What are the democrats actually doing to help?

They have slowed some appointments in House committees.
The Senate Democrats have stayed late to filibuster nominations
Democrats have repeatedly attempted unsuccessfully to enter federal agency buildings to investigate 'what the Doge doin'
Democrats have an upcoming opportunity to refuse to pass a budget with the trillion dollar tax cuts that Musk and other billionaire are trying to somehow justify with every fibre of their being. This means that everyone in the House (including purple state Republicans) have to be in lock step, even 2-3 R-defectors will mean it doesn't pass.
Democrats have been proposing amendments left and right, into the night... House members have suggested excluding people with wealth over $10M, $100M and $500M, all voted down. Senators like Andy Kim for example, have put on their Instagram pages, what they are trying to do.
Congresspeople are doing their job harder than they ever thought they would have to, but we should expect more.
I do think all the Democrats, should take more opportunities to visit their states to make people aware of what's going on, what they're doing in Congress to try to stop the worst stuff happening, and what ordinary people can do to push back as well. I think members should also boost each others message because probably pages like AOC's have a lot more viewers from a district than their own district's House Rep.
- I do think all the Democrats, should take more opportunities to visit their states to make people aware of what’s going on, what they’re doing in Congress to try to stop the worst stuff happening, and what ordinary people can do to push back as well. I think members should also boost each others message because probably pages like AOC’s have a lot more viewers from a district than their own district’s House Rep.
  Good they are doing some legislative opposition, but you're right they need to be doing more to push back outside of congress.
  I've wondered if the they started buying ads on mobile games with a quick few lines to tell people what they have done or what the republicans are doing would work?
  you by-pass large media, you get a younger audience and it gets a message out there quickly.
- Perhaps a better question is, "What are you doing to help?".
  Supporting a national strike, canceling Amazon, leaving FB, might be a good start. Contacting you representative who doesn't represent you seems to be futile. Maybe flash protests?
  
  Certainly, maybe you can make a new AskLemmy post for that.

Well, they certainly didn't help by running a candidate that got destroyed in the only primary she ran in. I'm hoping they will step up and run some solid candidates next round. It's fucking embarrassing they lost to Trump...twice.
- Based off their reactions to every thing that's being going on it seems to me that they have learned absolutely nothing.
  If the 2028 election was happening tomorrow I think the Democrats would lose again.
  
  They're already posturing Pete Buttigege to be their next chosen one. I wonder if the dems will even bother with primaries this time around.
  
  If the 2028 election was happening tomorrow I think the Democrats would lose again.
  Absolutely. They'd probably try to court Mitt Romney to run under their ticket.

Stop looking left and right and start looking up and down. This is a class war! The rest is distraction to divide us.
- Nah, look to the left. Vote green or communist.
  
  Vote when? In another four years?
  Ain't nobody got time for that!
  
  Fuck the greens. They were note concerned with keeping kamala out than minimizing harm to voters.

They’ve been doing as much as they can, such as stalling votes and filing lawsuits. They have literally no power, so there isn’t much they can do short of committing violence.
HOWEVER, one thing they could be doing is more attention-grabbing stunts. The octogenarians in party leadership don’t understand that attention is the most valuable commodity these days. If they formed a human shield to block people getting into the Senate chambers to further delay Trump’s nominees, they’d get heaps of attention and far fewer people would be asking what they’re doing to stop the fascist takeover. At least their objections would be visibly plastered all over TV and social media rather than confined to the vote tallies in the Senate.
Down the road, when (or if) Trump needs to have actual legislation passed, he’s going to have a major problem in the House. The House Republican caucus can’t agree on what to order for lunch, so they’ll likely need Democratic votes to get any legislation passed. This is the only area where Dems have a modicum of power.

