this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2026
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Leopards Ate My Face
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Okay, so:
are unfortunately both true.
Also, non-MAGA Americans - (EDIT: liberals, not the party leaders) and leftists alike - need better people skills. With infighting like this, Republicans hardly even need to lift a finger.
If I can chose between certain defeat and possible defeat in 4 years, I chose the latter.
I agree - voting Democrat in the general election is the choice with the least horrible consequences. But it's not enough.
I mean, we could also just vote for a Democrat in 2032 and not have fascism. Or, we could defeat fascism in the United States if the left would just get up off it's ass and DO SOMETHING instead of just complaining like they always do.
I'm serious. What the hell has the left actually done in this country to change anything, to stop fascism, to defeat capitalisim? Where are the collectives so I can get a job without having to go to a soul sucking corporation? Where are the "citizen patrols" so we don't need to rely on fascist police to protect people? When somebody loses their job where's the help, the support structure? When someone gets evicted and their house gets stolen by the bank what are the leftists doing about it? Where's the alternatives to "the system" you all say you're going to undermine but never actually do? This is all stuff that I've literally been hearing from the left my entire life, where the hell is it? Is it ever going to actually happen? I haven't seen shit from "the left" in this country except a bunch of stupid youtube videos about how the latest blockbuster movie or YA novel doesn't have enough representation in it or how celebrity/politician/CEO XYZ is bad so you better not support them/listen to their music/read their latest book else you're supporting [insert bad thing here.] You understand me not playing a video game or watching a TV show becasue someone bigoted was involved in it's creation changes nothing, right? You understand standing around holding a sign blocking traffic isn't going to change anything, right? None of that virtue signaling shit matters, except to make yourself feel good. You know what actually CAN change things? You know what actually CAN defeat fascim? Voting. But we can't even get the left to get up off it's ass and do that every four years.
So you don't like Democrats? Would the president of Venezuela been kidnapped if Kamala were president? Would ICE be out in the street busting down doors and sending people to death prisions in Columbia? Would ICE be straight up running people over and shooting them? Would Elon Musk and his band of dipshits have gutted the social safety nets so millions of kids starve to death? Would bombs be murdering entire families in Iran right now? The answer to these questions is "NO," and anyone who thinks otherwise is part of the problem.
So please, don't give me this shit about how voting democrats somehow "enables fascism" because that's a load of B.S. 100 years ago it was LEFTISTS who made this country better. Because of LEFTISTS we have a 40 hour work week, and an 8 hour work day. LEFTISTS stopped child labor. LEFTISTS passed anti-corruption laws. LEFTSIST broke up the trusts, smashed monopolies, and stopped greedy corporations from spewing thier shit into the water and air. 100 years ago LEFTISTS got up off their asses and made the country a better place. And how did they do it? BY VOTING. Because protesting doesn't change things, making tik tok videos that critique mainstream media doesn't change things, throwing cans of soup at the Mona Lisa doesn't change things - LAWS change things. And you pass laws by voting.
You don't want to vote? Then don't. But don't give me this bullshit about how it doesn't do anything, because it does. It's the only god damned thing that actually changes things.
Well, the 5-day workweek and the end of child labor, to start.
Lol, you mean those things that I literally mention in my post? Yeah like I said they did accomplish that, 100 years ago. Back when leftists actually, you know, voted.
What has the left actually accomplished, say in the last 30 years?
Elevating Bernie Sanders. Unfortunately, your party cannot tolerate leftwing populism because it threatens the capitalist oligarchs (or "campaign donors", I think is their preferred language) who own them, so they rigged their primaries to guarantee his loss, coalesced around an already-half-senile racist creep, and paved the way for the rise of rightwing populism as an inevitable response to the material reality that neoliberalism has failed the population.
