Did this guy miss the part where it’s been virtually impossible for Democrats to pass any legislation due to a lack of a majority in any branch of government, and downright childish obstruction by Republicans?
Yeah I’m confused, this is the democratic party’s fault?
Like, did/do people watch the news whenever they talk about the minimum wage? Fox News and the republican party and the libertarian party go absolutely NUTS.
Update:
Anybody complaining about this still is like having two parents. One is flawed as hell and makes dumb decisions and is conflicted, and the other is a deadbeat, beats you, steals your money and credit cards and causing you long lasting damage.
Everyone is basically yelling that the prior one isn’t doing enough.
Are you wrong? No? At the same time, what the hell are you even talking about?
“The DEMS AREN’T PASSING <<individual qualm>>”. Well the republicans are trying to REMOVE DEMOCRACY.
If you guys aren’t understanding what’s going on. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.
totally. the only really way to get progressive reform is to allow the extreme right to run the country.
The American people just spent 15 years watching Obamacare get gutted from what it originally was, minimum wage not increase at the federal level, the SCOTUS got 3 conservative judges appointed to it despite two being appointed against precedent, marijuana is still illegal at the federal level, Chevron Deference was just gutted, Roe v Wade was overturned and half this country lost bodily autonomy, the last two decades have seen the least productive congresses in our nation’s history yet the filibuster remains because “decorum/the Republicans might take advantage of it,” cops still have qualified immunity, millions of people don’t have health insurance or are food insecure or are homeless, school funding has been gutten, college tuition continues to skyrocket, trillions of dollars have been funneled from the poorest to the richest in this country for no other reason than greed while social welfare programs are being cut, the list goes on for a long time.
And all of this was done by “Republican obstruction,” which is fine, it’s a legitimate reason for things to happen or not happen. But after 15+ years, minimum, and this new generation of voters watching the Democrat Party hum and haw and wag their fingers at each other and Republicans while the American people get fucked more and more year after year…
It’s not a legitimate excuse anymore, and this whole Democrat shtick of “you have to vote for us because we’re not the Republicans” isn’t working anymore, people are fucking tired of it. I’m fucking tired of it, honestly. Republicans got TWO SCOTUS nominations because, at a minimum, one man in one position in the Senate refused to follow decorum. And the Democrats just twiddled their thumbs and said “humpty dee, nothing we can do, sorry, it’s the rules” 🤷♀️.
To get back to the minimum wage: Trump got funding for his stupid wall by taking money slotted for shit like schools for the DoD and such through a state of emergency, but Biden/the Democrats can’t do anything about the minimum wage? Or abortion? Or marijuana? Trump got his wall funding basically overnight, it seemed, but it took 3 years for the director of the DEA to reclassify marijuana because reasons?
Regardless of the reasoning behind it, whether its legitimate or not, people are sick of it. They’re sick of being told to pinch their nose and vote for the candidate they don’t even like because the “boogeyman” over there is gonna be much worse. But… How? They actually get shit done, and in ways that are apparently “illegal or against the rules” yet they have to remain as law/precedent because they still happened.
Bullshit. I’m as left/liberal/whatever you’re supposed to call it now as it gets. I’m a veteran who thinks the DoD budget needs to be gutted and that the US military is the largest and most successful socialism program in our country, I’m a trans woman, I’ve worked public service and private sector jobs, I’m registered and vote blue, and I’ll be honest, until Biden stepped down, I was seriously considering sitting out of this vote just because it was like, what’s the point?
The Democrats don’t care about what their constituents actually want (hence why they fucked Bernie over so badly, he wasn’t “establishment” enough for them despite his popularity) in a candidate, and they don’t pass legislation that actually benefits most of us. The biggest thing I’ve heard people rally behind is student loan forgiveness, which yes, the Democrats have achieved progress and victory on and been hampered by the Republicans, I’ll acknowledge that.
