Paramore’s Hayley Williams unleashes profanity-filled response after DHS tells her to ‘thank’ ICE

[u/theindependentonline]

https://www.the-independent.com/arts-entertainment/music/news/hayley-williams-ice-dhs-paramore-response-b3062326.html

[u/omeganaut]

She has more guts than the entire democrat party in the house and senate 

[u/WeWantLADDER49sequel → u/omeganaut]

I've found that people who keep repeating that all democrats are the same (and are apparently Nazis now, too) don't actually pay attention to what any of them say. Because while probably half of them fit the typical corporate Democrat description, most of them are often speaking out on things daily.

[u/Laiko_Kairen → u/WeWantLADDER49sequel]

Screw anyone who says both parties are the same.

I'm a gay man. I have had my rights change three times in my life. Women lost their rights to abortions. Anyone who says both parties are the same is an idiot who is too insulated from politics for his opinion to matter

[u/kingofclubstroy → u/Laiko_Kairen]

They are not the same, however, dem leadership has repeatedly shot themselves in the foot and have catered to business interests over their constituents for decades now, resulting in large part to the situation we are in. There would not have been trump or maga if dems were pushing for and running on policies that worked for the people. You get incremental changes in that direction, here and there, but by and large both parties are beholden to their lobbyists. Dems are 1000x better, and should be voted for over republicans despite any ill feelings toward your representative, but they should not just skate by without criticism because they are the lesser of two evils, they should actually try to make positive change so we aren’t on the verge of electing a fascist every 4 years.

[u/WeWantLADDER49sequel → u/kingofclubstroy]

You all say stuff like this, but then ignore the fact that after a historic voter turnout from young folks that got Obama elected, everyone celebrated like we healed the world and then everyone fucked off with voting during the midterms, so all we did is elect Obama and then let republicans take over everything else. Then 8 years later people said "well Obama didn't do most of what we wanted him to". Everyone is too caught up in this dumb ass whiny "fuck ALL politicians" rhetoric and spend no time actually trying to educate themselves on what a lot of democrats are actually fighting for.

[u/kingofclubstroy → u/WeWantLADDER49sequel]

How about we stop blaming voters, and instead look at campaigns. We cannot really change the voters, but candidates can change what they run on. Y’all (moderates and the consultant class) have learned the wrong lesson from Obama. He won by a landslide running on a campaign of hope and change, and carried the house and senate to a majority with it. Come the mid terms, he wasn’t on the ballot to carry, and they did not adopt the same message, resulting in a loss and lack of a possibility of positive change to run on.

To add, a lot of real positive change, like a non gutted affordable healthcare bill that would have benefitted a lot more people, was hampered by corporate dems, cutting a lot of momentum from the administration and midterm results.

Y’all then think the thing to do is pivot/cater to the moderate right whose policies their lobbyists are more in favor of, rather than attempt to do what Obama did and energize the young and the disenfranchised to vote, which again was the last time the dems controlled both the house and senate.

Don’t claim to assume I’m not educated in what dems are and aren’t fighting for, or that you know better.

What was even the point of your post? To not bother trying to stand or fight for anything? Are you suggesting the best candidate is one where most of the base plugs their nose as they vote for the lesser of two evils?

[u/jamesp420 → u/kingofclubstroy]

They're not blaming voters in their entirety, they're rightfully blaming those who chose not to exercise their right to vote. Apathy or unfounded confidence that their vote isn't needed from registered voters is a huge problem, and a big part of why we end up in these situations. They're just as much to blame as both the spineless and selfish corpo wings of the democratic party.

[u/MadameFoxAdventures → u/jamesp420]

The biggest reason we have these issues is because our election process is a joke. Why do we allow the "debates" to be pissing contests to put down other candidates and avoid questions? Why do we not have ranked voting so people can vote with their conscience and we can stop this BS argument of "wasting your vote" or "voting for the other side" because people didn't vote for a dem. or rep.? Why do I see more videos of them all asking for donations than talking about their politics? We need to cap election spending and increase transparency. Special interest groups and corporations should not be allowed to contribute to a campaign, period. Plus so much more...

[u/jamesp420 → u/MadameFoxAdventures]

I mean if we're really getting into the nitty gritty of it, there's and endless number of really deeply embedded problems in our electoral process, many intentional.

