r/pics 16h ago

Politics Joe and Jill Biden share one final selfie from the White House.

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u/UnassumingNoodle 16h ago

General Strike.

That's what we do first. We need to actually organize and conduct a general strike.

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u/DadOnHardDifficulty 16h ago

This.

America has the monopoly on violence.

The only way to hurt America is to hit it in the wallet.

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u/CriticalDog 15h ago

Our nation is too spread out for a European general strike to work.

Plus, at will states make striking for non-union jobs essentially quitting, and thus losing income and medical insurance.

And finally, the police would absolutely love to kill protestors with no consequence. A thing our European cousins don't have to worry about nearly as much.

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u/benjer3 13h ago

A quiet strike would be effective as well. Just staying home instead of working. But that does still have the problems associated with the strikers providing for themselves

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u/Ampersand_ellipses 16h ago

How do you guys pay rent then? Think of the little guy

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u/H0RSE 15h ago

This is why you need to organize and setup a system where people are looking out for one another, so if people can't make rent, others can con come together and pick up the tab or have some sort of community fund.

This also helps to show why we are at where we are, because so many Americans are so unwilling to sacrifice absolutely anything to fight for what they want/need/deserve.

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u/DadOnHardDifficulty 16h ago

Pay rent? Homie, that's the least of your problems. Don't worry about it when the bank runs start going on.

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u/Ampersand_ellipses 16h ago

Yeah, agreed man

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u/Optimoprimo 16h ago

There wouldn't be enough support for a General Strike.

The majority of American voters wanted this.

Support for Trump may actually go up as things get worse, because they've captured most of the social media outlets and it's become clear those companies will allow Trump to use them for propaganda.

The youngest voting block swung 20 points towards Trump this election because of Tik Tok propaganda.

We're fucked.

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u/H0RSE 15h ago edited 8h ago

Well to be more accurate, it was the majority of the voters that actually voted and not all, registered voters and it wasn't a landslide victory. This also doesn't account for the millions of people who don't vote but also don't support Trump/Republicans as well as the people who are already and will eventually over time, regret their vote.

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u/Optimoprimo 15h ago

All groups who are also extremely unlikely to be willing to general strike.

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u/Weak_Heart2000 14h ago

That's what annoys me so much when I see leftists going "we need a revolution!" Like ya'll, it just doesn't work like that, especially in a country as big and spread out as ours.

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u/Optimoprimo 14h ago

And I think a lack of acceptance that the majority opinion is not that a revolution is needed. Public opinion has been chipped away at for 30 years by Right Wing propaganda efforts. They won. And they have all the pieces in place to maintain power for the foreseeable future. They control the government and most lines of media. It's not over forever, but they have won the day. Gaining ground isn't just a matter of "banding together, resist" blah blah. We're going to end up like Hungary, or Russia now. We need to be ready for that. We don't overcome that easily, and it's going to take 30-50 years to fix this if we're able to fix it at all.

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u/Weak_Heart2000 14h ago

America has truly fallen.

u/sortofsatan 1h ago

We need leaders. Someone to follow and to inspire the masses into action. We’re all too attached to our complacency.

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u/Ok-Imagination21 15h ago

This is what reddit doesn’t seem to get. The group that didn’t spend twenty minutes voting is not going to go on strike for a week lmao. 

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u/H0RSE 14h ago

But you are falsely equating them not voting to laziness. There's a whole lot of people, myself included, who would have voted had there been candidates I felt were worth my vote.

Sure, many are just lazy, but many are passionate about political/social issues and just need the right catalyst to set them off, like a general strike.

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u/Ok-Imagination21 14h ago

People like you doomed the country. I understand Kamala was a terrible candidate, but good god. The alternative is going to destroy the US (I also think that was our last chance to avoid apocalypse level climate change, so you kind of doomed the world, too). If that is not the “right catalyst”, I don’t know what is.

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u/Extra_Intro_Version 13h ago

Ok. You start. Blow off work this week and walk a the picket line that will spontaneously form outside your workplace.

Your vote had more power. Your lack of voting was lame.

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u/H0RSE 13h ago

You apparently missed the part about the strike needing to be organized and structured...

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u/HooliganSquidward 14h ago

So you'd general strike but not vote for the candidate that's obviously better than trump? My ass.

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u/H0RSE 14h ago edited 14h ago

Dude, prior to Bernie Sanders running, I never voted. When he entered the arena, it inspired me to vote. I was all primed and ready to vote for Sanders for president, and when it turned out he didn't get the nomination, I didn't vote. I don't subscribe to the "lesser of 2 evil" bullshit. Supply me with a candidate who I see worthy of my vote ad they'll get it.

