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.
It’s a mathematical certainty that any work on a third party will only help the party that it is most unlike. Seriously, you aren’t the first to think “fuck it, let’s just have a NEW party.” You will spend your days actively harming your interests until you die. And here’s the part where you tell me it needs to get worse before it gets better. No, it doesn’t. It needs to get better incrementally over long time scales and that is the ONLY way anything has ever improved anywhere. Do the work. This nonsense about burning down the world over a single issue is performative crap we don’t have time for.
the proper way is to do a hostile takeover of the Democratic party.
Trump wasn't really a Republican, he was a nationalist (in 2016) and now a fascist (in 2024.) Republicans were neocons, libertarians and classical conservatives.
in 2017 he purged the actual Republicans from the Party, and filled its hollowed husk with MAGA. by 2024, the takeover was complete. actual Republicans (e.g. Liz Cheney, Romney) abandoned ship. the name is the only thing that stayed the same.
so, we need to do the same with the DNC. the formula is simple. hijack the primaries, shove the existing leadership out and show the Republicans what "socialism" really means.
Amen.
Most of them voluntarily left though
Agreed.
This is why first-past-the-post needs to be replaced with the single transferable vote. The rules were originally designed by the rich for the rich.
If you believe that’s where your energy is best spent, I wish you success. It’s probably a matter of planting trees whose shade you’ll never sit in, but there are healthy alternatives we can promote.
Starting a third party in a FPTP system? That’s just suicide.
There is another way: run for office as a Democrat and be the change you want to see in the party. What Bernie and AOC did. We need a few dozen more of them, and things will actually start moving.
What the tea party did. What MAGA did. What Mandami is doing.
Changing the existing party is what works. Demolishing it does not.
We can only hope Elon starts his third party he's threatened a couple times.
The Republican party replaced the Whig party and the Bull Moose party came close.
It took centuries for women to earn the right to vote, so I happily champion decent causes until their full fruition.
That’s the way to think: long arc.
Rosa Parks wasn’t the first person who refused to give up her seat on the bus. There were absolutely other cases that could have been pushed through the courts earlier. But Parks was an ideal figure: clean record, old, harmless little lady. For her story to go down in history, others had to be passed over. It’s what we call picking our battles.
It worked in Canada, India and the UK.
they have Parliamentary systems :/
the US is fucked because the President is enormously powerful and elected directly by the people.
mamdani is the first of these and the democratic party won't even endorse him; what makes you think they'll behave any different for others?
Because they will see that he wins anyway
They’ll never “endorse” their replacements, nor do they need to.
As others have pointed out here, this kind of takeover of an existing part is exactly what Trump did. You may remember that he did it over the strenuous objections and through stiff resistance of the party.
He did this through his mastery of media, and capturing 30% of the voters in this country with his performance through the process. They eventually realized that Trump was the best card they had to play.
As Bernie and AOC showed, you can muster enough popular support in your home constituency that pushback from the bureaucrats doesn’t matter.
I think the sad news for a lot of people in this thread is that 30% of Americans are not actually onboard with their agenda for a more socialistic America. So while isolated successes may be possible, and help things progress, there simply isn’t going to be a groundswell of support like Trump received. The Democrats are the limp plastic bags of cold soup that they are because the voters themselves are complacent with the status quo and not really willing to roll the dice on it. Sure, plenty are poor enough to almost certainly benefit, but they don’t think of themselves that way. No one’s lower class - everyone’s on their way to joining the “I got mine” club anytime now. And that’s America. This is it I’m afraid. This is who we are.
If you haven't noticed, it doesn't fucking matter. Mamdani is the candidate and assuming people turn out he will be the mayor.
It isn't a single issue. It simply isn't. Regardless, telling trans people and their allies online that fighting for their rights is "nonsense" amounting to "performative crap", seems like transphobia to me.