The problem seems to be that republicans make the decisions when republicans are in charge, and when democrats are in charge the republicans also make the decisions.
It’s what happens when there’s only two right wing parties to choose from.
The Overton Window has shifted way too far.
Democrats ought to move further left to get more nonvoters to vote for them, instead of trying to move right to convert right wing voters.
Exactly. Had Harris won we would STILL have alienated almost every ally we’ve had for centuries, deployed a completely undertrained ICE brute squad to liberal cities to kill citizens, attempt to destroy the economy with tarrifs, pull back support for Ukraine and assist Putin, appointed insane maga lifetime federal judges that would cause a generation of suffering, destroy NATO incentivising more nations to build their own nuclear stockpiles… this was all inevitable no matter who won because the dems candidate was a genocidal maniac. Harris = Trump. /s
Pretty sure the masters of gaslighting are the Republicans who have spent the last month telling us that the innocent people they’re murdering and disappearing in the streets of America are “domestic terrorists” orchestrating a “massacre”.
Pretty sure the masters of gaslighting are the Republicans
Agreed. Both of the parties are gaslighting the public and the Republicans are MUCH better at it than the DNC are.
To the point that they’re more successful in spite of being MUCH more out of touch with the needs and wants of regular people when it comes to actual policy rather than propaganda.
That doesn’t mean that the DNC leadership isn’t dishonest. They’re just not anywhere near as good at messaging as the fascists are.
Agreed. Both of the parties are gaslighting the public and the Republicans are MUCH better at it than the DNC are.
okay …
<looks at post>
The Democrats are the undisputed masters of gaslighting
hmm …
I didn’t come up with the post title, and it was close enough to the point even if it wasn’t LITERALLY true AKA thematically accurate hyperbole 🤷
Why didn’t you change it? It’s not a news article.
it was close enough to the point
GOP lie so much more than the Dems it’s absolutely unreal
even if it wasn’t […] thematically accurate hyperbole
… k
thanks for the downvote by the way shows your maturity
GOP, there’s a reason they are called gaslighting, obstruct and project. Weird how leftist don’t even blame them for anything, it’s almost like they Talk like them
Why didn’t you change it?
Because it wasn’t wrong about the most important fact, that they gaslight a lot. The hyperbole of calling them the “masters” of it is sometimes deliberately used (though not by me) to mean that they do it a lot, and I figured that all but the nittiest of pickers would get that either intuitively or after considering it briefly.
Congrats on being part of that elite, I guess 🤷
GOP lie so much more than the Dems it’s absolutely unreal
Which is itself hyperbole. While the GOP lie more often (and a LOT more blatantly), the difference in frequency isn’t anywhere near as big as it’s commonly believed to be by most non-fascists.
thanks for the downvote by the way shows your maturity
There’s nothing immature about registering my disapproval of lazy and illogical nitpicking used to distract from valid and important points.
Which is itself hyperbole. While the GOP lie more often (and a LOT more blatantly), the difference in frequency isn’t anywhere near as big as it’s commonly believed to be by most non-fascists.
I remember this old nugget: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/01/24/trumps-false-or-misleading-claims-total-30573-over-four-years/
To be clear, this is unfalsifiable we have no idea how many “is commonly believed to be” by non-fascists.
There’s nothing immature about registering my disapproval of lazy and illogical nitpicking used to distract from valid and important points.
It’s not nitpicking, there’s a context in which you’re using hyperbole and the direct obvious comparison to be made is the GOP whom are in charge and have power and lie constantly and more often. In using hyperbole, you’re diminishing the lies by the GOP either intentionally or not.
In terms of distracting from valid points. I would say you’re doing that by attacking the minority party by letting the majority GOP keep going with ICE and their overseas wars.
😮💨
I can explain it to you and I have, thoroughly and clearly, but I can’t understand it for you.
Have the day you deserve.
How is it gaslighting if everyone expects them to fold?
Ah yes, sure and what were democrats doing?
