Summary
The House GOP’s new rules package aims to weaken minority party influence while advancing a pro-corporate agenda.
Key provisions include shielding the House speaker from bipartisan accountability and fast-tracking 12 GOP bills without allowing amendments, including measures to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) and protect fracking.
Democrats, led by Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), criticized the package for ignoring economic and social issues like inflation and housing while prioritizing tax cuts for billionaires.
Republicans plan to offset these costs by slashing social programs, sparking warnings of further congressional dysfunction.
“The American people did not vote for whatever the hell this is,”
Yeah, actually, they did. Millions of Democrat voters stayed home. Every single state shifted right.
McGovern added, “and you better believe that Democrats will not let Republicans turn the House of Representatives into a rubber stamp for their extremist policies.”
You’re in the minority party. Republicans have control of all 3 branches of government, and many state governments shifted right.
Simply put, what the fuck are you going to do about it? Democrats have exactly zero power outside of sitting back and watching.
Democrats have exactly zero power outside of sitting back and watching.
And yet they’ll still somehow get blamed for everything that’s coming.
No shortage of people that just stupidly (or with an agenda) blame dems for the shitty republicans. People on lemmy saying Reagan was Carter’s fault, for example.
That’s how abusers think. “Look what you made me do.” Look how you made me stay home and not vote so now we have trump.
People on lemmy saying Reagan was Carter’s fault, for example.
More recent example: People on Lemmy continuing to blame the return of Trump on Biden and Harris. Harris wasn’t the perfect candidate, so of course the only reasonable thing to do was stay home and let Trump return to power. I mean, Liz Cheney showed up on stage to support her that one time. What else were voters supposed to do? This was all Harris’s fault, dammit!
It’s not their fault in the sense that Harris was a bad candidate or Biden was a bad president compared to his peers. They were both fine but they largely stuck to early 2000s platforms (or at least could not overcome that perception) and people clearly want something different. Many can tell that the trajectory of the past isn’t going to work out for them. Trump isn’t a good response to that but Democrats are perceived to be categorically opposed to acknowledging the sentiment and adjusting course. It’s not exactly rational but it is understandable that people in a bad spot aren’t particularly concerned about things getting worse because from their perspective things are already pretty bad.
It’s not exactly rational but it is understandable that people in a bad spot aren’t particularly concerned about things getting worse because from their perspective things are already pretty bad.
Here’s the part where I have to strongly disagree with the rationale.
I get it. You’ve (proverbially speaking) been in a hole for 4 years, and all you’re being offered is a rickety old ladder that looks like it’ll fall apart as soon as you go up a couple of steps. I can understand why the guy saying he might drop a nice shiny new ladder might look more appealing. But that’s not what’s going on here.
The guy saying he might offer you a shiny new ladder is also the same guy who was responsible for throwing you into this hole 4 years ago in the first place. And in fact, he’s not even holding a ladder this time. He’s promising to throw you a shovel and telling you to dig deeper.
That’s why I disagree. It would be one thing if Trump were throwing around the usual empty GOP promises. But Trump, Vance, and Musk have all come out and repeatedly said they were going to impose hardships on the poor, they were going to impose tariffs on virtually everything, and acknowledged that prices would likely continue to go up, not down.
I understand wanting someone offering a better ladder if you’re in a hole. But my god, the last thing you do is vote for the guy with the shovel.
A rickety ladder would have been fine. What we were offered was a choice between a shovel and dynamite.
I get it.
You absolutely do not get it.
This, exactly. Most voters are poorer today than they were four years ago. Biden would have been considered a decent or even excellent president in the eighties or nineties, but his slow and steady policies were not up to the task of solving the damage being inflicted on people by late stage capitalism.
And in a completely tone-deaf move Harris refused to criticize this approach and promised to be four more years of the same thing. To voters, that read as “Four more years of your budget getting tighter and tighter.” Against that, anything became a good option. Trump is the equivalent of solving a problem by throwing a molotov at it, sure, but from most people’s point of view, at least it’s a throw of the dice. They figure a chance of things getting better is more than no chance.
The same thing is most likely going to happen up here in Canada soon. If we end up with Pollievre it won’t be because anyone likes him, but because no one likes the alternatives.
