It's a situation that I have been expecting for a while, but I wasn't fully ready to accept it. Specifically it's one of my LGBTQ friends who honestly believes in the democrats will protect them and their partner. I have tried to make the point that both parties are eroding any sort of civility towards all marginalized groups, but fear seems to drive them more than logical observations. They make the excuse that change doesn't happen over night and that the left continues to grow and will have meaningful affects down the road. I fundamentally just don't agree with that idea and vocalize it regularly. More and more it is ending up in a circular argument where I am painted as unrealistic and my rhetoric (leftist rhetoric) is doing more harm than good because it promotes distrust in the only system we have to work with. I try to tell them it's kind of the whole point. We gotta start somewhere if we want to see a better, more representative system, but they are so hung up on the immediate future while simultaneously saying that my idealistic feelings are shortsighted and I cant expect change in the immediate future... The double-talk is wild, I know.
I am trying my hardest to stop from engaging at this point because on the most basic level we agree on a lot of stuff, but they are just way to wrapped up in the fear mongering of the democratic party. They know that the two party system is broken, they know that something drastic needs to change, but they also think that they are powerless to do anything except choose the lesser evil. It pains me because I am watching them do the same shit past generations have done, where they give up on their ideals for the sake of preserving the current status quo that they benefit from. I am legitimately watching them imply "fuck you, got mine" under the guise of civic duty and I hate it. I want nothing more than to be able to finally say "I told you so" without being a smug asshole about it and ruining our friendship.
Thanks for reading my rant. It's probably a bit disjointed, but the frustration is boiling over and I needed to vent to the only group of people that seems to understand the hopelessness of being a disenfranchised leftist.
Yeah I was about to make a similar post - just had a big debate with some older family friends at a party my parents had that are die-hard dems (which was nice, as they're way further left then most other people there).
They were aghast when I said I wasn't voting blue, and had no idea who Claudia or the PSL are, of course.
Got a lot of "this is the most important election ever" and "if he wins democracy is over" of course. But the one that really chapped my biscuits was saying that if he wins, then [my family member] will lose access to reproductive health care and IVF in particular.
So I said yeah right, neither side is going to change a damn thing about that, because they both see it as way too valuable of a carrot/stick to give up campaigning and fundraising on it. If the dems care so much about it, why haven't they actually done anything about it?
"Well Biden's wanted to, but he's been hamstrung by the extremist right!"
So what about those years when he had full congressional majority?
"Oh well yeah, I mean I guess he could have done more there..."
And then we got called away to the rest of the party and never got to continue.
Bonus points for my insistence that both parties intend on continuing the genocide - but ofc he is going to do it worse somehow. When I said I'm not going to vote for Genocide Light™️, they said, "Hell yeah I am! It's better than the other option!", and I sadly beat a dead horse a little more about there actually being more options available and maybe you actually don't have to put your stamp of approval on genocide-with-rainbow-flag-characteristics.
Also bonus-bonus points for one of the two (very sweet, kickass person generally) asking "So what does genocide mean again?" in a completely honest, non-hostile way, indicating that they simply had not engaged with even the thought of such a thing happening before this conversation.
And these are the two that always get in trouble for being too vocal about their left-ish political opinions at these functions.
Push libs on this and they no response: just how, exactly, will he be worse? What specific actions would he do? Because right now we’re pretty much at the limit of what any administration can reasonably do.
I've asked many libs this and all they return with is quotes of trump saying he'll do worse. But not how. Trump lies all the time and yet they believe him that he'll somehow do worse this once.
Yeah it was pretty much this.
"He said he'll flatten it!"
What, like as opposed to the dems, who will write a very strongly worded letter after the bombs they send over are used to flatten the place?
"Well yeah at least they're writing that letter! Better than no letter! "
It's always something like this that they only just realized could tangentially affect them or someone they know. Meanwhile my position is with regards to the overall systemic shortcomings that I feel are just as important even if they don't apply to me. Obviously I care about reproductive rights even tho my partner and I are both sterile (by choice), but I want those rights for everyone else even after I leveraged them for myself!
They are never ready to answer that, or they just punt the issue to the next scapegoat.
Yeah, this was a point I tried to make one time and instead of the "other guy is worse" I got the "Kamala isn't Joe" line. Which made my brain reboot and I don't remember after that, lol.
Right, she's moderately worse: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/10/08/harris-biden-the-view-00182883