Perhaps you might examine the various way in which queer people in general have been marginalized by labelling all their activities as obscene and sexual. For example, you might take the example of teachers in Florida who are in a same-sex marriage being prohibited from mentioning their marriage lest they be sanctioned for sexual content, while teachers in straight marriages were under no such restrictions. Similarly, the existence of queer people itself has been deemed so sexual by some that even mentioning to a child who is struggling with their identity that queer people exist has been called–in all absence of reason–child abuse.

If you can take those example, and then consider that your perspective of furries, much like homo- and transphobes’ perspective of queer people, is skewed to view it as entirely sexual despite all the parts that aren’t and classify the parts that would be normal sexuality in any other subgroup as deviant. This, as you might be able to deduce, can be quite restrictive of those people’s “allowed” place in society.

Sorry, were you around for the past several elections? Perhaps the 2020 elections where, upon the progressives banding with Biden to get him elected with the expectation that we would be able to “push him to the left”, the Democratic party decided that the reason they didn’t win more seats was because Progressives had damaged their chances of winning, and they must be marginalized. Or perhaps the 2016 elections where, the target of a long running hate campaign was preferred by the party over the popular progressive candidate who was then blamed for his supporters not being won over. Or the 2012 elections where the incumbent Democrat failed to deliver on progressive policies and was a high water mark for drone strikes, but progressives helped bring the win over the candidate Republicans weren’t excited for.

I voted for Harris in hopes that she’d beat out Trump despite how much she and Biden before her discarded progressive policy. I was under no expectation of Progressives being able to do a damn thing to reach her.

Please recognize that other people in this thread are doing those things while you, separately, are merely deriding furries. And while they may not be wholly queer, there is a lot of queer people who are furries and, apparently, a least one study found that two-thirds of furries are queer. And, yes, as it happens “theatre kids” are often queer, and recognizing that a lot of homophobia is directed at theatre folk because it can be an space for queer people to safely explore their identity is somewhat important.

I have people that I’m working with on the local scene who could not bring themselves to vote for Harris, even with how awful they knew Trump to be. I was able to vote, but I understand why they could and know that they still get out and do the work

Being disappointed by Democrats is unfortunately nothing new for me. Two decades of it under my belt so far.

Yeah, and what they’ve been doing to Rashida Tlaib has been sickening me. I have so much respect for what she’s been doing, and seeing the Democratic Party trying to villainize her and her constituents has been disheartening.

Clearly, no queer person has ever adopted a flamboyant persona and worn elaborately designed costumes.

I’m all over this comment chain. It rather bothers me seeing this kind of bigotry get deployed against a queer subculture, and a rather long standing one, because it’s the same oppression that gets put on us from the outside, and it is especially galling when I see queer people do it to other queer people. I presume that TERF lesbians calling trans people “predatory men invading women’s spaces and misguided sisters” is something you can’t stand at least as much as I do? Please recognize that painting furries as sexual degenerates is the same thing. Maybe I’m at a nexus of the gay furry community, but so many of the queer people in my locale are also part of the furry subculture, and, no, their existence is not purely sexual, and, yes, furry is a pretty core aspect of their identity and culture.

Oh, indeed. I’m sure you have a tight five about identifying as a helicopter you’re just dying to share with us.

And now the pivot from furries to trans people. I am utterly shocked that this would be the case.

Another day, another sensationalization of the sexual aspects of a queer subcultures. If it’s not the “inherent sexualization of discussing gay people”, or trans people as "autogynephillia and autoandrophillia’, it’s furries or kink at pride. It’s really disheartening hearing the same tools of oppression being deployed over and over again.

Tell me you don’t know queer subcultures without telling me you don’t know queer subcultures. Would you like to complain about drag shows while you’re at it? I hear it is very in vogue at the moment.

That hasn’t been my experience of Democrats so much as them using “at least we aren’t as bad a the Republicans” as justification for not pushing to stop harm, holding to the status quo as hard as they can and “courageously” voting with the Republicans to “save” something while dismantling something else. It seems like the lionizing of mediocrity.

Nah, I’ve been doing local organizing and worrying about more than just the top of the ticket, and even past the elections. I supported the Uncommitted movement and was hoping that Harris would actually capitalize on the moment she had when she took over, and, yeah, I cast my vote for her for all the good it did. It’s fucking sicking seeing so many sneer at the movement, and pat themselves on the back for having the moral superiority for voting for “the right person” while making so little of what is supposed to make them the right person happen. Being so unconcerned that the person they are so self congratulatory about was saying they would do the awful things and work with the awful people they’ve been saying are the greater of the two evils.

