• specseaweed@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    These people sound like exact copies of the people saying voting in 2000 didn’t matter, and that turned out to be the most politically consequential of my lifetime. Gore was imperfect as they all are, but holy fuck did Dubya fuck up literally everything he touched.

    Among many, many, many things, Dubya started forever wars killing untold hundreds of thousands of people. He accelerated oil and gas production, absolutely setting the Climate Change world on a pace for disaster. He seated Alito, unquestionably the biggest monster currently on the Supreme Court. And he passed a monster tax cut for the rich that set us on this path of unrestrained deficit spending.

    And that’s just the headlines. Remember when he tried to put his personal lawyer on the Supreme Court? lol

    Gen X already tried this 25 years ago and it fucked the world up so badly that we need to be saved by the future generations. Imagine not learning that lesson and doing it again.

      • PugJesus@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Probably a similar initial response, but no Iraq War two years later. Which would make a… massive (and positive, in case that wasn’t clear) change in the direction and concerns of American foreign policy.

        • Diplomjodler@feddit.de
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          11 months ago

          He wouldn’t have suspended civil rights, permitted torture and made a mockery of the rule of law.

          • GBU_28@lemm.ee
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            11 months ago

            We think that yes. I’m a gore fan.

            But remember there were 100s of people driving towards those topics. Career defense and security types making their damnedest case that they needed those tools to avoid 9/11 2.0.

            I hope gore, and the staff he surrounded himself with would have had the vision to avoid all that, despite the pressure.

      • Zorque@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        Based on after-the-fact reports, it may never have happened.

        Maybe that’s just exposure to all the conspiracy theories, though, I dunno if he would have acted any differently than Bush did to the intelligence reports.

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        It’s questionable if it’d have even happened had gore been at the desk, y’know, because he’d have probably actually read the imminent attack report about the plot before it happened.

        • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          True dat. He wasn’t part of the cabal. That’s also why he wasn’t elected, in spite of winning. Just like Hillary.

    • AlexWIWA@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      W was catastrophic. Honestly him and Reagan are the cause of most of our issues.

    • fidodo@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Man, what I would do to have an unabashed giant nerd for president. I forget what people’s issue with Gore even was.

      • thallamabond@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Al Gore won the popular vote, but there was some sketchiness down in Florida. During a recount, Roger Stone rallied the troops (Brooks Brothers riot) which caused the counting to be stopped, due to threats of violence. Setting up the supreme Court to decide Bush won Florida.

        • grue@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          During a recount, Roger Stone rallied the troops (Brooks Brothers riot) which caused the counting to be stopped, due to threats of violence.

          In other words, the 2000 coup succeeded.

          • Zipitydew@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            It’s why they project so hard about Democrats cheating elections.

            The Republicans have been for decades. And can’t stand sometimes enough people show up that they still lose.

          • Krauerking@lemy.lol
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            11 months ago

            LOL yep. Constantly the conservatives manage to take their own manufactured outrage turn it into violence and then turn out the results they want.

            Apparently burning down the Reichstag still works if you have the power to seize the moment.

      • lingh0e@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        I, personally sat out that election because I didn’t like Al’s wife, Tipper Gore. She led the charge in a bunch of manufactured outrage about obscenity in music. I was also a jaded, cynical gen-xer who’d been hearing the importance of voting as long as I could remember, but every election was just choosing between a douchbag and a turd sandwich.

        Looking back on everything that happened after that election, it’s insane to imagine how different things would be now if Gore had been in office instead of the criminal enterprise that we ended up with.

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Gore was the watershed moment of the white left deciding no progress is allowed to happen unless it’s by their hands and they get all the credit.

        Nader fired up his campaign in swing states as an act of retaliation against Gore posing himself as the climate candidate.

        That’s it.

        The Greens had a meltdown that the thing that usually happens to third parties in this country, that is having their platforms become the mainstream if they make enough noise, was happening to them, and they decided we’re not allowed to make any progress on climate unless we do it through them so fuck Gore and fuck anyone who’d dare support that disgusting “mOdErAtE!”

    • ed_cock@feddit.de
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      11 months ago

      What really gets my goat is how some people now act like George W Bush is this respectable elder statesman that only did his best and oh, how cute, he’s friends with Michelle Obama. Like, sure, next to Trump he looks like a political savant, but come on, he still was a total piece of shit that did lasting damage.

      • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Protest voters who supported Stein alone would have flipped every single rust belt state had they decided on the country over feeling validated in wanting to vote “for” someone, and Zoomers and Millenials simply matching their share of the population in turnout could have propelled Bernie to the front of the primaries and over the finish line.

        Nevermind how not voting let trump happen, not voting let clinton happen.

  • DirkMcCallahan@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    There are legitimate criticisms to be had of Biden, but in every case, Trump is unambiguously worse. If Trump were pro-Palestine, I could maybe understand single-issue voters preferring him to Biden…but he’s not.

