wording of the amendment and understanding that the examples lay out a mathematical formula for expanding the house indefinitely (but with more people per rep as it goes up) we would have over a 1,000 reps! In fact, some quick math shows that per the original intents, we would have 1700 reps with at most 200,000 constituents each. This would hold until our population reaches 340 million when we’d switch to 1800 reps and a cap per rep of 210,000.
There’s a current “Uncap the House” movement, however, I’m unsure of how much momentum they’ve been gaining.
To see how the number of constituents has grown per member over the years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_congressional_apportionment#Number_of_members
In other words, we’re being shorted almost 1300 reps!
Wait, we’re not supposed to be disappointed in our government? Could have fooled me.
both parties ultimately stand for the same values
This is an extremely privileged take. Yes, both parties support corporations and capitalism. However, one party also supports the eradication of people they don’t like. This is a very significant difference.
deleted by creator
Guillotines much?
Both parties support the eradication of people they don’t like.
Who do the Democrats want to eradicate? Republicans are already very well-documented.
Let me think. Bombing Yemen Destroy Laybia Bombing Syria Bombing Iraq Bombing Palestine Bombing Yemen …
I think there is a pattern their but I can not tell exactly who they want to eradicate…
Palestinians…
Are they Americans? I’m sorry if it’s not the most sensitive take. But I vote for people that don’t DIRECTLY want others to die. Giving money is not as linear as they give weapons = they pull the trigger.
What did you just type?? Seriously, I’m including to screenshot your message and send it back to you in 5 years so you can realize how insane your current viewpoint is
It’s not insane to think taking care of our own house is a bigger priority than the rest of the world.
The ultra wealthy.
Leftists yes, not democrats though
Be a lot cooler if they did
If voting prevents literal murder then both parties obviously don’t stand for the same values.
… or one party is more efficient at facilitating murder
Yeah one party is so bad they repeal things like DoMA while the other literally persecutes LGBT groups
And, who was it that signed DoMA into law? Ah, yes, Bill Clinton.
LGBT became good business so the Democrats jumped on the bandwagon. I’m glad they are on the right side, but they are followers, not leaders. They support the disenfranchised when it benefits their larger cause of shoveling wealth to the top.
Was DoMA not a massive improvement compared to the situation before?
We don’t have fascism in the US yet. We have a party trying to get into fascist control. Voting can still stymie their attempts to do so and exposing their plans can cause them to lose supporters. Using the legal system to remove those breaking the laws and impeaching justices not upholding the constitution are how you prevent this.
These things are hard. If it was easy to prevent fascists from seizing power, we wouldn’t have ever had fascist takeovers. Stopping fascism from taking root requires eternal vigilance as fascist sympathies ebb and flow.
I heartily disagree with the last panels initial premise: both parties don’t stand for the same values. They both share values among some of their most prominent members. Namely neoliberal economic policy. But they are clearly not in sync with all policies: hence only one party attempting a fascist takeover. Ignoring the other things Democrats have accomplished that absolutely help people because they aren’t the huge sweeping reforms we hoped for is doing the fascists’ jobs for them.
These memes also press for Revolution, which is definitely the dumbest thing to propose at this point. Revolution definitely has its place: namely if fascists actually disband democracy. But a revolution is a HUGE risk no matter who does it. Look at revolutions in the rest past, especially those started by popular sentiment: many ended in a totalitarian government, often backed by the military, who took power the moment the leaders faltered. In many of these instances the people didn’t win; they just traded one dictator for another. In order for a revolution to succeed, those revolting need to have both coordinated force of arms and a method of government ready to step in and take control to prevent societal collapse.
But revolution also devalues what HAS been achieved by those still working within the system. The most obvious of these in the US are the great strides unions have made in recent years. Unions went from something only a handful of industries had and were largely despised by the general population, to exploding in numerous industries.
I heartily disagree with the last panels initial premise: both parties don’t stand for the same values. They both share values among some of their most prominent members. Namely neoliberal economic policy. But they are clearly not in sync with all policies: hence only one party attempting a fascist takeover. Ignoring the other things Democrats have accomplished
While I agree with your stance, I don’t think that conflicts with the panel’s stance or the way many of the memes are posing.
