Rachel Maddow warned viewers on Monday that President Donald Trump plans to interfere with midterm election results, following the Supreme Court’s recent 7-2 ruling against his executive order instructing the US Postal Service (USPS) to block states from distributing and collecting mail-in ballots.
Trump’s order, which he signed last March, would’ve directed the USPS to refuse to deliver mail-in ballots to anyone whose information hadn’t been properly submitted to a new state citizenship list maintained by the federal government.
“Trump is counting on confusion, uncertainty, and a lack of confidence in the mail-in voting system to suppress voter turnout,” she said.
“Lesbian political pundit Rachel Maddow”
What does her sexual orientation have to do with her political point whatsoever? She’s saying that as a journalist not as a lesbian, what the fuck.
At first I agreed with you, then saw that the source is LGBTQ nation, so if she wasn’t a lesbian, it possibly wouldn’t be reported on by them. Her orientation is what ties this piece of news into the LGBTQ realm.
I thought y’all had term limits over or what…
I’ll be voting in person, as I always do.
I urge everyone who possibly can to do the same. Yes, it’s inconvenient, yes, there will be long lines. But, your employer must, by law give you time off to vote. Just stand in line and look at your phone, or even take a folding chair.
Vote in person early if it’s an option. Our early in person voting starts today.
We don’t need the warnings. Everyone assumes trump’ll do something untoward. What we need is a plan of action. All neighbourhoods should designate a pocket telephone picture taker to record anything and everything to gather any evidence needed.
What’s the plan to stop him?
Nothing, same plan since 2015.
Civil war should it come to it.
That’s not going to happen.
What will happen, assuming he’s successful, is the Democrats will quietly fall in line after a few weeks of posturing. There will be lawsuits, and the courts will ultimately decide in Trump’s favor.
Unrest comes when people have their way of life existentially threatened through hunger or homelessness. Or when their position within the caste is in question.
Unrest will come from the Right if they lose. When the undecideds and liberals lose an election, they say “damn, better luck next time” and move on. They aren’t willing to do anything that might jeopardize their comfortable way of life.
The people pushed to the margins will be further castigated, and find themselves in an even more dangerous position.
Unrest will come from the margins. People with nothing, and everything, to lose. The police will be granted further impunity to kill, and POC/LGBTQ+ will die. They’ll protest, and they’ll be killed by cops and right wing nutjobs alike. And no help will come. “Allies” will start to go quiet if the violence gets particularly bad and those communities will learn who their true friends are.
Arm yourselves. Violence is coming regardless of who wins in November.
Unrest will come when the truckers go on strike in October
Long before that, unseating the SEC def during a conflict they started says his power base is leaving him.
A time machine. Otherwise we have lost, there’s no getting around it.
“It is possible to commit to every mistake and still lose.”
-Star Trek, or something.
"Cheat like hell’
- DJT
He should have said “cheat like a Republican”. Hell has far more decency and honor.
What gave it away, the president’s own words over and over about stealing it?
Thanks Rachell, don’t know what we would do without you.
I seem to recall something with Israel that made me stop listening to you though.
The general public arent paying nearly as much attention, so yeah, literally as many voices as possible shouting the warning. Take a hike with the shitsnark.
The general public arent paying nearly as much attention
Trump said before he was elected in 2016 that if he didn’t win re-election, he would challenge the results. Then he did exactly that. The dude has already openly committed a coup.
At this point, if the public isn’t paying attention, it’s because the political system is clearly fully committed to letting Trump do whatever he wants.
Amidst everything going on, if people legitimately vote for republicans, the USA gets what it deserves.
I seem to remember the genocide accelerating under a Dem.
I seem to remember a Dem bailing out big banks during the financial crisis instead of the working class.
There is no comparison. The difference is orders of magnitude.
Yes every administration and the USA itself has problems. But this administration is all problems, they are robbing and kidnapping and suppressing and killing.