Not owning a branch of government has never stopped republicans. They would rather get dragged out kicking and screaming. Democratic politicians have largely abandoned their voting base and claim their hands are tied and there's nothing they can do, because they are too used to being able to just skate on through without much experience fighting from a disadvantage.
They can do things like organizing their voter base to fight back in constructive ways and pass local legislation, unify the party on voting for certain politicians, inform their voters about special elections, bills and places they can help out, push a more populist and or progressive agenda, and stop fucking abandoning and lying to their own voter base. They need to be willing to physically lead their constituents
Republicans are so cohesively brainwashed because the republicans have been targeting media and disinformation for decades. They organize extremely well at the local level, and are willing to do almost anything for power.
The democrats need to show equal fervor for defending democracy and they've just been cowards so far, telling people to just vote and tell their family to vote democrats, essentially telling us, "we cant do anything so its your problem and responsibility now"
ETA: democrats had 4 years to plan and time to come up with a response to Project 2025. Its weird to me everyone just took "oh its not trumps plan" at face value.

You're not wrong. Dont look to the Democrats to help. Look at progressive parties and independents on the left.
- The "reasonable" moderate Democrats are hoping to win votes with: "We'll undo a few Republican initiatives and put our friends in offices, but otherwise keep everything the same." Can't imagine why that isn't getting them votes. In 2024 they ran out of Republican initiatives to undo and their platform was just: keep our friends in office and keep everything else the same. If they had other planned initiatives, few people picked up on them.

Nothing. Democrats are fucking useless. They have no power now because they blew the election in every single way possible. They did literally everything wrong. It was almost as if they tried to lose on purpose.
- People always try to claim I'm an asshole for saying democrats are just republicans other division.
  They try to claim I'm saying bOtH SiDeS. No. I'm saying there aren't two sides. There's republicans, and republicans disguised as democrats. Just there to give the illusion of choice. You don't have choice. You have corporate masters who own the media, who decide what news you see, they own the land, they own the companies. The republicans are there to be the ticketmaster, and take all the blame. The democrats are there to be the band performing at the local concert hall. To give the illusion of hope.
  Well besides Pearl Jam, and maybe a handful of others, every band likes ticketmaster. They get to raise their prices, ticketmaster takes the heat, and the customers still pay. It's like pro wrestling. The good guy and the bad guy are fake fighting in the ring as a showcase of the battle for all to see on a public stage. Then they go back to the dressing room, and they're buddies. Once they're out of public eye, the good guys and bad guys are all the same. Sharing family photos, having a beer. All part of the same system.
  Just look at the country. Democrats take one step forward, three steps to the side, and then republicans push them back three steps. Gradually over the coarse of time republicans make advancements in their agenda, and it holds. All of the democrats advancements get erased a few years later. We're still living with NIXONS signed bills. We don't even have most of Obamas signed bills anymore.
  And its because they were never meant to last. The democrats give hope, and a few years later after nobody is looking, republicans cancel it. Meanwhile republicans sign a bill and it's there forever. And yet.....no serious 3rd party has ever come about. There's never been a 3rd party in my lifetime that anyone (who wasn't an oblivious baffoon) ever thought had a serious shot at winning. It's all the same system. Just like pro wrestlers are all working for the same system, politics is all the same rigged system. It's all owned by corporations, and big money interests. Your vote means nothing. Regardless of if your guy won.
  
  Your vote means nothing
  I was with you until this, and maybe this is what people take issue with. Our vote fucking DOES mean something because if more folks voted against Trump, things would be a LOT less terrible.
  They would still be unacceptably shitty though, no argument there, and I've been trying to show people for a long time myself that "Dems & Repubs vs. us" is a much more accurate description of the conflict than "us dems vs. us repubs".
  Even so, our vote matters a fucking lot when the Republican half of the regime is doing this kind of damage. I can't really imagine anyone coherently arguing otherwise unless they are also arguing for immediate armed revolution. Voting matters, more of it would help with the far-reaching horrible outcomes of this administration in particular.

Plenty have been directly pressuring Republican congresspeople by rallying in their district like Sanders did this last week.
Direct legislative action is difficult without control, but in terms of effective messaging and pressuring Republicans by threatening the midterms is probably one of the more effective strategies they have.
- Bernie is an independent who ran as a dem only for them to kneecap his campaign.
- Direct legislative action is difficult without control
  lol no it's not. You create a bill called "Keep America a Democracy" or "Defending America from Russia" and then when the Republicans all vote "No" you have the best political weapon you could possibly get.
  
