volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@yukiame I mean, Trump signs an awful lot of executive orders that go nowhere because he doesn't know how the presidency works.

@maeve that's not an accurate description of the case here.

The ruling wouldn't gut the VRA but instead seeks to *uphold* the VRA, with a disagreement over what the VRA actually directs.

The basic disagreement is over whether the VRA creates a procedure for these plaintiffs, or if the VRA was written to protect voters from organizations like this.

@sccdp a lot of those are executive branch matters that the legislative branch doesn't have any authority over.

It's important to push representatives to actually do their jobs and not to get distracted by things that aren't their jobs. In the end that just lets them off the hook for not doing what they're supposed to do.

@jalefkowit meh, No need to reach for such a complicated explanation.

The House is simply reflecting that the representatives we have elected believe it best to align with much of what the president asks for.

It's no more complicated than that. Otherwise they would vote to change course.

@clintruin Yes, Stotomayor often does say things that are profoundly wrong, and anyone paying attention should proudly disagree with her, calling her out for getting it so wrong.

Otherwise the faulty positions that she keeps promoting will just continue to mislead the public.

Other Supreme Court justices realize how problematic it is for her to be selling this misinformation, so we should all join in to forcefully express our disagreement with the misperceptions that she promotes.

@changemewtf

I thought I've been clear but I can say it again: the winning strategy is to actually meet people where they are, understand the world as it is, and actually work convince people over to your side instead of just preaching to the choir.

Preaching to the choir gives up the game. It is forfeiting, letting them win. Don't do that.

Centrist? Who in the world said anything about centrist? You want to promote radical communism? Great! Go for it, but the exact same strategy applies. You'll have to meet people where they are and convinced them to come over to your perspective.

So long as you just keep preaching to your choir you won't get anywhere. So long as you bury your head in the sand and deny the reality of how society and humans work, you're not going to make any inroads.

I'm sorry, but this is the stark reality: if you want to defeat fascism then you have to engage with people and convince them not to support fascist policies.

There is simply no way around that truth.

That's simply how this world is. That's an unfortunate part of this whole democracy thing. You might think people are awful, and they might even be awful, but you can't address society without dealing with people.

@JessTheUnstill @futurebird

@nonproductive

Oh no, don't let people escape accountability by bringing up boogeyman like Heritage Foundation.

Right now, today, I see on Facebook a whole lot of Democratic politicians who are failing to counter the administration trying to point fingers like that. They need to be replaced. That's not Heritage Foundation, that's the DNC.

I have friends who consider themselves prototypical liberal, even outright Marxist, who are beating the drum to get congresspeople reelected even after they have so thoroughly failed us, voting against their own interests. Again, that's not Heritage Foundation, that's coming from folks ranging from Brookings on the academic side through the Communist Party on the grassroots side.

No, don't let them point fingers and shift blame to Heritage.

We need to stop reelecting these people to Congress when they have such a long track record of enabling stuff that we don't want to happen.

It infuriates me to watch this happen year after year for decades. The very politicians that fail us point fingers at boogeiemen to escape accountability and get reelected, and who can blame them when it works?

If you really want a culprit to represent the problem, don't look at Heritage, look at the DNC. And never vote for any of these incumbents again.

@Nonilex

@nonproductive

The reason I don't think that's right is because so many of these people that were reelected are just doing the same stuff they've always done, and I see so many that are cheering on representatives that are enabling it.

We do know that votes will count for something. We can look right now and see that our votes counted for something, we voted for this. We elected these people, and I see no indication that we are going to stop reelecting them. Approval levels remain high among voters for their own representatives, so looks like we're just going to keep reelecting this.

To put it a different way, yes our votes are going to count for something, just as they counted for this, and that might be a bad thing, outside of that whole democracy philosophy.

We did vote for this by voting for these congresspeople. And I am very sure that we are going to keep voting for these congresspeople. Our votes for these congresspeople will count and will maintain this level of horribleness.

Unless we choose to change, which I don't think we will.

@Nonilex

@grumble209

I'm all for ranked choice voting, I think that would do a world of good.

Other than that, though, we did vote for this, and it's the votes for congresspeople that matter more than president.

The president is only doing what the representatives that we voted for have enabled. We keep reelecting representatives that enable bad things and then they spend their time pointing fingers to escape accountability for what they themselves are doing.

