dear americans,

as a polish queer woman and human rights activist, i know exactly how you're feeling right now and what to expect from these elections. i lived through the 2015-2023 regime of pis, a right-wing populist party that divided families in the same way trump did. i’ve experienced the rise of fascism in poland, the influence of far-right parties like konfederacja, and their “santa’s little helpers”—ordo iuris, an ultra-conservative catholic organization (banned in many countries, mind you) that helped enforce a near-total abortion ban and runs anti-queer campaigns in public spaces. i supported the black protests in 2016 as a middle schooler when they first tried to ban abortion. as an adult, i actively participated in the 2020 women’s strike, running from police tear gas daily after they finally passed the ban. i supported friends who faced charges.

i’ve lived through intense homophobia in poland as a queer teen and adult. i survived the first pride march in my hometown, where far-right extremists threw stones and glass at us. i endured the anti-queer propaganda spread by the ruling party in state-owned media. i survived the “rainbow night,” poland’s own stonewall moment in summer 2020, when police arrested around 50 queer activists following the arrest of margo, a nonbinary activist. i survived the "lgbt-free zones," the targeted violence, the slurs from strangers on the street, and the protests i held against queerphobia. it was hard as fuck, but i survived.

but just because i survived, it doesn’t mean others did. many women died because of the abortion ban—marta, justyna, izabela, dorota, joanna, maria, and many others who didn’t survive pis’s draconian anti-abortion laws. milo, kacper, michał, zuzia (she was 12), wiktor, and other queer and trans kids and young adults took their own lives because of the relentless queerphobia.

despite all of this, our experience in poland can serve as a guide now. here are some tips for staying safe and how we, polish queers and women, organized under the regime:

if i forgot to (or didn't) include something, don't hesitate to reblog this post with other resources.

"Meanwhile in Tucson"

For those who don't know Spanish: "Chinga tu madre" is a common swear for "F*** your mother." They changed it to say MAGA instead of mother, obviously. The second line is "No more orange."

artist unknown

This is why every vote matters. YOUR vote matters. Please vote!

Actually that’s exactly how it works. Here, lemme break down the numbers. I’ll be using the 2020 presidential election voter turnout.

Which is why it's important to pair posts like this with actual resources on, for example:

See, the thing a lot of people don't get is, the US system is designed to SUPPRESS AND DENY votes. Fun fact for those who went to school elsewhere: none of the stuff I linked is actually required learning in our schools. Followup fact: the reason I mention financial assistance for ID cards is, our free ID (social security card) is not valid for voting in half of states; expensive photo IDs are required.

For the Americans, you must understand: Most places with elections take the exact opposite approach. Do you know how fucked up it is that in the US you can't even get a whole day off work, despite voter queues often being several hours long due to lack of polling places? How absolutely pigshit bonkers it is that people have to PAY to vote (via ID fees)?

The international folks are appalled because that's fucked up! 18% picking your president is unhinged! It actually truly does represent a broken system!

In other words this is a real, systemic issue that can take years to overcome IF you even have the ability to do it at all.

If you're lucky enough not to face any of the hurdles, stay informed on the subject so you can help the rest of us out.

Voter suppression is not caused by personal moral failing.

It's caused by the broken system.

Game the system. Vote.

Listen, staning politicians is bad. We must remain critical of people in power.

However it is funny to watch Republicans act like this man is the devil incarnate.

This is democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Walz Gov. Of Minnesota. This man looks like if a capybara was a person. He looks like he'd pull over on the side of the road and help you change a flat tire. He looks like he'd offer you hot coco from his thermos if you were out ice fishing with him.

After he was picked yesterday, Trump/MAGA literally sent out an all-caps email blast proclaiming, and this is a direct quote, TIM WALZ WILL UNLEASH HELL ON EARTH!!!

So now I'm just picturing Tim Walz, Evil Overlord of the Minnesota State Fair, standing among his evil plaid-shirt-wearing minions being like OPE, JUST GONNA BEHEAD YA REAL QUICK THERE, and then, I dunno, bringing hotdish to the End of Days Community Dinner for all the demons saying NO NO AFTER YA. In other words: good luck selling that one, turdgobblers. Lmao.