  That's called politicking, which they absolutely should be doing.
  You're indirectly getting laws through by twisting arms and making deals instead of just having a majority.

Isn't the better question, what can they do? I'm not saying Democrats aren't without fault in all of this, but now that the US has jumped the democracy shark, I'm not sure there's much anyone can do to put this shitty little genie back in the bottle. Short of House and Senate republicans having a coming to Jesus moment, I think we're all on board the autocracy train for the duration.
- I don't think it's unreasonable to demand from your politicians to do something. The onus definitely isn't on us to have a 10 point plan on stopping authoritarianism. And they should definitely be able to do more than just finger wagging.
- How about try? Maybe even get off the couch? Oh, what if they came out and actually didn't help Trump get his picks approved?
- Republicans always manage to gum up the works, yet Democrats can't seem to bring themselves to even try.
  
  Almost like they know their donators loves Trump's tax cuts and his policies... ~~And why Biden didn't undo any of the major ones~~

Nothing of consequence, nobody is.
Yeah, here and there some may say that ooohh, trump bad!
He just beheaded the military which is literally the pre-last step needed. All he needs to do now is put trump loyalists in those positions, have them purge the rest of the top to ensure all are pro trump and them what's going to stop him?
AOC? She'll mysteriously disappear, next question.
Who is going to stop these fuckwads?
Next up, Canada will become the 51st state. Don't wanna? Nuke Vancouver, who is going to stop him? What, Europe? They can get a few nukes too if they don't like it, he has enough.
Next up, Panama becomes a US state. Don't like it? See a pattern?
Next up, Greenland, and so on.
NOBODY HAS DONE ANYTHING. The US is always ALWAYS boasting about self sacrifice and the one hero who saves all, or maybe a group that bands together and goes against all odds and die in the process and and and... Nothing. So far the biggest actions I've seen were people resigning in protest, making even easier for trump WTF.
Ooohh, ther ehave been protests! Some cities had dozens of people, some even had hundreds!! Whooooo, Cheeto must be shitting bricks now!!
Nobody has done anything.
These are people whondobt care about laws
These are people that don't care about consequences, nor do they have the ability to think about consequences
These are people who don't care if you, or millions like you will die. Fuck you, die already, give us what we want.
In part, these are people who are working diligently to bring about the apocalypse so that jeebus christ will return or some delusional shit like that, and now they have access to nukes. Great going assholes (yes, if you're American, that means you) YOU DIDNT DO ANYTHING TO FUCKING STOP ANY OF THIS.
Oh, what? You think that you did your job by voting? Well that sure wasn't enough. These fuckers will fuck the world, when is someone going to do something to actually stop all of this shit?
Honestly, I don't think anyone can do anything anymore anyway. Something could have been done by Biden. He had the extraordinary presidential powers, he could have simply stopped trump by pulling a trump. He refused, needed to do "the right thing" and fuck the world over in the process. Well done, asshole, hope you feel good about yourself.
I think we're all fucked. I used to worry about climate change as I have a reasonable understanding of what it takes to stop it, let alone start to reverse it. It will take a huge effort and sacrifice from everyone in the world and we've done shit all and don't care. Don't worry if you live through trump (there is a good non zero chance that you won't), climate change will end you.
Now I'm just worried about the world being destroyed beyond repair by trump already because again, nobody cares to actually stop all of them.
I'm kind of in the zone where I kust let it happen , once they come for me, I'll be happy with my wife, we had an awesome run together, when we die, we will be happy in eachothers arms.
- Luigi did something. We need more Luigis, but I fear we will get peasant-brain brown shirts instead

You have to win elections to do stuff.
- Compared to the Republicans literally blocking anything passing the Senate with a minority.

