this post was submitted on 21 May 2024
529 points (87.6% liked)
Political Memes
5054 readers
1813 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Where are the centrists giving the Republicans a drill and arguing that a just giving them a slight smaller drill bit then they requested is a good thing and the only way to keep the boat from sinking faster?
The analogy from the cartoon is actually deeply flawed for the present situation; back about 10-15 years I think it was pretty accurate.
What it should be now, the best that I can make it out, is a pretty big boat that's in quite a bit of mechanical trouble to the point that there's a lot of unrest on board and it may not make it back to land and may get sunk by the next big storm. And, on board is:
Republicans actively drilling more holes, setting the engine on fire for some reason, stealing the flares and emergency beacon so they can sell them off to each other, shitting in the water supply, basically doing too many different bad things to even count or keep track of
A third of the people labeled with "Democrat" helping them, a third looking the other way or making vague attempts to tell them to stop, a third vigorously trying to stop them, sometimes with some level of success
Biden presiding over that whole process, and somehow producing some level of progress on the most critical of the problems, which is actually pretty shocking considering how fuckin insane the entire boat is at this point.
(Oh and also one of the Republicans has a handgun and keeps talking about how we need to shoot every single person on the boat who isn't a Republican, and a lot of the Republicans are agreeing with him and saying they should have handguns too)
A tiny handful of people who are actually trying to organize, work on problems, work out how we might be able to get to land, put together water distillation since we're running out, better system for choosing who's in charge, some genuine improvement to our situation.
And then, a certain body of people who are swearing they are actually part of that last group, but who spend 100% of their time saying they don't see any difference between Biden guy and handgun guy, and some of the other people were punching some of the last group, and anyway what about the water, no wait I meant what about the flares, he hasn't even done anything about the flares... just more or less a constant drumbeat of opposition with none of the forward movement that comes from the last group. And, whenever someone starts yelling at them about handgun guy who literally might want to murder them, they accuse that person of oh isn't that convenient that now I have to support Biden-guy now, I guess now you're ordering me around that somehow I have to or else handgun guy will come after me, I bet Biden and handgun guy set the whole thing up themselves.
That's still an oversimplification. But it seems somewhat more complete and accurate than the cartoon. My man: Start talking about ranked choice voting. Start talking about joining Extinction Rebellion. If you want to do better than Biden, fuckin do it, it sounds great. But saying that letting Trump win this particular election is anything other than the end of the world, is just lying.
This is what gets me. Some (most, if the news is accurate) Republicans are so cartoonishly evil that people's first reaction is "that can't be right, you're just exaggerating" followed shortly by "oh isn't it awfully convenient that you aren't a part of that group?"
This wall of text makes me think either a bot or non-medicated metal illness.
The editor has foolishly put them at the front of the boat pretending they’re enforcing it instead of slowly pouring cups of water into the boat.
Leftists are the solution, not the far right and right.
Also centrists under a fully right system, are sitting in the centre of the right and thus still rightists.
It would be nice if they would vote once in a while. I'm assured they're the vast majority of this country, but curiously, none of them ever seem to vote.
The vast majority of Americans are not leftists. America doesn’t even have a left party.
Vote for who? So far, we've only had capitalist candidates. That's not really up my alley, champ.
Oh, boy, they're not up your alley, so sorry, in that case, please continue to ignore all possible contributions to the material conditions that allow the organization of labor and the prevention of fascism; I'm sure that passively watching the genocide of minorities is a small price to pay compared to the indignity of participating in the democratic process.
Unionization is a capitalist compromise. The fact that it takes an entire army of people to equal the negotiation power of one owner is ridiculous and indicative of the terrible system we're in.
Keep on keeping on with the status quo. It seems like you like it.
You keep welcoming fascism, you seem quite fond of it. Sorry that the rest of us want to do silly things like "Be alive" or "Have rights".
Democrats have been welcoming fascists the entire last four years by not preventing them from coming to power. We've had every possible avenue legally or legislatively to put an end to this and DemocratsDemocrats refuse to. They're incapable.
All we will get by voting for Joe Biden is four more years of peace until the next fascist begins to run, and we will have done nothing to stop them either.
Your strategy is to win every election for the rest of all time. It's just not tenable.
We need a reform movement, and Democrats are incapable of that, clearly. As somebody else has said in this threat, going by the metaphor in the picture, Democrats need to be plugging the holes in the boat, not scooping out the water.
