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‘What is this, the Soviet Union?’: Senators rip Trump’s call to limit doll purchases
(www.independent.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2025
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politics
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No, it's the America you lot voted for.
How's it feel being great again?
I voted for Kamala Harris. Before that I would have voted for Bernie Sanders.
Kamala Harris targeted Republican women for a good portion of her campaign, and dropped a lot of the very popular Democratic platform, resulting in millions of Democrats sitting this one out.
Do you think this is because they are stupid? Why would they do this if not to take a knee? And I still thought that Trump would lose, I couldn't believe that he would be re-elected. I'm never cynical enough.
Imagine if she ran on a $15 an hour minimum wage increase, helping many millions of our poorest Americans, with over 60% voter support (not Democrat). Our consumer economy would get millions of new consumers participating.
Ds and Rs are now 30% each, independents are 40% of the voters. Both parties know that they cannot win without a majorly popular independent issue. Why was this ignored?
Oh, almost forget, yes, I know, BoTh SiDeS and so on.
To be extremely clear. THAT WAS ONE OF HER POLICIES
Democrats run on $15/hr, win in a landslide (2020), and throw up their hands because they don't have Joe Manchin's permission to raise wages in the US Senate.
Republicans run on ending abortions and now abortions are fully illegal in a slew of states, with a national ban on the horizon.
I didn't watch her every appearance, but I did watch quite a lot, and minimum wage seriously got very little time compared to her pursuit of Republicans. Reporters and politicos who did watch everything agree. Abortion was in the forefront regarding their D platform, which has about as much support as higher minimum wage (over 60%).
If she had replaced her R outreach with campaigning for higher wages, and continued as she did with the abortion issue, she would have received many more D and independent voters. She needed them both to win, the "R strategy" was weird and stupid and in my opinion I think she was paid to do exactly what she did.
Her campaign undeniably made a fortune from somebody (over a billion dollars). Not only did she make more than anybody ever, she did it in just a few months. It's a radical and preposterous increase, right in the open, in public.
She immediately knew reaching out to Rs was a massive waste of precious time and that she would lose if she did so. It's a mathematical certainty, bOtH pArTiEs know that they need to court independents instead of their opponents to win a fed election.
I voted for her, this is not a Trump defense, he also is paid to do exactly what he does by "donors" (like Saudi Arabia and Musk and Bezos and Walmart and Russia and that guy from the Hercules sitcom).
Of course, this is well known in politics circles. That is why I said, "a good portion of her campaign was targeting Republican women voters." (bold added for emphasis)
To be totally transparent, SERIOUSLY, THIS Is NOT A JOKE OR SOME KIND OF WORD TRICKERY OR CONSPIRACY, WITH NO CLAIMS MADE OF A CERTAIN PERCENTAGE OR EXCLUSIVITY OF POLICIES.
I think the 2 of your's disconnect is over what 'ran on' means. Most people would take that to be the main emphasis of the campign messaging,
Not the total platform and all its contents.
Yes, my opinion is she "ran on" abortion and R outreach primarily.
Abortion was a good issue, but any "R outreach" time spent was wasted. Spend that time on Democrats and independents instead.
I have been an Unafilliated Independent since I registered to vote in 1977. Neither party can win without me, but they can't count on my vote. If they want my vote, they have to EARN it, and they even seldom try.
In the nicest possible way, and only judging from this post, you are part of the problem. Hear me out:
They don't actually need you. Either party. There's a solid base of voters who are going to vote blue or stay home, or vote red or stay home. If you require being courted, then you're either effectively random, staying home, or lean towards one side over the other.
You're possibly upset that none of your choices are good. That's pretty true. 'both sides' have reasons to not vote for them. You need to help fix that: pick a side, whichever one you lean towards, and go make the choices better.
Local politics (the ones at the precinct, county, state levels) decide how we choose our candidates in the larger races by deciding who represents us on those larger stages internally to the party. Example: the general public was not polled for the dnc chair election, it was only people put into dnc leadership, who were voted for, several steps down, by people at the precinct level. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Democratic_National_Committee_chairmanship_election
Is there corporate bullshit here? almost certainly. Can it be overcome? Only if people are paying attention and care to get involved. Voting only in November elections and expecting the candidates to cater to you specifically will not resolve the problems.
