Michael

Bridging gaps, forming strong alliances and communities, starting movements, and organizing with like-minded people for change and mutual benefit is how acceptance becomes broader and is the catalyst for culture wars to fizzle out. These actions are the spark that allow people to broadly start to realize there is nothing to be afraid about. A person who is perceivably different or a minority existing, having rights, and thriving doesn’t harm anyone or have to be at anybody’s expense.

Our politicians and governments no longer represent us and the laws aren’t moving in the right direction any time soon. Fighting unjust laws and restrictions and winning politicians over is typically what you’d do as a minority to have your existence be legalized and protected, but I’d argue that we are past the point of no return - laws, reform, and protections aren’t going to come quick enough and we need to act urgently.

The more we polarize ourselves against others for holding less than tolerant views and sitting in judgement of them, the harder it is for us to focus on joining hands, organizing, and focusing on solutions and the change we’d like to see (and be). I’m not saying that we should put up with violations of our personal sovereignty, consent to being restricted unjustly by the law, consent to being subject to abuse (physical, verbal, or any other form), or enable or platform these behaviors.

Win the battles you can win - that means focusing on solutions with people that are actually on the side of all of humanity (which includes all people and minorities). The planet and all life on it is at stake.

I feel it’s ideal to be generally kind to others to hope for kindness back. Some might say that bigoted and hateful people don’t deserve kindness and I’d wholeheartedly agree - you don’t owe them anything and it’s not your job to force their heart open. But I feel it’s important to listen to our hearts and act on them - kindness has immense potential to soften hearts and dissolve boundaries - hate often has the opposite effect.

For example, do you let a person with conservative views who is intolerant, ignorant, and hateful stand in your way and eat your attention and precious life - or do you join hands with others in mutual support for progress and forward movement in our societies?

We can be an unstoppable force by moving out of the direction of the immovable objects and going beyond.

You can’t effectively address those who are transphobic and racist by fighting them, shaming them, and being hateful towards them. Bigotry and hate are fueled by a lack of understanding, acceptance, sometimes by a sense of superiority, fear, tribalism, religion, propaganda, incoherence and disconnection, confusion, and of course also by hate.

Adding to a cycle doesn’t break it, we need to move past these cycles of hate and hurt by joining hands with those who are on the side of all of humanity.

The people living in hate and fear who have dug their feet deep into the ground, blocking progress or even regressing it, standing with their closed hearts will catch up eventually.

I’m not frightened, I just don’t need to elaborate further to you online. I am not naive - I’m simply aware of the technology being used against Americans and its capabilities.

All Trump has to do is twist the definition of “terrorism” to defend his power against people not committing any crimes and suddenly mass arrests start happening with AI’s guidance before literally anything can manifest. He’s proven that due process isn’t a concern, and has already considered suspending it.

https://www.politico.com/newsletters/digital-future-daily/2025/04/08/the-worries-about-ai-in-trumps-social-media-surveillance-00279255

Organizing or openly admitting to anything of the nature should never be done online with the technology being leveraged against us. There are movements that exist online in spite of this, do yourself a favor and look them up to see what they are doing.

What are you doing to do?

Convince others to stand in their power and do everything in my own power. I don’t need to elaborate further.

How are you going to change a thing?

Like I said, a critical mass of Americans need to realize their power and demand better.

If you want to spread feelings of helplessness, encouraging others to see themselves as small and powerless, while also continuing to blame progressives (the people who want to achieve progress), that’s your decision.

I’m hopeful that you choose differently.

Who has a better chance than Harris?

The voters should’ve been able to determine that with a primary. Instead the senile old man held on until the last minute and there was literally no time for a primary. After that, Democrats wasted a billion on a failed and rushed campaign.

I already said what I’m going to do. Everything that is in my power, and encouraging others to stand in their power.

What are you going to do? Keep blaming the Bernie Bros until Trump takes away all of your rights and installs himself as dictator?

If Democrats could’ve budged even a little bit to the left, they would’ve won and stopped Trump. But they couldn’t. They also couldn’t hold primaries before the presidential election.

You don’t need to be a psychic with a crystal ball to determine that Kamala couldn’t win, especially not with her strategy of shifting to the right and appealing to voters that literally don’t exist.

Democrats spent more energy systematically suing third-parties off the ballot than attracting the voters they were so afraid of losing to third-parties.

What do I need to move on from or do about it?

Stop playing the blame game and do literally anything. You’re projecting your own personal inaction and frustration onto progressives.

In a constitutional crisis, while the last shred of democracy is at stake, do you simply vote your way out of the mess?

There’s no checks and balances

Then you admit there is a constitutional crisis?

Playing the blame game doesn’t solve anything or improve the situation. Maybe you need to move on?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_backsliding <- You are here.

