In the past few elections, voting feels more like a hostage situation than exercising my right to making a “choice”. This country is absolutely fucked if Trump is elected again.
Yes. That’s the end game of our type of voting system. You get two options and both suck.
We will get no progress until we get something like ranked choice voting.
Obligatory CGP Grey video about the inevitability of a 2-party system
That’s my favorite. I’ve watched it more than a few times
Which we won’t get, because it doesn’t benefit the right people
If we can at least get 2 dems in a row in office we can begin to claw the Overton window back from the fascist side. It’d be a start at least
This is the part too may people fail to understand. The same reason Trump wasn’t able to completely dismantle democracy in 4 years is why Dems can’t check every progressive box in 4 years. The system is designed to require a decade or more of electoral success to enact real change. Otherwise you’d just have an unsustainable political yoyo.
Even then, Trump winning one time has completely fucked the Supreme Court, and US democracy will unequivocally not survive another Trump pick. A ton of allegedly left leaning people here seem suspiciously enthusiastic about that prospect.
Wtf? Civil Rights?
That’s far too naive. All that will do is entrench liberalism, which is extremely weak against fascism rising.
Bless your heart.❤️
Easier said than done I know but if Trump wins my wife and I would strongly consider emigrating to another country. There’s only so much insanity one can take before needlessly going down with the ship. And if the calculus is that that my kids will have better prospects elsewhere, then so be it.
You’re assuming that 1st world countries will have us.
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Fascism is on the rise globally. If enough decent people leave the US, we will fall into a fascist regime, and it will be the beginning of World War Three, with the US leading the equivalent of the Axis powers. No place in the world will be safe for you or your children. That’s the hard, honest truth.
Agreed. We need to stay, and we need to fight to change the system from the inside. We can still prevent disaster at this stage.
With my partner, friends, and I being “degenerates” and likely the first group the fascists genocide… nope, see ya, I’m out. We already are experiencing the low-tide effects of genocide and while people aren’t in droves killing us yet, there are state allowed murders seemingly popping up and medical genocides creeping into the states. It’s only a matter of time and there is effectively nothing I can do, so for the lives of my family, friends, and I, we will be doing whatever it takes to get out before it really starts.
You must do what you feel is right, of course. I disagree that it is inevitable, I disagree that there is nothing you can do, and as I said above, I doubt that, should it happen, anybody will be safe, anywhere; but I wish you and yours safety and peace, wherever you go.
Good idea. I think it’s worth doing some research to find out where you might be able to go.
The problem is that without good people to stop them, evil people taking charge of the USA would radically change the entire world.
It’s not easy, but most of us have to stay. Maybe all of us…
I’ll be in my 3rdW country eating popcorn
It always has been.
We might be tempted to think that our Democratic heritage automatically protects us from such threats. This is a misguided reflex. In fact, the precedent set by the founders demand that we examine history to understand the deep sources of tyranny and consider the proper responses to it. - On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder (Chapter 1, Page 13)
I’ll have to read that book. Thanks for sharing.
I wonder if Haley is staying in the race betting that Trump won’t be able to run in November
That has been my assumption as well.
I think she would help Biden if she stayed in the race as an independent
Betting on Trump’s last hamburder
We need to focus on smaller winnable races. Unfortunately we can’t shortcut our way into the presidential candidates we want, we need to replace the establishment and build a foundation of allies to support it. I know a lot of us are in conservative areas where you can’t realistically get new candidates elected locally, but you can still volunteer for races in other parts of the country. If we can shift politics in the house and Senate the presidency will follow. It’s hard work but it’s possible.
When’s the last time that hasn’t been the case? 1964?
When has a Russian puppet been the GOP front runner? This is bigger than politics.
Always has been that way
Don’t forget, Sanders is the only person Trump has ever admitted he’s afraid of.
Dems really underestimate what life is like for normal Americans. trump doesn’t get it either obviously, but at least he acknowledges shit is bad for them.
If Biden tries to run in the economy it’s going to hurt him because all the money is going to the wealthy.