More Democrats try to do the right thing and are capable of learning and changing. MAGA just doubles down on the cruelty.
No, the democrats rob and kidnap and suppress and kill, they just do it in other countries. Now that the pain has come home, you’re all passionate about human rights lol.
We’re talking about genocide here and you’re begging for the party that accelerated it.
Yeah I am opposed to the US aiding Israel, and there is a divide in the Democratic party over it. I agree both are bad, but in my view Republicans are 99% bad and Democrats are 52% bad.
And I’m 100% opposed to the killing the US is doing in Iran and striking “drug” boats in the Caribbean.
There is no difference to the millions of dead civilians your country has left in its wake since the end of WWII.
Only like 1/5th of the people who lived here voted for Trump in the last election, so I’m glad you agree that we don’t deserve this
Whatever happen it won’t change anything.
They are corrupt as hell, US is a living hell for the bottom class.
Glad I was born in a decadent EU country.
Trump is a symptom. America is the disease.
Trump is a symptom, the heritage foundation is the disease.
LITCHURALLY more than one person, aka people, will legitimately vote for more than one Republican, aka Republicans, in this upcoming election. That’s 100% certain. But yes, otherwise I agree completely.
I’m sure the intended reading was “if Americans elect Republicans”. If they vote the Republicans in.
TAKE your ballots to a box. DO NOT MAIL if possible.
I’m not mailing shit in Oregon, I’m hand delivering to the county clerk.
but at some point, the counts get digitized, then it’s the domain of BIGBALLS.
I try not to think about that part
I have a convenient box here in my office, will that do?
(just being silly, but I agree. If you get a mail-in ballot, drop it in an official return box if you are absolutely able. That’s my plan. And if your ballot never arrives, you should be able to go vote in person, probably signing something that says you are only voting in person)
That’s just not how elections work bruh. Its litterally logistically impossible to do that in sooooooooo many areas.
In Honolulu county, a county if a million people (practically) there are like _maybe_12 places to drop off your ballot. We do our election 💯 by mail and those drop off locations are just a back up. And it requires you sitting inkne for hours.
If you want to vote in person. Puh. Bruddah. Only get two place where can. Kapolei Hale and Honolulu Hale. And you gonna be in line for hours.
It is how it works. Take your mail-in ballot straight to your Election department. They will gladly accept it.
There simply isn’t the capacity. As a state we use mail in voting. States don’t all vote in the same manner.
For a period of ten (10) business days prior to and including each Election Day, voters may cast a ballot at a Voter Service Center. During this period, individuals not already registered to vote may register to vote and vote. In the City & County of Honolulu, Voter Service Centers are established at Honolulu Hale and Kapolei Hale. Traditional Election Day polling places will not be available.
There is no line for all 10 days. The line happens on Election Day. Do yourself a favor and vote prior to Election Day.
You’re free to live in a world of hypotheticals purely of your own creation, but don’t be surprised when reality comes to slap you I. The face because your so obscenely obnoxiously self obsessed in your considerations.
In reality, real people, not hypothetical people, are not going to make a huge effort to vote if it’s made to be too difficult. What actually happens is that even modest barriers being present, people just don’t bother.
Its quite hilarious how idiots take examples of what happens with real voters and real voter behavior, and then project it to mean being how the person individually behaves. Its a degree of stupidity you can only find on spaces like this.
Bro thats straight from the Honalulu County elections website.
Im very familiar with their process of accepting ballots. Your mail-in ballots should be received around Oct 16th. Fill it out and submit it to the Voter Service Centers or a Ballot Drop Box by Nov 3rd.
In reality, people wait until Nov 3rd to vote, but they dont have to wait until the 3rd. Go vote on:
- Oct 16 (Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 17 (Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 18 (Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 19 (Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 20 (Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 21 (Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 22 (Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 23 (Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 24 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 25 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 26 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 27 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 28 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 29 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 30 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Oct 31 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Nov 1 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Nov 2 (Voter Service Center + Ballot Drop Box)
- Nov 3 (lines begin here because people wait)
Plenty of days to beat the rush.
