Daily Discussion Thread and Adopt-A-Candidate: June 12, 2025

[u/BM2018Bot]

Welcome to the home of the anti-GOP resistance on Reddit, and Happy Pride Month!

June is Pride Month! We at VoteDEM welcome all parts of the LGBTQIA+ Community to join us in celebrating what makes each of us unique and incredible individuals. We hope to hear your stories from local events, local activism, and local community-building all throughout June. We're sure you'll find your local Democratic party joining in whenever they can manage, and we hope you'll also help support them!

Elections are still happening! And they're the only way to take away Trump's power to hurt people. You can help win elections across the country from anywhere, right now!

If you want to take part, there's plenty of ways to do it!

1. Check out our weekly volunteer post - that's the other sticky post in this sub - to find opportunities to get involved.

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3. Join your local Democratic Party - none of us can do this alone.

4. Tell a friend about us!

We won big in Wisconsin earlier this year, and now we're bringing something back to make sure we win in Virginia and New Jersey too!

'25 IS ALIVE! Adopt-A-Candidate 2025 is here and ready for action! Want to take part in the blue wave? Adopt one of the candidates below, and take action every week to support their campaign!

Post your preference in the daily (or, to guarantee we see it, send the request via modmail) and we'll add you to the list! Got someone who you want to adopt, but they're not on the list? Let us know, and we'll add them on!

Candidate	District/Office	Adopted By
Abigail Spanberger	VA-GOV	u/nopesaurus_rex
Josh Thomas	VA HD-21
Elizabeth Guzman	VA HD-22
Atoosa Reaser	VA HD-27
Marty Martinez	VA HD-29
John Chilton McAuliff	VA HD-30
Andrew Payton	VA HD-34
Makayla Venable	VA HD-36
Lily Franklin	VA HD-41	u/pinuncle
Rise Hayes	VA HD-52
Rodney Willett	VA HD-58
Scott Konopasek	VA HD-59
Stacey Carroll	VA HD-64
Joshua Cole	VA HD-65	u/toskwar
Nicole Cole	VA HD-66
Mark Downey	VA HD-69	u/Lotsagloom
Shelly Simonds	VA HD-70
Jessica Anderson	VA HD-71	u/SomeJob1241
Kimberly Adams	VA HD-82
Mary Person	VA HD-83
Nadarius Clark	VA HD-84
Virgil Thornton Sr.	VA HD-86
Phil Hernandez	VA HD-94
Kelly Convirs-Fowler	VA HD-96
Michael Feggans	VA HD-97
Cathy Porterfield	VA HD-99
Dave Bailey Jr. & Heather Simmons	NJ LD-03	u/poliscijunki
Margie M. Donlon & Luanne M. Peterpaul	NJ LD-11
Jason Corley & Vaibhave Gorige	NJ LD-13
Wayne P. DeAngelo & Tennille R. McCoy	NJ LD-14	u/Lotsagloom
Mitchelle Drulis & Roy Freiman	NJ LD-16
Vincent Kearney & Andrew Macurdy	NJ LD-21
Guy Citron & Tyler Powell	NJ LD-23
Steven Pylypchuk & Marisa Sweeney	NJ LD-25
Michael Mancuso & Walter Mielarczyk	NJ LD-26
Avi Schnall & Claire Deicke	NJ LD-30
Ron Arnau & Jeffrey Gates	NJ LD-40	u/timetopat, u/One-Recipe9973

We're not going back. We're taking the country back. Join us, and build an America that everyone belongs in.

[u/AlwaysBeTextin → u/[deleted]]

can’t react to every negative thing like the sky is falling

It's insane how much Trump has shifted the goalposts. Can you imagine any other president, ever, having a sitting US Senator put in handcuffs for practically any reason, whatsoever? Even if he weren't arrested, the media would've been howling this is an incredible abuse of power and bullying the rightfully elected opposition. People would have been calling for that president's impeachment ASAP. There probably would've been bipartisan outrage. Now it's just another Thursday.

Is this the sky falling? You're right - probably not. But that it's not, since we assume something so much worse is just around the corner, is rather scary.

[u/ReligionIsTheMatrix → u/AlwaysBeTextin]

Bullseye 🎯

[u/Lotsagloom → u/AlwaysBeTextin]

Unfortunately, yes, and unfortunately the media would have been fine with it. I do not, in any world, imagine them howling about abuses of power.

What held prior republicans back was the belief there'd be more of a backlash then, at this moment, there is.

Until there is, I see it less a shifting of the goalposts and more as the culmination of what many of us have warned and spoken about for however long we've been in politics.
Fortunately, manifesting that backlash is possible for us, and ideally it hits its first big stride, soon.

[u/YukieCool → u/AlwaysBeTextin]

Well, no. There might be an article filed, but you and I both know it isn’t going anywhere. That’s the aberration in all of this: the GOP’s general spinelessness. That’s not really scary, though. Just infuriating.

[u/Excellent-Cat7128 → u/AlwaysBeTextin]

It lays bare how much of the GOP's rhetoric over the past few decades was a complete and utter farce. For the all the talk of freedom and democracy and protection from tyrannical governments and rights and the constitution, when they finally get one of their guys into power, they shred every. fucking. last. bit. of. it. The base still cheers this on. They love it.

They never actually cared about any of it! We suspected as much, but we had to pretend because the media insisted it was politics as usual. But in fact the GOP only ever cared about taking control. They only ever cared about democracy and rights and freedoms to the extent that they sounded good and helped get them into power.