Citizens United allowing for the ultra-wealthy to have a direct hand in influencing candidates and elections, a broken-by-design 2 party system that removes ideological diversity from the pool of candidates, an antequated Electoral College system that causes some votes to count more than others, an (intentionally) uneducated, ignorant, and/apathetic voting public that often doesn't even know what they're actually voting for, or all too often vote single issue at the cost of everything else, etc. I could keep going.

But at the end of the day, if we're going to play the blame game, the citizens of the United States still hold most of the blame. We have the power to change things, but we just don't.

Too many of us either don't pay attention, don't care, think someone else will solve these problems for us, or blindly believe what the media or social media tells them without following up to verify any of what they hear. Not to say many people don't try to make a difference, but not nearly enough to actually affect change.

[u/_TheMeepMaster_ → u/WeWantLADDER49sequel]

Please, enlighten us. What is it that the democratic party" is actually fighting for"? You call us stupid, while you leave zero room for nuance. Tell me, if the Democrats, somehow, manage to gain back power, will you admit you were wrong when they inevitability give it back up? Or will you still be here making fucking excuses for them?

I say this as someone that has voted straight ticket Democrat since I started voting. I don't think Democrats are anywhere near as bad as Republicans, but if you think that's enough, then you're the one that's fucking stupid.

[u/VSWR_on_Christmas → u/Laiko_Kairen]

In my experience, the "both sides" arguments usually come out after I've cornered the other person on some indefensible BS that they support. 9/10 times it's a Republican saying it.

[u/PocketSurprises → u/VSWR_on_Christmas]

Plenty of tankie lefties will parrot that same sentiment, don’t be fooled. The call is coming from within our own house a lot of times unfortunately 

[u/VSWR_on_Christmas → u/PocketSurprises]

They've been coming out of the woodwork lately. We need more strong liberal advocates to push back. I'm doing what I can, but I'm only a single voice.

[u/ihohjlknk → u/Laiko_Kairen]

There is very little daylight between the Democrats and Republicans, merely on superficial gestures that Democrats have no problem abandoning when it's politically inconvenient. Both parties are liberal capitalists who are beholden to corporate money. Both parties largely are the same on foreign policy.

Since you're part of the queer community, out of curiosity, how do you feel about Democrats throwing trans people under the bus? One minute, Democrats are the "champions of trans rights", but the moment Republicans dial up the attacks on Democrats for defending a marginalized group, Democrats get incredible advice from consultants that they must abandon trans people to win the election.

Any time Democrats attempt to stand up for marginalized people, they will fold at the slightest resistance from Republicans. James Talarico, who i hope wins Texas, even he decided to throw trans people under the bus. Where's your backbone, Dems?

[u/Laiko_Kairen → u/ihohjlknk]

Any time Democrats attempt to stand up for marginalized people, they will fold at the slightest resistance from Republicans

And yet here I am, with my right to marry, despite Republican outrage. And here you are calling my legal equality a superficial gesture.

You are the exact kind of "it doesn't effect me so it doesn't matter" sad sack that I was describing.

The Obama years were much better for my community than the Trump years. You can try to argue away how that's "superficial" or whatever, but it's my fucking life dude. I'm gay, that's permanent, and my desire for equality was not superficial.

[u/ihohjlknk → u/Laiko_Kairen]

The right for same-sex marriage was a decades long struggle to overcome opposition from Republicans as well as Democrats. Obama himself opposed SSM until it was publicly palatable enough for him to favor it. He had to have Biden nudge him. And SSM was not decided by Congress, but by a 5-4 decision from the supreme court. Democrats could have codified it with a congressional bill, but apparently it wasn't a priority. Just like how they never bothered to codify abortion rights. and their eventual attempt to codify SSM is a compromise passed during Trump 1 that leaves a loophole to ban SSM the moment Obgerfell is overturned (stay tuned for that one.)

I used 'superficial gestures' because Democrats parlay social progressivism but will jettison it when it becomes a liability. As I said with trans rights, and when the Dems were publicly pro-immigrant during Trump 1, and suddenly during the 2024 election, they were hard-line anti-immigrant because Republicans dialed up the racism game. Democrats always adopt right-wing framing.

I ask you to look beyond your "standpoint perspective" and recognize the Democratic party are unreliable allies at best.

[u/Laiko_Kairen → u/ihohjlknk]

I know, I was there. I remember Obama being against my rights, and I remember him pivoting. I know they're unreliable allies. The issue I'm taking is when you paint "unreliable allies" as being the same as "hostile opposition."