But notice that’s the only debt they’re willing to forgive because it impacts enough of their constituents to warrant it? I’ve yet to hear a single Democrat (but have heard one Republican) say credit card debt from during the Pandemic should be forgiven since so many were forced to use credit cards to pay rent, groceries, utilities, etc while they either couldn’t work or couldn’t. And when I bring it up to friends with student loans, fellow Democrats, I’m basically told, “Well, you need to wait your turn, they’ll get to that after the student loans.” Why the fuck can’t they do both?!? Why do the Democrats keep hindering progress so they can have a platform to run for reelection on, and God forbid they just accomplish a goal the American people actually want and then gasp actually have to come up with something else.
All this, everything above, the American people have to watch and listen to bullshit excuse after bullshit excuse day after fucking day while Congress ensures they still get their raises, they still have their health insurance, and they still only “work” like 32 weeks/year with all of their recesses and breaks and everything else, while the average American worker isn’t even guaranteed a livable wage, or even fucking vacation/sick time, or health insurance.
So no, I’m tired of the “BuT fOx NeWs” bullshit that the Democrats keep spitting. Regardless of their circumstances, Republicans continuously hit their goals and ensure their policies are enacted, regardless of the decorum or precedent surrounding any of it. And all of that boils down to what Jeff Daniels said as Will McAvoy on The Newsroom:
“If liberals are so fuckin’ smart, how come they lose so goddamn always?”
End rant/
Edit to OP’s Update:
Yeah, democracy is 100% on the line, so why are anonymous senior Democrats coming forward and saying “We’ve resigned ourselves to a second Trump presidency?” Because it doesn’t effect them, so why should they care??
And I’m sorry, but if the people we’re electing resign themselves to failure, why the fuck should we even try? Like, seriously, if our elected representatives have resigned themselves to fascism and are perfectly ok with it, then wtf am I supposed to do? Give them more money so maybe they’ll pretend to give a shit?
I understand what you’re saying, but the Democrats don’t get anything done. So after 30 years of getting fucking nothing from the party that keeps telling you the other guy is a fascist and you need to vote for them so they’ll do XYZ, and then they pretend to half ass just X and don’t even try to solve Y or Z, what’s the fucking point? At the least the fascists don’t bullshit, and at least the fascists get things done.
Democrat politicians act like they’re their constituents parents who know what’s actually best for them, and they’re fucking not. We brought them into their position, they need to fucking get things done for us and stop with the constant bullshit infighting and bullshit excuses. If Trump can get 3 Supreme Court Justices and fucking Presidential immunity, why the FUCK can’t Biden and the Democrats secure abortion/LGBTQ+/labor/etc rights into law? Why can’t they fucking do anything other than enrich themselves with insider trading?
Notice despite things getting harder for the majority of Americans, every politicians portfolio across the aisle still went up? Yet they’re telling us they understand things are hard, they’re trying their best. At least the fucking Republicans just tell you they’re gonna fuck you in the ass and how. The Democrats promise you dinner and then expect their cum down your throat to be sufficient, while expecting you to thank them for tapping your head before they cum.
I seriously hope this reinvigorated voting base convinces the DNC that the way things are going aren’t working, and that the DNC were a lot closer to becoming non-existent with this election than they felt comfortable. Because that’s how all of us minorities feel, but we don’t have golden fucking parachutes to catch us when shit continues to hit the fan because the Democrats care more about gobbling the balls of lobbyists than they do the people who fucking put them there in the first place.
Very well said… Excellent rant
I’ll add that Biden COULD erase all student loan debt with the stroke of a pen… But instead he half-assed it and now the Republicans have been able to beat it all back down. This is the typical liberal bullshit plan… Half-assed attempts to do what their constituents want, knowing full well it’ll fail, either because the Republicans will obstruct it or a few Dems will. After 30 years of it, I think most people have caught on that the Dems aren’t REALLY trying, they just want it to look like they are, but without hurting their owners profits… Let’s see if Biden actually fixes the Supreme Court, or if it’s just more half-assery.
It’s funny that you’ve thought about this for so long and you still don’t understand. You need to take your position and think about it for 15 more minutes. People here who are blasting the Democrats in Washington are probably people who voted for them or who considered voting for them. The politicians who are supposed to represent us are failing to do so. That’s a big problem.
If you want to point out that the Republicans are worse, good for you. Many of us have much worse things to say about Republicans, and we definitely vote against them. So if you’re accusing us of being shallow or hypocritical, you’re just wrong.