Bernie acknowledges and actually has a plan to fix shit. And unlike trump points the finger at whose fault it is.
trump can’t compete with that.
But neoliberals don’t want to really address wealth inequality either.
Cannidates like Biden help fascism
Biden is the only thing standing between democracy and fascism in the US. Hate it all you want,but that is the reality at the moment.
He can play two roles, it’s not as simple as either good or bad. Capitalist Democratic leadership that is dedicated more to controlling the party’s left wing than defeating the country’s extremist right wing has and does enable fascism. This isn’t even a remotely controversial take, historically speaking. Trump owes his first presidency to the likes of Clinton and Obama, and yes, Joe Biden, who had had a long career of neoliberalism.
That said, while Biden hasn’t been, by any means, a perfect president, he has been far better than I expected, possibly the most progressive president since LBJ. And he is standing, albeit somewhat vaguely, between Trump and the Whitehouse.
But stopping Trump isn’t going to stop the slide into fascism. It can only, at best, delay things until the next election. To do that, we need a strong progressive movement to send a true leftist coalition to take over DC, and set a national tone and direction that moves away from the fascist ledge.
I think the irony is that Republicans are both as dangerous and fragile as possible right now. Their coalition is fracturing badly. If we win definitively in November, it will be a strong blow against them. If we’re lucky, it’ll be enough to permanently splinter them and make them unviable nationally.
That is my first and foremost goal. Render them impotent.
I’m usually all about finding a middle ground, but in this election it is that simple. Trump brings fascism now. Biden retains democracy for at least another 4 years.
Upvote for material analysis instead of emotions.
But Biden has not stayed on the neo-liberal hard line globalist policies. He has recoiled from international supply chains by bringing investment to manufacturing in the US. He has relieved debt payments for college educated workers. He has invested in infrastructure for transportation of goods as well as electricity which tackles the problem of emissions as well as cost of energy. I believe these moves are a reaction to understanding that life is hard and globalism left a lot of people behind.
How did we get here?
Many would argue it started in 1876…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1876_United_States_presidential_election
Draft Jon Stewart.
I would vote for him in a heartbeat, but I wouldn’t bet on it happening.
Me either, and it’s a real shame. The far right would go into beautiful seizures, but he would get massive turnout from pretty much everyone else.
He’s a far cry from being as far left as I would like, but I really wouldn’t care. He would be more capable of actually fixing things than anyone else I can think of, even Bernie. Can you imagine the hell most of Congress would face to oppose him on pretty much anything?
Biden isn’t standing between anything…he’s a speed bump. We still lost our reproductive rights, Trump’s tax cuts are still in place, we are still sending money to Israel and not the Ukraine.
Biden sucks. Don’t vote for Trump…but god it’s fucking depressing that the only alternative is a guy with Alzheimer’s and a meme army for political clout.
We lost our reproductive rights because of judges Trump installed. Biden has no power to change that. Trump’s tax cuts were passed by Congress and can only be undone by Congress, not Biden. Your criticism of Biden’s actions regarding Israel is justified, but let’s not pretend Trump wouldn’t be much worse. Yeah, Biden is old but he is more coherent and aware now than Trump was 20 years ago.
I wasn’t enthusiastic about Biden last election, but he has easily been the most effective president of my lifetime. He got us out of COVID without the economy crashing. He put hundreds of millions into mental health counselors for schools. He massively accelerated our shift to renewable energy. He has put major efforts into domestic microchip production. He put limits on insulin costs. He got a national electric vehicle charging network funded. He got funding passed for infrastructure improvements including bridges, tunnels, and broadband expansion. He has increased our defenses against cyber attacks and extended political channels for addressing them around the world. He has created more than 800,000 new jobs and gotten 6 million more people healthcare coverage. He passed legislation creating a 15% minimum tax rate on billion dollar corporations.
https://navigatorresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/October-24-Few-Have-Heard-1280x720.jpg
The difference is one has caved to public pressure and kept many promises. The other creates negative public-cult sentiment and keeps no promises.