I don’t blame Harris but I do blame Biden. Biden should never have run in 2020 and certainly not in 2024. He was a failed presidential candidate in 2008 and earlier, but he used his association with Obama to win despite being a terrible candidate. His ego almost got Trump a second term in 2020 and ended up getting us a Trump term in 2024. Trump is not a good candidate, he’s not supposed to win. He only won and came close because he had the incredible good fortune of running against Hillary Clinton once and Biden twice.
Biden should not have run, period. You’re oblivious.
That’s how abusers think. “Look what you made me do.” Look how you made me stay home and not vote so now we have trump.
Bingo. So many donvict supporters pulled this shit when donvict “won” in 2016 - “Obama and Hollywood made me do this. You deserve tRump.” And yes, that is totally abuser type of talk.
It is expected that the demons on the right - like Tucker Carlson [1] - will use this kind of talk, but what is so damned infuriating is when the Enlightened Centrists ™ and the “liberal media” say it as well.
[1] Tucker was saying that at some point, he may have to turn to fascism because of what the left Made Him Do, because “too woke” or something.
And they’ll continue shifting right, blocking a meaningful progressive agenda, and promote neoliberal “nothing will fundamentally change” policy until they are completely consumed/eliminated by the fascist plutocracy.
The republicans have held the minority many times and obstructed the fuck out of our government. If Dems really care they can do a lot to prevent shit in congress.
We will see how much they actually care in the next 2 years
We will see how much they actually care in the next 2 years
It’s a show. The only thing established party leadership cares about on either side is lining their pockets. The longer they keep us arguing about their disfunction, the more they rob from us. One class. Working class.
It’s easy to obstruct when you have any 1 of the 3 (house of reps, Senate, or presidency). They have none. The only tool they have is the filibuster and we’ll see what happens there.
It’s also easy to obstruct if you don’t care about having a functioning government at the end of the day.
The only tool they have is the filibuster and we’ll see what happens there.
This will be gone the nanosecond it becomes inconvenient.
Democrats have exactly zero power outside of sitting back and watching.
Jokes on the Republicans-- Democrats like to watch [their party get effed]. So republicans are giving the democratic leadership exactly what it wants. We win again.
Democrats have exactly zero power outside of sitting back and watching.
Good news! That’s what they’d be doing if they had power too!
/s
We need a DNC chair that’s not afraid to normalize primaries against Dem incumbents.
Otherwise someone in Pelosi’s district for example has no say in their representative, a bad incumbent would just deptess turnout until they die in office or a Republican flips the seat.
When an incumbent is defended no matter what and has millions in dirty money from the last general it’s not a fair primary.
And for Dem voters, active primaries turn into increased general turnout because people are invested in the process.
The issue is the DNC has been run by people who put “party loyalty” above all else, which sounds OK until you realize the loyalty isn’t to voters, it’s to donors.
“Blue no matter who” doesn’t work on Dem voters when they didn’t have any say in the candidate. It’s not uniting, it’s blindly following. And Republicans will always be better at that.
DNC needs to change how their primaries are run.
Politics aside, no way some outsider like Trump would ever win a DNC primary because of how they run them vs the RNC. I think the Dems ignore voter wishes then surprise Pikachu face when the milquetoast establishment candidates don’t get people fired up to vote.
, no way some outsider like Trump would ever win a DNC primary
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That hasn’t always been the case, after Obama they made many changes like the “victory fund” that can be undone by a new chair.
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I know you meant trump as an outsider to Republicans, but he gave so much to the DNC the Clinton’s came to his wedding. There are people just like trump giving to the DNC still. With the access trump got, he could be called a political insider for neoliberals. trump gave for decades and he isn’t the type to throw money around for no reason.
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Not every single state, Washington went more left.
I think you meant to reply to the person who said:
Every single state shifted right.
Unless this is one of those things where if anything wasn’t explicitly refuted in a reply people act like you agree with it.
Ha ha not Washington
But they did vote for this. Whenever I saw Trump speak, he always emphasized on how he will do tax breaks to the big corps. He never proposed a solution on how to help the working class people.
His idea of “helping the working class” consists of tariffs that don’t work the way he says they do and a very likely catastrophic mass deportation program.
And people did vote for those somehow.
Some of it yes, but the leopards face eating feast wouldn’t exist if they actually got what they thought they were getting. They’re just idiots.
