• RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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    14 days ago

    Why is there such an obsession with immigration?

    Do you want to pick strawberries? It’s back-breaking and sucks.

    E: thanks for all the replies. I wrote this while pissed about the results, it was supposed to be rhetorical.

    At this point, work on helping immigrant friends and neighbors however you can, whether by helping with immigration paperwork or "other"methodologies.

    • scarabic@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      Thinking back to the one debate he had with Harris, Trump blathered nonstop about immigration. He talks about it like a wave of moorish invaders sweeping across the land, pillaging. This is obviously a powerful Image if you can get people to believe it. And in some areas people have been feeling like American culture is giving way to Mexican culture as the population in their home towns shifts, so Trump’s rhetoric taps into something that was already there. And if we’re honest, border policy is a weird zone where many of the laws don’t make intuitive sense. America talks out of both sides of its mouth on the issue, historically. A lot of people are here illegally whom we depend on utterly to staff our economy. So their presence is in some way sanctioned, tolerated, but not fully legitimized in law. When someone comes along and articulates one clear direction on immigration, it sounds like someone is speaking clearly for the first time. Even if that direction is stupid, hateful, xenophobic, and economically unviable.

      • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        I hear what you’re saying. What boring people to be afraid of novel cultures.

        Anyway, fine, close the border and make it so only US citizens can do all the labor nobody wants to do. Watch how much doesn’t get done; the economics behind work and such don’t change rapidly. I’ll bet most small farmers get destroyed with fields full of rotting, previously ready to harvest crops because nobody can offer a citizen enough to do the work, in a way that still yields a profit.

        The billionaires with factory farms and prison labor will likely win out again.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      They’re convenient scapegoats that can’t defend themselves. “Look, it’s a witch! Burn it”

      • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Apparently I can’t curse at you & your low energy understanding of the world, last comment removed.

        I stand by what I said before, I believe all workers should be paid fairly, have access to things like bathrooms & water, and be able to easily come and go as they need & desire.

        Try getting better nutrition, it’ll help with your energy problem.

        • Awesomo85@sh.itjust.works
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          15 days ago

          As I mentioned below. I know more about this issue first hand and gone through more than you probably ever will in your life.

          Low energy. Son, you would have crumbled if you had to grow up the way I did.

          • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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            15 days ago

            Fuckin’ glad I’m not your son, my dad was a real man who actually put the work in to help me become a caring and effective man, not watch me founder and mentally shrivel.

            I mean look at your comment. No shame, in spite of the supposed first hand experience. I feel for you, and for this country we both call home. Your crops, or your neighbors crops, may very well rot in the field while ripe, until the factory farm decides nearby decided to pay pennies on the dollar and take your land from you.

            All legal, all what we progressives didn’t want. You’ll understand after 4 years of further hardship in your community. Competition and a free market are good, if they are fair.

            • Awesomo85@sh.itjust.works
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              15 days ago

              Typical. Don’t care about the actual struggles of us “brown people”. “Just shut up and be my prop! I’ve got a political statement to make!”

              Sorry your slaves are being taken from you.

              • RubberElectrons@lemmy.world
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                15 days ago

                Missing the point, dumb.

                We need food, the jobs were available and I want people doing the work to have rights too. I don’t want to pick strawberries. I will gladly pay someone to get some for me, if the price is right.

                Are you a “brown person”? I guess I am as well.

  • LANIK2000@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Economy? Ah yes, let’s elect the person that wants to put 100% sanctions on literally everything. Masterful gambit sirs. Ya’ll can rot in hell!

  • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Economy

    This is Trump’s economy, you idiots. This is the fallout from his incompetence and malice. But heaven forbid voters understand basic principles which rule their lives.

    • kava@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      i think you give too much credit to Trump. the economy has been rigged against the working class for a long time. it’s just getting progressively more brutal which makes people feel increasingly insecure.

      an insecure working class elects strongmen who promise simple solutions

      • RobotsLeftHand@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        The best, simplest summation I’ve seen. Thank you. I’ve been searching for something to make sense of it and this is definitely it. Being forced into voting for the “least worst” candidate obscures where that path is headed by either candidate.

    • Semi-Hemi-Lemmygod@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      It’s the pattern in American politics that has existed since I was born: Republicans fuck the economy, Democrats do their best to fix it, people blame the Democrats for the bad economy and elect Republicans who fuck it up even more.

    • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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      15 days ago

      No, sorry, but you don’t get to say that four years later.

      The economy got trashed in his last year… but remember how the sparse economic relief that were carried through the democratic congress got completely wiped out as soon as Biden took office? When the democrats took away the child tax credit childhood poverty doubled overnight. And you may say the cause of the inflation was Trump’s mismanagement (And it wasn’t. The supply chain breakdown would have happened no matter who was in office.) what was the democratic response? Fucking Chicago school.