Just whatever you do, dont give it to USPS.
You truly have not one fucking iota of a clue about what the fuck you are talking about.
If people don’t mail in their ballots here, they simply won’t vote. We’re not built to do in person voting or even significant ballot drop off. You truly need to stfu about shit you don’t understand and stop spreading misinformation.
My state has no excuse mail ballots as well. And my city has a higher population than your entire state. And there is no line to drop off a ballot unless you happen to get there at the exact same time as other people. It takes 2 seconds to put your mail ballot in a secure drop box.
Stop discouraging people from voting securely.
No one’s discouraging any thing, and it’s extraordinarily telling that you interpret someone’s description of a lived reality in that manner. I’m describing the way things are, in the real world. Not a hypothetical but how it actually is.
What a phenomenally stupid and blinded way to go through life.
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Honolulu county is only 600 sq-mi and has only 1 million people. San Antonio covers the same land area and has about 2.3M and it is no problem to do in person and drop off. So it’s not logistically impossible. Just do it if you want your vote to count.
If any significant fraction if Honolulu county needs to manually drop their votes off in a ballot box, it would create a traffic jam so bad it would take days to resolve.
Our infrastructure isn’t built to handle a significant amount of in person voting or ballot drop off. We do mail in voting here.
Also, it’s not a matter of what one individual can do; it’s about what voters, en masse, can do. Voters in masse simply can not pivot to in person ballot drop off here. If that is truly required, they simply won’t vote.
I can’t speak about Honolulu, because I’ve never lived there but in CA there are secure drop boxes conveniently placed all over and there is no line, you just walk or drive up and put it in. It literally takes 2 seconds, I don’t see how it could be possible for a backup to occur. I had to do it once when I waited too long and I wanted to make sure I was counted on election day. At your drop boxes is there a person you have to interact with or something?
Its different in every state because states individually get to decide how to run elections.
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You a fucking liar who claims to work for the fucking county bro.
Telling people to not fucking vote the only way that actually gets people to vote. You need to get fucking banned for spreading misinformation.
Hours in queue vs more of this shit, are you real? May the leopards find you tasty.
God people are fucking idiots.
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I mean, if you’re in certain states, yeah. CA provides verification for mail in so the advice is more to do it early, get verification, and if you don’t get it, follow up. You can still be very lazy in CA and your vote will be fine- just make sure you do vote.
But swing states (which includes Texas this time around lol) and blue districts in red states should be extra careful. I’d still vote as early as possible, in person or by mail if confirmation exists, just in case interference happens on election day (e.g. ICE intimidation).
I’m in CA. If you have the luxury, the polling districts local to me have ballot dropoff locations a couple weeks leading up to the election. My neighbor has been a poll worker since we moved here and she says it’s fairly standard statewide. If I recall reading in prior elections, there should be one in your town/city hall. I’d rather deliver it myself than trust usps
Up in Washington where we also have 100% mail in voting and there are ballot drop boxes all over the place. I usually walk up the street to the public library to drop off my ballot.
I’m in CA and I agree it’ll probably be fine, and I’d know because of the verification system. But the major pain in the ass that would be required to follow up if the USPS decides not to deliver my ballot vs. the probably unnecessary, but very easy, route of dropping it off at a collection center is no contest. I’ll still wait for my mail ballot so I can fill it out at my leisure and take my time with all of the information about ballot propositions available to me, but I’ll take it to a drop point after.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ll probably do the drop box too. Urban areas have plenty. But for everyone else, it’s good to know you can get verification.
she literally warned of this attitude 👆
u r playing into trumps hands
because what will happen is that people systematically can’t make it to the booth and then don’t persue a mail ballot because of all the fear uncertainty and doubt
What attitude?
There is nothing wrong with voting the way that you want to.
Vote ANY way possible. Make your voice COUNT.