I think the point here is more “they’re slightly different shades of the same color, but we need something very different.” In the grand scheme of politics and views, US Democrats and Republicans are extremely similar, especially right now. I wouldn’t discount democrats refusal to step into fascism, nor some of the progressive policies they push for, but these are minor differences in the grand scheme of things. Many of the things many people want in this country are vastly different than either party’s stance, and that’s what’s being pointed to.
These memes also press for Revolution, which is definitely the dumbest thing to propose at this point. Revolution definitely has its place: namely if fascists actually disband democracy. But a revolution is a HUGE risk no matter who does it. Look at revolutions in the rest past, especially those started by popular sentiment: many ended in a totalitarian government, often backed by the military, who took power the moment the leaders faltered.
I think you’re blowing this out of proportion. They’re pressing for drastic change. Is that revolution? Sure, but it’s not necessarily violent. The majority of these memes don’t seem to push that. Maybe some do, but those are definitely not the majority here.
I’d summarize by this comment lower in this thread - I think it summarizes the same stance as these memes from an outsiders perspective:
Can you US people make a party that isn’t a bunch of ghouls already so we can stop having this argument every day
Counterpoint to yours on revolution: democratic systems are revolutionary. Elections can result in the overthrow of current governments in favor of new ones with the peaceful transition being a key factor.
More important than the president or Congress, remember that you’re also voting for a ticket to the supreme Court, and that vote really really fucking matters.
Voting takes like 10 minutes
100% false. In the 2020 election in Mississippi, I had to wait in line for 2 hours. My wife had to call into the vet clinic she worked at to make sure she could to take a 3 hour lunch to vote even though it was 2 miles from where she worked. It was so disorganized and so slow.
I’m so glad I vote via mail now in Washington.
It was so
disorganizedsabotaged and so slow.FTFY
That’s not the worst of it, people were waiting for over 10 hours in Georgia. All because the GOP rigged it so there’d be a shortage of voting locations. And they have the nerve to turn around and lie about the dems stealing the election. Absolute scum.
I voted by mail in 2016 and my ballot never got counted even though it was sent weeks before the deadline. I now vote in person unless I have no other choice.
The great thing about Washington is that it’s opt out mail in voting. When you get your license, you register to vote at the same time, and they just send your ballot via mail. It’s nice!
That is nice as long as they actually count it once you send it in lol
Voting is the minimum effort required of actual change the system. Any arguments about it being hard are here to stop more direct action.
More Bjork memes please
I thought I could organize freedom
10 minutes might be the average, as even my backwards Republican controlled state has moved to vote by mail. I get the ballot, do a quick internet search on people or issues I don’t understand, and move on with my day in less time than that typically. As a bonus, mail ballots are far easier to audit and recount than those ridiculous electronic voting machines which print the voter’s choices next to the non-human readable QR code which is actually used for counting.
I don’t have experience in states which put up barriers or hours of waiting in line for in-person and mail voting, and I admire those who put up with that shit
Republicans want to stop young pe4ople from voting.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-want-raise-voting-age-184406390.html
edit =‘peop4le’ should be read as people. It was an innocent typo, not a secret signal. Really, not a secret signal at all. Nope, not a signal.
Why did you censor “people”? 🤔
lol! I’m going to have to think long and hard about what it says about the world in general because I don’t know why you’d think I was censoring ‘people’ instead of assuming it was a typo.
I’ve noticed it’s a bit of a thing on lemmy to censure words or names of things you’re talking about. I’ve seen discord, blizzard, Twitter, and a couple other named of both companies and people censured either with an asterisk or leet speek. It’s so weird. Maybe they don’t want people from those companies to be able to Google their comment? Who knows.
I was just going to fix the typo, but decided to go full drama instead.
I would like to remind all EU citizens we are voting for the parlament in June. Make sure you are properly registered to vote !
idk whats worse, having an uncropped reddit watermark or an uncropped ifunny watermark
Give it time. I can do both.