That is manifestly false.

You're telling me to "look past" the fact that my rights have changed. I won't. I fought that fight for over a decade. I will not forget a decade of progress just because you have a myopic view.

How about you look past your ideological lens, stop dismissing my civil rights, and consider what point you're really trying to make. You've repeatedly said that my rights are a triviality to them. Stop ignoring that it's not a triviality to me. One party worked with me, one party worked against me, and those are facts.

[u/FunkmasterFuma → u/Laiko_Kairen]

As a trans woman please shut the fuck up. This election, I've had to watch pretty much every purple district/state Democrat do a 180 to talk about how much they ideologically oppose my existence and screech about "biological males unfairly playing in girls' sports". Then I have to be talked down to by DNC bootlickers like you about how the party has to be imperfect and how they're actually better than Republicans on these issues. I AM OBVIOUSLY COGNIZANT OF THE FACT THAT A TRANSPHOBIC DEMOCRAT WOULD BE BETTER THAN A TRANSPHOBIC REPUBLICAN DO NOT FUCKING BRING THAT UP. You cannot be pissed at trans people and actual trans allies for saying that the Democrats are trying to be the same as Republicans on this. It comes off as really fucking patronizing and demeaning. I deserve my rights as much as anybody else and if we don't push back on Democrats aligning themselves with Republicans, then they'll continue to do it.

[u/Laiko_Kairen → u/FunkmasterFuma]

Read this when you are calmer. You're yelling at the wrong person. I have been arguing in favor of trans rights and trans inclusion in our community for literally decades.

The way the civil rights march has always worked is that for every step forward we take, conservatives drag us half a step back. I keep referring to the LGBT community as a voting bloc because the trans community is so important to it.

One side is apathetic to us, and one side is hostile to us. We, as the LGBT community, need to stand together and continue to pressure pols to be trans-inclusive. This is the half-step back period. This is the "we stand firm" period. It's not the "well, give up and let them forget how much we matter" period.

Gaining my right to marry was the biggest victory of my life and I will not let you take that away from me. It proved to me that one side CAN be worked with, and the other side CANNOT be worked with.

Stopping voting, AKA making us invisible at the ballot box, treating both sides like they're the same, that will not help us.

They're not our true allies, but the dems are FAR more malleable to our cause. And parties tend to vote along party lines, so even a transphobic dem is more likely to fold on the issue than any GOP member ever would be. It's about party momentum. We're on the back foot. But we need to keep pushing

[u/FunkmasterFuma → u/Laiko_Kairen]

Have you not seen the transphobic dreck coming out of pretty much every Democrat in a purple district? Look at how many fucking names are on this list and the shit they're saying about trans people and tell me that that's "apathy". The Democrats are allowing full-blown hatred of trans people to fester within their ranks and it is unacceptable. If we don't put our foot down and tell the party establishment that this is unacceptable, then they won't stop at a "half-step". We have to put serious pressure with potential consequences on them or they will just continue to allow the erosion of not just trans rights, but all LGBT+ rights.

[u/Laiko_Kairen → u/FunkmasterFuma]

https://youtu.be/kXMfIKs4RV0

So I remembered your post and your clear anger. I noticed here that the one thing Talarico didn't respond to was the trans issue. He responded to everything else and trans kids just got dropped in the reply.

[u/MadameFoxAdventures → u/Laiko_Kairen]

No one is trying to dismiss your civil rights or say the matter is trivial to you... They are simply saying that occasional concessions don't erase the fact that the Democratic party consistently doesn't do enough to oppose Republicans, let alone protect any progress they may occasionally make. The democratic party is divided between corporate dems and progressive dems, which is the ONLY reason we occasionally make progress on civil and human rights but the party at large is highly inconsistent and I blame them for ALL of this because we could have had Bearnie that first Trump term. The Democratic voters (especially young ones) were disillusioned when the candidate they successfully voted for was vetoed for Hillary, so they didn't show up or voted Trump out of spite. That is squarely on the leaders of the Democratic party!

Democrats didn't codify SSM so your hard won right can be taken away at any time, just like my rights as a woman are being stripped and threatened because weak Democrats keep making concessions and refuse to make things permanent in case they need to use the SAME rights to gain support.

What we truly need is election reform: -Ranked voting so we can get away from this toxic back and forth between a rock and a hard place -Actual structured debates with actual rules for decorum along with consequences for breaking that decorum -Capped election spending -Zero special interest group or corporate funding or donations

There is more and we need reform in other areas as well but unfortunately these kinds of changes are not likely to happen... at least not anytime soon.