Many commenters have defended Washington Democrats by talking about how the Republicans obstruct everything. Yes, that’s true, and it’s an old problem. What have the Democrats done to prevent it from happening in the future? The Democrats could have tried to get rid of the filibuster, they could have raised the debt ceiling by minting coins worth a billion dollars, they could have tried to stack the court with Democrats to offset the Republican efforts, they could have tried to create national health care. They could have done lots of things. And some Democrats are honestly in favor of these things. Others are corporate centrists. They’ll talk the talk as much as necessary, but they won’t act towards progressive interests.
If you think pointing that out is destructive, you’ve just adopted an anti-democratic position where leftist views don’t mean anything. And if that’s your view, I don’t think it’s worthy of respect. Also, you might say that speaking critically about the Democrats is bad because it hurts their chances of winning in the election. That’s wrong for two reasons. First, halfway intelligent voters already know some of the major issues, and pretending those issues don’t exist isn’t going to motivate them. It’s better to be honest about the state of affairs. Second, we have a civic duty to redress our grievances with government. Biden was hurt in the bull’s heavily because he had supported Israeli genocide. The public was opposed to that in large numbers, and you can bet that other people have carefully considered their stances as a result of the pressure that they saw Biden feel.
Democrats don’t do things even when they have power: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFi73TzEN_8
Stop making excuses for them. You’re not going to get anything from them if you play along with their dog and pony show. Hold them accountable.
For real. Childish Republicans are the problem. I mean, if there were a point in the past 15 years where Democrats had controlled the presidency and both houses of congress, they would have increased it, right?
They had the house and 61 in the senate in 2008 when this was proposed, and instead raised it by 10 cents.
They had the house and senate from 2020 to 2022 and did fuckall once again.
Get out of here with your facts, commmie.
THIS IS USA, where we hide inconvenient truths, repeat propaganda talking points, and blame it on someone else.
THIS IS USA, where we hide inconvenient truths, repeat propaganda talking points, and blame it on someone else.
The irony of saying this in response to the false claim that the Democrats had a supermajority in Congress in anything but a technicality is on fucking point lol.
While I don’t disagree, it’s not hard to imagine a world where the Dems had increased the goal over time. Sure, it wouldn’t have passed, but a 20-25 minimum would at least be a legitimate talking point instead of some “pie in the sky” idea that’s not in the zeitgeist at all.
The push for a “$15 minimum wage” was first made law in Seattle, and the law included annual increases to keep up with inflation.
The current minimum wage in Seattle in 2024 is $19.97 / hour.
Any minimum wage law that doesn’t address inflation is not taking itself seriously.
… As opposed to the superior Republican plan for increasing minimum wage?
Crickets
What if I told you the viable alternative wasn’t to look further right, but further left?
Well, I don’t know about you, but I can’t teleport. the last time I checked, neither can the u.s. political zeitgeist. If we want more left, we are going to have to get there the long way.
How do you get there the long way? Is it maybe by pushing leftist agenda and leftist talking points? Is it maybe by like endorsing workers rights and fair pay? Is it maybe making sure people don’t live in poverty by raising the minimum wage? Sure seems like a good road map to me.
I think the real lesson is that our government is so broken that it can’t do its job.
Oh, as opposed to the Republican plan to do a bad job? Russian Bot Say What?
I’m not American but, “the other party would do worse” is not a very… powerful argument. Even if true.
unfortunately it is for a two party system. if you don’t vote Dem, the only lesson they’ll take from it is “oh, people must want more conservative positions” and go further right.
the solution to this isn’t to not vote Dem, it’s to elect representatives that align with more leftist positions, which to the credit of democratic voters, has been happening more than in any time in history.
that is partly thanks to a new generation of people who don’t fall for the red scare propaganda that previous ones did, and leftism and socialism being less stigmatized.
What really amazes me is how set up to maintain the status quo 'murican politics is. Political parties have to be registered on every state, otherwise they don’t “exist”. Gerrymandering ensures voting districts are always drawn in favor of specific parties. Delegate votes means popular vote isn’t as important. Even fucking Brazil is more democratic by comparison.