It’s deeply ironic the use of an Icelandic singer in a meme to justify participating in the performance of the Theatre Of The Vote in the, unlike in Iceland, far from Democratic American Duopoly system.
Unironic would be to use Putin or some well known Russian figure.
Also, she’s an anarchist so I’m not entirely sure this is even the kind of advice she would give.
Now you’ve made me curious. The depths of the interwebs reveal that she says she casts an empty ballot, no reasoning given. Iceland doesn’t have compulsory voting.
Staying in Iceland: Jón Gnarr is also an anarchist and ran for office. Then, I’m an anarchist and the opposite of anti-electoral, if nothing else it’s necessary to combat depoliticisation and protect liberal democracy as the stopgap measure it is. Fascists won’t stop voting to try and capture the state least you can do is cancel out their vote by voting non-fascist.
I’m not even sure there’s many anti-electoral anarchists around, actually arguing against voting instead of simply personally not voting (which lots of people do for various reasons), practically all the arguments you hear from that side is egg-headed theoretical moralising without reference to praxis.
I love björk so much she’s so awesome
Can you US people make a party that isn’t a bunch of ghouls already so we can stop having this argument every day
German here. He had parties that weren’t a bunch of ghouls. Some don’t exist anymore or have never been in power, others either replaced the good guys with ghouls or the good guys were corrupted by power and became ghouls themselves over time. Face it, electoral politics aren’t enough.
Yeah, if everyone voted. I don’t understand why people are confused by this. Just vote. Get your friends to vote. We know that most Americans aren’t evil. Otherwise this entire country would be like Florida. But only like a third of Americans able to vote do so.
You know who votes like, all the fucking time? The ghouls. They love to vote. And we don’t show up. Defeating Trump one more time should end the MAGA movement and then we can focus on propping up a candidate in 2028 who will actually capture the change that we want to see. Midterms too!. But this process only starts if we ensure Biden remains in the White House. You may not like his foreign policy, but he believes in climate change and won’t suppress democracy. Trump will effectively end it via Project 2025, courtesy of the fascist Heritage Foundation.
You know who votes like, all the fucking time? The ghouls.
This is actually the greatest evidence for why voting works. The ghouls maintain a hold on government because the ghouls consistently vote.
Isn’t it also “evil” to know all you have to do is spend a couple hours once a year and not do it?
Why are people who vote Republican evil in your eyes, but those who are too lazy to vote against it not evil?
I don’t think it’s malicious. I think that most people are just wildly misinformed or uninformed.
Like, I saw a pro-Trump account on youtube share a Family Guy clip about 9/11 and Iraq. Peter kept asking what Iraq had to do with 9/11 and they said they kept saying “there’s no connection”. So then all the Trumpers were celebrating Family Guy.
If they were informed, they would know that the GOP in 2003 and 2004 would CONSTANTLY say Democrats were “aiding and abetting terrorists” by questioning why the Bush administration was so fixated on Iraq. It’s all Republicans. It’s the same party. They’re celebrating Family Guy without realizing Family Guy is shitting on their favorite political party.
Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson and every other slimy piece of shit who defends Trump today were the same ones defending Bush back then. If they were informed, they would likely be more inclined to vote but again, the GOP has successfully waged war on education and critical thinking.
So we’re sort of at this deadline where democracy could realistically cease in the U.S. and the alarms are going off but no one is panicking. I want to think it’s evil to not show up and vote, but it’s not evil. It’s just evidence of how the Republicans have victimized so many people abroad and domestically.
Thanks for the thought out response! Can you apply this same logic to the people voting right then? Aren’t many right wingers just misinformed or outright manipulated by the political and media machine?
Why is it evil to do what they truly think is good? They can’t grasp the full impact of their vote in your opinion nor remember history.
I think we need to stop demonizing everyone we disagree with.
I think you’re mostly right about that. I’ve been having this conversation with my wife too. If most people understood how dangerous it is to ban abortion because abortion is absolutely healthcare, then maybe we wouldn’t see so much widespread support for national bans and strict limitations.