That's why it's so important put the focus on our votes for Congress and not let them distract by pointing fingers elsewhere.

Until we stop reelecting bad congresspeople who keep promoting the same bad policies we're just going to keep getting the same bad policies.

@Nonilex

@nonproductive

No it's not quite that our current Congress is complicit. It's that our current Congress is actively engaged in this, actively going out of its way to enable this, because these are the people we voted into Congress.

We voted for this. We voted for these congresspeople.

They aren't complicit, we voted in the people who are making this happen.

We elected and re-elected these people to Congress to make this happen.

I know so many people who not only supported but actually campaigned for congresspeople that move against their own causes. Well? Okay then.

We voted for this by electing and reelecting cruddy congresspeople.

We have ourselves to blame, and we can stop at any point, but we keep choosing this.

@Nonilex

@clintruin

That's not what the Supreme Court ruling said.

Not only did the Supreme Court not Grant the president immunity for all acts done while in office, but the ruling actually went the other direction, laying out that he would be subject to prosecution and the ruling kicked the matter down for further prosecution.

Yes, a lot of social media posts got that wrong. But it's all right there in the ruling for anyone who's interested to see.

@nonproductive

No, that gets it exactly backwards. It's not that institutions like Congress fold but rather that they act! The people that we elect--the people that we actively put into office--act on our behalfs to enable these policies.

They don't fold, they set this up after we elect and reelect them!

Safeguard? We are choosing this with our votes!

@Nonilex

@grumble209

Right, the Constitution doesn't mention political parties, we voters chose that. And we can change our mind at any point. But so long as we keep voting for this, we're going to keep getting this.

We don't need to change the system we've inherited. The system is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, recognizing what we're voting for and respecting our votes.

What we need to do is we need to stop voting for crap and then being surprised when we get crap. We need to stop reelecting the same representatives who keep doing things that aren't great.

So long as we keep voting for the same representatives nothing's going to change. So let's stop voting for those same representatives.

It's up to us.

@Nonilex

@Flowermob It's just a political stunt, though, as Congress doesn't have such authority over the executive branch. That's basic separation of powers in the design of the US government.

So these Representatives want to stage a little political stunt, and the rest of the House isn't very interested in playing along.

But we should call them out for the nonsense.

@Centurion480 hardly fascist.

Yes, the president does have authority over his own branch. That doesn't say anything about authority over the rest of the country, but he does have authority of his own Branch, and with that comes responsibility, he can be impeached for how he manages it.

It's really anti-fascist, reinforcing the ability to get rid of the dude if he misbehaves. It's about holding him accountable to the country through our elected representatives.

@realTuckFrumper meh, It's more of a request than a force.

Congress doesn't have that sort of power over the executive branch, what with co-equal branches and all.

@changemewtf it IS a preference, not one that I share, but it is absolutely a preference, and if you don't engage with it as a preference then you lose the argument before it begins.

Yes, a lot of people prefer this. If you don't realize that then you won't be able to even begin to try to shift those preferences.

And that's how they win.

If you don't engage them where they are then you leave them to continue this stuff. You can yell all you want, but it does no good. Heck, that sort of approach is how Trump got reelected in the first place.

If you don't engage in a winning strategy than you lose, we all lose. This is the kind of thing I've been warning about for years, and it came to pass, because people did not engage in winning strategies against this kind of thing.

Yes, it is a preference, and that's why we need to counter it so that people prefer policy that is more humane, in my opinion.

@JessTheUnstill @futurebird

@futurebird I would emphasize that whether or not the pay is unreasonable should be up to the worker. It disempowers them for me or you to impose our idea of reasonable onto them, taking away their ability to choose for themselves based on their own lives.

This is about workers rights. They can choose for themselves. They aren't children that we need to be paternalistic about.

@JessTheUnstill

Keep in mind that that is a political choice, a matter of personal values, and whether I may or may not agree with it, I know that a lot of people absolutely believe that rounding them up is itself the proper role of government.

You have to realize that it's a political question of personal values, that there is no one way, if you want to change policy. Just saying there is only one way gives up the fight of engaging with people who believe otherwise, and bringing them over to your point of view.

Yes, rounding them up is an option. Personally, I don't think it's an option that matches my preferences, but I have to appreciate that it is an option so that I can invite people to choose the option that I would prefer.

@futurebird