I was actually thinking about this. What if Trump is just a Martin shkreli
Hear me out. The board of directors for pharma used Martin as a Patsy to do something illegal. Martin takes the heat while the board reaps the benefits and they throw Martin to the Sharks.
What if this whole thing was all an act and they're all using trump as a power grab. He's tearing it all down and it benefits all of them, Democrat and Republican. When trump leaves, there will be so much power given to the owner class in the country while regulation and oversight is not what it was.
- This is essentially what trump is doing with musk. He's going to"fire" musk as soon as he's done enough damage then go back to claiming he's making America great by rehiring people to replace the ones musk is firing. Only the replacements won't be as competent then leave the crippled departments to the Dems and republicans will say "look at how poorly the Dems are running the place"
  
  I think it's the other way around. Rich people like Musk helped trump reach the white house. Now they're making him do their bidding. Trump isn't the master like his base thinks. He's a puppet for the rich.

They're busy with strongly worded letters, no doubt.
- While at night getting paid by corporations to do their bidding?

If the Democrats had any guts, they'd revolt against their leadership and re-organize into a new far more aggressive left-leaning party. But they don't have any guts, so that won't happen. Maybe the new DNC chair can channel our anger into change?
- they'd revolt against their leadership and re-organize into a new far more aggressive left-leaning party
  This is literally what we've been trying to do through primaries that no one will show up to. We can talk about the need for a progressive party all we want, but a good chunk of the reason the Democrats are the way they are is because centrist Democrats show up to vote in the primaries. Progressives do not.
  
  Democrats have shown time and time again that they don't give a shit what voters think which is why they keep losing elections. Biden and Harris wouldn't even turn their back on Netanyahu even when it meant Trump would get reelected as all tbe polling showed. Progressives don't bother with it because they'll be ignored either way and you can only be ignored so many times before giving up on them listening. Blaming the voters for the actions of the party is just giving them cover for their ineptitude. Voters don't decide their policy.
  At this point they do little else than act as controlled opposition for the Republican party, so this is just our reality for the foreseeable future. Maybe if the leadership gets ousted, we'll have a chance but it looks more like a new party will need to be formed and the Democrats go the way of the Whigs.
- They're not a party on the left. Its not a question of guts. Why would a party in the right who is captured by corporations form a left party? That goes against their intentions
- Reorganizing. That'll stop Trump!

Democrats only have the power that you give them. When Trump lost an election, his followers ransacked the Capital. When Pelosi opposed Republicans, her husband got his face smashed in.
What exactly do you expect AOC to do?
- Start organizing. Which she, at least, is.
  The neolibs?
  Lol.
  
  Organizing what? She did as much as humanly possible in the last election but the country voted for Trump.

Nothing.

I highly recommend Leeja Miller to understand what needs to be done and how much of that the Democrats are doing currently
- Just saw the first 30 seconds but i love her naivete on this. She thinks they're just coming for people's rights. Aaawww, cute.
  Trump just beheaded the army, making sure trump loyalists are all that's left.
  What do you think will happen when a bunch of death cult christofascists who want the apocalypse to bring Christ back get access to nukes?
  What so you think will happen when a mob boss who doesn't care millions of deaths, who wants to play land grab and steal canada, Greenland, latín America etc gets access to nukes with nobody to control his impulses?
  So far things are escalating rapidly and "muh rights" is just the next rung on the ladder. I'm looking three to four rungs ahead and I'm very fucking worried as these shits have shown to give nothing about who dies, as long as they get better off. They also have shown to have no concept of consequences and again, they have access to nukes and now fill control of a military who now will say no to nothing.
  And you're complaining about rights. You think protests will do anything? Not that anyone wants to protest, recent "well stop the city" protests got sometimes even hundreds of people out, ooohh, craaazaaayy! Call me again once you have 100 million people in the streets, those hundreds do less than shit.
  I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a dixk, not to you, o don't know you and I know the YouTuber and I know what she's saying but I think we're already way, WAY past all that.
  Trump is speed running solidifying his position and once he has full control of all the branches that can stop or slow him, the gloves will come off.
  Think it's bad now? Wait a year. Think you can do anything to stop him? You can't. Even if you could get millions of protesters in total, even if you could get tens of millions of protesters, its already too late for that, you'll just look funny walking and screaming in the streets, they won't give a fuck. You want tos strike? Paralyze the country? Wait until police starts killing protesters and see how long it takes for everyone to stop and go home to cry in a hole.
  Stopping trump now requires someone extraordinary to do something extraordinary. I'm not implying anything, I'm simply saying that us plebs are already out of the game.
  Maybe maybe maybe if all Republicans cut themselves off and just all Democrats,.maybe they could do something? Them again, too many Democrats are already saying to just support trump and work with him so yeah, forget about all that too.
  I don't know what can be done at this point. I can just only say "fuckyou Americans, all of you, for letting this happen, for unleashing this hell over the world"
  If tomorrow Yellowstone would erupt and destroy the entirety of the US, I would just be relieved
  