At the same time, we have to come to grips with reality and accept that a significant portion of Americans are aware, and simply don’t care or think it’s better for the woman to die. In their minds, at least the woman can go to heaven? I don’t really get their points, but it’s something like that?
There’s also the border. People are dying every day making that crossing. Not all deaths occur at the border, but many occur along the long, perilous journey they’re making in search of a better life. The U.S. is a massive country and can support them. It could use the additional labor. We can assimilate them if we accepted them. And yet, they don’t want that. They clutch their pearls and grip their bibles while simultaneously advocating for a stance that cannot be further from the teachings of Christ
When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.
And then we have the case of trans rights and same-sex marriage. This is more of a Constitutional crisis than a biblical one, but both make the same case that the Republicans disagree with. The Constitution ensures a separation of church and state. They don’t care, and use Judeo-Christian values to influence public policy. The Bible goes on and on about tolerance and acceptance, and withholding judgement for the creator. And yet, here’s Ken Paxton, trying to kick off the second round of the Salem Witch Trials.
They love this shit. They love it when Trump says horrible shit about minorities and women. Whether it’s Nikki Haley, Mitch McConnell’s wife, or Liz Cheney (all three of which served under him or alongside him when he was President). They love it when he says he’ll kick out foreigners because they’re poisoning the blood of America, which is Neo-Nazi as fuck. They eat it up when he stokes anti-Asian sentiment and praises Putin and Netanyahu for killing thousands of people. They can’t get enough of his endless appetite for revenge against people who simply disagree with him.
I don’t see how anyone who isn’t evil can support him today, but I can agree with not labeling people evil who aren’t aware of just how demented he is and will inevitably vote for him this year because “gas was cheaper under Trump” even though the U.S. has had the greatest recovery from COVID among all developed nations and is producing the most domestic energy in the history of any country on the planet.
In my opinion people say they care about a laundry list of things but really only care deeply about a couple, or sometimes a single issue.
For your abortion comment I think the answer is pretty simple. They believe it is murder, and that makes it black and white for them. In their eyes “letting” a woman die is the lesser evil compared to actively ending the pregnancy and committing “murder”. I believe abortion is healthcare but I can also understand their position however much I disagree. Trump is the guy who got them an abortion victory, regardless of whatever else he’s done he accomplished their one true goal in their eyes.
Also you seem to equate Republicans and actively Religious people as the same group. People can be nuanced, not every trumper is religious. The majority I’ve met in person probably haven’t been to church since their mom made them as a child, or never went at all.
It’s a systemic issue, so: no, not really.
Ghouls as in age? While there’s quite a lot of septuagenarians in Congress, there’s also quite a few junior congresspeople who are younger.
If you mean ghouls as in those not chomping at the bit to hurt people: Democrats have quite a few progressive congresspeople. Not the majority, but that follows the US’s population: the US isn’t super progressive yet. It’s getting there and quickly but centrist candidates still get more votes (as they do nearly everywhere) so the center needs to keep sliding.
Besides, exactly what countries are doing that much better right now? Which democracies aren’t sliding into far-right? We’ve got Brexit in the UK, Italy has an actual fascist. Far-right Marine Le Pen got 41% in France. Germany’s far-right party gained 13% since last election; and while they are doing well to protest that and aren’t approaching majority, it’s still quite a concerning trend.
This is nearly a world-wide trend which is quite concerning.
You going what about doesn’t help anything.
It doesn’t matter if everyone else in the world is feeding the homeless caviar, or shoving them in the orphan crushing machine.
Their actions do not affect yours, you can make up your own mind.
No one is saying that the US doesn’t have problems, especially Americans. Most of the political commentary is about America on Lemmy and the US’s problems. But you are complaining about a specific country’s actions from the outside when your own house is on fire. Outsiders looking in and complaining when they are barely any better is pretty hypocritical.
You can complain about America’s problems without phrasing it as “Can you US people” which implies a state of superiority and lack of commiseration on shared problems.
Once again, your actions are unaffected by anyone else’s. Those are your choices.
You see how I didn’t even mention a country anywhere in there?
It is generic advice that applies to literally everyone regardless of country
ifunny? What is this, 2006?
1992.
