cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/59919866
US President Donald Trump signed the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law Thursday, completing the passage of the largest military spending bill in US history—$901 billion, or over $1 trillion when combined with supplemental funding passed earlier this year.
The Senate voted 77-20 on Wednesday to pass the bill. The Democratic leadership, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Minority Whip Dick Durbin of Illinois, voted for the bill. They were joined by Senators Mark Kelly of Arizona and Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, both of whom released a video last month calling on military personnel to disobey illegal orders—as Trump was sending the US military on a murder spree off the coast of Latin America.
Citing Trump’s statements about using troops to shoot protesters in America, Slotkin invoked the legacy of the Nuremberg tribunals, which convicted Nazi leaders for war crimes and crimes against peace. But when it came time to vote, this invocation was revealed to be completely meaningless. Slotkin voted to hand Trump the resources to pursue his military adventure against Venezuela…
Within electoral politics as usual: write letters thanking the Dems who voted against this bullshit, consider supporting them in 2026, primary the Dems who voted for it, and if the choice in 2026 is between a Republican and a warmongering Dem don’t be afraid to write in “peace”.
Outside electoral politics: push your union to oppose war (if you don’t have a union help start one), speak against war in churches and coffee shops and community groups, volunteer at Food not Bombs or your local food bank, donate to UNHCR, and a million other community-focused actions that change people’s minds and make the world better without casting a single damn vote.
I don’t think American democracy is the best possible system. Or anywhere near it. But if you want to play its game, remember: the Tea Party Republicans had the guts to sit out elections and let Democrats win if the Republicans didn’t move far enough to the right to satisfy them. And look what it got them.
If you want to engage in electoral politics, you have the right to tell Democrats “move left or I’ll sit this election out”. And if they refuse don’t be afraid to fucking do it and put your time and passion and money to more useful ends.
Did “sitting out” not get us another round of Trump?
Liberals and progressives didn’t sit out. They voted in lockstep. The only demographic to actually sit out in enough numbers to impact the election, IIRC, was Muslims in Michigan protesting US support of Israel.
And here’s the thing: if every registered voter had voted, Trump would have won by even bigger margins.
Trump didn’t win because the Left sat out. He won because Biden’s presidency was the worst failure in my lifetime and Harris promised more of the same.
… are you allowed to vote? Like are you old enough to vote?
Because we’ve had Trump for 4 years, and are headed through it again. How was Biden a bigger failure than those? I’m curious what the measure is.
Trump is not a failure. Trump has done everything he wanted to do, and everything the Heritage Foundation and the Republican Party have wanted for decades.
American conservatives have accomplished more of their policy goals in just the first year of Trump’s second term than they did in the last thirty years.
That’s not failure. That’s the biggest political victory I’ve ever seen.
Biden? Accomplished nothing, tried to accomplish nothing, let the new robber barons of cloud capital loot America while he sat on his hands and imitated the “everything is fine” dog. He had Congress behind him, he had the American people behind him, he could have used that power to crack down on corporate looters and transfer wealth from the 1% back to the American people, he could have expanded social services and rolled out new jobs programs and fought the COVID Depression the way FDR fought the Great Depression ninety years before, and he didn’t do shit.
And every single day that Trump does something new and unprecedented and heinous with the power of the Presidency, and dares the cowardly complicit Congress to stop him, I get more disgusted with Biden for not having the guts to use that same power when he had it.