  What? Leeja Miller has no illusions about Trump being a fascist , Project 2025, or how Trump's 2nd term will ruin Democracy. She's a lawyer, so you won't see her advocating for a violent uprising. She's focused on what to do within our current institutions to fight back against Trump and Fascism. If you're looking for revolutionary thought, I would highly recommend Franz Fanon

I mean, they DID tell you dis was gunn happen. Twice.
Spent four years drilling "but her emails" into your thick skulls and then you did it again because egg prizes or Gaza or Cheney or whatever.
Takes balls to sit out the rise of fascism, but let's be honest, it's not undeserved.
- Biden DID say he was not going to run a 2nd time. Biden broke many promises, gaslit voters on Gaza, and was a televised corpse at the debate. trump is fucking terrible but Biden slow walked it back to trump by not giving another candidate enough time to run a campaign. It takes balls to think Biden could stand up against fascism when he can’t even stand up to genocide. This is deserved, but the voters never had a chance.
  
  What in the absolute hell does that even mean? How does that work? There was an election, there were two candidates, one was Trump. There WAS a chance. An obvious choice, at that.
  Should Biden not have run in the first place? Obviously. Whether his approach to Gaza would have change anything is debatable (he'd have been crucified regardless), but let's say it would.
  It wasn't Biden who had to "stand up against fascism". It was the electorate. And they didn't. You talk about it like it was not their choice, like it was an oopsie inflicted upon them by evil Dems and not a choice they made. They continue to make, in fact. That is insane.
  As democracy gets eroded I will be more likely to cut them some slack, but as of now? Anybody that didn't vote for Harris is a collaborationist.
- "Deserved" is a bit loaded. Americans are exceptionally stupid and ill-informed, but that applies to our elected leaders, as well.
  Does someone who is easily manipulated deserve to be manipulated? If so, isn't that precisely the form of myopic conservativism that has overrun the right wing? Government for the people, by the people, is intended to protect all the people and enshrine our rights. Protecting victims from predators ought to be a primary function of law, and if you don't believe that, then yeah you deserve the leadership we got.

It turns out that when you take all of the power to do anything away from someone, they can't do anything 🤷‍♂️ who could have possibly seen this coming?
- Conservative parties have frequently been the minority party but have consistently been able to obstruct, block, and fight against progress because they fight dirty. The Democratic party has always been the party of "we can't sink to their level" or the "at least we aren't the Republicans" party. If they were willing to be aggressive at all, we would still have Roe, minimum wage would be higher, and green energy would be the norm. However, the Democratic party has been content to be the party of not rocking the boat, or the party of the status quo, rather than the party of Republicans and Democrats have worked together to give rise to these freaks.

The american voters gave republicans the presidency, the senate and the house.
They also got control of the SCOTUS so the democrats don't have many options right now.
Hopefully the people smarten up for the 2026 midterms and actually vote.
- Not only that, but Trump spent the last 8 years purging the republican party of disloyalist. The first term Trump met resistance by his own party. This time anyone left who would resist him is gone and anyone who wants to will just be removed shortly after.
- Exactly. What specifically are the democrats to do at this point?
  
  Literally even a single thing at all would be nice
  
  Pretend they are Republicans and start breaking the rules.
  
  More emails asking for donations? Have we tried this? Man I’m stumped
  
  delay as much as possible in the Senate: https://indivisible.org/resource/explainer-how-senate-democrats-can-delay-defy-trumps-agenda-procedural-hardball
  use local government to resist the federal government: https://indivisible.org/resource/guide#chapter3

Congress is in charge of the money. I think they need Johnson acting to do anything about Elon though.
Someone more up on the mechanics should clarify.

