Summary
Trump is nullifying federal employee union contracts negotiated in Biden’s final days.
Affected contracts include one with the Education Department ratified just before his inauguration. Trump cited a 2010 Supreme Court decision to justify his stance but did not provide a clear legal basis.
Federal employee unions, representing 800,000 workers, vowed legal action, calling Trump’s move unlawful intimidation.
This continues Trump’s prior efforts to weaken job protections, with additional plans to reclassify and lay off civil servants.
I mean I can understand him not wanting to endorse Kamala when she directly told him we can win with or without you. That doesn’t exactly sound like the kind of person you would want to endorse if they don’t even seem to really care about you or the people you represent. But yeah endorsing Trump was a stupid move, he really should have just not endorsed either of them.
I thought Harris’ tone-deaf moment was in response to him deciding not to endorse a candidate rather than the other way around. Maybe I’m confusing union bosses, but I didn’t think the guy who spoke at the RNC endorsed either ticket in the end.
You’re right there after looking into it, he didn’t endorse either but he did speak at the RNC which for a lot of people looked like an endorsement but is a little different. The quote of we can win with or without you was from a meeting the teamster’s president had with Kamala. Even if it was in response to him speaking at the RNC or showing some support to Trump that’s definitely not how you get someone to back you and in my opinion shows the attitude the Dems had to a lot of people this cycle. This idea of either you vote for us or we’ll win without you cause you have no other good choice. That attitude is not one that makes people excited to go out and stand in a 3 hour line to vote for you in a swing state. And if they keep relying on this you either vote for us or you get stuck with the bad option of Trump they’re only gonna win whenever Trump is in office and actively doing really really bad things.
Yeah, either way, it was a pretty dumb thing to say. Court the guy’s endorsement or don’t, but don’t actively denigrate the guy. He represents a sizable group of voters, and as I reminded a friend today, one of the bedrock rules of running for election is never call voters stupid (similar to saying we don’t need you to win). Everybody might “know” it, but you never ever come right out and say it. Only one guy has somehow found success doing that.
At least in hindsight, it proves her wrong and that they can’t win without the unions?
So like, maybe the DNC will be self-aware enough to reflect upon this and pivot back towards more progressive, worker-friendly policies rather than the neo-liberal garbage they’ve been espousing for the better part of the 2000s?
I almost burst out laughing at the absurdity of the above, but in the words of Jim Carey’s character from Dumb and Dumber: “So you’re saying there’s a chance?”
Lol
Yup, pretty much!
Yeah that would be nice but the only way I see that happening is if a Bernie like politician manages to win the primary and the election and reshapes the party like what Trump did. But reshaping it in that way is gonna face a lot more pushback from donors than compared to what Trump did. So there’s always a chance but it feels pretty unlikely without changes to election and campaign finance laws.
Finance laws, especially those related to the Citizens United case, are a massive hurdle.
Until the Supreme Court can be reigned back to sanity - things will likely remain terrible, as a majority will be needed there to re-rule on Citizens United - along with Roe, restoring the Voting Rights Act and a whole heap of others!
Just listing out those three made me physically ill; don’t let anyone who voted GOP, voted 3rd party, or refused to vote off the hook. They are all equally culpable for the slow death of democracy in the US. They are the ones that granted Trump THREE Supreme Court nominations in one term, and who knows how many more. The man is on track to likely appoint a MAJORITY to that court BY HIMSELF.
He could very well declare himself King at that point, and the court would likely rubber stamp it.
And what exactly are you going suggesting to do to them? None of those groups like or respect you, and you’ve already been trying to browbeat and belittle them into submission for a decade, which has only alienated them more.
It’s not brow-beating anymore, to point out cause-and-effect; and honestly I couldn’t give fewer shits about what these people thought of me if I had chronic constipation.
Y’all fucked around, now you get to find out the hard way. The world won’t magically become a utopia by refusing to fight, and you won’t be spared when your time comes.
I’ll happily sit back and watch from my still (largely) functioning democracy the next ‘Fall of Rome’.
The world wont magically become utopia, or even better, by supporting evil, no matter what.
So the answer to my question is you’re going to continue to do what you’ve been doing for a decade: browbeating and condescending to them. Want to talk about cause and effect? You don’t care about what they think of you, you’re not interested in trying to court them, you’re eager to continue alienating them. What effect are you trying to cause?
Two questions. One: why do you BlueMAGA liberals always talk like the most terminal reddit addicts? And two, what do you mean “y’all”? I’m not American, I don’t get to vote for which was criminal is going to bomb my family.
I’m not American either; I’m a progressive in a nation where our CONSERVATIVE party would be considered to the left of the DNC. So no BlueMAGA Liberalism here, which as an aside, is honestly is an even more tragic Reddit-ism - I wouldn’t be throwing stones in glass houses if I were you.
But more-to-the-point, “Fuck around and find out” is a common saying particularly amongst more regional/rural locales, that I’ve appropriated for cause. For an example of how the GOP base commonly use phrases like this, listen to Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town”.
There is no more effect left for me to cause; the Left failed to stop the existential threat that was Donald Trump, due to in-fighting, lack of motivation, and the lack of urgency necessary given the circumstances.
You don’t get to vote for which “criminal” gets to bomb your family, just as much as I don’t. You’re right in the sense that your family would likely continue to be target for bombing in the near future regardless of the election, but truly ask yourself if you think progressives and leftists stand a better chance of enacting change now under Trump, than they would have under a milquetoast president like Harris.
The phrase “the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” is apt; conservatives in the US have been building towards this since the 80s (and arguably even before that); slowly, but surely rolling back progress made since the post-War period and reappointing Robber Barons and Landed Gentry.
This is also a lesson that leftists and progressives as a whole continue to struggle with; we bicker amongst each other - falling for the No True Scotsman fallacy - rather than working together and iterating through small, achievable victories towards a much larger goal. We demand a revolution which will never come, and instead shun small positive opportunities while the conservatives run rough-shod over the law, the environment, and the populace.
This is largely all moot at this point, because I truly believe that 2024 was the last US election of any importance. The nation will not be able to withstand another four years of Trump-led onslaught, especially now with the backing of his own slew of oligarchs (Musk, Bezos, Zuckerberg etc.).
So maybe is nihilism, but it’s time for me (as a US politics tragic) to sit back, drink a beer, and enjoy the schadenfreude to come.