Yes, it’s frustrating only having these choices right now. However, it is important to point out that we still have choices. People with sentiment just like yours, with a footnote that says “Not gonna vote, because [insert reason here].” are a part of the problem, when they could become a part of the start of a solution. One years, and probably a couple election cycles long, yet still potentially a positive way forward.
You lost your reproductive rights because a bunch of Sanders bros decided they’d rather let Trump win than vote for Hillary.
I see this opinion a lot, but I honestly don’t think Sanders or his campaign were to blame.
She lost far more centrist votes than she did left-wing votes.
I mean I still literally see tons of people on the internet who are salty about it and openly use 2016 as an excuse to not vote for Democrats. Granted, a portion of these people were trolls then and are trolls now, but the sentiment is too common to dismiss.
And whether or not it is true, it should still be a cautionary tale in pragmatism. I personally voted (and volunteered) for Bernie, but then fought for Clinton because it was plainly obvious what was on the line. I just wish more people had fought for Roe, if not for Clinton at that time, instead of waiting for the obvious outcome to get engaged. And it makes me see red to think that we are about to walk right into the exact same, easily preventable trap
Am I the only one that remembers the DNC was sued over that…and Sanders won?
Over what exactly? The only lawsuit the Sanders campaign filed was over a misunderstanding over how a DNC voter database was configured. Both candidates had access to the same modeling and turnout software, and the Sanders campaign was mistakenly able to access data and models Clinton had generated because the system was not configured correctly. He sued when that mistake was corrected, but quickly dropped the suit when the issue was clarified.
The lawsuit against Wasserman-Shultz was from a voter group, and it was dismissed. Maybe I’m missing one though. Can you jog my memory?
You’re missing a crucial part of that process I think. Milquetoast candidates can cause voter apathy, yes. It’s the apathy that helps fascism.
The death of democracy also helps fascism, and it’s widely agreed upon that there is no democracy without freedom of expression.
It should follow then, that if someone were to suppress freedom of expression, then they are contributing to the end of democracy, no matter what ends they’re trying to meet. That is to say, the ends don’t justify the means. If someone contributes to the end of democracy while trying to fight someone that they see as the villain of democracy, then it’s still fair to say they contributed to the end of democracy, no matter how noble you think the goal.
So, at the moment, I would say the biggest threat to democracy would be if a federal administration began working with corporations and social media to enact censorship - to destroy freedom of expression.
- Two federal courts ruled that the Biden Administration unduly influenced social media moderation during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The Department of Justice identified at least 45 federal officials who communicated with social media companies about misinformation.
- The Post’s exposé on Hunter Biden’s laptop was suppressed by Facebook and Twitter after the FBI warned Facebook to watch out for a “dump” of Russian disinformation, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the stories.
Regardless of who Biden’s enemy is, whether you think what these people were saying was unpalatable, or even if it’s your opinion that they’re dangerous, they didn’t break the law with their speech and therefor the government had no right to censor.
If you claim to be for democracy and freedom of expression, then any claim of defence that these should be exceptions would simply be hypocritical, and a violation of your democratic principles. This is getting more and more common, and we can’t have democracy if it’s common for people to violate their democratic principles.
I repeat: we can’t have democracy if it’s common for people to violate their democratic principles.
I’m afraid to ask what you think a vote for Trump helps.
Please stop being so dramatic, you shouldn’t be afraid to talk to other people about their political opinions.
It’s not fear, it’s that no one wants to read the same half assed logic that boils down to actively supporting efforts of conservatives to put Trump back in power. This shit strategy is getting old.
The winner of the 2024 general election for POTUS will be Donald Trump or Joe Biden. In a FPTP system any eligible vote not cast for Joe Biden is supporting Donald Trump, a member of the minority party. This is math. You are going to support one of these candidates if you’re eligible to vote. It is mathematically impossible to sit out and not have influence.
Not a single one of the commenters trying to depress Democratic votes has provided a single alternative argument to these facts. It’s not a real argument. It’s just trying to create apathy so conservatives can gain more power.