      What’s happening is the US empire is not so slowly rotting and material conditions are deteriorating. That’s independent of what party is in power. But both parties are wedded to capital. And voters are hopping from one foot to the other while standing on that hot skillet trying to find relief. You’re not going to find it without overthrowing capitalism. This is the barbarism we were warning you about.

      • kava@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        And it wasn’t. The supply chain breakdown would have happened no matter who was in office

        if i remember correctly, COVID brought our inflation up to roughly 6%. then the Ukrainian war took it the rest of way where it peaked near 9% (over 10% in my home state)

        these things would have happened anyway, although choosing to prolong the Ukrainian war as long as possible most definitely increased inflation. people think we only gave 2 or 3 hundred billion, but realistically the American public has paid more than a trillion in the invisible tax that is inflation. hundreds of thousands of layoffs because of higher interest rates are also connected to this

        • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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          15 days ago

          Let’s not forget that a large part of the inflation, and especially on food and housing, was driven by pure greed and opportunism from the capitalists that control those basic necessities. And that’s something that could have been prevented with tools that capital permitted under Ronald Fucking Reagan.

          • kava@lemmy.world
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            15 days ago

            it’s an eternal battle. every once in a while we pass legislation to try and reign in corporate power. like for example the anti trust act in the early 1900s

            the issue is that public attention is temporary. eventually we move on to the next crisis and people forget. grow complacent.

            corporate interest, however, is eternal. it’s persistent and never gives up. it keeps pushing, infallibly, in order to weaken the structures meant to reign in their power. whether by legislation/policy (AT&T and friends unilaterally killing Net Neutrality some years back, Disney signing into law expansion of copyright, etc) or through more subtle methods (buying politicians and getting people into positions of power that have no intention of enforcing the laws)

            this is inevitably what happens with every democracy. eventually the vigilance fails and the structures of power are hijacked by opportunists.

            although having said all that, I don’t think greed had much to do with the inflation we saw. Sure, some companies took advantage and raised prices more than they needed to just to inflate that extra juicy profit margin.

            but realistically we’re headed to war and war means massive government spending which means inflation

            • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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              15 days ago

              You’re separating government from the capitalists and I don’t think that’s an accurate way of looking at the world. Capital will eat itself even more voraciously than it does right now without some mediating force on itself. Government isn’t a hedge against capitalism that mediates its excesses. It is a PART of capitalism that mediates its excesses. The anti-trust act wasn’t for us; it was for them.

              But the reality that capitalism is a fundamentally unstable system can’t be fixed by blunting it. And as the rate of profit goes down, the very restraints that capital put on itself to ensure its survival must be destroyed in pursuit of that profit.

              • kava@lemmy.world
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                15 days ago

                i think most legislation is explicitly for the capitalist class. that much we probably agree with

                but i do think every once in a while, when there is a ton of pressure and the elites are scared, they throw a bone to the working class.

                it happened with the antitrust act, it happened with the New Deal, and it happened in the 1960s with the Civil Rights era and the end to Vietnam

                yes, capitalism will eat itself. it’s what we’re essentially seeing right now in slow motion. but there is something there in democracy beyond just capitalism. even if it’s buried deep down and impotent

                • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml
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                  15 days ago

                  it happened with the antitrust act, it happened with the New Deal, and it happened in the 1960s with the Civil Rights era and the end to Vietnam

                  The thing that ties all of these exceptions together is the immediate threat of ideologically organized revolutionary cadres mobilizing the masses into a socialist revolution

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      Worse: Congress purposely intended for the president to not have direct control over the economy.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Right, but the administration’s actions typically get attributed to the president, plus the president does have a measure of control through executive orders, or proposals which get carried through the house and Senate. The president will obviously sign any initiative that they themselves proposed.

  • Snowclone@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    The news says the Republicans are better at [the economy] because they are. How are they better. Because they are better for the economy. Who crashed the economy the last four times it’s happened Republicans. They’re so good at economy!

    • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      They’re never around for the rebound though. They leave the Democrats to pick up the pieces and the stupid fucks that voted for trump only see that gas was cheaper 5 years ago, so that must mean that trump’s economy was better!

      • jballs@sh.itjust.works
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        15 days ago

        Remember when gas was cheap because the entire country ground to a halt due to Trump mismanaging COVID? Those sure were the days…

        • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          Yeah, let’s not overreact today. It’s not like we were all sequestered in our homes while riots raged across the country and ash fell from the blood red sky because of out of control forest fires. Oh wait, that’s exactly what it was like!

    • OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml
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      13 days ago

      Nah they wouldn’t shut up about him til the point it got numb. Maybe they should have focused on Kamala instead.

  • davidgro@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Another thing that’s barely on the chart: Foreign Policy, some fraction of which would be the genocide.

    It just wasn’t the influential issue that much of Lemmy wished it were, and clearly not the reason Harris lost.

    • Hideakikarate@sh.itjust.works
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      15 days ago

      Exactly. For all the talk of the Palestine/Israel genocide being a reason people didn’t vote Harris, this poll certainly makes it seem like less of the issue. What the fuck happened? I’m genuinely ashamed to live in the States.