Less than half of all eligible voters voted. Yes, non voters essentially voted for Trump but it’s not the same thing as literally voting for and endorsing the dumb demented fat fascist.
The majority of eligible voters are just morons that have been successfully distracted and confused (because they’re so dumb).
There is value in the distinction, even tho that value may be quite small in context
Non voters are even more dumb than Trump voters… at least Trump voters understand the very simple fact that there is power in voting.
His idea on helping working class is blaming it all on immigrants.
But they did vote for it?
Right? Like, this is who we are, and who we are is stupid and easily manipulated.
You don’t get to vote outside of your own state for senators or representatives. Voting in your state doesn’t change the fact that other states have different priorities, and sometimes it feels like they’re just completely out of touch. My state has a Democratic majority in almost every part of our government, yet we’re still stuck with a president and federal government that most people here didn’t want or vote for. It’s frustrating because the system lets other states have so much power in choosing the president, even when it doesn’t reflect the will of people in places like mine.
Add up the total votes from each state that voted for this and won. Exclude states that they didn’t win in. It’s about 10% of the total population of the U.S.
That’s a crazy system you have when 90% vote against something and they still win? You should fix that.
The majority did not.
The majority of people who showed up to vote did. Trump won the popular vote this time. The GOP were given control of every branch of government, and made gains in several state governments as well.
tyranny of the minority
The majority who didn’t vote saw a cookie-cutter politician and an authoritarian man-baby and thought, “Eh, either is fine.” So their “vote” went to the majority winner. There are no redos because not enough people showed up.
That is a problem, but they did not endorse this.
If someone sat at home on election day or voted for anyone but Harris they absolutely endorsed this. They should go to their graves knowing every single thing Trump and crew does is because they allowed it to happen.
If someone sat at home on election day or voted for anyone but Harris they absolutely endorsed this.
I think many are too low-info to really have endorsed anything.
There’s got to be a line where “low-info” becomes a choice. I don’t know where that line is, but “Donald Trump is an imminent threat to democracy” is absolutely past that threshold.
I’d have to say a whole lot of people are completely checked out of any kind of civic engagement whatsoever, for probably a plethora of reasons. There are definitely some that think they can be Above It All ™ because I Don’t Want To Be Political ™, and in my experience these people are insufferable smug jackasses about it, too.
Wait, I thought Lemmy was blaming billionaires who have a stranglehold on churches, media, and education.
I would blame both. The malfeasance from the oligarchs doesn’t absolve any individual of blame for their own individual actions. Both groups are assholes in different ways.
Inaction is a choice that says I don’t care about the outcome. It’s an equal endorsement of facists and neolibs.
Of course they did. When it comes to voting, silence is consent.
Does that mean those on Lemmy who told me not to vote for “both sides” consented?
This “but he didn’t get >50% popular vote” is an ineffectual cop out. It does not matter in any sense. It’s grasping at straws.
A whole lotta dipshits voted for lower egg prices, or stayed home, voted their useless protest vote or outright voted for donvict, because “genocide joe” or whatever.
But we are all going to get this instead, I guess. It’s not like many normal Americans were not warning them…Gaza and egg prices will be unaffected by donvict, maybe made worse by his fumbling idiocracy.
Biden already said that the US doesn’t recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. Aaaaand Kamala ran on a pro-fracking platform.
I mean, jfc do you people have the memory of goldfish or were you just not paying attention in the first place? Proud to be one of the 13 million, personally. Have fun voting for Liz Cheney when she runs as a democrat in four years!
Yes. They were flawed.
Explain to me how Trump being President helps the Palestenians or the environment.ve4sus a Bid3n or Harris administration.
Even if their policies were 100% in lockstep on Palestine and the environment (Trump will ABSOLUTELY be worse for both), there’s a million other ways in which Trump is worse.
You motherfucers who cast votes for third parties, refused to vote, or really did anything but vote for Harris were signing a fucking suicide pact for the rest of us while pretending you were taking the moral high ground.
Everything that’s coming is your fault. All the suffering, death, destruction - all of it. Your hands are bloody. It should keep you up at night, but your heads are so far up your own arrogant asses you no longer smell the shit you’ve spread.
When you had the choice to put up meaningful opposition to fascism, you chose not to.
Fuck you, now and forever.