He also apparently has a pretty good hotdish recipe.

Would THAT be on your Antichrist Bingo card? I... really doubt it.

Since folks are exhausted from hearing about Project 2025 and Agenda 47, here are some reasons to feel hopeful about Harris

(It would be wonderful if folks could reblog this, a lot of people are feeling very discouraged right now and could use the morale boost!)

Climate change is the single most important issue in the entirety of human history. One party wants to fight it. The other party wants to let the earth burn; in fact, they want to accelerate the fire.

I would like to point out that the big reason for this is the owner of the WeatherNation app/website. He is a massive republican supporter, a climate change denier, and stands to cash in big if his biggest competition is destroyed.

Saying "voting doesn't matter" might reach your younger peers online but it certainly hasn't reached Clangus Hargbarg who was part of the kkk in 1951 and still sends in his ballot. He hasn't missed a one.

if i see one more article, post, or news anchor talking about how joe biden is old, i'm putting my fist through a window. i feel like i've gone through the fucking looking glass.

this is project 2025, trump's plan for what he'll do if elected. whatever you think is in there, it's worse. watch a breakdown of the highlights here. this man wants to unravel the fabric of our democracy for good - this all aside from his vitriolic hatred of poc, his determination to start ww3, and the fact that he can't string a sentence together without telling outrageous and easily verifiable lies. his administration will start their crusade to exterminate trans people on day one, and they won't stop there.

do not talk to me about how joe biden is old, as if that could ever matter to me more than my life or the lives of my friends and family. my little sister is 14, she's trans, and i don't know what to tell her when we talk about politics, because one of these people wants her dead and the other one is old and some of you are still acting like those problems are equals.

i can't fucking stand this. i'm not hearing it this time, we are not repeating 2016. refusing to vote is not an act of protest, it is an act of complacency, and our most vulnerable will suffer for your negligence. vote like your life depends on it, because for some of us, it really fucking does.

It's honestly frustrating hearing people talk about how Biden isn't the candidate for the job as if we have another option to pick besides that isn't Trump. And the lack of emphasis on how abhorrent Trump's behavior was on the debate is disturbing. I would rather an old man that should retire over a man that wants people dead.

I will keep saying this: Biden's age is a non issue? Why? A little office called the Vice President

That's the thing with presidential elections, you're not just voting in one guy, you're also voting in the first person who will succeed them and the cabinet they picked to administer the government

and by the way, Biden's cabinet is one of the most experienced, capable, and progressive we've ever had

Trump's will be the complete opposite I assure you

Look.

I have made you a chart. A very simple chart.

People say "You have to draw the line somewhere, and Biden has crossed it-" and my response is "Trump has crossed way more lines than Biden".

These categories are based off of actual policy enacted by both of these men while they were in office.

If the ONLY LINE YOU CARE ABOUT is line 12, you have an incredible amount of privilege, AND YOU DO NOT CARE ABOUT PALESTINIANS. You obviously have nothing to fear from a Trump presidency, and you do not give a fuck if a ceasefire actually occurs. You are obviously fine if your queer, disabled, and marginalized loved ones are hurt. You clearly don't care about the status of American democracy, which Trump has openly stated he plans to destroy on day 1 he is in office.

if you want to vote for a third party, what you are going to do is vote for biden in november 2024 and then as soon as that’s done, start trying to get ranked choice voting in your state

we will ALWAYS be a two party system until voting reform happens, and voting reform won’t happen if project 2025 happens.

suck it up and vote biden, then put the next four years to good use

^^^

Of course you don’t. Free college might hinder the school-to-prison pipeline your  prison owning donors depend on

👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆👆

welp;

Actual quote, in context:

“I believe that we should make community college free. We should have debt-free college if you got to a public college or university. You should not have to borrow a dime to pay tuition… I disagree with free college for everybody. I don’t think taxpayers should be paying to send Donald Trump’s kids to college.“ [video link]

Don’t spread misinformation just to fit a narrative, Clinton is advocating for there to be a cap on who gets free college so that the government doesn’t have to subsidize the education of people with enough disposable income to pay for it themselves. The plan she’s proposing would have a better chance of being passed, is more cost-effective, and still opens up higher education to low-income individuals who previously couldn’t afford it. 

the op lagonegirl literally ended up being a russian psyop im losing my mind

Reblogging this as an example of what the Russian interference here on tumblr was. I have seen some people in the past days casting doubts on Tumblr because the blogs that were banned had social justice content. 

