While rebutting another post here on Lemmy, I ran into this. This says exactly what I want to say.
I am not a friend of Biden’s Administration. I think they drug their feet over a variety of things ranging from holding Trump and his goons accountable for January 6th through rulemaking on issues like OTC Birth Control and abortion rights, and yes, I think he’s too quick to please big business. But then I remember what the alternative is, and … well, disappointed in Biden or not, I’m voting for him. Because my wife is a Black bisexual goth woman, four strikes under Team Pepe’s tent. And I have my own strikes for marrying her as a White dude, and respecting her right to not have kids since she doesn’t want them is another strike against me. And I care about my Non-Christian, Gay, Transgender, and Minority friends, and will never willingly subject them to Team Pepe.
Just vote for other people?
pretty much anyone is better than trump
You know, I would have agreed wholeheartedly six months ago. But Biden managed to find a way to make me do a double take.
Gotta stop lumping all the players in one side together. Biden is not doing anything by himself and neither is the fat orange. Gotta pull out the microscope to see who is who and where and why rather than hitting on a single name. The house and senate are the major string pulling yoyos in everything that comes out of washington
Biden is not doing anything by himself and neither is the fat orange.
That is a big part of the problem. If Biden’s camp was full of Green New Deal Dems and peaceniks and Justice Party economic reformers, I’d have a lot easier time supporting him.
Instead, he’s surrounded himself with corporate flacks, banksters, MIC ghouls, and evangelicals, hoping to peel off the moderate Republican wing of the conservative party one more time.
The house and senate are the major string pulling yoyos in everything that comes out of washington
I would say that the donors are at the end of the strings, while House and Senate simply dance to their tunes. And when you consider how much influence a guy like Sam Bankman Fried had with “blue state” senators like Gillibrand and senior white house advisers like Steve Ricchetti, I gotta say I’m not thrilled to see the direction this party went in his first four years.
Even before you get to the Palestinian Genocide or the continued US blockade of Cuban ports or the migrant prisons lining the US border or the rapid domestic increase in carbon emissions under a President who claimed to acknowledge climate change, it seems like liberals cannot bring themselves to see the naked mismanagement, graft, and cowardice of the current President.
Boeing airliners are literally falling out of the sky and Biden’s FAA is still dragging its heels, for fear of upsetting one of the nation’s most well-financed lobbying teams. No federal prosecution of the Trump Administration is scheduled to move forward before November.
By any standard, this Presidency has been a failure.
By any standard, this Presidency has been a failure.
Yep so let’s help elect an actual fascist that says he’ll finish the job in Gaza, has never seen a corrupt dollar that he didn’t want deposited in his bank account, wants to shoot protestors, extrajudicially executed antifa in the Pacific Northwest with federal goons, wants to be a dictator “only on day one”, and has already attempted to overthrow the government because he didn’t like the way an election turned out.
Also, nevermind the fact that in a global pandemic the fucking guy wanted us to inject disinfectant, said the disease would go away like magic, had store shelves so empty we were wiping our asses with our hands, and had his administration steal crucial supplies from frontline workers to auction off around the country.
Also set aside that he will let Russia steamroll Ukraine and will probably try to get the US out of NATO.
And that he’s been indicted with something like 90 criminal counts and a dozen or more civil cases, some of which have already rendered judgements against him.
And nevermind the non-stop craziness of the general population when he was originally elected in 2016 who while flying his flag ran over protestors with their cars, screamed at people on airlines, went to pizza places with weaponry demanding answers.
Biden didn’t singlehandedly turn everything around from it being a country on active fire in four years, so let’s put Trump back in to finish the job both abroad and here at home.
We’ll be a nice smoldering pile of rubble by next election season.
– 💩🔥🇺🇸
Yep so let’s help elect an actual fascist
Again, I refer you to the Electoral College.
By any standard, this Presidency has been a failure.
https://www.edf.org/blog/2022/08/12/biggest-thing-congress-has-ever-done-address-climate-change
Making a little effort rather than absolutely no effort doesn’t make it a Good effort. Terrible analysis. Additionally the whole mst oil production in US history sort of really undermines everything.
The US’s forecast 2030 emissions of more than 5bn metric tonnes is significantly higher than the 1.9bn metric tonnes it was allocated by the analysts under a 1.5C-compatible fair share model.