You can talk about Democratic principles all day long, voting is a strategic play. And if you were actually trying to defend Democratic principles you would take the action that results in the least harm, which is Joe Biden, not Donald Trump.
You are discussing strategy to avoid the most harm. Harm avoidance. That’s fear. You are literally describing fear without using the word fear and acting like I was the one misunderstanding. You need to understand that you are acting on fear. It’s ridiculous, and I was right to point it out.
You mentioned my other comment in passing like it meant nothing to you, then say that no one hear has given any real arguments? Maybe you just need to read in better faith. You clearly don’t have any respect for my concerns with Biden if your comment demonstrates a complete unwillingness to even entertain the thought.
Canadian btw, you don’t need to convince of anything to do with voting strategy anyway. Wasted energy. I just think you guys are being really silly and can’t see the forest from the trees. You could probably use third party observers to get your heads on straight.
Zero interest in trying to convince you of anything. I just want everyone else to understand that listening to you acts against their own interests. Either you don’t understand how our electoral system works, or you’re misleading people to try and put your thumb on the scale in support of some pretty horrible people.
Waiting anytime for an explanation of how Trump getting elected benefits the situation in Gaza btw. Or do we not care about that now because that would be acting out of fear?
Well, it’s a good thing you’re not dramatic at all…
I was being rhetorical. Please stop reading everything people say as black and white ones and zeros.
I know you were being rhetorical. Your rhetoric is pathetic. Please stop assuming people have misunderstood just because they don’t like what you say.
You’re out of your depth here.
My favorite Gif of 2017. Thanks.
Take with a grain of salt, considering Putin says Biden is better for him than Trump. While I don’t necessarily agree with the argument, Republicans (and centrist dems) certainly believe Sanders would’ve been an easy target for smear campaigns.
Trump was an easy target for smear campaigns. That’s why Hillary’s campaign helped Trump win the primary, and that sure worked out well.
Americans don’t give two shits about what the neolibs think are devastating attacks. They are fed up with the out-of-touch wealthy and political classes.
Is there a real plan to shore up our “democracy” if the Democrats win this election? What is Biden going to do next term that he didn’t do this term?
I feel like people are so fixated on Trump that they can’t see past him. Trump is a giant, clown-shaped piece of shit-- absolutely. How does the opposing party fail at politics so hard that someone like Trump ever even had a shot?
I feel like people are so fixated on Trump that they can’t see past him.
Well yeah, because if he wins there won’t be anything past him for much of the country.
But what can you really do? Not voting is beneficial to the open christo fascists, and the only person who has any real world shot at winning an election, for some mind melting reason Joe Biden. The same Joe Biden, who despite his kinda actually not terrible first term, is currently funding a genocide as the wold watches. It’s a shit choice, but this problem isnt going to be fixed this cycle. It’s like punching the clock.
Biden isn’t the only one who could win, and seems to be worse off than a generic dem in swing States, by a long shot. They’re choosing the candidate again, like they did with Hillary, from the ranks of the least popular people in the US. They’re shooting themselves and blaming the left and Muslims in MI already.
But what can you really do?
Not give into cynicism and participate in the democratic process? Democracy isn’t something that you can set and forget, it requires constant attention and participation or it breaks. We are where we’re at because the GOP and big corporations have been carefully engineering widespread burnout in a large percentage of the working class population.
OK? What if Biden wins, is my question. Is the Democrat value-proposition nothing more than “periodic intervals of slightly slower slide into total fascism”?
So, what’s your suggestion then?
Fuck man, I’ve got a lot I guess. Like the kind of shit the Repubs do, but the Dems claim powerlessness to do. Trump has shown that the rule of law only matters if there is some consequence to breaking it. So break the law. Wield the power. Especially if you genuinely feel like this will be the last ever election. Fucking declare an emergency, arrest Trump and everyone else involved in J6. Send the military to reassert power over the national border in Texas. Break up media monopolies, and nationalize telecoms. Why the fuck would you risk losing an election to a criminal gang who want to end democracy?
