politics
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
view the rest of the comments
Oh interesting. Good to know.
Yeah, and especially before the elections. I was here mid-2024. Holy shit, you have no idea how crazy it was then. People on Lemmy were so blinded by NotTrump!!!, that they would pounce on anyone who criticized the Democratic party.
I remember when Biden was starting to show bad signs of him not being all there mentally. Lemmy ignored it. Even during the famous presidential debate where it couldn't be ignored that he was not fit, Lemmy downvoted and removed posts about it. Until finally, the tide turned and everyone started to admit it. Then the Harris choice.
Now, it's pretty ok to criticize about how Harris was picked and how badly the Democratic party handled it. But at the time, oh hell no.
I remember being called a racist and a nazi for saying, "I don't know about Harris. She seems kind of bland and parrots Biden, I wish we had someone more independent." The shitstorm I got for that. People stalking me, downvoting all my posts, trying to find out where I lived, etc. DM's that told me to kill myself. Every day. All because I said Harris was a bland candidate. lololol
I had a guy trying to doxx me and find out where I lived by looking for clues in photos I posted of me walking in a park, so I had to change usernames and block all the political comms. Fucking crazy.
Even tho now a lot more people on Lemmy agree with things that match up to what I said then, not one single apology. Not one. Some of the people who openly attacked me, now even say the exact same things I said then.
I was "both parties suck" before it was cool. :)
Now having said that, if the democratic party can find a young person, with drive and who's independent and who really wants to changes things up, I could be on board. I like AOC. So her or someone like her would make me change my mind.
But until that happens, nah...both parties suck. lol
That sounds eerily like Reddit at the same time. I was absolutely lambasted for speaking up about Harris’ messaging on Israel and such.
Lemmy may not be quite as different from Reddit as we want to claim.
Definitely not. In fact, we gotta realize that a lot of people are here because they were too extreme for Reddit. So we are like the nerdier, meaner, more anti-social reddit.
I still like the idea of Lemmy, but the attitude of a lot of people here is turning me off. So many users seem to think censorship and exclusion are perfectly fine, as long as it's the 'correct' side doing it. They don't realize they're acting exactly like the Republicans they claim to hate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motte-and-bailey_fallacy
Again, being called out on your bullshit isn't the same thing as being "censored." If you're feeling "excluded," well, that's what happens when you're wrong and refuse to see it.
Me saying that I support third parties because I was unhappy with both democrat and republican parties, isn't being "called out" on my "bullshit." It was fucking censorship.
I was called a nazi and a racist and a Trumper for saying that. None of it was true. How is that being called out?
Do you realize that what you said about Harris in your comments, would have been ban-worthy back in 2024 just before the election? Do you think that's ok?!
Because of the way the US electoral system works, supporting a third party is equivalent to supporting the candidate you wanted least. You were helping Trump, in factual and objective reality, whether you admit it or not. And helping Trump means those labels fit.
And having your feelings hurt because somebody accurately described what you did still isn't censorship, no matter how much you want to pretend it to be.
LOL. I did say those things back then, and yet I'm still here. QED.
Which you perpetuate by yelling at people, and trying to discourage them from vote third party. If every single person that was fed up, balled up and voted third party, then shit would change. But nah, you keep screaming at them and confusing them.
Not me. You don't confuse me or scare me. :)
I doubt you said those things in Oct and Nov of 2024. But hey if ya did, and managed to not get banned, good for ya. But lots of people were heavily brigaded and banned for saying stuff like that in October 2024.
And if my grandma had wheels she'd be a bicycle.
Expecting a third party to win a US presidential election was straight-up delusional. Even when it's Theodore fucking Roosevelt it still doesn't happen! And that was someone with the name-recognition and supporter base of having already been President before!!!
The only way a third party could become viable is if voting reform happened first, by replacing one of the two major parties from within and getting it passed.
I discourage voting third party in the presidential general election! because it is objectively fucking moronic.
Refusing to be dissuaded from being objectively wrong isn't something to brag about.
Fine, if we're going to stop believing each other, then I think you were lying about being doxxed and have a gang-stalking delusion. Happy now?
Another motte-and-bailey fallacy, BTW.
Well yeah, because you added you little disclaimer. Imagine if you didn't have that disclaimer, you'd have had a much different reaction. lol
I proudly voted third party then, and I'll proudly vote third party again if democrats keep making the same mistakes.
(BTW, I edited my comment to delete that line because I posted it before completing the thought. But thank you for quoting it, because now I have a chance to address it in a less unwieldy wall of text.)
