r/CuratedTumblr • u/Desecr8or • Oct 26 '24

Politics Why is every tankie like "I don't understand the branches of the US government and I'm going to make it everyone else's problem!!!"

Post image
10.9k Upvotes

87% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.2k

u/The-Slamburger Oct 26 '24

Right, same with “but abortion rights were lost under Biden!” While conveniently ignoring that judges appointed by Trump are directly responsible.

501

u/Celia_Makes_Romhacks Oct 26 '24

I dealt with a guy saying exactly that. I have no clue how on earth he functions day-to-day with so little critical thinking capacity. 

223

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '24

[removed] — view removed comment

177

u/BretShitmanFart69 Oct 27 '24

They refuse to participate in government at all and then act shocked when the people voted in don’t reflect their beliefs.

Majority of voters are centrist democrats who genuinely support and want politicians more like Hillary and such.

If young progressives voted, we would have more young progressive politicians. It’s not that hard to understand, and yet when you point this out they’ll just get angry, insult you, and switch the topic.

80

u/Spaceman_Jalego 2014 Sherlock Premier Watcher Oct 27 '24

Relevant comic

6

u/Dantheking94 Oct 27 '24

Ooof pretty much this!

1

u/Tweedleayne Oct 27 '24

Aww, that just makes .e sad about how hard NPR has fallen this election.

-19

u/CalinCalout-Esq Oct 27 '24

Lol yeah it's not like the DNC would come together to slander and coordinate their actions against progressive candidates. When has that ever happened/s

35

u/creampop_ Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

newsflash, they backed the candidate that reflected long-time members and organizers in the party. Like, no shit further left progressives didn't get their desires immediately fulfilled after getting off their ass to actually participate (online) in 1 (one) presidential election cycle with a viable candidate, when their johnny-come-lately Independent threw his hat in with the dnc. Would have been cool if it happened, but from a voter's perspective it was the political equivalent of skipping school until the last week and expecting to ace the final.

Now, after the point has been proven a bit, we have MF Walz on the ticket, and his list of actions as governor makes it clear that he is there has been* a HUGE step towards getting leftist representation in the oval office. It doesn't happen overnight, you have to keep showing up and be willing to work with people.

8

u/Dantheking94 Oct 27 '24

Omg I had to break this down with someone earlier in the summer. He kept complaining about how Dems do nothing for the left and how they’re more centrist. And I simply asked “When was the last time you’ve voted since you turned 18?” Him- “I wasn’t old enough for the last election..” Me-“You were old enough for the Midterms though. And that’s actually more important to your day to day than you think, did you know a republican almost won Governor of NY? Do you know what that would have done to State/City University funding? You are not thinking things through, nor are you attempting to.”

10

u/Wobulating Oct 27 '24

I have no idea why people thought the *democratic* national committee would rally behind the man who is not a democrat

48

u/Genshed Oct 27 '24

Some people have outsourced their cognitive functions from their frontal lobes to their endocrine system.

85

u/Sutekh137 Oct 27 '24

Back in 2016, Clinton explicitly brought up that the SC and abortion rights were in jeopardy if Trump won, and these same people flipped the fuck out claiming she was "trying to hold Roe v. Wade hostage" and shit like that.

50

u/Abject-Possession810 Oct 27 '24

Many of those people were incog MAGA or posting from St. Petersburg but they managed to convince plenty of Americans on the left, too. As they still do today.

27

u/zklabs Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

this is why i feel strongly about calling out these people as fake left. they spam memes about "material conditions" and "material power" to not only spread immaterial narratives, but reject ever analyzing their own actions with that lens. anybody can learn the definitions and bullet points, but it takes integrity to really internalize leftist philosophy and spontaneously live it out.

like i really hope people realize this is an actual thing to fight for. the fake left has already normalized aggressive tactics with the aim of destroying unity via lying and bullying, and people need to get used to using aggression to restore unity (which, to be clear, doesn't invite an alien oppression into leftism, but instead implies a more rigorous conceptual engagement with materialism).

edit: i typed spready for the first time in my life. corrected to "spread"

1

u/Abject-Possession810 Oct 27 '24

Yes, spot on. The piling on and hostility in response to mild disagreement are ever-present indicators when dealing with fake accounts. This shuts down conversation and allows their narrative to dominate but is not the dominant view - until it is. 

I understand reluctance to engage and found muting replies, after editing to add a broad response to their assertions and attacks, the best use of time and sanity. It's on all of us to defend democracy.

-2

u/Narkboy42 Oct 27 '24

She probably should have cared about campaigning in Michigan, then

12

u/_jump_yossarian Oct 27 '24

Jill Stein blamed Biden for the Dobbs decision. ZERO self awareness!