This, combined with our largest trading partners - from China to Mexico/Canada to Saudi Arabia - all doing even worse, means a marginal decrease in emissions domestically will have no hope of meeting the 1.5C target for 2030. We are already cresting the 2C horizon this year and accelerating our rate of warming.
The infrastructure act has been far too little and far too late, even setting aside how much of it is being squandered to appease profit-hungry American industrialists, more concerned with competing against global imports than curbing the global warming rate.
I find myself having to repeat this over and over.
Consider the context of the OP.
Would Trump be better on this front?
I had a much better time with a Trump/Pelosi government than I’m having with a Biden/Johnson government. If nothing else, watching him get impeached again would be more entertaining than arguing over how much nerve gas to send to the Israelis.
I asked if Trump would be better on climate and you attempted a pivot but you’re not gonna bullshit me.
You’re not serious so I’m out.
I asked if Trump would be better on climate
If you want to go hard on the numbers, Trump’s pandemic was the best thing to happen to the climate since the early Obama Administration investment in green energy.
Joe Biden has seen nothing but emissions growth since he took office. The benefits of the Infrastructure Act remain speculative at best. But shutting down air travel for months and curtailing business activity nationally for the better part of two years? Possibly the greatest act of Degrowth committed in the United States since the Civil War.
You’re not serious so I’m out.
Democrats have all been on board with Crypto investments and AI expansion, both of which have been voracious consumers of domestic energy and water reserves. Republicans consistently tank the Tech sector while in office.
If you care about climate change, bankrupting Silicon Valley would be a great place to start.
Alright guys, get your Lemmy Political Retard bingo card out! Let’s see how many we can hit! I already got the system is fucked and are we really reduced to these choices?. Oh! I just got democrats need to pull their head out of their ass!
Okay. Vote for a literal Nazi or don’t vote for anyone and let a literal Nazi tale office, again.
Either way, I don’t really give a flying fuck what you get on your political bingo card, you enabled a literal fucking Nazi tale the office, again and I’ll think you’re an abject idiot so I guess we’ll all good.
what does “literal” mean?
Supporting the literal policies of nazis and copying their rhetorics and power structures and beliefs.
The republicans are knowingly and wilfully hosting and supporting actual neonazis who do all this and admit to be neonazis, and then the republicans yell free speech and cancel culture if you call them out for it
Meanwhile Democrat candidates like Biden (and Clinton) have been openly and publicly endorsed by multiple Neo-Nazi and White Nationalist groups.
You’re a completely moronic simpleton if you believe “my side good, your side bad” when it comes to the two major US political parties, they are both disgustingly awful.
Show me the numbers. Because the Republican party is the only one who takes them in and has significantly greater support from those types.
“both sides” logic doesn’t make sense when one side is just classical politicians and the other are literal fascist insurrectionists. Yes politicians of all kinds sucks and I don’t even like the democrats. But if you can’t see the other side are monsters and 1000x worse then you’re completely blind.
Gee, one side does a genocide, the other side embraces neonazis. Almost like they’re not so different.
Part of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party
That depends on what your definition of “is” is.
Vote for a literal Nazi
I was going to vote for a third party who was neither a Nazi nor a geriatric buffoon.
you enabled a literal fucking Nazi tale the office
My guy, you need to sit down and look up what the Electoral College is. No single person is in any way remotely responsible for Donald Trump’s presidency, except maybe the 304 electoral college delegates who had the privilege of being in the majority in January of 2016.
Trying to blame individual voters in a system that deliberately disempowers individual voters is ignorant and foolish.
My guy, you need to sit down and look up what the electoral college is.
Hillary lost Michigan by 10k votes, one of the key states whose 16 electoral votes were a major train went despite Hillary winning the popular vote, that fat, orange, white supremacist won the election.
You say a single voter doesn’t matter but when you currently have 100k in Michigan voting ‘uncommited’ in the Democratic primary against the backdrop of you lost an entire god damn election by 10k, yeah maybe that single voter might actually be important. But you just keep that head in the sand and mumble how or can’t ever happen again.
Hillary lost Michigan by 10k votes
Hillary lost Michigan for the same reason Romney lost Michigan. She campaigned on a platform of international trade deals and domestic deindustrialization. Folks in the Midwest consistently hate that.
