This is the opportunity for democrats running in the mid-terms to start their own town halls.
Elected dems do hold town halls like this article talks about. If you are referring to dems not in office, they’re starting to do stuff like that. For instance:
Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R) refuses to hold a town hall in NJ-07. So next Thursday March 13 in Summit, NJ former Rep. Tom Malinowski will hold a town hall meeting to discuss the current moment and what citizens can do to protect democracy. RSVP link here (or use the QR code): https://forms.gle/RcSVhWpsrLCfT9w67
https://bsky.app/profile/njindivisible.bsky.social/post/3ljww6godzc23
Bold of you to assume we’ll be allowed to have mid-terms
Edit: that’s just me being snarky. Keep fighting the good fight. Vote in every fucking election that you can, at every level you can - federal, state, and local (and, if you’re an investor, shareholder - that, I think, is an under emphasized vector here). Be an activist in every way you can, through every path available to you.
Elections are run at the state level including for federal offices. There have already been >48 state and local elections this year since January alone. Elections are way more than just the midterms and they are still happening. See https://ballotpedia.org/Elections_calendar
Normalizing the idea that elections wouldn’t happen is just playing directly into Trump and Musk’s hands
They want us to be so cynical we stop fighting back. They want us not to vote. They want us to not protest. They want us to not boycott. They want us too tired to fight
Don’t give in, we can still win these fights
Oh, I’m not giving in. I was just being snarky. All I’m trying to do with comments like that is to get more people to take the situation more seriously. I know we’re not cooked yet, but the hot plate is getting pretty fucking toasty.
Comments like that unfortunately do the opposite - they make people defeatest which makes people stop paying attention to the situation at all
Fair point.
I admit I’ve been feeling pretty fucking bleak about things lately. I also admit I sometimes use this space as a pressure-release valve for myself. It’s fair and correct to point out that the vibe I’m introducing is counterproductive. I shall try to do better. Cheers, friend.
Wait, wait you can have productive discussions like this on the internet? (Thank you for being receptive - we need more people like you)
Same comment to both of you guys so you both see it. I can’t say it made me happy, but this thread did make me feel a little bit better. Thanks for being a decent human, even if just for these few comments.
Honestly, I’ve had a lot more interactions like this on lemmy since I joined a couple years ago than I ever had on Reddit. It’s one of the reasons I actually kinda like this place.
Good. Yell at them, too
We need people telling at them, and we need people politely approaching them with the same policies.
A game of good constituent/bad constituent, if you will.
People probably won’t need to yell at them if the Democrats actually are listening to and engaging with the voters.
If democrats think that auction paddles are gonna solve this, they still need to be yelled at.
Removed by mod
You think everyone you disagree with to your left is a tankie.
Democrats do not listen to or engage with voters. The last time we told them to listen. their response was ‘I’m speaking.’
Let go of that crap now. Heckling and interrupting a speech was NOT the right thing to do. Neither was staying home on election day just because Harris didn’t voice the exact right opinion on Gaza. We’re in an infinitely worse situation now.
Anyone that doesn’t see genocide as a red line isn’t entitled to an opinion on politics. Especially if they claim ‘lesser evil’
It absolutely was the right thing to do. Legitimizing that asshole by respectfully listening while he barks out lies and bullshit and craps all over America is what’s unacceptable.
Waggling fingers and sternly frowning and politely protesting well out of everyone’s way while not inconveniencing anyone will get us absolutely nowhere.
Anyone that doesn’t see genocide as a red line isn’t entitled to an opinion on politics. Especially if they claim ‘leser evil’
100%.
I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.”
Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
-Martin Luther King Jr
Been thinking about this quote a lot lately.
If they engaged with their voters, we wouldn’t have any democratic representatives over age of 65. Anything past that is just posturing and self enrichment
So… Bernie Sanders is posturing and out of touch?
Cricket cricket
If they engaged with their voters, we wouldn’t have any democratic representatives over age of 65.
Bernie Sanders is not a democrat.
I knew one of you would come along to move the goalposts.
So now he’s a democrat because it’s convenient for you?
Man you love telling others what they are saying, don’t you?
Your entire comment history is you editing the words of others. I wonder why that is……
What’s with the ageism? I want Democratic representatives of any age, as long as they have the right policies and they are of sound mind. People over the age of 65 will be just fine with me, thanks.
You gotta draw the line somewhere. Retirement age seems like as good a place as any.
Why do you have to draw the line somewhere?
I feel like a broken record here, but the huge uptick in ageism I see in relation to politics seems like it’s not going to, ahem, age well given the amount of things I keep seeing about slowing down/reversing aging…
I mean, yeah, it sounds kind of silly until it doesn’t. I remember reading about/thinking about things like AI (even if it’s not AGI - things like LLMs are here and disrupting the shit out of things). Same with self-driving cars. And yeah, neither of these things are perfect, but they are having an effect on society - people I know mostly got very smug and dismissive about these notions just 20 years ago. They are rather quiet about them now. I think the same thing is true about aging. Even if the breakthroughs are extremely mild and stay that way for decades, maybe even forever, suppose average healthspan is increased even 5 years. That will make (upper) age limits look very myopic and dated.
It’s not about how long you live so much as getting stuck in your ways. Old people don’t learn new things and adapt the way young people do. Humans solidify the way they do things in their 20s, make some fine tuning in their 30s/40s, and then pretty much stick to those habits for the rest of their life. With the way technology is progressing we can’t have stagnant people leading an evolving society.
