something has gone deeply wrong when "focusing pragmatically on issues you can influence and working to make life better for yourself and your community" is considered an unserious distraction while "endlessly exposing yourself to media about distressing situations you can't control" is considered political engagement

The "if you voted for Trump unfollow me" posts are returning, but given then general makeup of your average tumblr user I think there's a different message I'd like to give.

If you didn't vote because "both parties are the same" or "it won't make a difference" or because Kamala wasn't the pure and perfect leader that you wanted or you "didn't want blood on your hands", honestly whether or not you follow me doesn't make a damned bit of difference. But I want you to look. Take a good look at the despair around you right now. And every godforsaken thing that follows I want you to fucking look. Look and know that you could have helped prevent it. We still haven't recovered from his last four years, the world hasn't fucking recovered, and now we're staring down the barrel of god knows how many more years and a river of fucking blood to come along with it.

But your pride and your principles were more important to you than the actual real fucking world we live in.

I hope, if nothing else, that you can take this in. I hope you learn. I hope you grow. I hope you find it in you to realize that in this country they soak our hands in blood the second we take our first breath and the only thing that matters then is what you fucking do with them. What you fight for. Who you fight for. Who you defend.

I hope you wake up. And you step up. And you fucking fight.

But until then. Don't you fucking dare look away.

This is so powerful, and so true; If you abstained from voting because you didn't want blood on your hands? Congrats you've successfully bathed yourself in it for the next decade or more.

A very useful thread on Bluesky:

(There is a lot more. Rather than give you all the images, I've copied the full text below.)

reblog and share immediately

Don't just spread it around. Take action. If you are affected by this, challenge it. Get your ballot resubmitted. If you aren't, take action on their behalf. Help them find who to call, the steps to take, the paperwork to file. Exposure isn't going to stop this problem - action is.

the original recount petition got taken down BUT HERES THE NEW ONE!!!

Change.org petitions nearly always do nothing. Instead, you SHOULD contact the White House, if anything else do it in addition to signing.

• Go to this website: https://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

• Submit directly to the president

• Click the first option, select your reasoning as election security.

State these pieces of information in a paragraph:

• 32 fake Bomb Threats were called into democratic leaning poll places, rendering polls to be closed for at least an hour

• A lot of people reporting their ballots weren't counted for various reasons that are not very sound seeming. (Signature invalidation, information that vote counter could not have had)

• This all occurred in swing states (PA, Nevada, Georgia, ETC.)

• This is all too coincidental that these things happen and swing in his favor after months of hinting of foul play.

• Directly state that an investigation for tampering / interference / fraud is required, not just a recount.

I've seen a handful of these posts and while the "20mil missing votes" is inaccurate, the bomb threats, Nevada signature nonsense, and ballot box burnings are true. Even if this ends up not making a difference, it is still worth an investigation.

Also the folks saying this makes us no different than GoP in 2020, if you can't see the glaring difference between having suspicion of fraud based on tangible evidence and asking for it to be investigated versus screaming about fraud even after it was DISproven multiple times and then doing a physical violence about it, I implore you to stay the fuck out of the comments until you reconsider.

If Harris loses, please try blaming real issues (Republican-driven voter suppression and intimidation tactics; billionaire-funded Trump-PAC’s and propaganda machines; a broken electoral system that hinges presidential elections on a dozen or so states instead of a simple popular vote; or the Democratic Party’s fumbled opportunities to respond to things like the corporate greed driven cost of living crisis, the housing shortage, the medical debt and healthcare accessibility crisis, the ongoing climate disaster, and the ongoing genocide in Palestine) instead of doing the Right’s job for them by blaming folks like climate protestors, Antizionist and pro-Palestine activists, Black and Brown people, jaded millennials living paycheck to paycheck, and tumblr users with an audience ⅛ the size of the average Christofascist MegaChurch Congregation.