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Trump will no doubt be worse for the environment and many other things. But as an outsider I cannot help but ask, if you blame those who did not vote for Harris for what is coming, then surely your hands are dipped in the blood of all the victims of the Democratic party’s policies over the years? How long are you going to pretend that they are different? Surely you realize that no Bernie will ever be the democratic nominee and that this is by design. How far to the right must the Dems go before someone else takes over what is the remnant of the American left?
The time to change the left is the primaries and local elections.
When the national elections come around, you don’t move the country to the left by allowing the ultra-right fascists to win the election.
Ahh yea, those famously fair and democratic DNC primaries.
How are they not fair?
Just because the majority of people who actually show up and vote in them pick candidates you don’t like?
It’s the people who bother to fucking show up that make the difference.
2016
On July 22, WikiLeaks published the Democratic National Committee email leak, in which DNC operatives seemed to deride Bernie Sanders’ campaign and discuss ways to advance Clinton’s nomination, leading to the resignation of DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and other implicated officials.
2024
The primaries in Florida and Delaware were cancelled, with Biden receiving all pledged delegates, while in North Carolina, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Indiana, no candidates other than Biden will appear on the ballot, partially due to decisions by the state Democratic parties in those states.
It’s the people who bother to fucking show up that make the difference.
I assume you’re not talking about the 6 states listed where the DNC chose to run Biden unopposed or simply cancelled the primary altogether. After all, can’t show up for the primary if there is no primary.
I mean… it worked for most of europe. Granted it also involved a world war. But thats just details.
That is absolutely true, but you know that the vast majority of people are not as politically engaged as to do something about that. They barely get up to vote for the big one. I get it that this is not exactly the best of excuses, but if you consider how voting works in general - with things like gerrymandering etc and the shady and purposefully complicated process of electing party representatives - I would argue that the American people are never given much of a choice. At the end of the day I don’t think what you guys have can be called a democracy. The process gives way too much power to a select few and takes all the meaning away from the public vote. Most people may not realize it, but they instinctively react to the futility of the voting process. In fact, I would argue that the Trump phenomenon is a direct result of this. Arguably most people who voted Trump are not consciously evil fascists, they are ignorant idiots (and I use this word for its original Greek meaning) who are tired of voting for anyone from the establishment only to see them serve the 1%.
My point is, it’s easy to start pointing fingers at those who didn’t vote anti-Trump specifically, but imho Harris was exactly the candidate that would cause a surge of Trump votes by trying to appease her way to the middle of the road between the extreme right and the insane ultra nazi right that are the two choices for Americans these days.
Thankfully, Biden is at least using his last hours in office to do something useful, like send Israel another $8bn in weapons.
Centrists are getting the policies they want either way (especially the genocide) because they’re conservatives. Blaming progressives is just posturing to make sure the next centrist dipshit they saddle us with is even more conservative.
They absolutely did vote for this and sat on their asses and also didn’t vote and voted for this.
Fuck you Americans, you wanted it, now we all get your shitty choices.
Hey man i didn’t vote for the assholes
Too damn bad that’s not how democracy works. You’ll take what the idiots give us.
Welcome to the kingdom of north America. United States is dead, this is the new fiefdom, and king Elon and chancellor Trump don’t give a fuck what we think or want.
Unfortunately, the American people did.
But we didn’t. I voted for Harris but I expected this shit to wait until the inauguration to happen unless she won
Unfortunately, a plurality of the electorate disagrees with us.
As for the timing, it’s normal for the rules for the incoming Congress to be put into place before the presidential inauguration. It’s just abnormal for them to be so… shitty.
yes. yes, they did.
We didnt vote for a bottomless pit of our tax money to fund a racist-far rightwing genocide against Palestinians so Israelis can steal their land, either.
But here we are.
McGovern is cashing AIPAC’s checks and voting how they say, so he knows exactly how this stuff works-- No need to play stupid. Eat a bag of ass, Rep. McGovern.
For what it’s worth Israel is buying most of the weapons. It’s not bottomless tax payers money, although tax payers money does go to Israel that they use the buy weapons.
But it’s not like every headline about more arms to Israel is out of your pockets, but some is.
It’s still profiting from the situation though which is also terrible.
Yes they did.
Oh yes, they did. They voted for propaganda. Everything else is gravy.
Yes they did.
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They did vote for it and they are going to get what they voted for, good and hard.
Doesn’t matter now they are in power. That’s all they ever wanted.