Biden’s running a ten-point approval gap relative to Gretchen Whitmer, doing all the annoying toxic shit Hillary did. If he loses Michigan in November, that’s why.
You say a single voter doesn’t matter but when you currently have 100k in Michigan voting ‘uncommited’ in the Democratic primary
100k is a lot more than a single voter. And this is an entirely unforced error on Biden’s part. He’s continuing to sponsor a nightmarish genocide in Palestine - one that virtually nobody in his party actually supports and which has poisoned huge swaths of the independent electorate against his presidency.
That’s not something a “single voter” can fix. That’s a direct consequence of Biden’s own foreign policy. The only voter who can save Joe Biden from a loss in Michigan is Joe Biden.
I hope Biden loses. I’ll be voting third party, but I don’t think my candidate will win. What I hope is that the next time a president has the opportunity to support a genocide, he’ll think twice.
So when Trump wins and commits even harder to the genocide, you think that will teach Biden a lesson?
Yes, I hope it will prevent the next genocide by demonstrating that we Americans do in fact give a damn about war crimes and atrocities.
Someone who has helped commit genocide vs someone who hasn’t yet. Sure. When you consistently vote the party no matter what they do then you give your voting power away. Start punishing them with your vote and see how quickly the switch up and come to the table.
We can’t limbo with the bar that low please raise it at least past the “not supporting genocide” line
OK. Biden doesn’t support genocide. No, really, he doesn’t. He supports Israel’s right to exist, for sure, and he sure wants to ensure that the 2000+ people murdered and 200+ people kidnapped last October get justice, but he doesn’t support genocide. Enjoy your limbo.
It’s Russian/Republican Propaganda that he does support genocide because he continues funding Israel, pushed by dishonest assholes who benefit from us being divided and uninformed knee-jerk-reactionary useful idiots that push that propaganda. Biden has said repeatedly that Israel’s continued indiscriminate attacks on Gaza make it harder for him to justify continued aid. But can he stop the aid? Let’s think about this RATIONALLY for a moment.
Suppose the US just says “Well, fuck you, Israel, you’re on your own.” What happens next? Here’s some ideas:
- Israel screams betrayal at the United States, saying that we are enabling a genocide that the Arabs have tried to push on Israel since its very founding in 1947, then again in 1967, and again in 1973.
- Iran launches a bigger attack at Israel, and starts another war similar to the Israeli War of Independence, Six-Days War, and Yom Kippur War, giving some truth to the accusations.
- Russia pushes the meme that Antisemitic Lefties in the US pushed Biden to abandon Israel. It’s a lie, but Russia is GOOD at making lies stick.
- American Jews, pretty faithful Democrats now, buy the notion that the Left abandoned them and become Conservative. Don’t say it can’t happen. It’s happening in Israel right now.
- Israel, abandoned by the US, approaches Russia, who they have good relations with. Russia asks for a few of Israel’s 36 F-35s, and Israel as a final Fuck You to America hands the planes over. Russia gets access to our stealth fighter technology, manages to weaken America’s standing in the world, and finds a new source of money for their oil reserves to fund their war on Ukraine more, all at the same time.
- Particularly scary, Israel, beset on all sides and feeling abandoned, decides to nuke Iran. Pakistan, who is known to be nuclear armed, and Iran, who might have a few test bombs of their own, retaliate, prompting a nuclear firestorm and long-lasting aftermath that makes the Middle East a hellhole to live in, and possibly affects the entire global climate.
- That nuclear exchange might prompt a global nuclear war with how much of a hair-trigger the world is on right now. Remember, kids, Global Thermonuclear War is a strange game, and the winning move is not to play!
I’m not saying all of these are going to happen, or even most of them, but it would SURE serve Putin’s interests if there’s a falling out between the actual authoritarian Netanyahu and the leader of the left-most party in the USA, driving Netanuyahu into fellow-authoritarian Putin’s arms! It’d also be quite a feather in Trump’s cap if Biden abandons Israel, loses enough of the US Jewish vote (in addition to the rabble-raisers here in the US who swear they won’t vote for Biden even if he does stop funding Israel because once a Genocider always a Genocider…) that he loses the election to Trump, and then Trump gets to restart the funding and say “See, Democrats are the real antisemites! Pay no attention to the picture of a cartoon frog dressed up as me gassing prevalent US Jews and Liberals from 8 years ago, that’s a lie…”
So. Once again. Limbo away. Just be fucking truthful about it.