Despite Authoritarian Warnings, 149 House Democrats Vote to Hand Trump $840 Billion for Military
But but but… if we’re splitting hairs and stuff and put our heads in sand, they’re totally different and fighting for the people.
One of the Democrats opposed to shutting down the government to hold ICE accountable said something like “the reality is that we need to be in power to fully address this”. Ok… but people won’t vote for you in the midterms if you don’t use the tools at your disposal to address this NOW.
Pretty sure everybody was warning the Democrats about ICE when Biden was up, and all they did was… give them more power. They knew when they had the ability to curb it down.
They’re also still voting to give them more money.
Everyone was warning Biden about ice and you thought they wanted less ice agents? How out of touch. I’m actually shocked how much of a bubble you need to be in to hold this opinion.
Wild to see these sort of memes finally being upvoted. Pity it had to take until fascists were murdering people in the street, in broad daylight, and protected by the fascist state.
Pity it had to take until fascists were murdering white people in the street
quick fix
The fascists were murdering people in the streets well before now
Good fix
But they weren’t the white people. Once they started openly murdering us whities they didn’t care. Something something love me I’m a liberal going on here.
Thank you for reminding me of this Phil Ochs classic ❤️
There are multiple shades of political opinion. The shadiest is the liberal. <3
Fediverse working as intended.
They can’t use their “you’re complaining about US in a US platform, lmao” gotcha anymore. And well, also censor and hide it as well as they do on mainstream platforms.
Wow. What an ugly font.
Yeah, the Democrats have not beaten the paid opposition argument with me at all. Most of them seem okay with voting for ICE funding and Trump appointees. They cannot even form a cohesive line in the sand like the fascists can except hen it comes to performative voting like denouncing socialism. The neo-liberal is NOT out way out of this mess.
The Dems haven’t had more than 48 senators in 13 years and ICE funding always gets bundled with funding for other agencies like housing and transportation.
Is it an election year already?
Then they’d be saying it’s too late to object. You have to do party building on non-election years, including midterms, and not until the new party has 51% support.
Every year
If we let Republicans ruin the country then people will vote for us, if we stop them then people will vote Republican.
Is a more verbose way of putting it.
I’ll vote for any Democrat over any Republican. And I’ll primary any Democrat that’s a Republican cuck.
its the GOP, its in thier name. gaslight obstruct PROJECT. you are looking at the wrong enemy to criticize.
Nope.
I’m criticizing the ones PRETENDING to be on our side rather than pissing into the wind by pretending that a fascist party that OPENLY opposes everything I believe in or their supporters would ever be receptive to my critiques.
Just like you don’t convince people of the fact that zionism is inherently genocidal by pretending that fanatics like Netanyahu, Smotrich, and Ben-Gvir are the only problem.
People on ML and DB0 generally support the GOP over the DNC, I’ve noticed. Even now while Donald Trump is being outed as serial child rapist, pushing for death of exodus of every Palestinian, threatening war with NATO, and sending his Gestapo to murder people in the streets they have nothing to say except “DNC bad”.
People on ML and DB0 generally support the GOP over the DNC, I’ve noticed.
Of course: If people hate the DNC, they must like the GOP. It’s impossible to disapprove of two things at the same time. /s
Centrist, campist brainrot at its finest.
You’re just now learning how FPTP works, huh? Explains a lot.
The public uproar after the murder of Alex Pretti was able to make Trump and the GOP flinch and you still can’t comprehend anything beyond the liberal democratic system? Centrist propagandaegot you good, dammit.
But if you need it to be spelled out for you: ML is predominantly Marxist-Leninis, and DB0 predominantly anarchist. I doubt those instances have much sympathy for the outright fascists.
But opposing Paul von Hindenburg must probably mean being in favour of Hitler, I guess. /s
The uproar is a component of the Liberal Democratic System.
Only if it gets recuperated. Let’s hope not…
See meme in election year
Look inside
More “dems just as bad” stupidity
Hold on folks, it’s only going to get worse the closer we get!