Everything feels awful right now but it isn't really. We still don't officially have a winner, but regardless of how the presidential election ends up, I wanted to take a minute and find what lights I can in the 3 a.m. darkness. Here's what I know:

* Kentucky overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to undermine the public education system by offering private school vouchers:

* Delaware has elected a transgender woman to the House of Representatives, the first out trans person of any gender ever elected to congress:

* For the first time in history, two Black women will be serving in the senate at the same time, and they are only the fourth and fifth Black women ever elected to the senate:

* New York State has passed a constitutional amendment enshrining the rights of pregnant people (including the right to an abortion), LGBTQIA+ people, the disabled, immigrants regardless of legal status, and other at-risk groups:

* Democrat Josh Stein has beaten self-avowed Nazi Mark Robinson to become governor of North Carolina:

That's everything I know off the top of my head. It's not many bright spots, but it's not zero. I'm going to try to find more and I'll add them to the post. It's the only thing I can think of to do that isn't sobbing and throwing up or looking up Canadian immigration rules.

If you know more good news, I encourage you to add it in reblogs.

* Nevada has amended their constitution to guarantee abortion rights, overturning a state ban:

* Colorado has passed amendment 79, guaranteeing the right to an abortion, with more than a 20 point spread between the Yes and No vote:

* Maryland Question 1, also focused on reproductive rights and abortion, has passed as well: https://www.cnn.com/election/2024/results/maryland/issue-1

* Likewise, Amendment 3 has passed in Missouri, overturning a near-total ban to add reproductive rights to the state constitution:

* Arizona Proposition 139 to protect abortion rights also passed:

Every glimmer helps.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

* New Jersey has elected the first Korean-American senator in history:

"If Trump loses the election the people who got him this far won't go away. Stop pretending it will fix everything." This is very true. However just because they won't go away, it doesn't mean that we should throw up our hands and allow them to choose Supreme Court justices.

also, polling places aren’t opening the whole day tomorrow. make sure you know when your polling places close and open.

[ID: An infographic with the title "Election Day Polling Hours", made by Ballotpedia. In the top right corner is the text, "All Times Are Local For November 5th, 2024." Following is a list showing the hours for each state or district:

States marked with a single asterisk means that those are the minimum hours; some localities have additional hours (Idaho, Massachusetts, North Dakota, and Vermont).

States marked with two asterisks mean that hours vary; some localities open later (Maine, Minnesota, Montana, and Rhode Island).

For New Hampshire, which is marked with three asterisks, hours vary; some localities open later and close earlier.

Oregon and Washington conduct elections largely by mail.

Contact your local elections office for more info.

The website linked is VoteSaveAmerica.com/Vote

End ID]

And remember that if the polls close while you're in line, you are still legally allowed to cast your ballot and the poll workers can't turn you away. Even if you get in line one minute before closing time, you are still in line and you have the right to vote.

[one][two]

So you're all going to vote for her now, right

it amazes me that some of y'all are not grasping that right now at this moment, Kamala Harris is not the boss. she is not the boss of her party, and she is not the boss in her day job

you are not talking about sitting monarchs with divine rule. you are talking about people who, no matter how powerful, understand it is their duty to answer to the person who is in charge. they're civil servants. maybe they're not the cashier at McD's but they are still not the Manager of all that they survey

they do not, believe it or not, run out into the hills singing out their soul-deep wishes for the world and then wave a wand to get them done. no, it's work, dudes. too bad about bursting your bubble but there's no room for worrying about 'purity' when there's such an immense amount of work to do. it's making a ton of compromises because that's how you win an endgame. it's a lot of work.... if you're not a power-mad dictator.

you need a person who will be up there who'll say "how do i get this done" rather than "i want this! get it done! now or else!!!" because the latter will never ever care about you or your existence. like ok, step away from the abusive domestic tyranny, because you're taking the rest of us *with you*

too many of you think nothing of empowering the one person in the last 50 years who respects no system or hierarchy that wants to punish him for his actual, bona fide crimes, so i have to wonder if you really understand the whole ... working government thing

Dear Principled Third-Party or Non-Voter,

This is one last-ditch effort to reach out to you. I understand that you want the Democrats to move left, and you think that voting third party will do that. I fully understand this because I felt the same way in 2000!