Genuinely, why did the Democrats go so hard on the anti-immigration policy and cozy up with Liz “I am strongly pro-life and I am not pro-gay marriage” Cheney? How were they expecting to sell people on the lesser of two evils when they were trying to become what they thought “moderate Republicans” would vote for? I’ve done this song and dance with the Dems for two decades now. I know they don’t value me, because they know I don’t have another option in the race, but how am I supposed to be excited myself, let alone campaign at others and get them excited for another round of getting sold out?

I’ll be sure to remember that when, in the spirit of bipartisanship, Democrats vote to remove my husband’s access to HRT or revoke my cousins’ citizenship because one of their parents was an Arab immigrant.

I’m sure that will be of great comfort to me watching the Democratic party continue to capitulate to the Right over the next four years.

Can you tell me what my vote for Harris did? I got to vote for “less genocide” and get “more genocide”. Clearly, it was very important for Harris to keep out Palestinian- and Arab-Americans in swing states and bring in Republicans. Can you help me understand how that was supposed to win the most important election of all time where Republicans are planning on genociding everyone not them?

For whatever reason, when I’m hearing about Dems in the swing state I’m in, I’m hardly ever hearing why you should be excited to vote for the Dem candidate, but instead why the Rep candidate is so awful that you simply must vote Dem to stop them. Like, there was about a week(?) that Harris and Walz seemed to be coming out of the gate going “we’re gonna be so awesome, don’t even worry about the weirdos on the other side”, but then it became “please, it is of Vital Importance you do not vote for Trump, we promise Harris will be better than him”, and I just don’t understand why they changed.

… You do remember these are the same people that went unvaccinated and unmasked during COVID and took dewormer for a viral infection, right?

If the Uncommitted movement had tens of millions of registered voters come together and pledge to vote Harris if and only if she took a harder stance on Israel, that might have helped.

… are you familiar with what the Uncommitted National Movement was asking for? Like, half of Lemmy is bashing the Uncommitteds for the 15m vote difference between Biden in 2020 and Harris in 2024.

Like, do you get that Listen to Michigan alone got 101k Uncommitted votes in the Michigan Dem Primary to Biden’s 618k? That they had a stated goal of “an immediate and permanent ceasefire”? That there were Uncommitted delegates to the Democratic National Convention that were denied the opportunity to speak at the convention? That the there were protests outside the DNC demanding the Uncommitted movement be allowed to speak?

Which part of this is failing at being the movement you’re saying the DNC would listen to? If the 15m gap is truly completely at the feet of the Uncommitted, then what are you saying was the reason that the DNC cut them out of their strategy?

There is a lot of “invisible” work that party orgs do. If you want to see why big names and attention alone don’t work, look at the Green Party. They have name recognition, ballot access and even get a bit of the vote each presidential election. What they’re missing is the “ground game” that gives the presence in nearly every race in every precinct, and the local engagement to actually win an appreciable chunk of elections every year (not just the presidential years).

As a fellow old fuck, surely you must remember Obama publicly opposing gay marriage to win voters, no? And, surely, of like me, you’ve been voting in primaries and “off-year” elections for decades like I have, you must remember the various progressives running for the Dem nomination only to have people like John Kerry and Al Gore be the “exciting, energetic” candidates. Sure, we can point to Clinton, but his strategy involved being conservative enough to pull in Reagan Dems and middle class Republicans, as well as the usual Democratic mainstays. You know, the play the Dems keep running while not having someone with Bill’s “good ole boy” personality to pull it off.

And, yeah, it’s been a breath of fresh air seeing unions do as well as they have recently, after being pounded into the dirt for decades. And, yeah, the economy is doing better, but people still struggle to pay for groceries and housing. Do you remember when George Bush couldn’t answer what the price of milk was, and how hard he got beat up over that? Did you vote in '92? I was too young, but I still remember hearing about the price of milk everywhere for a long stretch there.

I dunno, I’m just kind of tired of voting Blue election after election while getting told the issues that are important to me just can’t be done right now, because we need to appeal enough to Republicans again. Having to fight tooth and nail to get whatever issues some ground, be it civil rights, the environment or social services, and then see it up on the chopping block the moment Dems need to “compromise” with Republicans to not tear up a different right. And we still lose, or win just enough to not have enough of a majority to get anything done. The closest I’ve seen to Dems doing well while I’ve been able to vote? When they embraced the possibility of change and getting things done with Obama’s Hope campaign.

And, again, this is coming from someone who has voted for Harris, votes in primaries and off-year elections, who has done phone banking for the Dems, been involved in local orgs, has advocated to disillusioned voters to get out to the polls to vote because of how awful the alternative for not voting is.

But, you tell me: how successful was the Dem’s strategy this cycle? Did they manage to pick up votes on their right flank? What was the gain in conservative Dem voters vs. the loss in progressives? How does the gap compare to previous elections? What sort of voters did their appeal to “the middle” yield? I’m something of a numbers wonk at the end of the day and tend to be more receptive to the analysis instead of what I see as knee-jerk scapegoating, so tell me what went well this time around.