What are the democrats actually doing to help?
I hope we don't start getting the same sort of lists that we got about Biden's accomplishments, where they counted Obama's accomplishments, had multiple duplicate entries, counted proposals as accomplishments, and considered a fresh coat of paint on air force one as an accomplishment.

the republicans are in complete control of every branch of government and there is very little democrats can do other than talk really loud
- Isn't that the only thing they do

So like you didnt vote for people and are mad those people are not in positions to do anything? Like “where are the democrats?” Short answer: not elected.

On a federal level, there really isn't much they can do that I'm aware of. It would have been nice to see them blanket oppose Trump's cabinet picks but that would only be symbolic since they don't have the numbers. They can't get any laws passed, and even if they could, Trump has no qualms about disregarding the law, which the Supreme Court says is fine.
If they wanted to go outside the law I guess they could try to organize some kind of coup, but failure at any stage would not only be career suicide but possibly actual suicide given that treason is punishable by death, and this administration would be gleeful to carry out that sentence against Dems. And if it did succeed, that still wouldn't do anything about the oligarchy propping up Trump, they'd just have another puppet (Vance) to fall back on.
- It would have been nice to see them blanket oppose Trump's cabinet picks but that would only be symbolic
  And now Democrats are even shying away from ineffective symbolic gestures that accomplish nothing.

I’m not sure why this is directed solely towards democrats. They’re not the only ones affected by the change towards dictatorship.
-the better question is:
What is ANYONE doing to help?
- Like who? The Republicans have bought into his death cult wholesale. Their god-emperor can do no wrong.
- If you want the answer to your question, just go read. A lot of people are doing a lot already. It's just not Washington Democrats.
  But if you want to know why we should be targeting the Democrats, it's because we know what the Republicans in Washington were able to do when Obama was president and when Biden was present. The Dems have power, but they are pretending that they don't.
  And we the people are calling out to these Democrats and telling them hey, if you want the country to survive, you need to level up. And if you don't, and the country does somehow survive anyway, we will make sure to throw you to the curb as soon as we can. But we really do need your help now because the situation is s***.
  
  Exactly. Republicans don't have a filibuster proof super majority in the Senate so Dems could filibuster the Senate to death to block Trump appointments from being voted on like Republicans did to Dems, but no, rich white liberals aren't hurt by Trump's fascism so they don't care

There is little the democrats could ever have done to prevent fascism without losing their funding. This is just becoming much more clear now that we are at the advent of fascism.
- Thats not true they could have given up the elites to form a more grassroots par-hahahha im sorry I fucking can't
- And funding is always more important than preventing fascism.

The best thing that Democrats can do is come up with a popular governing vision and then storm back in the 2026 midterms.
Personally I would think this would have to compromise on immigration and the worst culture war excesses of the left, while emphasizing support for the working class and most importantly good governance.
- They clearly haven't capitulated rightward enough yet. You'll gain nothing by abandoning solidarity with even more voters, but at least you'll get the sheer joy of throwing vulnerable minorities under the bus.
  
  class > race > "gender"

You didn't vote for the Democrats. Why would they do anything for you?
The literal basis of American democracy is you get what you vote for. So this is what you wanted.
- Where did OP say they didn't vote Democrat?
  
  This is what Americans voted for.
  Also a lot of people here on Lemmy shit all over Democrats and then they lose and then ask why Democrats aren't doing anything for them. Talk about entitled. Lmao.

It feels AOC is doing all the ~~heavylifting~~ grandstanding while all the rest of them smug bunch are just watching with "told ya dis was gunn happen" drawn on their face.
Please tell me my ignorant ass is just blatantly wrong because I ain't getting any news.
You’re blatantly wrong. AOC lives to grandstand and pander. Just like mamabear Pelosi, she kept REALLY quiet about everything (including the ongoing genocide she voted to keep funding) when her team was in power.
Here’s a video showing how she was hand-picked from 10,000 applicants in a nationwide talent search for a pretty face to intentionally and impotently pander and drum up support from low-information identity politics dupes to keep eroding labor movements under the guise of being a leftist.
Cast your attention to Rashida Tlaib if you want a real one. AOC is as fake as professional wrestling.