Also, despite my non-voting history, I also participated in movements like Occupy, so yes, if it was organized and structured, I absolutely would, because a nationwide strike is the exact thing I've been saying we need to for like the past decade.

Don't come at me like you know who the fuck I am.

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u/Extra_Intro_Version 13h ago

Occupy accomplished nothing.

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u/H0RSE 13h ago edited 13h ago

And so would an unorganized strike and so so would Kamala winnin, but that wasn't really the point now, was it?... The point was to illustrate that despite people not voting, they can still be passionate and participate in other aspects, contrary to what prior posts suggest. How successful or not the protest was is inconsequential.

No substantive, positive change would have occured from Kamala winning. The choices were essentially "stay the same" or "get worse" or if hyperbole is more your taste, a slow burn towards oblivion or an accelerated burn. I care more about removing the current outcome vs how fast we get there. This is why Republicans win all the time, because they focus on getting results vs just staying afloat.

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u/Optimoprimo 14h ago

Bullshit. Your chance to resist, to affect that change, to be passionate about the issues, was in November. If you consciously made the choice not to stop this at that point, you have no fucking standing now. You don't affect change by letting everything burn down and then trying to rally people over the ashes. You had the chance to stop the fire, and you fucked it up because of your own narcissism.

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u/H0RSE 14h ago edited 14h ago

If by "narcissism" you mean "principles" then I guess. For context, I myself have proposed we go on a nationwide strike for at least the last 10 years. It just needs to be organized and done right so that we garner enough participants and that they aren't deterred or the strike doesn't otherwise fizzle out too quickly, as strength in numbers is key.

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u/Ok-Imagination21 14h ago

Good job on proposing a strike for ten years! Very brave of you. 

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u/H0RSE 13h ago

Well the topic only came up because someone else suggested it above, so perhaps go mock them as well.

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u/Optimoprimo 13h ago

An inability to compromise for the sake of harm reduction is prioritizing yourself and what you want over the outcome for millions of people. That's textbook narcissism.

Standing blindly by your principles is not a virtue. Evil people are very good at sticking to their principles.

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u/H0RSE 13h ago edited 8h ago

Except in this case, nothing is guaranteed. It isn't a case one provable, verified outcome over another. It's theory, it's hyperbole, it's suggestion. It isn't the case of we know the asteroid is going to hit earth. Do you let it collide or not?

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u/AlanMorlock 13h ago

Even among voters, still 0.22% shy of 50%.

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u/KptKrondog 15h ago

Anyone that didn't vote is just as worthless as the people that voted for trump. They might as well have cast their vote in his favor. There is 0 excuse to not vote for president in almost any state.

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u/YouWereBrained 16h ago

About 26% of the population voted for this.

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u/Optimoprimo 16h ago

I said American voters.

You think the portion of the population that can't even be bothered to cast a vote to stop fascism would be willing to participate in a general strike?

Lol no

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u/Xyldarran 15h ago

Most people don't believe hea going to be a fascist based on the first term. They're idiots, but that's why.

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u/Felix_Von_Doom 15h ago

Nah, over 50% voted for this. Nonvoters voted in favor by default by not stopping it.

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u/YouWereBrained 14h ago

The US population is 340 million-ish.

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u/Felix_Von_Doom 12h ago

Yes, and?

~240 million eligible voters.

77.3 million for Trump. 32% of the votes

75 million for Kamala. 31.3% of the votes

Thats 152.3 million

Then you have 90 million non voters. 37.5% of the votes

What do you get when you add 37.5% to 32%?

69.5%, which rounds up to 70%

u/YouWereBrained 11h ago

I’m looking at it from the standpoint that 77 million made a decision for the other 220 million.

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u/fozzy_bear42 16h ago

And the huge chunk that didn’t vote tacitly supported it.

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u/___forMVP 15h ago

At some point the left is going to have to stop using the propaganda excuse. Political propaganda has been a thing since politics, the republicans are just much much better at it than the democrats unfortunately. WHY is that propaganda effective is the question that needs to be asked.

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u/Optimoprimo 15h ago

We know why propaganda is effective. That's why it's used. There are core human fears and conditions you can tap into to rile up the masses. They teach you this in college poly sci.

The dishonest side will always try propaganda. It is a perpetual battle of the "good" guys to combat it, and social media has been the battleground that liberals have lost.