Nice fanfic. All that writing just to excuse genocide.
When you can’t win on the facts, just throw out an ad hominem and run away. ;) Thanks for conceding my point, though!
Local resident declares themself winner of internet argument. Starving children destroyed with facts and logic.
Dude. This USA Today blog post is from December 2023. It doesn’t even mention Israel.
Cmon guys! He’s slightly better than a human pile of shit. Go vote! If you don’t vote for our babbling, senile, old man it will be 100% your fault if we get stuck with the other shit bag for 4 more years. We carry zero responsibility for proping this senile old man up, it is 100% on you, the voters.
Good thing the Republicans are all idiots, it lowered the bar so fucking low we can do whatever we want. Because we can’t possibly go the other way and do something better. We have to take advantage and get away with whatever we can.
-The DNC probably.
Someday the DNC will Republicans fall in line, democrats fall in love. Forgetting that gave us Trump over Hillary. The only hope that we don’t end up with Trump is us being fueled by hate. I am going to vote, but counting on people to take time off work and wait hours in line to vote only because they are so scared of another possible outcome is the worst reality. But here we are.
babbling, senile, old man
It’s true. He’s old. We don’t need to be ageist, though. The question is can he do the job, and he’s proven for the past 4 years that he can. I’d like younger, but the time for a younger candidate was 4 years ago, not now, when the Primaries are about wrapped up.
He does have a gaffe problem, but that’s not a function of him being senile. Are you ableist on top of being ageist? He’s not good with speech, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING indicates the man isn’t aware of what’s going on around him and can’t communicate.
the Republicans are all idiots,
Do you really believe that? That party managed to put a stamp on this country that will last long after I’m dead unless we hit LEV and I live to be a thousand years old. They managed to do what the Left couldn’t do and put their differences aside long enough to get 6/9 out of the Supreme Court, 28/49 Legislatures, 57/98 Chambers, and 4022/7386 legislators. It was their idea to “Vote for the best candidate in the Primary, and the winner of our Primary in the General” first, and that strategy has secured them several big wins, including overturning Roe V Wade.
take advantage and get away with whatever we can
Welcome to adulthood in America! Glad you could join us! It’s been this way forever and yes, I’m 100% behind you with the whole “Dems are shitty for using the bad behaviour of Republicans to cover for their own.” And guess what! I once believed as you did. Al Gore v Bush? My vote was ‘none of the above’. And then I saw the consequences of that vote, the utter shitshow that Bush the Younger visited upon the United States, and his utter mismanagement of the economy and Hurricane Katrina and of freedoms and liberty (do you remember “Free Speech Zones”? I do…) and leading us into a war based on nothing but lies and the fallout of that war and the crazy gas prices of 2004 and 2005 and 2006 and the economic collapse that took a good 2 years of unrecognised hard work as Obama had to stop and fix all the shit Bush 43 broke. I too was pissed when Obama cowtowed to Republicans and Insurance Companies and gave us RomneyCare repackaged as ObamaCare, but I recognise that that’s the way the game is played, and I look at my wife and my friends and all the people I don’t know like migrants that are just trying to escape a hell in their own country that Trump promises to unleash the military on when (not if in his mind, when) he’s returned to office and I realise a fact. The solution never HAS been and never WILL be to just stay home and let the Fascist takeover of our country happen. Like the Democrats know that they never have to change if you don’t show up in the election, the Republicans know you WON’T show up, so they can edge to the Right counting on you to stay home.
Like I KEEP saying. There is the smart option, of showing up faithfully every year, voting for the Progressive in the Primary and for the Democrat (however much you have to hold your nose to do it), year after year, accepting the proper amount of change in your direction given you represent a quarter of the American electorate at BEST, and there’s the stupid way of doing it, which is to stay at home and let the avowed Fascist win, and watching the protests get swept up on 20 January 2025 by military people and literal unmarked vans with Federal officers who are wearing no identifying marks at all, just like what happened in 2020 during Floyd’s protests. And if you advocate for the stupid way, I’m going to minimally call you stupid, if not outright callous and cruel, doing Russia and the Republican’s dirty work for them.