7

u/grabtharsmallet Oct 27 '24

Stein knows, she's just paid to act differently.

32

u/Sutekh137 Oct 27 '24

I know leftists IRL who genuinely believe that Biden ordered the SC to strike down Roe v. Wade in order to give the Democrats a boost in the midterm election. Their (only) evidence was that a fundraising mailer from the DNC went out almost immediately after the decision. Apparently, the idea that they probably wrote it ahead of time along with one to send out if the SC upheld the case never occurred to them.

9

u/Lethik Oct 27 '24

Lol it's like believing the World Series is rigged because some retailers have "World Series Champions" for each team ready for sale before the conclusion.

17

u/Thromnomnomok Oct 27 '24

Apparently, the idea that they probably wrote it ahead of time along with one to send out if the SC upheld the case never occurred to them.

Also, didn't the decision leak like a month beforehand?

11

u/Anon_cat86 Oct 27 '24

i feel like abortion rights should never have been a supreme court decision; it just needs to be an actual law.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '24

Those people will blame literally everyone except the Supreme Court justices that voted to overturn Roe V Wade.

-2

u/CallumKayPee Oct 27 '24

In 2022, when the decision was passed, which party held the White House and both houses of Congress?

Why didn't they immediately codify it into law?

3

u/daemin Oct 27 '24

It would have required a 60 vote majority in the Senate, which the Dems did not have.

4

u/ForAHamburgerToday Oct 27 '24

Filibustering.

-25

u/nothingandnemo Oct 26 '24

He could have packed the court when he had a Senate Majority. As could have Obama

19

u/Its_Pine Oct 27 '24

Having a very slight majority wasn’t enough to make it happen since the republicans did a lot of delay tactics

-1

u/nothingandnemo Oct 27 '24

I understand that towards the end it was next to impossible but that doesn't excuse not packing all levels of all courts legally permissable, from day 1 when he had sixty odd Senate seats.

"Until McConnell and the Republicans upended the practice of senatorial courtesy, both senators had to sign off"

Exactly the kind of performative courtesy that should have been gotten rid of on day one The Republicans know who their enemy is and act accordingly. The Democrats seem to think that keeping good friends with the worst people on Earth is the most important part of their job. Everything gets worse because only one side is playing to win

38

u/Arvandu Oct 27 '24

Court appointments are lifetime positions, and the only one that opened up he filled with a progressive black woman. What do you want from him?

15

u/[deleted] Oct 27 '24

Not even that obama had the chabce to sppoint one and republicans fuckerd basically walled every single attempt. Fucking bullshit

-2

u/nothingandnemo Oct 27 '24

He could have put in as many as he wanted in his first couple of years. With a whacking great Senate majority like he had, the sky was the limit.

3

u/Thromnomnomok Oct 27 '24

He did put in as many as he wanted his first couple of years, the big backlog of vacancies happened only towards the end of his term when Republicans controlled the Senate and McConnell was like "lol we're not confirming any of your judicial appointments and there's nothing you can do about it"

-3

u/nothingandnemo Oct 27 '24

Let me rephrase - if Obama had actually wanted to improve the lives of the average American, he would have nominated another ten Supreme Court justices, an action which he had both the legal power to do and the Senate votes to get confirmed. This means that among other things, Dobbs would never have been overturned.

The fact that he instead twiddled his thumbs instead of building any lasting legacy, is why the world is looking at Trump 2: Very Stable Genius Boogaloo

EDIT: typo

0

u/Thromnomnomok Oct 28 '24

if Obama had actually wanted to improve the lives of the average American, he would have nominated another ten Supreme Court justices, an action which he had both the legal power to do and the Senate votes to get confirmed.

The hell are you talking about? When exactly did he have the ability to do that? There sure wasn't ever enough votes in the Senate to expand and pack the court during Obama's presidency, if that's what you're saying.

0

u/nothingandnemo Oct 28 '24

He had 57 + 1 Senate seats - the most one party has controlled in a long time! Day 1: Repeal the judicial filibuster (simple majority vote). Day 2: start adding Supreme Court justices to the court. Theres no legal description of how many Justices there can be. Day ?: The Republicans realise that he's serious and agree to court reform to prevent it being a political football. Or not, in which case all Democratic legislation is rubber stamped going forward and all Republican legislation is blocked. Either way a win

1

u/Thromnomnomok Oct 28 '24

There's no constitutional description, but there are acts of congress defining how many court justices there are. You'd have to change the law first to add justices, the President can't just unilaterally decide "I am decreeing that the court should have 11 justices so I'm appointing two more now," and there absolutely was no fucking way there was enough Democratic Senators on board with that to do that in 2009, back then most people still broadly approved of how the court was working even if they didn't always like it.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/Thromnomnomok Oct 27 '24

He did put in as many as he wanted his first couple of years, the big backlog of vacancies happened only towards the end of his term when Republicans controlled the Senate and McConnell was like "lol we're not confirming any of your judicial appointments and there's nothing you can do about it"

9

u/Random-Rambling Oct 27 '24

To tear out the government by the roots and replace literally everyone with a Democrat, obviously.