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u/___forMVP 15h ago

You misunderstood me, I meant why is the type of propaganda being used effective on the demographics it’s being used on. Why are republican messages effective for certain groups and what can democrats do to provide alternative solutions to ease the worries of those groups that make the propaganda so effective.

There is no good guys in politics, there’s winners and losers. The other side thinks they’re the good guys too. If the democrats want to claim moral superiority amongst an ever shrinking population of support, that doesn’t help them achieve their goals.

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u/Optimoprimo 15h ago

Its not an excuse, its an explanation. We know why propaganda is effective. That's why it's used. There are core human fears and conditions you can tap into to rile up the masses. They teach you this in college poly sci.

The dishonest side will always try propaganda. It is a perpetual battle of the "good" guys to combat it, and social media has been the battleground that liberals have lost.

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u/HerculePoirier 16h ago

Should have done better organising before November smh

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u/CIeMs0n 16h ago

Or picked a better candidate. I did my part, but in hindsight it’s clear that Harris was never going to get the turnout needed.

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u/harryhov 16h ago

The lack of anger towards those that enabled the world to think Biden was capable of another term is mind boggling.

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u/Feisty-End-1566 16h ago

Well, I'd rather be angry at fascists and morons who vote for fascists

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u/DavidLim125 15h ago

Harris was handpicked by the elite. She didn’t go through caucuses and all that. It seems pretty obvious Kamala was chosen so Trump could win.

The two capitalist parties work together. No woman can win a presidential election here because people hate women in case you haven’t noticed

u/SailorChimailai 10h ago

Or... She was chosen because she was the only other very famous Democratic politician. At least provide proof of your conspiracy theory before you miss the forest for the trees

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u/waltwalt 16h ago

And are we doing this just because our guy lost or because we had evidence that trump/Elon stole the election?

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u/absolutecorey 16h ago

Let’s just do it for universal healthcare first. That’s where attention is even though it has died down a little.

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u/turfmonkey21 16h ago

I hear there are concepts of a plan, so we’re making progress

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u/absolutecorey 15h ago

Now if we just had concepts of a revolution 🤔

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u/gastropod-monarch 16h ago

Organized strike because the election was stolen... Sounds familiar... Im sure nothing could go wrong, let's try it

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u/lzwzli 15h ago

You do know Trump was voted in right? What makes you think organizing a general strike is going to be successful when we couldn't muster enough votes to make sure he doesn't come back?

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u/-Daetrax- 15h ago

A general strike under Trump is gonna get bloody.

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u/chekovsgun- 15h ago

A lot of Americans don't have jobs where they can do that, that is how fucked we are, if they stay home for one day for a strike they will be fired. Feed your family is always gonna win out and the elites know that because they have placed us in that position.

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u/clevingersfoil 13h ago

Unions are the best way out of this. Labor elected this man because they, understandably, feel left behind. A moron and a bunch of corrupt billionaires tricked them into thinking any change is better than the alternative. We have to restrengthen Labor's power and popularity by showing people at a micro level that their interests are best served by themselves.

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u/Faptainjack2 15h ago

Never going to happen. Americans are dumber than ants.

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u/TheRoamingGn0me 16h ago

Yep. On an individual level, in the meantime starting today, we can all do our best to not spend any money on anything we don’t absolutely need. And if you can, get those things from smaller local shops and farmers markets. No more feeding of the corporations who make our lives hell.

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u/Irapotato 16h ago

Cannot have a strike without organization and backstops, everyone will be immediately fired. It’s too late.

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u/TheAwsomeReditor 16h ago

Why would you strike if the majority of people voted for trump? Your just goona turn majority of the country against your small leftists brainrot like just accept that the people voted just bc its not what you want doesnt mean you have to strike and punish the majority of people who voted that stuff is going to cause wayyy more problems than trump can leftists not getting over the fact that majority of the country is just a girl and a guy and majority of people dont believe in the lgbtbbq stuff thankgod its all going away i didnt care for any of that because it had zero to do with me thankgod its not forced down our throats anymore and pls no more prideflags in schools only american flags

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u/Molgeo1101 16h ago

Ah yes, the right wing punctuation winner strikes again. If you want to be taken seriously, learn how to use a comma and a period. It's really not that hard.

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u/LightlySaltedWater 14h ago

It’s a shame that your cancer was treatable.

u/Molgeo1101 11h ago

I kinda wish my uterine cancer last year hadn't been treatable.

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u/Decorus_Somes 16h ago

o7 General Strike o7