“It’s true. He’s old. We don’t need to be ageist, though. The question he do the job, and he’s proven for the past 4 years that he can.”
He can’t do the job. He can just do it slightly less badly than the last guy. The country and inflation is shit. Some of that is his predecessor, but he has done nothing to change shit. His cronies still dodge taxes, and I still pay nearly a 1/4 of my income to feds alone. He tried to pretend to forgive student debt by executive order knowing exactly how it would be shut down so he can pander. Kamala called for legalization of pot a month ago when their polls are low. Yet nothing will come of it. Because they are just pandering. He has done nothing, and since our previous president was so abundantly horrible, that actually seems like a good thing. I get it, “choose the less of two evils, welcome to adulthood” I am fucking 50. I’ve been an adult plenty long enough. I have never not voted because I didn’t like who was there. But I will fucking bitch about it online and I am not going to shill for shitbags. Yeah, I am all the ists if that is what you have to call everyone you disagree with, he used to speak ok, now he struggles getting a sentence out.
If thinking someone who was born a decade and a half before we sent and object into space is too old to make decisions on the governance of AI is agist… than I am agist. Trump, Biden, Bernie, all too old for the world we live in. So are all the senators that don’t give up their seats.
I get it is what it is and maybe some people just accept it. I won’t. I’ll vote but I won’t smile while I do it.
Aren’t you tired of being told to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps?” Vote RFK Jr 2024!
You mean the guy that claimed that trying to stop the spread of a respiratory virus was a greater affront to liberty than the literal genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany? The guy whose own family called him out for attacking the CDC and Anthony Fauci despite the science clearly showing that the COVID vaccines were MUCH better for you than catching the damn virus those vaccines were meant to stop? That guy?
Or the guy who spoke at a Moms for Liberty group, basically giving that very Conservative and extremist group a platform? Or the guy who agrees with conservatives that the government is being ‘weaponised’ against them?
The guy who plans on abandoning former members of the Warsaw Pact to Russia’s tender mercies, on the promise that Russia will leave Ukraine when we stop sending arms to them? On the silly notion that UN Peacekeepers will somehow bring Russia to heel? When has the UN ever managed to accomplish ANYTHING, let alone stand up to a former Great Power?
Or the guy who thinks that the riot at the capital was ‘just a protest’ and that there needs to be a ‘special counsel’ to 'determine whether their convictions are appropriate (pro-tip, Kennedy, I don’t think they got ENOUGH punishment for what they did!)? That guy?
Or the guy who panders to Republicans by saying “I won’t take your guns away,” while still saying “Oh, but I believe in gun control”? THAT guy?
Oh yeah, and the guy who, in a room with 100 people who have a choice between him, Biden, and Trump, will create a 49 Trump, 48 Biden, 3 RFK Jr. and ensure that the room goes with Trump because the rule is ‘the person with the most votes wins’, and whose campaign has specifically said it’s attempting to “Get Rid of Biden” with no mention of Trump? THAT Guy?
Yeah, I won’t. And you would be cruel and stupid to do so, knowing that my example of 100 people in a room is EXACTLY how the US voting system works.
Sources: https://www.axios.com/2023/06/22/robert-f-kennedy-jr-rfk-2024 https://www.newsnationnow.com/politics/2024-election/where-does-robert-f-kennedy-jr-stand-on-key-issues/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/mollybohannon/2024/04/08/rfk-jr-staffers-top-goal-is-to-get-rid-of-biden-report-says/?sh=529564b9758e
Really the only thing I disagree with you about is acting as if funny internet frog is related to the fascists. Especially when you did it twice.
Are we really in a world where the march of 40 years of fervent evangelical christian nationalism is just “Trump and his goons”?
Trump could both die and go to jail today and that ideological shift is going nowhere but onward.
He’s gonna die sooner than later. While I don’t disagree that the evangelical fascist movement will continue, they sure have latched onto Trump hard. Who’s your bet for his eventual replacement? Has to be someone with a big media reach with a history of pandering hard to that audience. No need to be qualified for the position. Alex Jones, maybe? Or is he old news/dead meat at this point?
Well right now Trump doesn’t even have a VP pick. Ostensibly: whomever he picks for that.