Aside from that, the left has coordinated a very organized response to ICE terror across the country while mainstream liberals show up once every few months for No Kings protests which have no specific demands except to request Trump stop being something he already is not. They have also contributed significantly towards changing public opinion on the genocidal Zionazi regime, to the point where more Americans now sympathize with Palestinians than their occupiers, while your party continued funding the occupation and genocide and praised the police who beat nonviolent student protestors working towards that end.
The legalization of cannabis can't be solely attributed to leftists, but they certainly contributed to that accomplishment as well. And the decriminalization of psychedelics even moreso.
Now let's flip the question on you. What have the Democrats actually accomplished in the last 30 years?
Yeah so I asked "What has the left actually accomplished" not "what ineffectual actions are they doing to stop fascim after it's already taken power."
So those things were decriminalized by passing laws, correct? Kinda sounds like something you have to be politically active and vote for. Or do laws magically just pass when you stand around in the street with a cardboard sign?
Well, there was that thing you tried to take credit for, which is legalizing marijuana. We can also add legalizing gay marriage on top of that, those are two things that come to mind.
ok Blue MAGA, you do your thing
I'm just sick of people trying to blame me for the actions of the people I voted against when they themselves were too lazy to turn out and do the absolute minimum to combat fascism
Voting for a party guilty of participation in genocide, and a candidate who vowed "no change" from those genocidal policies, is not "the absolute minimum to combat fascism".
To the contrary, it is enabling fascism... and really, much worse things than simple fascism. It's just not enabling those things within the USA as much. So you're willing to inflict those evils upon people overseas if it preserves your privilege and comfort at home, and the privilege and comfort of those who you care for.
You are valuing the your own comfort and the comfort of members of your in-group as being higher priority (supreme) above the lives of other human beings. You are prioritizing your own comfort and privilege over the literal ethnic-based mass-murder of other humans (and yes, ICE is a terrible American Gestapo under Trump, but it is still not remotely comparable to what the Zionazis have done in Palestine).
To reach such a conclusion, you must hold white supremacist values, at least to the extent that the values of the west are defined by the white ruling class. Yes, even if you are not white. You need to purge those from your mind.
And that's also not me insulting you. It's totally normal for someone who grew up (I assume) under American propaganda. It's incredibly subtle and incredibly effective.
I agree with the exact opposite of this.
In 2024 the choice of which candidate would lead us to fascism was obvious to anyone paying attention. The left in this country decided to take it's ball and go home, and now we're living through the consequences. The left does not deserve to walk away from this blunder without criticism.
Even if I grant that voting for democrats somehow in some twistabout way "supported facism" (which is bullshit,) it was plain to see for anyone with a brain what would happen if the actual facist, you know, the one posting god damned nazi memes in his campaign videos, was allowed to take power. Now we're living through the consequences of the inaction of the left to get up off it's ass and do something.
Okay, so the left caused your candidate to lose. Aside from the fact that Holocaust Harris would've lost even if she received every single third party vote except RFK's, even including Libertarians who are usually more right-leaning, sure, let's go with that narrative anyway.
The left is the reason your candidate lost, because the left did not find your candidate worth voting for.
Sounds like you should listen to the demands of the left if you want to stop losing then. And we demand an end to all aid to genocidal Israel and no corporate campaign donors.
Otherwise, you can keep losing. You may view Dems as being an obviously-better option than Republicans. I do not, so if you do not convince me otherwise, I literally could not care less if your party continues losing.
Run better candidates if you want to win. That's how democracies work, right?
Tell me, what did you actually think would happen to Palestine if Trump won?
Secondly, of the two (Trump or Harris), which would be more open/vulnerable to political pressure from the left?
Be honest, use reason, tell the truth.
The same thing that would happen if Harris won: more death. I imagine Hamas also knows they were not going to win a military victory. The victory to be had for them is, I imagine, a moral one: exposing the moral vacuum at the heart of the American Empire (so Israel included). And in that, they have achieved a massive victory without a doubt.