      • BlitzoTheOisSilent@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        What the fuck happened?

        Four years of a milquetoast, centrist Democrat telling the American people what they’re living isn’t the actual reality of the situation. Biden’s admin kept rolling out the “soft landing, economy is doing great,” schtick despite numerous news outlets reporting Americans don’t feel like it’s an economy working for them.

        Then that Democrat finally stepping aside, too late for his constituents to have a say in who they want representing them. And then she ran on a centrist, return-to-the-status-quo platform that didn’t inspire the majority of Americans, who are so apathetic based on decades of being ignored by politicians they just don’t vote. Because what’s the point?

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    It’s simple, and history has borne this out many many times.

    In a bad economy, no one cares about your politics if you’re the candidate of change. There’s a reason why Harris spent two months repeating memes instead of defending Biden’s policies, because it’s impossible to defend the fact that you had four years to rule and there are more people working 2-3 jobs just to survive.

    They knew they needed to appeal to workers. Instead, they spent most of the campaign repeating this meaningless platitude about joy to people who are being worked to death.

    • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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      15 days ago

      Also, there were plenty of people who were never going to vote for a woman, no matter what.

      • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        I’m sure that’s true too, but that’s not the reason she lost, and Democrats will continue to stack losses if that’s the narrative that they go with.

        Democrats haven’t been ceding male voters to Republicans for 16 years because they hate women. It’s because, in the liberal and activist communities, it’s become customary and accepted to treat men like shit.

        • kava@lemmy.world
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          15 days ago

          It’s because, in the liberal and activist communities, it’s become customary and accepted to treat men like shit.

          this is just as dumb as the opposite “they didn’t vote for Kamala because she’s a woman”

          people don’t like Kamala because she’s an extension of Joe Biden and Biden has been a failure. that’s why she lost. she offered status quo when people want change. the DNC is incapable of changing quick enough to avoid fascism

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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        15 days ago

        Plenty of people will also never vote for a black man, but that worked spectacularly for the Democrats the first time.

      • AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Then maybe don’t force a woman onto the ballot in “the most important election of our lifetime”. I’m all for progress, but you don’t win elections by forcing ideals upon people who won’t have them, and if this was truly the most important election of our lifetime, then the Democrats should have fielded their most appealing candidate.

        • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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          15 days ago

          Yeah if the DNC really gave as much credence to the vote power of racism and misogyny as they do when complaining about election losses, then why would they deliberately step on that landmine by selecting kamala only 8 years after HRC? It’s not like we think idealistic dreamers run the DNC right? That’s silly.

          Why did Dems lose the Senate? Keep the house? Cuz its more than just Harris here… What we’re seeing is voter repudiation of the last 4 years.

      • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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        15 days ago

        If that’s why Kamala lost, then explain why Tammy Baldwin is winning Wisconsin and Elissa Slotkin is winning in Michigan.

  • anticurrent@sh.itjust.works
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    15 days ago

    You don’t win an election just with vibes.

    Kamala didn’t bring as much substance as what the left electorate was expecting from her, and couldn’t differentiate herself from Biden and the current term she is serving under. The whole democratic party went under because all they promise is vibes compared the current economical struggles people are facing.

    • KneeTitts@lemmy.world
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      15 days ago

      The truth is the dems are a right wing party now, they’ve been dragged there by the rethugs… and people Want to vote for an Actual left wing party, but there literally isnt one in the US.

  • Furbag@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Immigration is such a horseshit issue. Why are people dumb enough to fall for this shit?

    Immigration will be “solved” come January, but not because Trump will actually do anything about it, but he’ll just say the problem is solved and then stop talking about it.

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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    15 days ago

    Honestly, I hope Trump and his republican dumb fucks go through with their tariff plan to “save” the much improved economy. Americans deserve it.

      • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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        15 days ago

        Don’t disagree and I honestly hope all of their promises come true this time, abortion restrictions at the federal level, the gutting of government, putting Herschel Walker as the head of the DoD, all of it.

        Americans will never learn unless they suffer.

        • dream_weasel@sh.itjust.works
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          15 days ago

          As an American, you’re right. I guess Trump won’t see consequences, but maybe the country will. And MAYBE voters / non voters will learn something.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            15 days ago

            The problem is the consequences are not immediate. This is like making a child sit in their room because they scribbled on the wall in crayon last week. They don’t have the capacity to make that connection.

            If renewed inflation takes another four years to really build up, guess whose fault that becomes? If the climate gets worse over years, decades, generations, no blame here. If Russia invades the Baltic states after consolidating Ukraine, it couldn’t be due to appeasement here. If they succeed in replacing the merit-based civil service with partisan hacks whose only skill is “loyalty”, clearly it’s the swamp that needs to be drained.

  • the post of tom joad@sh.itjust.works
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    15 days ago

    Wait… This chart is hard to read. This chart is … “how much more important these issues are to people as a percentage, than they were as a percentage in 2020?”

    really? I must be reading this wrong