By "little disclaimer," do you mean the "but vote for her anyway because the alternative was worse" part? No shit I wrote that every time, because that was the main part of my point! It wasn't some sly tactic to appease the mods; it was the important thing I was trying to convey to people like you!
Anyway, what I meant to continue with is this: I don't think I was alone in having that attitude. In fact, I claim that many, if not most, of the people you characterize as full-throated Harris supporters trying to censor you were actually very reluctantly Harris-voting progressives and leftists desperately trying to get you to stop making the worst possible outcome happen.
And also the part that kept you from getting your comments removed and censored. Which is my main point. Lemmy should be open enough not to remove comments (unless outright hate and/or illegal) just because someone has a different view on things.
Luckilly, that's changed lately. I see a huge shift turning. Not it's not nearly as controversial or ban-worthy to say ya like third parties and will vote that way.
And I can be on board for that. What I am not on board is the hate, and the ban hammer. Disagree with me and say so, cool. Calling me a nazi and racist though, not so cool. The amount of censorship, i.e. removing comments and banning was uncalled for. I legit got banned from several different instances. Yet, I didn't say anything more controversial than what you and I have been discussing and saying in this thread.
To your point, yeah, it was a different time in 2024. My point is that it should never have been that way. Lemmy should be better. Again, it is getting better about that now.
The great thing about Lemmy, and the reason I am still here, is because of the idea that one person or group can't permaban you from all of Lemmy. So I was able to start fresh and avoid the doxxers (yes, I had three, but I suspect was same person, so...) and the downvote brigaders.
Now I have several different usernames on several different instances. So I'm def gonna be here thru next election cycle too. lol
You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts. I'm glad when people suffer consequences for posting misinformation or otherwise act in bad faith.
Nazi is as nazi does. Doing things that further the objectives of nazis makes you their ally. If you don't like being accurately described that way, stop helping the nazis!
But me saying that I didn't like Harris so I chose to vote third party, is not giving false facts. So I shouldn't have been censored. If you think that is worthy of censorship, then that says a lot about you. lol
Sigh...and so it begins. I'm not a nazi just because I voted third party. lol I'm glad you are saying this in this thread tho, so people can see what it's like.
The notion that third parties are viable in the Presidential election -- especially when it's only a month or two away and most people don't have a clue who the third-party candidates even are! -- is 100% misinformation.
I never said anything of the sort. I said I was proud to vote third party, and I'm still proud to. And I will in the next election too. :)
So back in 2024 you were intentionally telling people to do a thing you yourself didn't believe would work? And then you wondered why people attacked you for it?
I didn't tell anyone to do anything. I told my thoughts about how I was gonna vote and why I came to that conclusion.
I think people should vote for whoever they want to win. We, as citizens, have that right. I supported it then, I support it now.
Heck vote for Trump if ya want to. I certainly wouldn't, but i don't think you should be banned anywhere for saying you would. Part of being part of a democracy is accepting that not everyone agrees with you. And that's ok.
We are allowed to vote for whoever we want. And I did. And said why I did. And I will do again in the future.
Even when the vote is to end the democracy and replace it with a totalitarian dictatorship? 'Cause that's what fucking happened.
Yep, welcome to democracy. If the dems want to win, they should pick better candidates that people want to vote for.
That was almost single handedly the mod named jordanlund. He seems to have changed his behavior recently. Maybe.
He absolutely has not but will completely deny ever doing it
I can't/won't name names, but I will say, seems like ya were definitely around during those times!
He does seem to have changed his behaviour a lot, as have many others. So not sure if it's because of reality or trying to not get called out now, but it's still refreshing to see positive changes when it comes to ban hammers.
I realize I'm late so am just responding here for posterity, but - while I'm open to evidence - in my experience the people who were banned were clearly or very likely bad faith astroturf and propaganda accounts. They were clearly trying to split the vote, depress left turnout, and would just repeat LLM-generated junk rather than respond to any good faith debate.
And I think the bans were right in retrospect because the timed (not typically perma) bans expired and those people still magically disappeared completely from Lemmy after the election.
In the end, they probably did their job. Trump is in office destroying the country/world, and right now there are probably real people in this thread who think their "both sides" opinions are being censored in part because of the echoes of the noise those bad faith agents made way back in 2024.
Lol, no they weren't/didn't.
Lol, no we didn't.
I'm standing with ya, brother! Thank you!