It's disgusting that any Palestinian was killed regardless of administration, but that's the pragmatic reality until Israel ceases to exist. So the question has to be how to achieve that, and I think they've made massive strides towards it. And as for America, it's dying all on its own.
Capitalists are not vulnerable to political pressure from the left because capitalism is inherently contrary to the demands of real leftists. So, my answer to your second question is: neither. And you don't even have to take my word for it: my evidence is Biden refusing to end political aid to Israel and Harris pleading "no change" from that genocidal policy. I mean for fucks sake, Trump even pretended to reschedule cannabis before Biden did!
Saying that people are valuing their own or their loved ones' "comfort and privilege" (which sounds like they value having brunch or something) rather than - in a lot of cases - personal safety, and that they hold white supremacist values, is going to come off as an insult no matter what.
I can live with that.
They value the abstract risk to their personal safety, and that of their loved ones, over the assured mass-murder of Palestinians. I stand by what I said.
That's a big assumption to be made about me, especially when I said
(that is, one should vote for Democrats).
I believe voting is the bare minimum of political effort that should be expected of every citizen of an electoral country, and that tactical voting is sometimes necessary.
And I understand your disappointment with the American left. My comment is addressed to them as much as it is to you.
But it's still incumbent on the left to capitulate to the center at all times and kiss their genocidal asses no matter who they murder.
One of those two groups runs the party and demands that we both vote for them no matter how bad they get, while simultaneously telling us to fuck off.
Edited for clarity, I was supposed to say "liberals". Thanks for helping me realise that!
You're right about the party leadership, too.
With party leadership being like it is, "everyone just needs to be nicer to each other" is functionally identical to "resign yourself to permanent irrelevancy while the people who supported genocide tell you who to vote for."
I had something more like "try to approach liberals with kindness and understanding" in mind.
Because the current approach doesn't seem to be working.
You expect no behavior change from the genocide-and-nothing-else wing.
The party leadership? I don't. The voter base, though...
You expect the anti-genocide voters to be kind to everyone who supports genocide, with no alteration in behavior from the latter whatsoever.
I think most Democrat voters don't explicitly support genocide. (And no, voting for the "lesser evil" doesn't count.)
Centrist democrats support absolutely nothing else.
How many Democrat voters do you know?
I've met enough to know that centrists demand unquestioning support of genocidal candidates. You go down that road, it defines you as a person in your entirety forever.
I guess America is cooked, then - because you have what, 10, maybe 15 percent leftists (if I'm being really generous)?
Gloat harder. You got what you wanted.
I am neither gloating, nor is this what I want.
Then maybe tell me how centrists should change their behavior. So far, all you've said is that the left needs to be kind to the genocide wing no matter what they do.
The same thing - show kindness and understanding instead of attacking you for "letting Trump win."
It would also be great if they made an effort to primary candidates one can vote FOR instead of relying on WBNMW and delaying the inevitable (which, as I said, will likely lead to an even worse Republican presidency.
But getting them to vote third party/not at all doesn't seem possible at the moment... because they don't believe something better is possible. See this reply to my comment as an example.
And you could try reasoning with them, but... haven't you been trying that already? Unfortunately, most people don't go by reason.
Maybe they need to be shown that something better is possible.
They need hope in a better future one can pursue.
We all do.
Centrists ejected David Hogg from the party for trying to do that. The Democratic Party didn't spend a decade sabotaging the primary process, to the point where they now just expect to appoint a centrist and order everyone to vote for them, just to let the left stroll in with candidates people want to vote for.
They know something better is possible. They oppose anything better.
I'm not sure if I said it before, but I'm talking about the voters, not the party.
You did. I have no faith in the centrist wing of the party. I've talked to too many of them.
And they (voters) have no faith that anything better is possible. Yes, there is likely propaganda at play. Unfortunately, outright telling someone they are under influence of propaganda usually only makes it worse.
They have faith that they can prevent anything better from happening. So far they've been right.