I voted for Ralph Nader because even though Al Gore did a whole documentary about climate change, I thought the Democrats overall didn’t care about the environment enough. Plus he wanted exoneration for drug-related non-violent crimes and all sorts of other things that I thought the Democrats should be pushing for. I didn’t really think Nader could win, and didn’t even particularly think he should win-I wanted to send a message. To tell the Democrats “hey, I may only be 21, but I’m onto you and I think your platform should be more like this guy’s.”

So. What happened? Bush got elected. And here’s the real point:

Did losing due to people voting for Nader push the Democrats left?

Well, if it had, you’d probably be planning to vote for them this year.

Now, maybe, maybe there was a chance that it could have done that. But then 9/11 happened less than a year into Bush’s term, and suddenly they’re dealing with terrorists and war, and an American public that veered to the right* - they did not have the time, energy, or resources to think about the far left, plus it was no longer advantageous in an election.

“But that was 9/11!” you cry. “That was a major historical event that hasn’t been repeated! We won’t have another 9/11!”

Well, maybe not (and the pandemic, while a major historical event, had entirely different effects). But the thing is, if Trump wins, it’s basically 24/7 9/11 mode for the next four years.

Do you actually remember the Trump years?

Democrats were NOT busy moving left. No, they were busy constantly scrambling to mitigate the worst of him.

Talking John McCain (who, remember, IS DEAD NOW and cannot repeat this act) into voting with them so the ACA didn’t get repealed. Trying to get the impeachment for intimidating and blackmailing our ally to stick. Filibustering (unsuccessfully) the appointment of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, to try and prevent him from doing all the shit he did.

THAT is what you will get if Trump wins, only with event more crazy MAGA sycophants in Congress than last time. Democrats won’t be going “oh gosh, we could’ve picked up 1% of 18-35-year-olds if we’d taken a stand on Palestine,” they’ll be too busy going OH FUCK HOW DO WE KEEP TRUMP FROM TALKING NETANYAHU INTO LITERALLY NUKING GAZA????

So please please please, on behalf of all the Nader voters whose third-party votes did absolutely fuck-all to move a party that was trying to deal with Bush, don’t repeat our mistake.

If for no other reason than the fact that if Trump does win, there is absolutely no way you will get what you want. While if Harris wins, it will be much easier to push the Dems left - Biden has been pushed left on several issues!

* Fun fact from a psychology professor [me]: When people are scared they tend to agree with more conservative points of view than when they’re not scared! This is one reason things like terrorist attacks and wars tend to gain votes for conservatives.

A friendly reminder to USians: if you are planning to vote on Election Day, your mantra is "Nothing I see today convinces me not to go vote."

Exit polls suggest DT cannot be caught? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Exit polls suggest KH has it in the bag? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Pundits are saying the country is swinging overwhelmingly red? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Pundits are saying the country is swinging overwhelmingly blue? YOU STILL GO VOTE.

Polls can be misleading (intentionally or not). The methodology can be biased (or simply poor). Early results may not reflect what the full count will show. There may be a red mirage. NOTHING YOU SEE CONVINCES YOU NOT TO VOTE.

The biggest Democratic win in swing states means nothing if democrats don't turn out everywhere to keep the reliably blue states blue.

VOTE. Wear appropriate weather gear if you think you may have to stand in a line outside (coat, hat, gloves, umbrella, sunhat, whatever, you know where you live). Bring water and a snack and something to do (book, game on your phone, podcast and headphones, whatever, you know what you like). GO VOTE.

NOTHING YOU SEE ON ELECTION DAY CONVINCES YOU NOT TO VOTE.

I've seen a lot of posts criticizing terminally-online leftists for thinking that not voting will somehow send the Deomcratic party to the left instead of to the center, and while that is true

I haven't seen many pointing out that voting actually works for progressive causes.