The candidates don't need to work for your vote. You need to work for better candidates. Or shut up and vote for the least harm.
Unfortunately, our two party system has resulted in the current good cop/bad cop dynamic for many years. Since the Supremes decided that money is free speech and corporations are people, regular voters have lost a massive amount of influence.
Your ideals are good, but look around, you're living in a political fantasy, not reality. None of this is secret, it is now done right out in the open.
... and so much more
In my opinion, you need to face that voting is absolutely no solution and that it is for entertainment purposes only, like answering a poll or survey. I don't know the solution, I only know that voting isn't it.
There are always those lame party hacks that have to try to tell me that I MUST join a team. No I dont, and I won't.
I ALWAYS vote, and it's always for the lesser of two evils. I've NEVER voted for a candidate I liked much. It's just that these days, one of the evils is beyond proverbial, and is truly Evil.
But that doesn't make me a Democrat, and registering as a Democrat won't change a thing, except give them some sort of bragging rights that they don't deserve.
Nope, as long as there is a HUGE swath of America out there that refuses to identify with either party, those parties WILL care, and they do, for the simple reason that NOBODY gets elected without us.
You had a longer answer; I was just getting some real Ken Bone energy there...
Me too, and have been since I turned 18 in the late 80s. No exceptions, always registered Independent, I have a strong dislike for BoTh PaRtIes. I'm an issue voter first and anti-incumbent voter second.
Good to meet a fellow member of the majority!|
In the 50s, we were only 20% of the voters, so Independents have doubled in the last 70+ years.
I think we're growing, too. A lot of people had been giving the Dems the benefit of the doubt, until they just folded up and let MAGA take everything right back, and didn't put up a fight at all. It was a disgusting, shameful performance, and all those MAGA appeasers need to go. There's a small handful that can stay, but the rest need to be replaced by new Democratic Warriors who will actually do their jobs, and fight for us.
One might argue the sides are Labor and Capital, but we only have representatives from the Capital Party to choose from every year
Agreed! Our "labor party" sold out a long time ago; our current choices are secular or theocratic capital.
Are there some fundamental differences between Dems and GQP? Sure, some, but as a person who has taken an outside view of politics through expanding my political knowledge and understanding, when it comes down to it they only have surface level differences. When Madami was running for Mayor of New York the Democrat establishment threw every nasty thing they could to STOP him. Get this straight, they would have rather a MAGA win than an avowed Democratic Socialist. THAT tells me what I really need to know about the majority of the Democrats in the party.
At this point, the difference is mostly in stability. It's highly unlikely that Harris would have slapped a bunch of tarrifs around willy nilly, and she probably wouldn't be blowing up a bunch of ships near Venezuela (I wouldn't rule it out, but I would assume that the false flag operation would be more subtle).
US voting is 100% picking the lesser evil, at least for now. The current hope would be that democratic socialists gain enough standing to take over the democratic party, so that voters have meaningful choice. In an ideal world, we'd repeal things like citizens united as well
The vast majority of Americans didn't vote for this. Two thirds of us didnt vote for this. If you think this is the voters' fault, you dont understand the world very well, my friend.
1/3 of them didn’t vote, which is very much a vote in and of itself and don’t dare absolve them by letting them continue their “I didn’t vote for this” narrative. You fucking did the moment you chose not to vote.
A great Canadian philosopher once noted, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!"
Lol thanks, now that song is gonna be stuck in my head all day D=
There's worse songs.
Wise words. He also said "I will choose the path that's clear," and I feel like none of the people who didn't vote were paying attention. It's been pretty clear, to anyone who's actually paying attention, what's been going on for a long time now.
Well a whole lotta Ken Bones seem to think the parties need to offer them a pretty, pretty pony.
And then...they'll still think about voting. If they aren't washing their hair that day or if there isn't some compelling reality TV show on or something.