Just because the Supreme Court ruled against the post office scheme doesn’t mean you should trust the post office.
Do not trust the post office this cycle.
If the admin tries to outright grab ballot boxes on the ground, resist, it’s illegal if they do.
If the admin tries to claim the election was full of fraud just ignore them they are lying like they always do.
The duly elected reps from each state will take command, the current admin can try to stop them but if the people don’t want it they can and should stand up, they should protest, and they should not go to work until they have a government that was certified by the states not the federal government.
The constitution gives the states the right to pick the reps, the president can say whatever he wants but even if the states did have fraud it’s not up to him. Period.
Obey state officials, resist the feds, this is our last shot to do things peacefully, let’s not fucking waste it!
If they refuse to seat elected reps, BURN SHIT DOWN. Preferably where the bastards responsible can see it. Or feel it.
If there’s rep shenanigans we all need to march on Washington until justice is done.
Burn down data centers
Generally a good idea.
If only Americans were paying attention
…not making excuses, but if only americans weren’t worried about becoming destitute by missing one, i repeat, one paycheck…not making excuses, but we have been so conditioned into a abusive relationship with our government…fuck…i just made myself very sad…
It’s not entirely hopeless. It just requires millions upon millions of us to take unified action.
We can refuse to comply with anything en masse. Refuse to work. Refuse to pay our bills and taxes. Refuse to engage. They can use their authority to harass a small portion of us, but there’s nothing they can do to intimidate millions of us.
I get the idea, but the only thing that most can really do is refuse to pay bills and engage. Then you get thrown into the machine within 2 months. And the bills you don’t pay don’t directly affect the government.
IF one could refuse to pay taxes, that’d be something better. But, most have taxes automatically pulled from their pay before they even get it, and getting an employer to not pay that taxes on to the government is extremely difficult if not impossible in the system.
The system is working as intended. And it sucks
Withholding paying for things and refusing to work could have an indirect effect. For one, it would foil the capital class who needs a constant stream of money, or else they would start pressuring the government to do something, out of fear of losing wealth and power.
If a huge amount of people are refusing to pay their rent or mortgages, there’s no way they can evict that many people, and we can also claim squatters rights.
If people completely boycotted all non-essential consumer goods, that would also be a kick in the nuts.
It’s neat to think about how much we comply with all of this shit, because we’re programmed to fear the consequences. The illusion completely falls apart when people finally refuse to comply en masse. It’s all a paper tiger.
Agreed, to a point. If society could collectively decide to withhold rent for example… That society likely wouldn’t have high enough rents that withholding would matter.
The system is how it is because of how humans are too. (Some worse than others) We can push against it, try and make things better. And sometimes in history we’ve succeeded. Other times the system just grinds on.
We really need more community and collective action. But the digital age has (intended or not) made it possible for nearly everyone to be more isolated, and that reduces the immediate community and possibility of effective collective action.
Oh, the screens and social media algorithms that push ad traffic and addict us are totally by design. Social alienation, degradation of the human mental state and distraction to benefit tech billionaires are the features, not the side effects.
I think you accidentally just explained why it’s entirely hopeless.
I’m in, how about next tuesday?
If only Americans did more than bitch about it on social media.
Exactly
Has anyone heard any information on the most reliable ways to vote? Any guidance at all from opposition other than to vote? If GOP is messing with the mechanisms of voting, shouldn’t they be helping people learn which mechanisms are most reliable?
The fascists want to suppress voter turnout, for one, just overall. For two, they want to suppress likely-Dem voters, hence the various attacks made on various things - but almost even more importantly, they want to destroy confidence in the voting system altogether.
The GOP does, wtf are the Dems doing? If if nothing, who out there is and how can we build that community?