    To be honest, I have little hope for 2024. Genuine fake news is rampant, and in pretty much every case it hurts Biden (misinformation about the economy, etc.). I’ll be voting a straight Dem ticket in my very red state, and hoping against all hope that uninformed voters somehow do the right thing.

    • Sybil@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      no one is saying they’re going to vote for trump. they’re saying they won’t vote for biden

      • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Lmao, that’s the epitome of something that sounds smart but is incredibly stupid when you think about it. Especially in response to this meme.

        In FPTP not voting for the chosen democratic representative means one vote less is required for the conservative. It doesn’t matter if that’s because you added a vote for Democrats, or didn’t vote at all. Same for voting 3rd party, it just ensures you get the candidate you want the least.

        • Resonosity@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          I agree with this. Choosing a lesser evil in a FPTP, bicameral political system is not the answer. Pushing for ranked choice voting is the answer, and one step towards proportional representation like what we see in the EU.

          And not voting is never the answer.

        • Sybil@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          that the epitome of something that sounds smart but is incredibly stupid

          I voted for Howie in 2020 and Biden won. you don’t seem to know how voting works.

          • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            You don’t seem to know what anecdotal evidence or statistical analysis works.

            Biden barely won, and you didn’t get the candidate you wanted. In 2016, it’s people like you who gave trump the victory

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Same for voting 3rd party, it just ensures you get the candidate you want the least.

              this claim is obviously false, since I have provided proof against it. if you want to weaken the claim, moving the goalposts, that’s fine, but don’t break a sweat.

              • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Not sure if you’re just being intentionally thick or a troll.

                Youre explaining yourself that despite you voting against him, Biden won, and you didn’t want Trump and the person you voted for didn’t win. So your actions gave you the least chance of having a candidate you were aligned with.

                If anything, you are giving proof that it’s a dumb thing to do. But that would be anecdotal evidence, and there’s no need for that.

                If you manually run the results and the effects of 3rd parties, it’s pretty clear that it makes no sense in First Past the Post.

                It’s a thing known as The spoiler effect, or vote splitting and has always been a documented thing that dumb people don’t understand. Who do you think funds these 3rd parties in the first place…

                Youre being played.

                • Sybil@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  if i’m just too thick to understand, a big big dummy, then you better make sure the vote isn’t split: vote with me.

                • Sybil@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  So your actions gave you the least chance of having a candidate you were aligned with.

                  i was aligned with the candidate for whom i voted, and i was not aligned with the candidates i voted against.

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              people who voted for Trump gave him the victory. 50 years of people like Joe biden running the Democrat party gave Trump the victory. don’t blame me.

              • RedditWanderer@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                But they’ve been running the conservative party the same way for 50 years too. You’re literally admitting to hate Biden so much you let the conservatives win even if that meant making the US worse.

                Literally what the meme is about. Tell us, what have you gained from it aside from more frustration and hate? Biden didnt learn anything from 2016. You can blame biden when you lose your democracy, but you’ll still have lost your democracy. I wouldn’t wait for Biden to fix that. The democratic party is more than one person making decisions, and handing the power to your enemy is not how you make changes within your own team.

                • Sybil@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  The democratic party is more than one person making decisions, and handing the power to your enemy is not how you make changes within your own team.

                  the democrats aren’t my team.

                • Sybil@lemmy.world
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                  11 months ago

                  You’re literally admitting to hate Biden so much you let the conservatives win even if that meant making the US worse.

                  no, i’m not

          • The_Lopen@sh.itjust.works
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            11 months ago

            Yeah and we could find one person who voted for vermin supreme, Biden still won. What would their point be if they were here, I wonder? Speaking of points, what’s yours?

            • Sybil@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Speaking of points, what’s yours?

              no one is saying they’re going to vote for trump. they’re saying they won’t vote for biden

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                11 months ago

                Therefore Trump wins. Abstaining is still an action, and still has an effect as much as you want to be above it all on your moral high horse.

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    11 months ago

    “Sure, I made the ongoing genocide worse, but at least I didn’t vote for GENOCIDE JOE” - Useful idiots for the Israeli far-right

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    11 months ago

    A critical refinement of this point: By all means, please do vote for whichever actual progressive candidate you favor in your state’s Democratic primary. This is not sarcasm; do it. But when the general election comes around Biden is inevitably the candidate anyway, do whatever it takes to keep Trump out of office.

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      11 months ago

      If you’re in a red area, consider voting in the Republican primary in good faith. (Don’t try nominating the worse candidate. The backfire is terrible.) You’re still allowed to vote for whoever you want in the general. This election primaries will largely be about down ticket races, but that’s important too.

    • Ð Greıt Þu̇mpkin@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      That would require them to actually give enough of a shit to turn out for primaries, and president Bernie can tell you that none of these fake allies actually care enough to wrench themselves from their two bit Jean-Paul Marat act for such a herculean labor.