But just as the movement quickly coalesced around Trump, they’ll easily pivot to someone like Nicki Haley who will easily recouperate any Republicans Trump lost by being Trump, [edit:the type of voter] who the Democrats have been trying to court for about the same 40 years christian fascism has been on the rise.
There’s plenty of Republicans happy to mimic Trump given the chance. Closest right now is probably Ted Cruz, if Republicans weren’t mostly misogynists I’d also say Margarine Taylor Greene.
Closest right now is probably Ted Cruz
He tried, didn’t go so well for him.
The key word in the title is Democrats. Leave those of us that are not Democrats or Republicans out of the conversation.
Hey, pal, I didn’t write the headline, so don’t give me crap about it. But here’s a fact you miss with your “not democrat or republican” nonsense. Do you claim to care about Non-Christian, Gay, Transgender, or Minority people? Then you must vote for the Democrat. Because come November, one of two parties will win the election. That’s just how the American system is designed currently, and it’s going to take LOTS of hard work to fix it, and there are gonna be LOTS of people who will fight you tooth and nail to stop that from happening. But until it happens, either a Democrat or a Republican will win that seat, like one has every year from 1860 until the present. That’s even more likely if the only time you’re pushing for an alternative is during the General Election and not, say, during the Primary or for local elections.
And to remind you, the two men who have a lock on that office in January consist of:
- A man who is admittedly old, who has a speech impediment and a history of engaging mouth before brain throughout his adult lifespan, who is a bit stuck in the past and thinks that solutions that worked on problems back in 1980 will work on problems today, and who is too friendly with Israel as a nation to recognise that Israel’s leader is more akin to his opponent than anyone on his side of the political aisle.
- A shithead who is only 3 years younger than the other guy, who doesn’t have a speech impediment to explain away his word salads, who once famously bragged that he could take any woman in the world he wanted despite her thoughts on the matter because ‘he’s a star’ and ‘he’s allowed to do that’, who mocked and denigrated disabled people willingly and openly, who quoted Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini freely and pridefully, and who encouraged shitheads to run down Americans protesting shithead policies, and who has a plan to double down on all that bullshit come DAY ONE and he promises to be a dictator “only for a day!” if he wins.
One of those two will be in office come January. Nobody else. Your third party or no-vote won’t change that. If you stay home or vote third party in 2025, you should be fucking ashamed of yourself if you even begin to think you’re a friend to any of the issues the Left stands for.
I’ll start with democrats are not left. They are to the right of people like Reagan and Nixon. Your party doesn’t give a fuck about Non-Christian, Gay, Transgender, or Minority people either, talking like they do then doing nothing to protect them makes them no different than their Republican counterparts. Using marginalized people as human shields to defend shitty politicians and their shitty policies doesn’t make you an ally, it makes you an enemy of their progress and keeps them further subjugated.
Cant change a system if no one has the balls to actually challenge it and refuse to keep propping it up.
And the Democratic Party needs to pull its head out of its ass and embrace its base, rather than smugly scheme in ways that are ruining lives.
I have no problem with Biden’s job as president. In fact, I got into a big argument with someone a few weeks ago because they keep parroting anti-Biden propaganda from astroturfed pro-Palestine social media groups.
Biden has been doing a great job for the most part, on a number of fronts.But I’m sort of bittersweet on that, because the harder I look, the more I see the illusion of choice, and an intentional effort to barely keep up with the will of the people.
2016, Bernie vs Clinton. He had the votes, but the party pulled some superdelegate shenanigans to give it to Clinton. And with the same confidence of someone who had just been handed a layup in the primary, she managed to smugly fumble the presidency by a tiny margin.
Post 2020 - Democrats had a majority, and instead of doing things the populous wanted, they wrung their hands about two candidates the Democratic Party had helped elect - Sinema and Manchin - and whether or not they were going to block bills.