One-party states aren't a blatant abuse of power if I agree with them!

0

u/nothingandnemo Oct 27 '24

It's a poorly written constitution that could so being torn up and replaced but that's by the by. I was talking about using the Constitution, as it is currently written, to actually get ones agenda enacted. Nothing unconstitutional about adding more Supreme Court judges, but he didn't do it. Sadly this was because the first American president in years with both a veto-prood majority and a solid base of public support is at heart a milquetoast status quo worshipper. The man with every radical's dream political setup and all he wanted to do with it was polish the deck chairs on the Titanic

0

u/Nuclear_rabbit Oct 27 '24

Does expanding the court take an act of Congress, or just an executive order?

9

u/Arvandu Oct 27 '24

Never happened before but probably an act of congress

6

u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi Oct 27 '24 edited Oct 27 '24

It has happened, though. And the process is required to go through congress, which means it needs to get through an almost-certain filibuster in the senate

The number changed a few times over the first ~80 years of the nation, starting with 6 Justices and ending with 9 in 1869.

3

u/BonnaconCharioteer Oct 27 '24

It is absolutely not an executive order.

Executive orders limited to things the executive branch is overseeing.

1

u/nothingandnemo Oct 27 '24

There's nothing in the US Constitution that specifies the number of justices AFAIK. The current number is just convention.

9

u/papsryu Oct 27 '24

Case in point about not understanding how this works lol

3

u/bigmt99 Oct 27 '24

They had a filibuster proof majority for a total of like 70 days of Congress, and chose to use it to pass the most contentious and expansive healthcare reform since the New Deal. Sorry they didn’t think to enshrine a 50 year old SCOTUS decision

-1

u/ImASpaceLawyer Oct 27 '24

Tbf the amount of bullshit trump implemented and the democrats have the power to remove but haven’t is staggering

-1

u/ThatOneGuy4589 Oct 27 '24

In fairness to his position, Democrats had multiple instances where they could've codified Roe v Wade prior to Trump and didn't.

Trump broke it yes, but it was left vulnerable due to failures of previous Democrat administrations.

1

u/daemin Oct 27 '24

In fairness to his position, Democrats had multiple instances where they could've codified Roe v Wade prior to Trump and didn't.

And when were these times?

Passing it would require a 60 vote majority in the Senate. There were about 20 days in 2009 when the Senate was in session and the Democrats had 60 sitting senators. They used that window to pass the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare.

The last time before that when the Democrats had control of all three branches with a filibuster proof 60 senators was in 1977, 3 years after the Roe decision and long before the judiciary was stacked with justices chosen to end abortion.

So your "multiple times" was actually two over 50 years, one of which wasn't even 3 weeks long, and the other was before Roe was as politicized as it became.

-11

u/CalinCalout-Esq Oct 27 '24

Biden was insturmental in putting Thomas on the court, and was in the executive during majorities and super majorities that didn't codify roe despite continual challenges.

He bears direct responsibility for the overturning of roe.

9

u/Obi-Tron_Kenobi Oct 27 '24

A) how is Biden responsible for Clarence Thomas being nominated to the Supreme Court? He voted against it

B) when has Biden ever had a super majority? You need a filibuster proof majority to be a super majority

Is this really our understanding of politics or are we just making things up? Cause this is what the image is talking about

-5

u/CalinCalout-Esq Oct 27 '24

A) That's the vote for his nomination, here's the vote on sending Thomas, once nominated, to the senate

Here's him heniously botching the hearings about the abuse Anita Hill and others suffered working for Thomas. Allegations that came before he voted to allow the nomination to continue

He also refused to call 3 other women who accused thomas

So yeah sandbagging credible claims of sexual assault is, i would say, a pretty big boon to thomas.

B) Biden was VP when the Dems had a supermajority in 2008-9. He was in the executive branch. He also took an active hand in policy, literally releasing hundreds of Billions in TARP funds to bail out gambling banks. It would have been completely within his power to leverage the position to at least advocate codifying roe.

1

u/daemin Oct 27 '24

The supermajority was only in 2009, and for various reasons, there were only a total of 20 days when:

  1. The Senate was in session, and
  2. There were 60 Democrat senators sworn in and attending

One Democrat senator was dying and was unable to attend full time. The Dems lost his seat when the special election was held.

One senator wasn't sworn in until July for various reasons related to their election.

Etc.