    • badbrainstorm @lemmy.today
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      11 months ago

      See Bernie 2016. Won the DNC, but got snake in the grass Hillary instead, which led to understandable mass apathy amongst the Democratic voters. I’m still pissed! Kinda like what reportedly happened with McGovern '72

    • Hildegarde@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      And why shouldn’t Biden do whatever it takes to stop Trump? If supporting a genocide loses votes, there’s an easy way to win those votes back.

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        11 months ago

        How do we know supporting Israel isn’t getting him more votes then not supporting Israel?

      • OccamsTeapot@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Woah woah woah, you mean actually try to win votes through rational and humane policy and not merely the fact that he’s running against a human piece of shit and is technically better? You mean that we should have someone with actual principles on the democratic ticket instead of someone nodding along and sending weapons to a genocidal government? Outrageous wow why do you love Trump so much

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          11 months ago

          You can tell they’re white because they phrased this like they’re lecturing the party’s manager at DNC Walmart

      • Kepabar@startrek.website
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        11 months ago

        It’s not that simple. Changing positions will probably polarize people to vote against him as much as it will win over votes to him.

        Especially because those who are likely to withhold votes over this will probably demand the most drastic of actions before Biden passes their purity test.

        Geopolitically it’s a bad move on top of that as it ends the relationship with practicallythe only middle Eastern power we have as an ally.

        The reproductions of that alone is certain to energize opposition to Biden in the far right.

        While he may lose voters over his current inaction, taking action could easily lead to a net loss on election day.

        Unfortunately what is best for a country geopolitically and what is morally right often don’t agree with each other.

        • Adub@lemmy.world
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          11 months ago

          Even from a moral choice Biden is the better option. You get someone pressuring for a Two-state solution keep aid flowing to Palestinians as well as to support in helping Ukraine who are being genocided by their definitions. While also supporting international efforts to re-open one of the busiest shipping channels so places like Africa & others experiencing hardships that will have trouble maintaining safety & stability if prices of common goods increases.

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    11 months ago

    I just can’t wait for those of us in the queer community to either be thrown in camps or flee the company, all so that the people who didn’t vote can tell me it’s actually because of Biden.

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    11 months ago

    Reading these comments, it feels people are having a giant trolley problem moment. Do I vote for Biden and throw the switch so fewer people die, or do I not do it and let more people die, but at least I’m not complicit then?

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    11 months ago

    You’re right but a bunch of people just don’t care anymore and I can’t totally blame them. I’ll be voting biden because I always vote, but this is on democrats 100% if they can’t motivate their base.

    • pinkdrunkenelephants@lemmy.cafe
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      11 months ago

      And by deport they probably mean throw in concentration camps and then murder en masse.

      If that happens, I wonder what the Mexican government and the cartels would say.

      • norbert@kbin.social
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        11 months ago

        The Mexican government would be quite vocally mad and file lawsuits but nothing would really come of it.

        The cartels wouldn’t care as long as the flow of guns and money from the north didn’t stop.

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    11 months ago

    You guys wouldn’t have this clusterfuck if you just had a parliamentary system. Don’t like the non-reactionary liberal candidate? Great, just vote for whoever else you like, and even if they don’t win, they can still join efforts with the lesser evil to make sure the far right doesn’t return to power. It also has the added benefit that it doesn’t force the whole right wing of the country to cater to the rabid reactionaries on the rise, because those just make a different party that has to balance the distribution of their power with their less mad allies.

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    11 months ago

    I feel like posts like these always fail to realize how fucked of a situation US ‘democracy’ is in where you must vote for one shitty candidate because the other is literally a fascist.

    Like no actually some people have decided that the entire system is untenable - they no there’s a lesser of two evils, but they refuse to partake of an illegitimate system.

  • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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    11 months ago

    I try to think that hopefully Trump would get stonewalled enough that he wouldn’t be able to get any of this done.

    Then I realize that he seriously does not care. He doesn’t give a shit about Congress, or checks and balances. He and his party have clearly demonstrated that they have no interest in the system of “law and order” that they cling so close to.

    Who’s gonna stop him? His courts? An impeachment? Antifa gonna go out and storm Pennsylvania Ave and live up to their damn name, which somehow became an insult?

    The fact that this man is on a ballot in any state is shameful. The GOP of just a dozen fucking years ago would have tossed him out on his ass in a second. Somehow since then, Romney, McCain, and Liz Cheney have become the sole voices of reason within the party. One got blackballed, one got censured, and the other one died.

  • Yggnar@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    So maybe we need a third option. I don’t know, maybe a candidate that isn’t an evil geriatric white man that can barely finish a sentence?

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    11 months ago

    I’d love to make a glib analogy like ‘my toast got burnt so I burned my house down and most of the neighbourhood’ but the literal fact that so many people are suffering makes that sort of thing rather tasteless.

    I don’t think Biden is “Genocide Joe”. That’s ridiculous hyperbole which doesn’t help. We (the public) don’t know what kind of pressure is being levered in the background to end all the horrors of this situation.

    People not voting Dem merely because of difficult historical relationships with Israel are dangerously deluded.