My country isn’t a two-party system, but I have often to vote for parties I hate to to prevent the extreme right from coming to power. Fuck I even did that a few weeks ago. If I were American I would vote for the Dems, but I would criticize them harshly, as I criticize harshly the parties I have to vote for here.
Pretty sure liberals are past 15 an hour and have been for awhile. Centrist Dems are still on board for 15, at least in the party platform. And regardless it’s a damn sight better than those calling for the elimination of the minimum wage altogether.
Meanwhile Congress has never missed a pay raise and that receives minimal attention.
Its always baffled my how many government positions have perioidic pay increases, sometimes annually, a good pension usually as well, but they will never pass legislation to make other employers do the same.
Companies pay damn good money to ensure their payroll stays as low as possible. It’s cheaper to buy donate to politicians than raise base pay.
Which is why the government should take responsibilty and deny the bribery lobbying and enforce better wage and labour laws
They’re referring to liberalism, not social democracy or progressive or whatever weird definition American media started using in the last 25 years or so.
American media, by which we mean conservative media, refers to liberals as that to trick people into thinking the far left doesn’t exist. If centrists can be labeled as left as left can be then it’s safe to ignore the actual left. Of course the Liberals aren’t exactly upset about this either.
Oh.
And here’s how the rest of the world uses the word “Liberal”: https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=liberal+
Here is the Wikipedia article on liberalism: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism
Here is the dictionary definition of the word: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/liberal
But, hey, your racist asshole made a shitty song about how much he liked Malcom X being shot so liberal is bad and something vote trump, right??
But, hey, your racist asshole made a shitty song about how much he liked Malcom X being shot so liberal is bad and something vote trump, right??
Imagine having this lackluster reading comprehension, and then linking others to a dictionary.
You completely missed the point of the song.
Phil Ochs was satirizing liberals of his time pretending to support civil rights, but opposing any actual means to get there and supporting every action against “radicals”.
You realize the person you’re responding to literally cited a book length academic source by an actual historian, right? Why do you think a Wikipedia article, a google search and, a basic dictionary definition is an adequate response to that?
Judging by your comment history you really need to do some reading on the history of liberalism as a political ideology. This is a long but accessible starting place from a left-wing perspective. Feel free to form your own opinion, man. But at least understand some of the basics of the history of an ideology before you start an argument about what it is and isn’t.
Pretty sure liberals are past 15 an hour and have been for awhile. Centrist Dems are still on board for 15, at least in the party platform.
How can they be both at the same time?
Why isn’t minimum wage just tied to the Consumer Price Index? It should rise alongside Social Security, instead of getting these band-aid increases once a decade.
We need a UBI. Then we could scrap minimum wage entirely. If a job can’t pay you enough, you simply don’t have to do that job.
Tie it to the GDP and now you double down on the incentive to work, produce, and buy local.
The downside is like 100 multibillionaires would be sad because their score multiploer went down.
Ubi is only a piece of the puzzle. We need to uncouple healthcare from employment as well.
Tie it to the GDP and […] and buy local.
I’m gonna need the receipts on that crazy orthogonal linkage. Be sure to stress how paying a local guy I don’t know for employing a dozen locals is better than paying a remote guy I don’t know for employing a dozen locals.
“Buy local” is “buy small business”, as in not large scale corporations who continually abuse whatever means possible to minimize pay for employees while reaping the biggest rewards.
Not “this person who has 12 employees vs that person who has 12 employees”, but “buy from this person with 12 employees, not that company with more than 2 million employees and tops the list of employees on Medicare and food stamps”.
When I say “local” I mean not outsourced to foreign investors, businesses, and production, or to a series of off shore shell corporations used to dodge federal taxes.
I don’t mean, “you should buy from Jeff’s Store, because his business is within 2 1/2 miles, fuck Jerry’s Store because he ships out of Iowa.”
Jerry is your neighbor. It doesn’t matter if he lives on the other side of the country.
Because it would enter an infinite feedback loop where everyone would be paid minimum wage and the ultra rich would be even richer. Inflation only makes for an excuse for the rich to widen their profit margins.
Minimum wage should go up when inflation goes up, but so should all the wages. The way to fix it is effective policies that diminish the inflation itself to a reasonable amount.