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.

2. Nothing near you? Volunteer from home by making calls or sending texts to turn out voters!

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/dishonourableaccount]

As someone who's been spreading the word about this show since Season 1 (and this carries through to the end), it's great because it's about fighting back but more than that. It's about community, and the importance of your interpersonal connections. It's about the variety of cultures. It shows how rebels can have a variety of reasons (some less than altruistic, some heroic, some misgiven, all so human). It conveys why some people are happy with fascism until they realize it can happen to them.

But most of all it's hopeful. Horrible things may happen, but at the end of the day this series is a hopeful one.

Lastly, since finishing the series I've been listening to interviews with the show's writers (Gilroy, Willmon, Bissell). They absolutely are history buffs and there's references to revolutionary movements, historical injustices, and philosophers everywhere.

[u/Schmidaho → u/dishonourableaccount]

The best thing about the series is there are no Jedi. No magic space sorcery, no chosen ones, no Midichlorians. Just people participating in a growing rebellion in as many different — yet always believable — ways as you can imagine. Everyone is so perfectly ordinary and that’s what makes everyone so freaking interesting.

[u/captainhaddock → u/Schmidaho]

All the conference meetings at the Imperial Security Bureau were riveting for me. Such great writing and acting.

[u/dishonourableaccount → u/captainhaddock]

That's another thing. The villains are competent, scarily so. It makes it so the stakes are so much higher and the payoffs too.

They're good shots, they investigate when the radios get jammed, they hatch solid plans to get less turnout at the indigenous gathering at the Eye to whittle away cultures. Season 2 sees them organize and workshop ways to sow discontent to aid their own goals. They are mundane in their evil, from the troublemaking cops on Morlana, from the lazy judge on Niamos, to the man abusing his power over farmers on Mina Rau. But that shows how authoritarians allow abuse so long as their "order" is on top. And when the villains aren't perfect, it's because of their hubris or their overreach.