The other day I did a deep dive into Elissa Slotkin - a candidate so unlikeable she had to move to a much more certain democratic district when districts were redrawn. When the senate seat came up, the Democratic Party cut deals with more liberal candidates who are vastly more likable, to get them to not run in the primary. So now Michigan is going to wind up with an unwanted centrist that used to be an ‘analyst’ for the CIA during the Iraq war. She’s going to pretend to be a democrat while being the same sort of heel the Sinema or Manchin was.That’s just the people. In their post 2020-majority they could have done so much legislatively that they didn’t even bother considering - like campaign finance reform or expanding the courts, or even changing the rules around judicial nominees to prevent future shenanigans, but that would impact their bottom line or their ability to inspire panic at election-time. They could have strengthened the ACA, but that hurts some of the corporations that donate to them. Or do things to help people so that their rights wouldn’t be at risk - like codifying Roe, instead of allowing it to continue to be a wedge issue that destroys lives, but gets people to vote.
The Democratic (and Republican) Party is playing us all.
I’m not disaffected with Biden. I’m disaffected with a political party that nakedly fucks around to preserve the status quo, rather than embracing their base and winning with an encouraged and engaged populous. They lack the mandate to lead because they only desire to govern. (In contrast to the Republicans which lack the mandate to lead, are unable to govern, and only desire power and to abuse the government for personal gain.)So go ahead, give me the downvotes.
This wouldn’t be an issue if we had ranked choice and a coalition government instead of this ‘winner take all’ nonsense that just incentivizes entrenchment rather than inspiration. But, you know, that doesn’t help the businesses that are political parties, so they ain’t gonna vote on it.You make valid points and we ultimately agree that we should change our voting system. But that happens from the ground up, voting for a third party in the presidential election does nothing.
What are they going to do? “Oh no, people are unhappy with the two parties…well we better dilute our power and give them ranked voting.”
Never going to happen. But you can work locally to get the changes and encourage that elsewhere. Voting third party is worse than slacktavism, as it’s both pointless and counter productive.
Don’t try to play the game you want to be playing, play the one you’re currently playing.
Circling back - I initially did not respond because I thought that my response would be caustic and catty.
It seemed that the first two paragraphs you wrote were in response to me, but the rest were just the same canned responses that get shared with everyone who throws out a ‘voting is pointless’ message. And that’s not really my stance, or my comment. It kind of upset me, so I felt that I couldn’t have responded politely at the time.
It is a reasonable conclusion to draw from my statements, but I don’t believe people should refrain from voting. I just believe political parties should deliver on their promises, and if they don’t deliver, then they should stop making those promises, or make way for parties that do.What are they going to do? “Oh no, people are unhappy with the two parties…well we better dilute our power and give them ranked voting.”
Yes.
It’s not ‘the norm’ as far as beliefs go, but I do kind of think that should be exactly what they do. They are here to lead and govern. That is what public service is. It is service to the public.
If they behave in protectionist ways for the sake of their party’s over the public interest, then they lack the mandate to represent the public.
Leadership is sometimes sacrificing the power of your party for the good of the people. But that’s also irrelevant as an argument. If democrats represent the ideals they claim to represent, then next time they have a trifecta, they should move towards expanding democracy at a federal level, rather than leaving it to states. Leaving it at the state level guarantees the sort of gridlock that holds back local organizing - only certain kinds of ballot initiatives are even seriously considered at a state level because it’ll harm that state’s power on the national stage. In terms of ideology, more U.S. citizens align with democrats than republicans (but huge numbers of left leaning folks don’t vote due to lack of representation). Their political aims would see more progress with a better represented (and presumably more engaged) populous in a coalition government where their ideas can enjoy broader support.
But they don’t run on ideas or by providing better governance. They’re a business that relies on laws and marketing campaigns to succeed in a given ‘business cycle.’Yes.
You missed the point: It is a rhetorical question. Of course they aren’t going to do that. It’s not how it works. These people got into power that way, and there is no way in a representative democracy that you are going to get enough of the reps who gained the power a certain way to give up that way. You are arguing what they should do, and I agree with you. But the problem is that focusing on that is just blind idealism. I’m pointing out the dirty reality of how politics works.
And this assault on “well washington democrats aren’t idealistic do-gooders!” is just a counter productive position (unless you want Reps to win instead). They are humans who have human faults, and primarily made up of people who have sought out the power, so a lot of those faults are going to be amplified.
But that’s the game we have right now. Ranked choice is great, but it ain’t going to come from people wringing their hands over “Well, washington democrats with their slim majority weren’t able to force through sweeping changes that some of their members don’t even agree with!” It’s going to come from getting your hands dirty locally.