[u/ihohjlknk → u/Laiko_Kairen]

What is frustrating about Democrats is they are unreliable, and that actually makes them more harmful than Republicans. Republicans are unabashed bigots and enemies of the people. That's no confusion here. I will always oppose Republicans because they only inflict harm.

Democrats being unreliable is how you break people's trust with them. Being let down over and over again by Democrats only alienates people from the party, or even moves them to the GOP (as we saw happen over the past decade).

This happens because Democrats favor political expediency over ideological principles. What does the Democratic party stand for? It cannot just be "We're the lesser evil". Harm mitigation is simply not enough. You cannot just offer Diet Coke when the GOP offers Coke.

[u/Laiko_Kairen → u/ihohjlknk]

What is frustrating about Democrats is they are unreliable, and that actually makes them more harmful than Republicans.

The president just called for Iran to take out the city I live in

[u/ihohjlknk → u/Laiko_Kairen]

Yeah, Trump says outrageous things everyday. That doesn't invalidate my criticism of America's party politics. You know the problems with Congress existed before Trump became president, right? He's a symptom, not the root cause.

[u/Fragrant-Education-3 → u/ihohjlknk]

And how is the strategy of turning ones nose up at the lesser evil going? Because there is now a risk that whatever turn in policy the Democrats do going forward will be undermined by the fact that people have elected to empower neo-nazis who are probably trying to work out how to never give up power again.

[u/ihohjlknk → u/Fragrant-Education-3]

So you're under the assumption that "Lesser Evil Voting" is a sound strategy? Because that's literally what I, and many americans, have been doing for years. And still the problems remain. The status quo sucks, and that discontent lead people to Trump because he promised things will change, even if it lead to catastrophe. The fact that people didn't care if the institutions got blown up by Trump is an indictment of the establishment.

And you refuse to acknowledge this reality and plug your ears instead, because you were comfortable with the status quo. The status quo worked for the wealthy and well-connected. It turns out, a lot of people didn't feel the same way.

And yeah, it sucks that we're living under the Trump Reich now. But you really don't believe that Kamala shares some of the blame for not offering an appealing platform that promised to shake up the status quo and not being Biden 2.0? Because that's what she did.

Just thinking about it really frustrates me, because there was a tiny window when Dems did the Biden switcheroo with Kamala, and she had a blank slate to redefine herself. Instead, the DNC consultants took over and offered more of the same neoliberal garbage. And doubly fuck Biden for depriving the Dems of an open primary by running for a second term when he was a walking vegetable.

[u/Fragrant-Education-3 → u/ihohjlknk]

I think it more than just sucks, the election saw an outcome that has fundamentally undermined global stability and has put the US on the cusp of being a oligarchical rouge state ala Putins Russia.

The Democrats and Harris were a paltry option, but I would put a fair amount of blame on voters who elected to gamble on Trump winning to make a point. You didn't have to like Harris or the Democrats to realise that they were always going to be easier to get concessions from. You were never going to change the status qou in a single election, it took MAGA decades to get to the point they are now. Even with the advantage of being backed by billions they still had to start with school boards and local councils.

Now it'll potentially be years to even get back to the Biden status quo. And it's questionable if it is actually possible at all considering that internationally the US is viewed at best as an inconsistent mess who are only ever four years away from electing an abject moron. At best the US has only gone further backwards, at worst someone like Biden might be seen as the best you will get for next few decades.

No one said people had to stop pushing or critiquing the government, in fact I imagine it would have been easier to do so under Harris because they aren't quite so willing to shoot protestors in street. If Trump isn't outsed in November what do you think will follow? Because MAGA won't debate, they'll more readily disappear you instead. They won't compromise, they'll just criminalise you.

Trump has changed the status quo, and its only benefited the wealthy. I ask again how is the not voting for the lesser evil as a strategy playing out so far? Because it doesn't look like its done anything but entrench a facist dictatorship, and those can take a lifetime or more to rectify once let out of the bottle.

[u/MadameFoxAdventures → u/Fragrant-Education-3]

I agree with almost everything EXCEPT that you think this election was the voters fault. The first Trump election, absolutely, the second I very much believe Elon and Trump when they basically confessed to rigging the election. There is no way electronic voting should have ever been allowed.