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Comment by Kye | Hacker News Reader

All I'll say right now is to not focus so much on the half that voted against your rights that you forget about the half that's behind you.

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To be fair, it’s not half, and it’s shrinking.

Best bet is to find a way to build up states that can defend those rights and concentrate people there. In response to the evisceration of the federal government, set up equivalent agencies in those states that can do those jobs. The rest of America should be abandoned.

Wouldn’t this just cause progressives to lose every subsequent presidential election, with those rights eventually being federally outlawed? 270 gets harder to reach the more concentrated a mindset is.

Yes. In my opinion, it's clearly been a wasted effort to try to convince the rest of the country those rights are important. They need to be defended where they can, and the states that defend them need to separate themselves more and more from their parent country. Secession is silly, at least today. If what you're saying comes to pass—and it could even without what I'm suggesting—then at that point secession is the only correct answer.

Either way, it doesn't make sense to spend effort where it's not making a difference.

EDIT: Another part of this idea that I struggle with, is that we shouldn't ask people who aren't accepted to stay in places where they aren't accepted. They deserve rights. They should go to places where they can get them, and we should get them out of the places that don't respect them. And doing that, which I think is the moral thing to do, leads to what you're describing.

Also federal government will continue to weaken under Trump. Its primary domestic power is by acting as a big hose of money, if that dries up then what does it matter? EPA, NLRB, all the executive offices are basically gone already anyways, and it's not like they've even had teeth for the last two decades. Strong blue states enacting their own agendas aggressively, independent of and unassailable by the federal government is a way more achievable goal IMO, especially if the alternative is to pin everything on being able to sufficiently turn out the entire blue coalition one day every four years. I can make a difference at the county and state level, and I have lots of opportunities to do so. My heart goes out to people stuck in red states right now, but at the end of the day some things are within my power and some things are not.

Good points. I’ve always had negative preconceptions around secession, but I suppose that if the government fails to be productive in adding value to its people and the world, I can see the benefit in being broken up into smaller, more independent or interdependent components.

Appreciate your thoughts.

Many conservative accounts have been banned. Many conservatives doxxed or threatened, for exactly the sorts of comments you make.

I would not though, because you have every right to want to self-govern. Good luck!

You may believe that, but American conservatives do not:

> “If transgenderism is false—as it is—if men really can’t become women—as they cannot—then it’s false for everyone,” the Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles said at CPAC. “If it is false then for the good of society and especially for the good of the poor people who have fallen prey to this confusion, transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/cpac-transgenderism-speaker-...

And then, when the uncaring federal government with its army comes along to enforce federal law, what do you do?

I think the exact opposite solution is better: blue every state you can by undoing "the great sort". We will learn more that much of the division is media amplified, and that at the core of it, most humans want the same few things. This guy called Maslow even arranged these needs in a hierarchical framework.

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No, the corporatist warmongers in the RNC obviously do.

Cheney and CO. jumped ship and endorsed another party, they fear Trump

False dichotomy. You don't have to pick.

As opposed to the republicans, who are famously not warmongers and are also communist or something.

Somehow I doubt that those are the half the population GP was referring to. I think they were referring to voters.

Depends on who you are. If you're trans then, unfortunately, they're all you have

Does that half have any meaningful power? People are more polarised than ever¹ and one half of the choices controls the presidency, the Senate, probably the House… And they have a very public plan to do a lot of oppressive stuff to ensure they keep themselves and their ideals in power for decades. And their fans are cheering it all.

I’m not American, and in theory I appreciate your positive messaging, but realistically it doesn’t seem like you do have half of the voters or the power behind you.

I hope this finally stops blind democrats from saying crap like “this is not who we are” and “when they go low, we go high” and invoking American exceptionalism and crying for God to “bless” your country specifically. Don’t be surprised nationalists won the day, this is who you are. You had an excuse in 2016, but not this time. You made your bed, and the worst part of it is that it affects the rest of the world so meaningfully. You fucked up. Again. Maybe try changing strategies a bit? If you keep turning the other cheek while the other party is punching you in the face, all you’re going to get are more bruises.

¹ I don’t have any data, this is observational, and I would welcome being proven wrong.

In what way is that better than to vote for your own rights even if it means voting for the vice president of the administration that provided almost total support for a country that killed 60 000 people in the past year? Mostly with american weaponry too.

(And before you say that the other side would do it too, even Trump, that seems to show total support for Israel at least keeps talking about how the entire thing needs to stop asap. No such urgency from the Biden administration, at least that's not what their actions show as they keep providing even more material support by the day).b

Trump will give them license to completely wipe Palestine off the map, which will make this issue moot in future elections.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-israel-g...

What are your thoughts and level of concern for the Ukrainian people in the near future? Do you believe that Trump is going to bring that conflict to a close agreeably for the people of Ukraine, or will he follow through with his promise to let Russia "do whatever the hell they want"?

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/10/politics/trump-russia-nato/in...

I'm curious, what exactly did Biden do to stop Israel from wiping Gaza off the map? What restraints has Israel shown up until now? So even assuming you were right, what exactly would Trump do that could be worse than what Biden has done (eg. Support for everything, and providing for most of the material that led to almost complete destruction of Gaza and now soon Lebanon too).

And in any case my point was more that it is funny to see people talk about how one side only thinks about their rights and not those of the others and how their side has more compassion and empathy. While actively campaigning for the candidate that has been completely supportive of Israel for the past year. Using the reasoning that hey, foreign policy is one thing but at least Biden is better for "us Americans". That to me sounds exactly like thinking about your own rights first, at the detriment of those of all the people who died and suffer from what Biden's administration has enabled.

Only one of those political parties kept my kid from going to school for two years. Only one of them chained up their playground and shut down their community. Only one of them forced small businesses to close, cheered on when people where getting their cars towed from trailheads. Only one of them forced state employees to get a so-called vaccine or lose their job.

This is fall out from democrats disastrous covid policies. Well deserved fall out.

>so-called vaccine

What?

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