More “dems just as bad” stupidity
There’s that tired whataboutism we know and loathe 🙄
Criticizing the Dems ≠ saying that the fascists aren’t worse than them. Just like decrying the Israeli genocide of Palestinians ≠ saying that it’s worse than the Holocaust was.
And nope, I criticize the Dems (and the fascists and every other politician I’m aware of deserving criticism) EVERY year. It’s not my fault that YOU only pay attention during election years.
Every other year is an election year, ironically I haven’t seen anything out of you in 2025 and now that it is an election year, here you are.
I’m not saying you weren’t but its funny that I remember you posting alot in 2024 and your post actually made me think about it.
ironically I haven’t seen anything out of you in 2025
Because you haven’t been CHECKING in 2025. I’ve been criticizing them for their cowardly compliance with the fascist regimes of the US and Israel more times in 2025 than I’ve posted pictures of my two cats The Fabulous Staredycat Sisters and that’s SAYING something 😁
Lol I believe it! its just the first time I noticed was all. I think there just more active users than when I joined Lemmy so your posts were a much larger chunk of visible posts back then.😆
Based eternal criticism! I’lll take your word for it, as I don’t track individual posting habits. I just notice a general uptick in “dems bad”, “don’t vote”, and similar when we get closer to an election.
Probably propaganda accounts. Notice how it’s being targeted, no blame on the GOP or trump,.or very softball approach. It’s a common right trolling
I just notice (…) when we get closer to an election.
That’s my point. Claiming without any proof that any criticism is based on it being election season and therefore might be false flag bottery is a classic deflection tactic not unlike many that the fascists use when people on their side criticize the Mango Mussolini.
Hahaha buddy, pump the breaks, you may want to live up to the username and enjoy some nature. Pointing out meme trends without cyberstalking every poster on the Fediverse first isn’t cryptofash tactics.
I see more of the opposite on Lemmy lately, which is pandering, slobbering endorsements for establishment Dems like Schumer from 28-day-old accounts.
We can vote dems, it’s fine to vote dems. Entirely new candidates running on Dem platforms like we did with Mamdani and others recently. The DNC is just a container, we pour out the old, rotten contents and replace them with new people who actually want to work for us.
Interesting! I have literally never once seen Schumer defended by anyone on Lemmy, but my eyes aren’t yours, and that is fishy asf with new accounts.
100% agree the DNC is an umbrella that we need to fill with good candidates that aren’t bought out and beholden ti special interests.
They’re not openly saying Schumer is the GOAT or anything, astroturfers and bots know better than to mask-off immediately, but there’s a LOT of pushback happening right now when people complain about Democrats broadly, and will work HARD to support voting dems and whinge and cry against criticism of establishment dems, but will avoid or pivot talking about criticisms of the old-guard establishment. It’s obvious for anyone over the age of like, 11.
They get really mad when you suggest they’re collaborating with the GOP.
But if you check account history most of them are less than a month old. I’ve seen this every election year, they really are working together.
(For the record, I support voting dems, but all NEW dems, flush the incumbent toilet on the DNC’s contents and lets refill it with fresh water.)
Probably because the original Lemmy users and Developers are all eastern propagandists for Russia and China, there is a funded campaign complete with troll farms pushing anti-DNC sentiment because the east actually favors Trump over a competent POTUS.
Now that Piefed is around we should really normalize defederating ML.
It must hurt Viking’s brain that we live in a fascist world where all we have to pick from is the lesser of the two evils.
It must hurt Viking’s brain that we live in a fascist world
Of course. If the return of fascism to the richest country in the history of the world DOESN’T hurt your brain and several other parts of you, you’re either extremely ignorant, extremely twisted, or both.
where all we have to pick from is the lesser of the two evils.
Yeah, there’s that learned helplessness that Neoliberals and their enablers trot out the moment anyone dares hold them to account from the Left 🙄
Return of fascism!? It never left. The US was fascist before the term existed.
I think you imagine there is another option when the entire world is ran by wealthy and their favorite proxy the corporation.
Show me a country without an ever widening income gap and I will believe you that there is another option besides starting over.