"Democratic National Committee officials who crafted the party’s postmortem on its loss to President Donald Trump in the 2024 election reportedly determined that the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza cost Kamala Harris votes, contributing to her defeat."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/kamala-harris-gaza-2024
And that's the same tired argument that was made then. Why do you find it so hard to accept that some people just aren't onboard with either of the two main parties? Look around. Tide is turning. Lots of people on Lemmy now are open to third parties now. Are they all propaganda accounts too?!
This is why you all lost the fucking election. Because you can't wrap your head around the fact that you may be wrong about things.
Facts: Lemmy had about 40,000–50,000 monthly active users worldwide in November 2024. There were 236 MILLION U.S. citizens voting-age. 154+ MILLION actual ballots cast. Third-party advocates made an even smaller slice of that already microscopic global user base. It's utterly ludicrous for anyone to think that third-party voters on Lemmy could have split the vote or had any meaningful say whatsoever in the presidential election.
Yet you are ok with them being censored because you were scared of them. How'd that work out? They were banned, and guess what? Trump still won. Again.
I was told I would "disappear" after the election. Maybe it looks like I did because I had to create a new username (not for ban evading--I actually blocked the instances I was banned from). But here I am.
Am I a 'propaganda' account, still going, 2 years after the election?
Not only that, but I see lots of people being accused of being alts of those 'propaganda' posters. So did they really disappear if their alts are everywhere? Think about that.
You want democrats to win the next election? Then pick a candidate who can win. You all lost to Trump twice. Think about that.
Also, even if every single person who voted third party, changed their vote to Harris, she still would have lost. That's how big the margin of her loss was. Lemmy wasn't even close to making a dent in any of that so to blame Lemmy posters for it is crazy.
It costs next to nothing to include Lemmy in a social media astroturf and propaganda campaign, and is even easier and more effective because the small userbase means people's posts are viewed less suspiciously (case in point: Your entire "the userbase is too small lolol" argument here). I am absolutely certain a few people I interacted with during that time were astroturf, MAGA-in-disguise or propaganda accounts.
But to get a little meta: I'm engaging in good faith discussion and giving reasons for my arguments. And you come here, respond to me twice with condescending derision when I wasn't even talking to or about you, and are making an illogical claim that a 50K userbase somehow means Lemmy is immune from propaganda (whether state or individual). You then downvote me, which I didn't do to anyone I disagree with here. It's childish and petty.
We are two people who probably want the same left-based outcomes and have disagreements on the method to get there, but you're ranting to me about random things in this thread that I didn't even say. You're being extremely unpleasant, unkind and uncivil. I stand by what I said.
Thread was under my comments in this thread, so I responded. No that was not my username. I had to change my username because of doxxing attempts and numerous KYS dm's I was getting. From searching just now, looks like your person is still an active current poster. I guess he didn't 'disappear after the election' either.
I don't use my old username anymore, and the instance it was on, closed. The person who told me to kill myself several times back then, and tried to dox me, is still around and still posts too. lol
I haven't been rude or uncivil to you at all.
My profile isn't ai generated. I'm here right now replying to you. I wrote my profile. Just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn't mean they're ai or that they're bots or that they're propaganda. Your comments are an exact snapshot of the time period I was talking about. So neither you or I left, and neither of us have changed our minds. Which means you believe in what you are saying, and I believe in what I'm saying. IMHO, neither of us deserve to be censored just because we don't agree.
The fact that you’re attributing the entirety of Harris’ loss on the vocal leftists online opposed to the genocide is absolutely ridiculous.
That's a strawman version of what I said and I'll explain why. First, I blame propagandists and bad-faith posters. That means, foreign actors paying troll farms, accelerationists, MAGA-in-left's-clothing. Second, multiple causes can be necessary but not sufficient to an outcome.
Did online propaganda of this type help Trump's victory? Certainly. Was it a sufficient cause on its own? Probably not. But we'll never know, hence the "probably," which you'll note is different from what you imply my comment said.
lololol For lemmy. Which in 2024, had 50,000 active users at most, compared to 236 MILLION voting-age U.S. citizens. And of those 50K Lemmy users, what, maybe 20 were advocating for third party. How much do you think someone would pay 20 people to post on a platform that is so small?! lolol Think about what you are saying.
And they were banned, but what did it do? How did the election turn out? How do you think the election would have turned out if Lemmy didn't exist? lol
I wish someone paid me to post. LMAO
This is the correct answer. So censoring people based on their views wasn't a great look for Lemmy. And it didn't change the income anyway.