Joe Biden moved to the left significantly on climate because the left wing of the party wanted to work with him. The centrists in the party, like Joe Manchin, frustratingly dragged their heels on everything because they weren't that interested in getting things done. But the leftists in the party, like Bernie and AOC, actually engaged in talks and compromises and pulled Biden much, much farther left on climate than where he started. A lot of great green policy came out of the last four years!

There was even a Pod Save America interview a few months ago where one of Biden's cabinet members (very diplomatically) confirmed that the leftwing of the party was so much better to work with than centrists like Joe Manchin. (Probably because leftists actually care about the things they talk about and want to do things besides go to fancy Washington parties and stay in congress for a million years.)

So, I really cannot stress enough that actually showing up and working with people actually does pay off for your cause. You can do more for the things you care about when you are at the table. Your vote actually does create the change you are seeking, even when you are voting for someone who is not 100% aligned with you.

I was going to make my own post about this but might as well do it here:

Obama was the lesser evil in 2008 and 2012.

He did not at first support marriage equality (which I realize might be weird for people who weren't alive back then, but marriage equality was not a popular opinion until extremely recently), but did eventually come out in support of it after a few years in office (and because Biden voiced his support of it and kind of backed him into a corner, lol). He did not lead a national marriage equality initiative or anything, but he did not defend laws like the Defense of Marriage Act (which didn't allow the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages even if it was legal in the state they lived in), allowing it to be struck down. He nominated Supreme Court justices who later voted to recognize marriage equality nationally.

What was the alternative? Well, up until Obama was elected, a sizeable contingent of Republicans wanted to amend the Constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage nationwide. Governments in multiple states refused to recognize valid marriages performed in other states that did allow them. California alone allowed and then undid marriage equality multiple times (anyone else remember Proposition 8?).

He got the ACA passed. It was not Medicaid for All or pure single-payer like the leftists wanted: the ACA was based on MassHealth, which was instituted in Massachusetts under Mitt Romney, a Republican. There were a lot of concessions to Republicans in it, even though they ended up opposing it anyway. But it prohibited insurance companies from denying coverage to people for pre-existing conditions and allowed people to stay on their parents' health insurance until they turned 26, which was a huge fucking deal.

What was the alternative? Well, do y'all remember that the Republicans spent most of the Trump administration trying to "repeal and replace" the ACA, and were only stopped because John McCain voted to keep it while dying of brain cancer? And that even up until the end of his term, Trump was saying he had a great plan to replace Obamacare, and repeatedly said even up to the last moment that it was going to come out "within two weeks" (it never did), and then handed Lesley Stahl a big binder full of papers and said that was his comprehensive healthcare plan (it was not)? And how Trump just said in his debate with Harris that "he has concepts of a plan" to replace the ACA?

He did not give sweeping amnesty to undocumented immigrants or disband ICE. But he supported DREAMers through an executive action called DACA, which Trump immediately attempted to undo and Biden redid when he got in office (a lawsuit challenging this just had oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court twenty fucking days ago). He did not mass deport millions of people (Trump has repeatedly said that he will on Day 1). He had guidelines for prioritizing certain deportations over low-level ones (deporting a murderer was more important than deporting a shoplifter). Every immigration lawyer I've spoken to has said that it was much easier to negotiate with ICE attorneys under Obama than it was Trump, because ICE under Obama was at least willing to negotiate at all. Under Trump, everything the immigration defense attorneys asked for, no matter how slight, was unilaterally opposed with no negotiation.

He did not end the war in Afghanistan or close Guantanamo Bay. In fact, the use of drones to kill people in multiple foreign countries was expanded tenfold under Obama. But he, along with several other countries, put together and negotiated the Iran Nuclear Deal, an extremely important foreign policy victory that Trump immediately fucking undid the second he was in power.

Electing Obama didn't just hold the status quo: things significantly improved for minorities in a shitload of ways. Not nearly as much as I think I or anyone else here would like, but it wasn't just stopping the drift rightward, it was turning the tide to the left.