Return of fascism!? It never left
In terms of existing at all you’re right, but in terms of being the base ideology of the government, it did.
The US was fascist before the term existed.
It shared significant aspects, yes, but that’s not the same as fully BEING fascist any more than being an overrated team sport with a ball makes basketball the same thing as baseball*
I think you imagine there is another option when the entire world is ran by wealthy and their favorite proxy the corporation
Again: that’s an aspect of fascism, but also an aspect of many OTHER bad forms of government such as Neoliberalism, paleoconservatism, and anarcho-capitalism.
Show me a country without an every widening income gap and I will believe you that there is another option besides starting over.
Capitalism ≠ fascism. The latter is the inevitable consequence when the former isn’t sufficiently kept in check and both need to be abolished for the good of humanity, but that still doesn’t mean that they’re the same thing.
*yes, this example WAS ridiculous on purpose to inject a little levity.
I have studied the American revolution with a critical eye and I can definitely tell you that the “founding fathers” were the very definition of corporatism. They also ticked off all the bad things people usually associate with fascism as well. I go off Mussolini’s definition of fascism as opposed to scholars who don’t want believe their country is fascist.
Viking, 90% of all policies in every nation in the world are written by corporations. We live in a corporatocracy which is arguably the natural result of corporatism in the modern world.
I think you are imagining capitalism as the mythical “small business capitalism” when in reality it always leads to concentration of power hence the reality we live in. You can prove me wrong by showing me a capitalist practicing nation that doesn’t have an ever increasing wealth gap.
Capitalism leads to corporatism that leads to a corporatocracy. I also don’t buy into the “keeping it in check” belief that tries to condition us that capitalism will work under the right circumstances.
Of course it will work, by concentrating power leading to fascism like it already has. It will never be regulated into small business capitalism because that is just the larval stage.
Does anyone have a coherent argument for abolishing ICE without repealing the laws in their official scope?
I ANGRY AT ICE! I MAD!
is not a coherent argument.
Opposing misconduct, unlawful abuses, excessive budget & employees has nothing to do with whether there are legal enforcement duties demanding existence of enforcers. Acting illegally means any federal law enforcement can abuse authority the same as ICE: Customs & Border Protection, TSA, Secret Service, Coast Guard, DEA, ATF, FBI, IRS Criminal Investigation, Postal Inspection Service, Marshals Service, Forest Service, Park Service, Fish & Wildlife Service, Odometer Fraud Investigation, Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, EPA, etc. An executive agency is just an organization administered by executives. Abolishing an executive agency doesn’t stop the executive administration from reproducing the same abuses elsewhere. They can even move the same employees & resources elsewhere. They can withhold & misappropriate funds again as they’ve done before.
Beyond discredit supporters as ignorant & incapable of thinking through stupid shit, abolishing an organizational unit of the federal executive branch doesn’t seem to accomplish much.
Getting ideas taken seriously at the very least requires ideas that aren’t stupid AF.
Post needs text alternative.
Images of text break much that text alternatives do not. Losses due to image of text lacking alternative such as link:
- usability
- we can’t quote the text without pointless bullshit like retyping it or OCR
- text search is unavailable
- the system can’t
- reflow text to varied screen sizes
- vary presentation (size, contrast)
- vary modality (audio, braille)
- accessibility
- lacks semantic structure (tags for titles, heading levels, sections, paragraphs, lists, emphasis, code, links, accessibility features, etc)
- some users can’t read the image due to lack of alt text (markdown image description)
- users can’t adapt the text for dyslexia or vision impairments
- systems can’t read the text to them or send it to braille devices
- web connectivity
- we have to do failure-prone bullshit to find the original source
- we can’t explore wider context of the original message
- authenticity: we don’t know the image hasn’t been tampered
- searchability: the “text” isn’t indexable by search engine in a meaningful way
- fault tolerance: no text fallback if
- image breaks
- image host is geoblocked due to insane regulations.
Contrary to age & humble appearance, text is an advanced technology that provides all these capabilities absent from images.