There are exceptions to every rule but that doesn’t mean statistics aren’t valuable information to base decisions on. Do you want people stuck in the past making laws about the future?
So you’d be fine with a child holding the role? After all why draw a line. Age relates to capability on both ends.
I hate that’d you’re downvoted and no response because this is the right take. We have age limits already but old people don’t want those to apply to them because … no reason they just want to continue holding power
Yeah, but Gaza! I think I’ll sit it out again to show them!
/s cuz apparently even dems online don’t understand sarcasm
Avoiding constituents is peak cowardice—if you can’t face voters, you shouldn’t hold office.
🐱🐱🐱🐱🐱
I guess I’m an ignorant fuck because I thought that these town halls were required by law in some way. It’s insane they can just be like “nah, not gonna show up”. It should be an instant impeachment by law.
yeah the law should just automatically depose cowards who don’t face their constituents.
unfortunately we sort of have a “who watches the watchers” situation here. expecting lawmakers to make laws to police themselves is ridiculous. idk what can be done for that honestly. the French had some ideas back in the day though.
The American Revolution inspired the French Revolution, hopefully the French Revolution can inspire an American Revolution.
This is good to highlight how the cons are hiding out from their constituents.
My Democratic rep has had two town halls, huge feisty crowds for both.
All the Republican bravado and they are all whiny insecure cowards
OTOH I’d want to know which dema sat it out as a virtue signalling exercise, and now act all indignant blended into the crowd now the rest are up in arms (figuratively, of course). It’s like oh yeah, back then it wasn’t such a big deal to take control of your govt, blame the system blah blah blah.
Getting involved in actual politics at a local level is better long run than voting in big elections.
The latter is damage control. The former long run positive change.
This is immensely true, which is why you see so many maga Karens running for school board seats and making changes to what kids can learn about.
@Sunshine Hopefully they will turn out as much at the voting booth
Hopefully they’ll have something worth turning out for. Let’s see if you become hostile to the suggestion that democrats need to become better in order to appeal to voters.
I bet the Democrats are using the momentum to send a stern message. And the press will proudly feature articles of how the Democrats SLAMMED the white house!! And the White house will barely notice, and go on doing what they are doing.
Exactly. Anyone who thinks the Dems will save them is delusional. It’s time to move beyond a two-party system, and especially a system in which the two parties are right wing and ultra-right wing.
Nice! Where was the turnout during the nationals?
I’m tired of these news, of we follow what’s shared here we would have destroyed the Republicans, and they are useless and everybody hates them…
But here we are.
Yeah, realy opens you’d my eyes to how much of an echo chamber this is.
lol. I don’t know if anyone will even see this comment.
Apparently questioning a NotTheOnion “Kamala Harris terrifies flailing Trump to the point of incoherence” story was enough for some lemmy instance to ban me, which I only accidentally learned about from another ban. All that because I dared to ask a question in a “Russia vs. Ukraine” meme thread and bring a dose of reality to a discussion.
So I learned quickly to not bother discuss simple reality, let alone anything else, with uniparty followers.
Many of the election season posts have been scrubbed of btw. Very organic!
Great. Now the Democrats can have everything lined up to take over during the midterms and…change nothing.
We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas.
….said the 90 million people that stayed home in November.
That would be liberals and their failed attempt of democracy
Edit sp
ROFL!
Implying we’ll have a midterm
I worry about this too
We will. It will not matter. Congress will likely be powerless by that point. Or a large portion of the Democratic party will align with the fascist policies by then as their donors place more pressure on them. We know how much democrats love to “reach across the isle”.
Keeping up the illusion of democracy is the one of the most important things for the bourgeoisie to maintain. They will go through the charades for sure.
It’s more important that people see through the charades of our system. I’m hoping that starts happening more.
I feel like everyone is waiting for a “moment” to get them off their couch. By the time that moment happens it’s already too late.
Last time we had a filibuster proof majority was in 2009 for two different periods of two months each.
Essentially Republicans have either been in power or had enough power to stop Democrats for the entire voting lives of most people on this sub.
Last time we had a filibuster proof majority was in 2009 for two different periods of two months each.
Any time during which democrats possessed a simple majority, they could have done away with the filibuster forever. Stop making excuses.
It’s crazy that there are people still using this line. I’m sorry but when was the last time the Republicans had a “filibuster proof majority”. They seem to be doing really well in getting their policies passed.
The Democratic party is an absolute failure in providing the policies that they pretend to want. I’m so tired of hearing this “there is nothing we can do”.
It’s like the Democrats are sitting here constantly complaining that “a dog can’t play basketball” while they get dunked on by a dog over and over.
We are at this stage BECAUSE the Democrats are trying to “play by the rules” that the Republicans threw out the fucking window decades ago. We have DOGE and people are still using this “filibuster” excuse for a pathetic excuse for a resistance party. Stop defending their incompetence!
I see a room full of people looking to find someone else to blame. They are fools who voted against their own interests again. Now they are mad at the GOP -THEY voted into office AGAIN. A room of fools
Everyone is like “where were you!”, but I’m just happy that people are becoming more politically active. I don’t think we can win overnight, but if people can push their communities in a better direction then they deserve some credit.
I dont give a fuck about democrat shows.
I give a shit about them stopping voting with republicans to enable trumps fuckawful shit.
This is the equivalent of Elon Musk listening to his workers.
Nothing will change.