Harris isn't going to be the sweeping herald of leftism we'd want her to be. But at least things can improve, which they will not under Trump. They will be worse.

look if one thing reaches the vast majority of american blue voters on this website please just vote for kamala without mentioning palestine or the middle east at all. please. i respect people who are honest about being afraid and not knowing what else to do. just vote and ask other people to vote without trying to justify it for palestinians, even if this is something troubling you morally or something you feel sure you are right about. nine times out of ten when you try to do this you end up saying something extraordinarily hurtful and callous and i know a lot of you aren't cruel, you're just scared. just say "im scared and i'm going to vote for kamala" and let it go.

i'm going to reblog this every day until the election in hopes of stopping you from saying heinous and stupid things that will not age well when you look back at how you spoke to people who lost everything in hopes of protecting yourself.

If you're wondering why polling averages are suddenly showing Trump winning despite all the bad news he's gotten lately- it might have something to do with this:

Basically, Republicans are ratfucking the polling averages by churning out huge numbers of partisan polls, and the polling aggregators/analysts like 538 aren't doing due diligence to compensate for it.

Now, what is the purpose of this?

Well, in the immediate-term, it creates a narrative that Trump is winning, boosting morale of his supporters while demoralizing support for Democrats and Harris.

Beyond that, if polling averages show that Trump is winning ahead of election day-which we can pretty much guarantee they will, because see above-then they will use that as "proof" of fraud if Democrats subsequently win.

Basically, they are engineering a pretext for their next coup attempt in front of us.

The only numbers that decide anything are actual votes. So ignore the polls, and VOTE.

I'm sure many people have already shared this here, but I think it's important that people here on Tumblr need to see this.

"I disagree with Kamala's position on the war in Gaza. How can I vote for her?" by US Senator Bernie Sanders

His question is NOT RHETORICAL by the way! Transcript for anyone who struggles with video:

“I understand that there are millions of Americans who disagree with President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on the terrible war in Gaza.

I am one of them.

While Israel had a right to defend itself against the horrific Hamas terrorist attack of October 7th, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages, it did not have a right to wage an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people.

It did not have the right to kill 42,000 Palestinians, two thirds of whom were children, women and the elderly, or injure over 100,000 people in Gaza.

It did not have the right to destroy Gaza's infrastructure, housing, and healthcare system. It did not have the right to bomb every one of Gaza's 12 universities.

It did not have the right to block humanitarian aid, causing massive malnutrition in children and, in fact, starvation.

And that is why I am doing everything I can to block U.S. military aid and offensive weapon sales to the right-wing extremist Netanyahu government in Israel. And I know that many of you share those feelings, and some of you are saying,

"How can I vote for Kamala Harris if she is supporting this terrible war?"

And that is a very fair question. And let me give you my best answer. And that is that even on this issue, Donald Trump and his right-wing friends are worse. In the Senate, in Congress, the Republicans have worked overtime to block humanitarian aid to the starving children in Gaza. The President and Vice President both support getting as much humanitarian aid into Gaza as soon as possible.

Trump has said Netanyahu is "doing a good job", and has said Biden is "holding him back". He has suggested the Gaza strip would make excellent beachfront property for development. And it is no wonder Netanyahu prefers to have Donald Trump in office.

But even more importantly - and this I promise you - after Kamala wins, we will together do everything that we can to change U.S. policy toward Netanyahu. An immediate ceasefire, the return of all hostages, a surge of massive humanitarian aid, the stopping of settler attacks on the West Bank, and the rebuilding of Gaza for the Palestinian people.

And let me be clear. We will have, in my view, a much better chance of changing U.S. policy with Kamala than with Trump, who is extremely close to Netanyahu and sees him as a like-minded, right-wing extremist ally.

But let me also say this - and I deal with this every single day as a U.S. Senator - as important as Gaza is, and as strongly as many of us feel about this issue, it is not the only issue at stake in this election.

If Trump wins, women in this country will suffer an enormous setback and lose the ability to control their own bodies. That is not acceptable.

If Trump wins, to be honest with you, the struggle against climate change is over. While virtually every scientist who has studied the issue understands that climate change is real, and an existential threat to our country and the world, Trump believes it is a "hoax". And if the United States, the largest economy in the world, stops transforming our energy system away from fossil fuel, every other country - China, Europe, all over the world - they will do exactly the same thing. And God only knows the kind of planet we will leave to our kids and future generations.