Does anyone have a coherent argument for abolishing ICE without repealing the laws in their official scope
What a nonsense caveat. Regardless of what they do or don’t do, repealing or amending the applicable laws IS necessary to abolish that abomination. That’s how the system works.
Ignoring that, the only things ICE ever did that other agencies didn’t do before is dial the abuse of undocumented immigrants and anyone else caught in the crossfire up to 11 at first, roughly 175 by now.
It’s the American SS or Gestapo and has precisely zero mitigating circumstances to even begin to justify its existence in a modern democracy.
ME ANGRY AT ICE! ME MAD!
is not a coherent argument.
Neither are your disingenuous strawmen.
Opposing misconduct, unlawful abuses, excessive budget & employees has nothing to do with whether there are legal enforcement duties demanding existence of enforcers.
Yes it does and here’s why:
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As pointed out earlier, there’s no need for the kinds of enforcement that ICE was created to carry out. On the contrary, it has only made the whole immigration situation MUCH worse than it would otherwise have been.
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Pretending for a second that reason 1 ISN’T enough, there’s the question of proportionality: even IF they did anything to benefit society, there’s an upper limit to the amount of abuse and waste thst said benefit would be worth.
No benefit is worth spending more than most countries spend on their armed forces on jackbooted thugs whose function is to abuse with impunity.
Acting illegally means any federal law enforcement can abuse authority the same as ICE
Nope. ICE was specifically created to visit MORE abuse on people with less oversight and fewer consequences. While other federal cops can (and far too often WILL) also abuse innocent “suspects”, ICE is BY DESIGN more likely to do so with impunity.
An executive agency is just an organization administered by executives
Sure, there’s no difference between regulatory agencies like the EPA and custodian entities like the Park Service and designated brown people hunters! 🙄🤦
They can even move the same employees & resources elsewhere
You can also hire a baseball player as your interior decorator. Doesn’t make the jobs equivalent to each other.
Abolishing an executive agency doesn’t stop the executive administration from reproducing the same abuses elsewhere
It DOES when part of the law you pass to do so specifically forbids those kinds of abuses and/or gets rid of so-called “qualified immunity”.
They can withhold & misappropriated funds again as they’ve done before.
They can also murder people as some of them have done before. That doesn’t mean that murder should be legal or not prosecuted.
discredit supporters as ignorant & incapable of thinking through stupid shit
Wow, the projection is strong with this one!
Getting ideas taken seriously at the very least requires ideas that aren’t stupid AF.
Nah, people took the idea of creating ICE seriously to the point that they even did it. In spite of everything I’ve explained above about it being a mechanism for ethnic cleansing and abuse on purpose from day one.
What a nonsense caveat. Regardless of what they do or don’t do, repealing or amending the applicable laws IS necessary to abolish that abomination. That’s how the system works.
disingenuous strawmen
Then use words correctly: abolish ICE literally means exactly that. It doesn’t mean repeal the laws, which would make sense. Otherwise, why not say repeal those laws?
It’s not a strawman to interpret your message exactly as stated.[1] It’s no one else’s duty to make up unstated justifications for a poorly argued demand. Given the lack of explicit context & justification for the demand to abolish ICE other than current events, the reader is justified to assume the only justification is current events (ICE’s abuse of authority under the Trump administration). It’s unjustifiable to expect the reader to assume the demand is predicated on ICE’s lawful purpose, too.
While I agree that US’s immigration, naturalization, & border policies are mostly unnecessary bullshit[2], I also follow the news enough to be aware I’m in the waning minority. Right up to the election, the people clearly favored less immigration & stronger enforcement of border policy. That’s been a consistent pattern: popularity of immigration controls steadily increase until some illegal or outrageous shit (like a Muslim ban, family separation, or murder of civilians & violation of their rights) hits the news, when they decline until the next administration is voted in. Then their popularity recovers & continues to increase as if all is forgiven.