Oh no!!!
Well, when you take out the other half of the sentence that provides context, I guess, you have a point.
/s
In fairness , it was my fault for taking a meme sub seriously.
I want you to explain to me how you expect the Democratic Party, (and just the Democratic Party, not assuming that suddenly you have replaced every functionary and Republican and Independent in the government) assuming it was suddenly animated as one with your spirit of grand strategy, would, in a manner democratic, lawful, and not politically self-destructive, have prevented the scenario we're in now.
Oh, in that case, fuck those four years of peace that we could use to organize and fight back, let's let them get started on the orgy of genocide NOW, huh?
MY strategy in the long-term is to create political alternatives to the fuckery we're in.
My strategy in the short-term is the only realistic one six months out from a presidential election against a fucking fascist with no other prominent political figures even vaguely considering running - vote for the coalition opposition candidate.
You think we've been using this last four years to organize? Bull. That's exactly my problem with the Democrats, is that they have done nothing in the last four years to stop what's going on. We just all collectively acted like there was no problem, Because we were tired from the previous four years. A bunch of ostriches with their heads in the sand.
You say you want an alternative to our current system, but explicitly there is no option for that alternative if every election becomes a damage control election. You are reinforcing that system by demanding that people vote for Democrats, without Democrats having to change their views to match the populace. How are we supposed to enact change if our voices do not matter to our own party? You know this, and you're stuck in that cognitive dissonance. Which is exactly where the party wants you.
As for solutions, I can think of quite a few things that I was proposing at the time that they were relevant. For starters, we should have never appointed Merrick Garland. All of the progressives were screaming at you folk about this, and you didn't listen and now there's egg on your face. Sorry, but that's how it typically goes.
Secondly, we should have impeached Donald Trump the night of the insurrection when Republicans didn't know which way the political winds were headed. You had people like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham ready to get off the Trump train until Fox News was able to successfully spin it after the months and months long investigation. There was no need for an investigation. You could have had a one sentence impeachment article referencing the insurrection.
But these are Democrats we're talking about. They don't actually do anything.
Correction : the investigation was a couple of weeks. In my defense time moves much slower during that crazy month. My point still stands that they should have done it on the spot instead of letting Fox News spin it.
Oh, great, so now you're going to vote for fascism because YOU didn't use the past four years wisely. Great. I share a polity with a bunch of fucking children.
They wouldn't even vote for impeachment, genius.
You are not engaging in good faith right now. I am not voting for Donald Trump. Hell, ironically, my vote doesn't matter at all. I'm in a ruby red state, bless the stupid Electoral College.
You didn't even listen to what I said. They didn't vote for impeachment because we gave them time to see where the political winds were headed. Months and months of a needless investigation that allowed the right-wing spin machine to turn someone like Lindsey Graham into somebody who was furious into an ally.
There are two outcomes of this election. Trump, or Biden. If you sit with your thumb up your ass as an infant drowns in an ankle-deep pool in front of you, you are not 'innocent' because you 'did nothing', you're guilty because of your inaction, or your pointless action, if you prefer.
Do...
Do you not remember when the impeachment vote was held?
Please, tell me when the impeachment vote was held. In your own words.
Explain to me exactly how my vote in a Ruby Red State of Not Trump is somehow going to hurt Biden's electoral odds. Come on, tell me.
Do you even understand how the Electoral College works?
This is becoming an increasingly unproductive conversation, your utterly delusional and arguing in bad faith. Enjoy your loss. Come November. You've earned it. Honestly, I'm just gonna block you at this point.
The popular vote is an important part of the legitimization of the results of the electoral college, and things are already going to be pretty fucking dicey on that front. So every vote DOES matter, especially when regarding the political winds that will change according to how resoundingly (or narrowly) the fascist was rejected.
That being said, I do regard a protest vote in a 'safe' state as much less vile than one in a swing state due to our system.
Now, answer my question:
Congrats. My favorite part is where you said the impeachment vote happened "months" later and that we TOTALLY could have gotten LOTS of Republicans to vote for impeachment if the vote had only happened, say, in the month of January. Maybe early, like January 13th or something, when Jan 6 was still on everyone's mind.
They're the one pretending to bail water out; don't worry, they'll wait until the last minute to crack a new hole in the boat and then blame it on the one bailing water for 'bailing too fast'.