Pull Up the Roots
Veteran
Were you paying attention? She ran on backing unions, and Biden ran on backing unions too. Under this administration, we saw a resurgence in organizing and strengthening labor laws and protections. Increasing the housing stock was one of the central themes of her campaign. This administration also pumped billions into infrastructure through both the ARP and IIJA. I know for a fact that it's been a success here as those funds have been used to upgrade our water infrastructure. I keep pointing to the Medicaid Expansion as a lifeline for working and working-poor families, because it's had documented success in improving health outcomes and closing the racial health insurance gap.
The type of manufacturing that left the country isn't coming back, and making that promise is just performative populism, like Trump's empty promises. However, we're seeing early seeds of new types of manufacturing sprouting from this administration's initiatives. Strengthening voting rights was something they both ran on too. A valid alternative to Republicans has always been on the table, but the problem is that for most voters, policy ranks 3rd, 4th, or even 5th in importance.
When you compare labor support between this administration, a potential Harris administration, and Trump/GOP positions, yet still see a large majority of working-class union men supporting Trump, what does that tell you? And what does it say when voters continue to support politicians who refuse to expand Medicaid in their states, despite the clear benefits for citizens and rural hospitals? Why do they keep voting for the likes of DeSantis, Kemp, or their red state legislatures?
The only point you're right about is the wars. There used to be a strong anti-war sentiment in this party, but that's been eroded. As for civil rights and equality, it's not as emphasized as people claim it to be. This is another area where misleading Republican framing gets applied to Democrats without question. There's no large movement within this party pushing for gender reassignment surgeries; they're simply following the science on these issues. And bad actors take that and twist it into fearmongering nonsense.
The only way to break that perception is to become hostile to every non-white group, but that's not going to work. Just like moving further to the right on immigration did not work.
I don't think other people should give up, but we have to be real about this country. Social Media killed the truth. We've been post-truth for a long time now. And with the emergence of AI, this have only gotten worse. Look at the past few months with Trump/Vance admitting to have lied about Haitians eating pets and all the other lies about them. Most people didn't care that they were lies. Most people ignored the truthful counter-narrative. And the evidence debunking the claims didn't receive any where close to as many eyes as the lies.
Another sign that showed me that things are done was during Hurricane Helene. The amount of disinformation and fake AI images flooding social media was staggering; people knew they were fake but spread them intentionally to incite anger and violence against aid workers and journalists. On top of that, FEMA conspiracy theories were everywhere, and even people who should have known better were using these lies to argue against funding decisions for wars. It showed that even those who claim to fight for the public good can become corrupted, manipulating the truth to push their own agendas.
Everyone here needs to read these two articles:
Hurricane Helene and the ‘fukk It’ Era of AI-Generated Slop
I’m Running Out of Ways to Explain How Bad This Is
What’s happening in America today is something darker than a misinformation crisis.
www.theatlantic.com
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