Voters seem to love immigration controls as usual. I’ve never seen a popular movement to oppose those bullshit naturalization tests most US citizens would fail. Moreover, ICE has existed since 2003 through the Bush, Obama, Biden administrations without calls to abolish it gaining traction. Before ICE, INS was performing similar duties of arresting, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants. During all that time, calls to abolish INS never took off despite it performing raids & having overseen World War 2 internment camps of “enemy aliens”.
Voters only cease to love immigration controls when they don’t operate as usual. Despite existing through multiple terms, abolish ICE only gained traction under the 1st Trump term. Then people stopped giving a shit with Biden’s term. Now we’re back.
It seems voters give a fuck only with overtly illegal or abusive conduct and otherwise support the whole contradictory system of wanting immigrants labor for work citizens won’t do yet opposing immigrants. It’s clear to me that voters only care about ICE’s latest spate of illegal conduct & abuse of authority without objecting to the concept of ICE itself.
While voters can easily accept that illegal conduct & abuse of authority should end, that doesn’t imply abolish ICE. It implies repealing Trump era changes & addressing the administration’s ability to perform illegal conduct. Convincing voters that ICE needs to be abolished & the laws in its scope of enforcement need to be repealed takes an altogether different argument that demands a reversal of their usual position. Without articulating an effective argument, abolish ICE is fairly construed by the general public as mindless, outrage-fueled stupidity.
As pointed out earlier
Link missing.
there’s no need for the kinds of enforcement that ICE was created to carry out. On the contrary, it has only made the whole immigration situation MUCH worse than it would otherwise have been.
The detentions & harsher Trump policies aren’t necessary. Much immigration policy is counterproductive & stupid.
However, ICE was also created to enforce customs & related regulations in its directorate Homeland Security Investigations.
HSI special agents investigate violations of more than 400 U.S. laws that threaten national security, including counter-proliferation; human smuggling and trafficking; weapons smuggling; narcotics smuggling and trafficking; human rights violations; transnational gang activity; financial crimes, including money laundering and bulk cash smuggling; cyber crime; child exploitation and sex tourism; trade crimes such as commercial fraud and intellectual property theft; smuggling of counterfeit pharmaceuticals and other merchandise; document and benefit fraud; the manufacturing, sale, and use of counterfeit immigration and identity documents; mass-marketing fraud; art theft; international cultural property and antiquities crimes; export enforcement and visa security.
Addressing your other points
No benefit is worth spending more than most countries spend on their armed forces on jackbooted thugs whose function is to abuse with impunity.
is still an argument for repealing Trump era changes.
ICE was specifically created to visit MORE abuse on people with less oversight and fewer consequences.
Nah, people took the idea of creating ICE seriously to the point that they even did it.
Nope, ahistorical & addressed earlier: existed since 2003 with predecessor INS & its predecessors tracing back further.
Sure, there’s no difference between regulatory agencies like the EPA and custodian entities like the Park Service and designated brown people hunters! 🙄🤦
Doesn’t make the jobs equivalent to each other.
Maybe you have no fucking idea what it means to act unlawfully with impunity: is ICE legally violating constitutional rights, defying court orders, or murdering?
When government decides to disobey laws, the laws do not limit it.
It DOES when part of the law you pass to do so specifically forbids those kinds of abuses and/or gets rid of so-called “qualified immunity”.
Again, the administration isn’t following laws or court orders. Where are the Epstein files?
Impeachments & cutting funds are necessary.
That doesn’t mean that murder should be legal or not prosecuted.
It already is illegal. Have you paid attention? Prosecution is up to federal (good luck) & state prosecutors.
Wow, the projection is strong with this one!
Nah, that’s you: stop forgetting history & expecting everyone to mind read.
The only ones to blame for miscommunication are those who assume their inept phrase abolish ICE should mean anything else to everyone else. Instead of willfully ignoring how language works & that no one can read your mind, communicate better: state what you mean. ↩︎
Before the 20th century, there were practically no immigrant regulations: largely open borders, no requirement for passports, visas, or pre-approved, permanent residency. Immigrants could simply purchase a steamship ticket, arrive at a port, pass basic inspections for health & criminal record. ↩︎
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