All those possibilities pretty much went out the window when the Democrats nominated Biden. Even if Biden was as left as we would like him to be, he is a technocrat who sees the norms as vital to maintaining the legitimacy of government.
I don’t even necessarily disagree that maintaining legitimacy is vital, but I’d put representing the people over donors a notch higher than maintaining norms.
I don’t actually think they were ever possibilities. Even if Bernie had won, his own party would have trampled over the repubs in order to impeach him first lol.
I don’t think so. The more people actually hear Bernie speak, the more they like him. He wouldn’t be hiding from the public like Biden, he would be leading rallies on the Whitehouse lawn. If Bernie had access to the bully pulpit, impeaching him would be political suicide.
Your suggestions are very tempting, I must say. We don’t want to sleepwalk into fascism. It could be 1930s Germany all over again.
Trump and many of his gang were arrested already, though, and are facing trial. So far, the verdicts have shown that the justice system is still somewhat functional. I don’t think it makes sense to flip the table as long as the justice system continues to hold Trump and his ilk accountable. Taking it to the next level and declaring an emergency would accomplish what, exactly? He has already been charged, so would the point of the emergency declaration be to skip the trial phase and go straight to hanging? Essentially it means outlawing Trumpism, which means purging the GOP, which means civil war. No one wants civil war as long as there is a chance to beat Trump constitutionally.
We had a situation in Canada in the 90s where our second largest province had a very serious vote on whether to separate from Canada. It would have literally ended the country as we know it. It was certainly tempting to arrest the leaders for treason to save the country. However, that would certainly have led to either a civil war or the Quebecois equivalent of the IRA in Canada. So, we persevered through the vote and the remainers won by about 1%, as I recall. We saved the country by the skin of our teeth, but through legitimate democratic means, and so the result was respected.
Yeah, purge them. As absolutely awful as a civil war would be, I say that it is preferable to risk it now than cordially handing over the reins of power to these clowns from hell. For one, civil war is by no means guaranteed. For all our big talk, most Americans will go along with ‘the program’, whether it’s purges of fascists or purges of minorities. I’m afraid we have to choose one, and I much prefer the former.
I wish I could confidently disagree with you, but I can’t.
The supreme Court is slow-rolling determining whether or not a president is liable for criminal activity in office until after the election. If they determine now, then either trump gets held accountable, or Biden has immunity from crimes in office, and can plainly jail or order a hit on trump and a good chunk of Congress.
Obviously though, the president is not immune from the consequences of crimes committed while in the office.
I just don’t understand how you can believe that the supreme court can’t or won’t just ignore precedent.
A this point, I think Judge Judy has more integrity than the SC. They are gonna do what they were put there to do, give cover for republicans to undermine human rights.
In what way have the Democrats advocated for sliding into fascism? They’re status quo politicians, not wannabe dictators like some other orange person.
Intervals of “status quo” between fascist administrations is slow-walking into full fascism.
Yes, that’s correct. Slower slide means more of a chance to fix it.
Fix it how? Like what’s the plan? Is there a plan?
Democracy cannot be permanently “fixed”, it can only be preserved via endless education and participation.
Literally the only way to “fix” democracy is to participate in it.
OK? How does that happen? Is there a Dem plan to drive democratic engagement, because they obviously haven’t done a good job of it yet. It seems like fear of Repubs is the main selling point to voting Dem, and it isn’t exactly a thrilling strategy.
More people voted for Biden in the 2020 election than any other candidate in American history by a pretty significant margin, voter turnout in both midterms and general elections are at their highest points in 100 years, obviously something is working
No there is a lesser chance. The worse the conditions get for the more support fascism gets.
If Trump does not win this election, an even worse person will win the next one
I agree that it’s frustrating that Democrats use shitty Republicans as an excuse to be just a tiny bit less shitty. However, it’s getting really annoying that you can’t criticize Trump without someone chiming in with “whadabout Biden?!” and you can’t criticize Biden without getting a “whadabout Trump?!”