It’s super easy to be like “I don’t like either party.” Good for you. I’ve known plenty of edgy 14 year olds who have been able to “reason” themselves to this same conclusion. But nothing you propose is realistic or will solve it.
Voting third party is worse than slacktavism, as it’s both pointless and counter productive.
Can you elaborate? Do you think it’s pointless if more red voters go for third party?
The only good argument I’ve seen against voting third party comes down to: dem voters are more likely to vote third party so more voting third party means more red votes.
Like wouldn’t it be a good thing in your eyes if existing red voters voted third party?
You are demonstrating my point why it’s counter productive: you’re less likely to get something resembling what you want, and more likely to get something almost exactly the opposite of what you want.
To elaborate, the issue is our FPTP voting system. With rational actors, it’s going to tend towards a two party system. The simple example is that if you have a progressive candidate and a liberal candidate, who both pull 30% of the vote, and some far right wing candidate that pulls the remaining 40%. . . every time the right wing candidate is going to win, and the liberals/progressives, who would be mostly happy with the other candidate left wing candidate, are going to end up with the exact opposite of what they want. So these two groups act rationally and coalesce around a single candidate, so now they get 60% of the vote and win every time, while not getting everything they may want.
So even if a third party does win at some point, which has happened in the past, it will quickly return right back to a two party system . . .usually because the third party won and the people whose vote was split realize that it was a terrible strategy.
So sure, if it was right wingers splitting the vote, I would be more likely to get what I want and that would be fantastic. But despite being dumbasses that will vote for Trump, they are still rational enough to realize that not coalescing around a single candidate would be a disaster for them, so they also have a single candidate.
And now that the parties are entrenched, there is no way that the people who have worked up through this system are going to relinquish the control they have. It has to come from the bottom up, or via some (likely violent) revolution. The latter would be more miserable for everyone, so if people really care about not having a two party system, they should be getting involved in local politics and getting it to switch the voting system first, and having that filter up. It’s not easy or fast, but it’s way better than the alternative.
In their post 2020-majority they could have done so much legislatively that they didn’t even bother considering - like campaign finance reform or expanding the courts, or even changing the rules around judicial nominees to prevent future shenanigans, but that would impact their bottom line or their ability to inspire panic at election-time.
This conspiracy theory is so weird.
How exactly are legislative Democrats supposed to accomplish these things when their bare-bones Senate majority depends on Manchin and Sinema? I mean really, specifically, how are they supposed to get things done?
Y’all are always like “they should do more” but you won’t give them the numbers to do it. In a 60/40 Senate we can make wonderful things happen, but you just won’t give it to us.
When the Democratic Party did have a 60-40 in 2009 they did not act. Where they did they self imposed compromises with the GOP or simply didn’t pass legislation they ran on. For example: codifying Roe v Wade with Freedom of Choice Act went from Obama’s alleged first sct in office to “not a top priority.” Then they got annihilated in 2010.
We know from precedent that when Democrats are elected there is no indication they will even promote what they or the party ran on.
Recent example: John Fetterman. Ran as a progressive, immediately said he wasn’t progressive once in office and now pushing for right wing immigration laws.
Republicans get what they vote for. Democrats do not. Which is why these threads are so ignorant and frustrsting to read.
They had a 60-40 majority for only a few months, and they passed a massive expansion of healthcare that has saved thousands of lives and lifted countless people out of poverty. And that’s after Republicans gutted it by killing the individual mandate.
these threads are so ignorant and frustrsting to read.
At least we agree on one thing. But you’re the one spreading the ignorance.
The ACA is the self compromising I was referencing. I thought that was clear, so I apologize for your feeling so provoked by my lack of explicitly referencing it.
I mean, doesn’t change much. You’re still saying that one of the greatest pieces of legislation in our lifetimes is worthless, so you’re still spreading ignorance.
I called it self-compromise within the party, not worthless, at any rate.
The greatest piece of legislation in our lifetime being a repackaging of the Republican Mitt Romney system is rather on-brand for this topic.
“No no, enabling fascism will definitely cause a swing to the left this time. After Trump, our turn!”
Biden is better than Trump because he (occasionally) listens to what the voters want. Trump tells his followers what they should support, not the other way around.
This also means that people trying to tell Biden to change course sound like Trump supporters to people that believe politicians never listen.