But that was the point exactly. They posted some real things and a lot of half-truths that would appeal to the kind of politics on here and therefore spread disinformation to discourage us from participating in stopping Trump through the only option we had. I’m glad tumblr left these posts up so we could see for ourselves. 

I don’t know if it actually worked on anyone, I hope we all remember to check our sources before making our decisions, but life is short and maybe some people didn’t.  There are plenty of real social justice blogs available still, so I hope we will follow those instead.

Reblogging this now. Because some of you think that a leftist space can be trusted. They can’t. Lagonegirl posted content that had nothing to do with politics, it made her seem like a real person.

She was not. There were SO many posts by her that got big numbers and most of them were fine. That was an illusion so that when she posted things like this it might not click like it would if it were loudly pro- Trump.

You see a blog that is leftist but only critical of the more “safe bet” cookie cutter candidate and has very little to say about the obviously right wing, objectively worse for everything you stand for candidate?

Be on guard.

Trolls from troll farms, are here. This time around they’re being paid to make you think that:

None of that is true or even reasonable to believe. None of it.

Don’t be trolled.

i am BEGGING y’all to watch season one of stargate

Gee, I thought these people were the ones who were like “If you don’t like it, you can just move to a blue state.”

And now they’re mad the guy is doing just that?

You can’t oppress and discriminate against someone then be mad when they take their highly useful skill elsewhere.

His point is basically that he’s going to go where he’s wanted. Guys like Brett realize, as he’s leaving that he’s actually beneficial to the society he’s leaving. If he wasn’t, Bret would be celebrating. This brain drain they’re fretting about is entirely of their own bigoted doing. If they’d thought about retaining great contributors to society instead of culture wars, there’d be no issue. 

And the guy still is doing his job, by the way. Saving sick kids.

He just wants to do it in a state that doesn’t hate him and his family.

“You cannot demand a service while simultaneously degrading those who provide it for you.”

It's gonna be such a funny mess when Donald Trump dies of a stroke on April 1st, 2024.

Like to charge, reblog to cast

Honestly? They had me at "Trump dies".

Did you know?

Democrats have won the popular vote in seven out of the last eight presidential elections going back to 1992? The only time the GOP has won the popular vote in the last 36 years in a presidential election was in 2004, and it was a pretty narrow margin. This was a wartime election and the first election post-9/11. The Democratic candidate was the unfortunately uninspiring John Kerry, who had been lied about. You know how in politics we say someone has been "swiftboated" when a successful lie is told about them? That term originates with the 2004 election because a bunch of people concocted an elaborate lie about John Kerry's military service. He wasn't super inspiring as a candidate, but that was the worst thing he did. He wasn't a bad guy. He was just running in a very gross, jingoistic time after the worst terror attack in American history, and had a bunch of successful lies told about him to the point where a whole word about a specific kind of lie was invented about it. THIS is the only time since 1988 that the Republican party has won the popular vote. George W. Bush did not win the popular vote in 2000. The Supreme Court ordered that votes stop being counted in Florida and handed the victory to Bush.

Donald Trump has never ever won the popular vote. The electoral college handed him the victory in 2016, less than 15,000 votes across three states decided the election. Hillary Clinton in total won about 3.7 million more votes than Donald Trump. Trump HATES hearing this number. He hates even more that Joe Biden got about 7 million more votes. He hates even more that you bring up the fact that he lost his midterm elections for his party in 2018, badly. And that the "Red Wave" in 2022 did not happen because of backlash at his Supreme Court. Or that in 2023 voters continued to reject his Supreme Court at the polls.

He knows, the Republicans know, that if more people vote, they lose. They don't want small d democracy. They want authoritarianism. They want to suppress it.

So when you get cute about not wanting to vote, you're not doing activism. You're surrendering.

This. Don’t surrender. It’s the last thing we need right now.

Republicans hate women.