If Trump wins, at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, he will demand even more tax breaks for the very richest people in our country while cutting back on programs that working families desperately need. The rich will only get richer while the minimum wage will remain at $7.25 an hour and millions of our fellow workers will continue to earn starvation wages.

Did you all see the recent Trump rally at Madison Square Gardens? Well, I did. And what I can tell you is that, as a nation, as all of you know, we have struggled for years, against impossible odds, to overcome all forms of bigotry - whether it's racism, whether it's sexism, whether it's homophobia, whether it's xenophobia, you name it. We have tried to fight against bigotry. But that is exactly what we saw on display at that unbelievable Trump rally. It was not a question of speakers getting up there, disagreeing with Kamala Harris on the issue. That wasn't the issue at all. They were attacking her simply because she was a woman, and a woman of colour. Extreme, vulgar sexism and racism.

Is that really the kind of America that we can allow?

So let me conclude by saying this: this is the most consequential election in our lifetimes. Many of you have differences of opinion with Kamala Harris on Gaza. So do I.

But we cannot sit this election out. Trump has got to be defeated. Let's do everything we can in the next week to make sure that Kamala Harris is our next president.

Thank you very much.”

All you "I won't vote for Kamala because of Gaza" people: HEADS UP!

You've got a wannabe dictator speaking to another wannabe dictator every fucking day to PREVENT A CEASEFIRE versus a candidate calling for a ceasefire.

Vote accordingly or I swear to gods you'll wake up one day and look back wishing you could change that one little decision.

It's been reported multiple times that Trump is out there encouraging Netanyahu to keep up the bombing while Harris and Biden are working to end it and yet some people dare to say they aren't going to try to get Harris elected and act like that won't directly result in more deaths and violence in this conflict. Shame on you.

Palestinians are literally out there right now saying Trump winning - which is what will happen if everyone doesn't get out there and vote for Harris - would be a worst case scenario for them (x). Don't you dare appropriate their struggle to try to justify your failure to do everything in your power to stop the Fascist GOP from getting into office.

Vote Blue all the way down the ballot. Lives are on the line. And if the GOP gets in you may not get a chance to vote again.

It’s wild the number of posts I come across where people act like voting for or supporting Harris and Walz in the election is tantamount to implicitly supporting genocide. You know what actually helps genocide? Doing nothing while pretending you have the moral high ground. America is deeply tied to Israel and there will be no candidate who is as critical of their actions as we want them to be. We as private citizens do not have the power to make the USA suddenly cease all activity with Israel and demand an uncompromising ceasefire deal. Instead, we have to get our hands dirty and decide what path forward will mitigate as much harm as possible. You have one presidential candidate saying Israel needs to finish the job and another saying that we can’t ignore the tragedies in Gaza while vocally supporting a temporary ceasefire. These are your two picks. Thinking any third party candidate has a shot when none have any wide-reaching name recognition less than 100 days before the election is a fever dream.

The question then becomes, are you willing to say you voted “correctly” by voting for someone who has no shot of winning but is most closely aligned to you? Or are you going to vote for who will do the least harm? The idea that voting for a president involves liking them is a fairy tale. The establishment will always be the enemy of civil rights and safety. You’re voting for which opponent you want in office. The writing is on the wall about which candidate will be less of an uphill battle to fight against, and sidestepping the responsibility of making that decision by throwing away a vote isn’t moral or intellectually groundbreaking - it’s cowardly.

Basically, this. Harris-Walz isn’t the “lesser of two evils.” The ticket represents a lot of values and policies that “progressive” voters support, even as it needs to work on improving its position on a few issues, primarily, Israel-Palestine, which has been an intractable issue for any U.S. president since 1949.

To think that abstaining or casting a quixotic third-party vote is somehow “purer” or “more principled” is a bald self-deception. It just means you have the privilege and power to escape the horrors that a second Trump term would inflict.