Honestly? I think there’s a couple of facets to the answer:
-
The bad news: The oligarchs have a stranglehold on politics. Not only are the Republicans a completely lost cause for democracy, establishment Democrats largely may care somewhat about human rights, but also are addicted to that oligarch money train. Which is where the “both sides” thing has a bit of merit. HOWEVER
-
The better news: This is a good time to try and get involved. I think efforts in recent years have sort of been around a few individuals, but it seems like the DSA is emerging as a possible new powerhouse, and a place for progressives to gather around and use. One of the powers of Conservatives has been things like the Tea Party or MAGA. We need to rally around DSA and use it as sort of shorthand: If someone is associated with the DSA, then they are probably decently a progressive and hopefully we can support them.
But building community is hard. That’s the first thing the oligarchs attack to try and disrupt. And for some reason, it seems that while conservatives tend to band together, progressives tend to care about issues and when there’s disagreement, can’t figure out ways to work around that.
So I guess the hard part is, for example, taking a VERY wedge issue: Israel and Palestine. While I personally have lost my respect for Israel (notably: completely different topic than the topic of Jews/antisemitism) and believe the reality is Palestine has been genocided by Israel, it would be foolish for me to see a candidate who hasn’t come to that same conclusion but is otherwise progressive - and fail to vote for them or worse vote for the Republican candidate because of that one issue.
The oligarchs use wedge issues to unify consevatives, and they use wedge issues to divide progressives.
We have to realize that and overcome it to build community.
DSA?
You make some great points. I think with regard to leadership and support, we should become capable of breaking our support into issue specific support. Instead of supporting a person or not, be capable of supporting them on the issues we agree on, regardless of disagreements elsewhere. We don’t have to support them on everything, but can build support issue by issue. In a way it’s dismantling the hierarchy notion of leadership the DNC and GOP use and returning to dispersed democratic form. I don’t know how that actually fits with the systems of democracy we have, as a representative democracy, but it might mean staying involved in the day to day of our representatives and of the systems that grant them their power.
It also means choosing candidates to support this system, first and foremost. Our first agreement together is to vote for candidates who will champion only the issues we all agreed with them on, and won’t vote their beliefs if there is not consensus from us. Even returning for town halls to ask for our guidance. They would function as the person who casts the votes in the system, not the person who decides which votes to cast. Less representative and more direct democracy. We need our hands to be more in the wheel than before, because we can’t trust them.
DSA?
https://www.dsausa.org/ - not a political party, but seems like progressive Democrats are generally rallying around them, so it seems to be turning into a good org to rally around.
On the rest: I think that’s… generally how it should work. The earlier in the process things are, the pickier you can be to find the person that shares as many beliefs as you have. As they win or lose support, when you get to the primary, you have to vote for the available options, so you pick the one that best represents you. And in the general, again, you have to pick the best possible candidate.
That’s the voting side.
The other support comes before voting: When you find a good candidate, talk them up to your peers IRL or on social media / sites like Lemmy. Do what you can to get the people that represent you better at every stage of the process.
What the fascists want is for us to say, “Oh, my person didn’t make it to the next step, and this other person supports something I hate” and to bow out of the process, when the entire idea is to vote for the person that best represents you.
That’s how we get to “blue no matter who” in the general election because one assumes that the Democrat option is always going to be - at a minimum - less shitty than the Republican option. But people who push back on that… do they not understand that fascists are worse? Or do they not understand that they should have been pushing for Their Preferred Candidate long before that point?
-
Strategically, their best move would be to know how which voting methods are most skewed toward Dems and which toward Republicans, then eliminate/worsen the Dem ones while supporting/protecting the Republican ones. For maximum effect they also shouldn’t actively encourage anyone to vote any particular way - let the targeted aspect of the first step do the work and trust the numbers.
They are. How is that not obvious to you? That’s why mailing in is being attacked and immigrants are being literally rounded up and what they want armed thugs at places to intimidate dem voters away. They’re trying all of it and more.