What are you going to do about it?

But that’s not how the government works.

That’s the problem - the government isn’t working.

Have you been paying attention? We have a felon as our president, who is ignoring his oath to uphold the constitution and is bypassing due process. He is also in contempt of court. He is committing crimes daily and is destroying our economy and our country’s soft power.

We’re supposed to have checks and balances. Republicans are trying to make Trump effectively immune to being held in contempt of court.

Are we supposed to sit around and consent to this?

A critical mass of Americans need to demand better - and soon. I do what is in my power to move things towards that direction.

What are you doing?

Do you seriously think the country can wait until 2026 at this rate?

Did I suggest tearing anything down? Calling for reform doesn’t involve tearing anything down.

As it stands, there won’t be anything left to reform or save if we let Trump have his way with the country.

Both sides are the same is a lazy attitude and doing it while there’s no alternative is criminal.

I said they are both traitors. Not that the parties are the same.

We need to demand voting and election system reform after Trump is impeached or is otherwise removed from power.

Voting harder for Democrats isn’t the solution, that’s for sure.

If Democrats wanted to take responsibility, they would’ve shifted to the left and appealed to the many countless disenfranchised voters.

I feel it’s fair to say that both major parties are traitors to the American people at this point.

I’ve moved on, I’m just informing others that the Democrats are responsible for the situation we’re all in more than most know.

Thanks for your concern.

Imagine the Clinton campaign, the DNC, and mainstream media colluding in 2015 to boost Trump as a pied piper candidate because they thought he was “unelectable” - and Hillary losing to him.

Oh wait, that’s reality. You don’t need to imagine.

Maybe there would be more than Side A and Side B if we had voting reform and Democrats didn’t systematically sue third-parties off the ballot.

People (not just authoritarians) criticize Side A because they have way more tallies than most have been led to believe. Everybody who pays any amount of attention knows that Side B has a lot of tallies. What good comes out of specifically pointing out the tallies of Side B when literally everybody on non-conservative social media is blasted with the knowledge of those tallies? If you want somebody to preach to the choir or inform you about Side B’s tallies, just ask. If you think people paying attention to or being informed about Side A’s tallies is dangerous and harmful, just say so.

Side A tolerates third-world exploitation (labor, resources, goods) that the US economy still relies on, they tolerate the US economy still relying on slavery and child slavery, they tolerate or support US imperialism and regime change, they refuse to address or come up with solutions for the fresh water crisis (by 2030, demand will exceed supply by 40%), they refuse to properly address many issues that the US people face (the economy, the housing crisis, the health care crisis, etc.), they support harmful policies like fracking, they have allowed corporations/et. al to go out of control under their power, and they generally have not advocated for strong regulation and protections for the American people. Yes, Side B is undesirable, but Side A is insufficient.

If Side A’s hands are always tied in a two-party system, then they should impeach the bad actor, push voting/election reform and term limits, and hold fair and democratic primaries and elections. Side A not propping up extreme right-wing candidates (like Trump) and telling the media to take them seriously would be nice, too.

1/3 of Americans don’t vote and plenty of people only voted Kamala because they didn’t want Trump (and there are other factors than Gaza, misogyny, and Jill Stein voters at play to explain why people didn’t come out to vote for her). Plenty of people probably don’t want Trump (or anybody like him) if they’ve been paying any attention and didn’t fall for the propaganda.

Side A would get bonus points for not alienating progressives, for supporting the loosening of requirements for ballot access (and stop engaging in lawfare to restrict ballot access), and for supporting fair and inclusive debates on public property where they would have to address perspectives and topics that are potentially uncomfortable or inconvenient for them.

I realize there are plenty of unserious actors who run for president (like Kayne West) who would try their best to poison open debates and abuse expanded ballot access, but there has to be some fair mechanism to filter (openly racist and insane) people like him out. Perhaps a competency test of sorts with independent observation would be appropriate.

And I realize a lot of people find Jill Stein to be harmful (and individuals like her), but maybe we shouldn’t arrest her (or any other presidential candidate) and put her in a black site, shackling her to a chair for 8 hours, because she wanted to be present at the presidential debate?

This is an unprecedented time for the American people, with human rights and due process in jeopardy. We are facing multiple serious crises with no solutions or progress in sight - voting and election reform, in addition to term limits, are all urgent and necessary.

I don’t care if you want to vote for Side A no matter what — we can only suppress criticism and stay in denial of major issues for so long before (e.g.) the fresh water crisis hits us and humanity is completely and utterly unprepared.

How about taxing the wealthy instead of food? Taxing cars is nice too.

He never seriously fought for universal healthcare. He stopped advocating for it before he even started fighting. As soon as he got a “reality check”, not a word of support for universal healthcare was ever uttered by him to the best of my knowledge. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, though.