• Chainweasel@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    The Dems are a minority in both the House and the Senate at the moment, they’re literally powerless.
    The best time to criticize them would have been over the last two years, when they actually could have done something about the mess.

    • Kalysta@lemm.ee
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      9 hours ago

      Being in the minority never stopped the republicans. There are things the democrats can do to obstruct.

    • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
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      12 hours ago

      The Republicans seem to be able to stop a lot of things, especially if the opposing party not only doesn’t control every branch of government, but doesn’t have a 60+ majority of the senate with a comfortable margin to write off the {Manchins, Sinemas, Libermans, etc.}. But now suddenly a minority party can’t stop their opponents from doing things, even if it is blatantly unconstitutional? It seems like the Democrats are never playing to win.

      In reality, the Democrats want this all to continue, because if Trump fucks things up enough and destroys things enough, the Democrats only appeal of “we aren’t the Republicans” can for once, become a winning strategy in 2026/2028.

      • caffinatedone@lemmy.world
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        12 hours ago

        That’s the key “stops a lot of things”. The way that Congress is structured makes it pretty easy to stop things since there are many choke points. Notice that republicans aren’t really trying to “do things” in Congress?

        The current issues and actions are being driven by the executive branch where they’re ignoring the law and constitution . Being in the minority in Congress means that Dems can’t trigger investigations or much of anything to formally push back unless they’re joined by some republicans.

        I’ll agree that they could make more noise and should block things up more than they’re doing presently, but these actions wouldn’t really stop or significantly slow any of this.

        I’m sick of the green lanterism that gets trotted out to suggest that they’re not stopping things because they don’t want to. Voters didn’t give them power in the last election, so we’re working from a position of weakness.

        • Saint_La_Croix_Crosse@midwest.social
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          12 hours ago

          There are still veto points and lawsuits to be made. Along with the more vocal opposition that you admit that they should engage in. It is neither that they could perfectly stop everything, but that they could actually start trying. The Democrats decided that they should sit back because if Trump fucks things up enough, they will have an easy time in 2026/2028, without changing their usual platform of “We are not the Republicans, we will give you nothing else”.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Now is a great time to criticize them for their past actions and current attitudes, but a poor time to expect protection from them, on account of their minority position in the government.

      • kreskin@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        but a poor time to expect protection from them

        Where did this “protection” idea come from?

        No one expects “protection”, we expect them to lift a finger to do the job they were sent to washington to do, or get the eff out of the way and let someone with a spine and some morals get it done. The only one out there doing the job is sanders and the progressives. All the other dems only came together to vote for tougher laws on illegal video streaming sites, and now they are pushing to gut peoples protection to say what they want online.

        https://www.techdirt.com/2025/02/21/while-democracy-burns-democrats-prioritize-demolishing-section-230/

        and back in jan: https://politics.slashdot.org/story/25/01/30/028201/democrat-teams-up-with-movie-industry-to-propose-website-blocking-law

        They are doing nothing but what their donors want, as usual. They learned nothing and continue to do nothing.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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          2 hours ago

          No one expects “protection”, we expect them to lift a finger to do the job they were sent to washington to do,

          What were they sent to Washington to do, again?

          • kreskin@lemmy.world
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            2 hours ago

            Dont make me pull out school house rock videos of how our supposed “democracy” works.

            • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              They were sent to Washington to participate in the legislature. I could go for several more details here, but the core of it comes down to - they were sent to Washington to protect the rights and interests of their constituents through the passage and restriction of laws.

              ie ‘protection’.