That doesn’t seem to be counter to what I said. My point was that their strategy should be to, and seems to be, working to make the ways Republicans are more likely to vote safe; to make the ways Democrats are more likely to vote unsafe; and to not sit on Fox saying “the plan is that Republicans should vote on the last early voting day but not actual Election Day because the Feds are going to blast the polling locations on Nov 3” or the like.
If GOP is messing with the mechanisms of voting, shouldn’t they be helping people learn which mechanisms are most reliable?
LOL yeah I mean they “should”, but they also shouldn’t be messing with the voting. They’re doing it because they don’t want you to vote. Because they know if you vote, they lose.
The most reliable way to vote is always at the polls.
One thing I, as a Swede, am having a hard time understanding is the heavy reliance on mail-in voting. We just had our elections last Sunday and you couldn’t even vote by mail, with the only exception being if you live abroad. Otherwise you are going to your designated voting location on the day with your voting card and ID, or to any of the early voting locations. Even with these rules we had a turnout of nearly 85%.
Part of the popularity in mail-in voting in recent years has been because a lot of fashy dudes like to hang out at polling places and threaten folks they don’t think should be voting (e.g. women and racial minorities, etc).
Lol, bruh
Sweden: 450,295 km2 USA: … 9,833,520 km2
We are 20x the size and very spread out. Mail in voting is a very efficient way to get it done. When it’s done right.
Sweden has a population of 10 million. 10 of our states have populations well over that. Hell, California has 40 million people. Even with neighborhood voting stations it’s a big procedure. The process itself isn’t bad, about an hour or three, but the whole procedure of taking off work and getting there with thousands of others makes it a logistical circus.
Sweden is a beautiful country filled with intelligent and worldy people who have a functional government and solid social net.
54% of our population have a below 6th grade reading level. A quarter of our population is functionally illiterate.
Getting the majority of people to vote is like herding cats. Plus there are only two parties so many people feel disenfranchised. We used to have strong national values about doing our civic duty, but that has largely fallen out of favor. We are not an united people.
We are essentially the ultra-capitalist version of Russia and as advanced as much of our tech is, our civic services are 15 years behind the times.
If we could vote online, and were required to, many many things would be different.
Election day is on a Tuesday. You don’t necessarily get the day off work. I think they are open until 7, but I wouldn’t know because I work 12 hour shifts 9 - 9 when I work. There is early voting but mail in just makes it so much easier. I can sit down and research all the candidates for each thing I am voting for.
And the mail in voting in Florida was great (strange to say something political in Florida was great, but it was). You opt in for mail in, then every election you can vote for, they have to send you a ballot. Sometimes you don’t even know there is an election going on and you get the ballot and you can research and find out why, and make an informed vote.
It’s just a system that makes sense and encourages more participation and allows for better engagement with your choices. So of course they are trying to dismantle it. It’s still good in Florida, but now you get opted back out after every major election and you have to go and get yourself opted back in. Small hurdle but I’m sure people have forgotten.
Distance.
Australia does it as well. It’s fine as long as the system behind it is fair and well regulated.
That’s the issue they have. But yeah it’s distance, for one reason. Working away from home is another though most do an early or absentee vote here to get around that.
Edit: I also note local knowledge from who I think is an American about not getting a day off or on a weekend (like us) which only strengthens the reason to have postal votes.
So because the filthy evil vile people who are not part of team Republican and won’t willingly vote against their best interests, Republicans have spent decades making it hard to vote. For example this round of Republican fuckery, Despite Trump literally mailing his vote in, Republicans fearing lots of Democratic votes via mail in voting, hoping those voter just won’t be able to vote…wether because they physically manage to travel or too few places to vote…
Republicans tend to try to make it harder/illegal to stop them instead of trying to run on policies people would willingly vote for.
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That isn’t his ultimate plan. He doesn’t have an ultimate plan. He has an ultimate direction ,(whatever he wants at the moment) and zero empathy.
Damn I’m tired I read that as Ms Rachel at first and I was already a fan
I am a fan of her “bullying bad people” thing she has been doing.