The majority didn't vote because there are flaws in the voting systems we have. They are disenfranchised, not at fault. I dont blame a poor person for being poor, but I mean, if you want to blame people for being subjugated, thats your prerogative.
I voted for Harris. What else was I supposed to do?
In the average Lemmy twat's view, try to overthrow the government at the cost of your life and possibly your family's while they pontificate on the internet about Americans not doing enough.
I mean, you're not wrong. They are full of brave, anonymous invective.
^ This.
Work on shifting USA culture from alienating individualism, which says "I did a thing, so don't blame me", to a collectivist understanding that society requires mutuality of action and responsibilities.
If my co-citizens fail to vote, or actively vote against our interests, then that's on me, to the extent of my abilities to contribute.
TL;DR: talk to people about civics
Me too, man. Stay vigilant.
Im watching to news, ready to do what makes sense. If ICE comes to town, I'm there baby.
Thank you for doing that. Others went above and beyond by canvassing and volunteering too and/or donating. I tried to make an impact by just getting people to vote period. If they needed a ride to the polls I was willing to help. But you at least did something
I'm out in the country (appalachian mountains) so kind of low population density for this, but if I'm ever living back in the city I'll try and reach out to people.
awfully bold to assume most Americans have any savings lol
America has a two party system where both parties are controlled by capitalists and the entire system is designed to keep the populous divided and distracted so that the capitalists can continue to extract wealth. In such a system, participation itself is the moral choice, not the choice between one side or the other.
Voters give legitimacy to the false dichotomy that capitalists present us.
I'm confused by your comment. Are you saying two thirds didn't want this specifically, or are you counting non-voters as opponents of Trump?
My guess is that most of the non-voters, if forced to vote, would have voted Trump. He had name recognition. These types of citizens couldn't name the current Vice President any more than they could find the USA on a world map.
Unlikely voters, as opposed to likely voters which are the pollsters darlings, are low information, "just trying to pay the rent" kind of people. Why a low information voter with no reason to believe their life would change with either result would by default be a Trump voter speaks to your personal prejudices.
Personal prejudices? I explained why in my comment. Name recognition.
You called them "low information." If your comment wasn't prejudiced, then neither was mine.
How does it feel to be a smug, unhelpful asshole?
We didn't all vote for the the orange clown.
It's just a reminder that the American people are the problem. Even when Trump is gone, the people will remain, so it must remain the top priority of everyone who values democracy and human rights to reduce the power that the United States exercises on the world.
Feels great actually.
Every two years we vote. Every two years things get worse.
Clearly, the problem is with the people doing the voting. Couldn't possibly be something fundamentally dysfunctional in our democratic model.
I see it as a two part problem. One, the current party setup one party ratchets us towards fascism, the other obstructs attempts to go back for "bi-partianship." Secondly, I hear most swing voters consider themselves moderates and from experience along with other's inspection of them, they're only concerned about order until it affects them. In thusly they're essentially just a brand of conservatism. Sounds a lot like the typical liberal.
There's a joke about the average suburban Wine Mom voting for Pete Buttigieg every two years, while having political opinions consistent with Mao's Little Red Book. "Moderate" is such a moving target, precisely because its hedged in by who is actually running. I'm sure if you sample the NYC voting pool, you'll find people who voted for Rudy Giuliani in the '90s, Michael Bloomberg in the '00s/'10s, and Zohran Mamdani in '25, without much cognitive struggle. Hell, there's no shortage of Obama/Trump swing voters.
Most people don't care about politics until it affects them. And the art of political discourse is largely trying to get your audience to sympathize with your position by convincing them they are going to benefit from your policies / suffer from your opponents'.
So much of the modern capitalist system is predicated on people believing that they benefit from playing along and contributing their labor/intellect for a share of the spoils. And so much of the socialist system is predicated on people believing their neighbors have their backs in a real material way, so they should reciprocate in kind.
Move a liberal from a system that rewards subservience to a system that rewards solidarity and they're happy enough to change.