They’re both fucking awful. It’s a waste of time criticizing Trump because everybody knows who he is, and the people that like him don’t give a fuck what he does. They aren’t listening to your criticism. I’m don’t think Dem leadership really wants to actually help working class people, but they definitely don’t have much reason to start when people keep voting for the most “conservative” ones out of fear from the monsters which have mysteriously found a way to represent the other half of voters.
As far as Democrats go, Biden is amazing. He’s supported Israel no more than Obama or Clinton did. He’s forgiven tens of billions in oppressive student loans. He enacted a funding bill that will finally establish a HSR network in parts of America. He rolled back disastrous Trump era policies on immigration. He fixed Trump’s disastrous COVID response. He re-established relations among NATO countries and was paramount in alerting the world that Russia was about to invade Ukraine when we all knew Trump was trying to weaken their military with his quid pro quo scheme.
In your opinion, how has Biden failed America?
Cricket cricket
…
Blyat
To add to this. Biden has passed significant investments in growing manufacturing jobs in the US the results we won’t really see for years. Planting a tree that he will never enjoy the shade of. He has approved renewable energy projects and initiated much needed improvements to energy transmission so more renewable energy can be in the grid when they are built. Biden has done a lot to advance our infrastructure.
Obama didn’t even openly support gay marriage. I get that as the first black president he didn’t want to give the GOP anything to call “radical”, but Biden is doing so much progressives have been asking for in the past 30 years, it’s very hard for me to not be excited by that.
You know they don’t . Their strategy was, is, and will continue to be: “The other side is worse”.
Yep, and it is a shit strategy.
Just ask about DC statehood and the Dems’ inability to enfranchise over a million US citizens.
As soon as you scratch this problem, you discover how shallow and unserious the party is in “protecting democracy”.
I agree, I’m just trying to get others to see how little “resistance” the Dems pose to the more naked fascism of the Repubs.
I think the case of DC Statehood is an obvious example. Whether we’re talking about Kennedy, Clinton, or Obama, we’re talking about a party that’s deliberately disenfranchised over a million people on their watch.
Because Trump is great for me fundraising and keeping party bigwigs at the trough
The more he loses the less likely he’ll be to win, plus he’s old as hell and not aging gracefully. Rebuking Trumpism is shoring up democracy.
Didn’t we rebuke Trumpism last election? I’m asking why the fuck is Trumpism alternating as the most popular political position for the American electorate. This is an indictment of the political acumen of the Democratic party.
We did but facism will never go away. Before they slunk away but now fascists can connect with each other online. Instead of it being a few people that happen to meet up and connect now they can seek each other out. It’s the same reason that racism has made such a dramatic resurgence. It will literally require eternal vigilance.
Is this how it is in all countries? An eternal choice between “whole fascism” and “skim fascism”?
It’s further ahead in the US but coming elsewhere. Even in parliamentary countries fascism is coming back although since they are not first past the post not as pronounced. As long as the internet is around and there’s no repurcissions for belonging to those groups they will be around.
I am aware. It’s a failure of liberal democracy that fascists are allowed any political quarter.
I don’t think there really can be a plan. Like what would you want Biden to do to shore up democracy?
One of the inescapable, fundamental, bedrock concepts of democracy is that people will not vote for a corrupt, criminal, authoritarian, self serving demagogue.
If a society can’t achieve that basic state then they can not be a democracy.
Honestly, I suspect that the best thing Biden can do is to “grey rock” the American people and hope that Trump self combusts, which seems to be what’s happening.
That said, that’s just the best Biden can do. The dems need an actual leader that can inspire the american people to see a better version of themselves.
Sometimes in life there is such a thing that is called: “Maybe there is no Good Vs. Bad just assholes all around”. Good luck with that
MUST WATCH: Bernie Sanders - Why People Vote For Trump
He’s 100% right on this.
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Man, it’s crazy how similar that sounds to exactly what Biden has been saying all along:
I get your frustration, but this is a good thing. Bernie having the same message only strengthens it, and can convince people that won’t listen to Biden.
We don’t have the luxury of picking allies. If holding my tongue gets us a reluctant ally, I’ll take it. None of us have to like each other. We just need to remember that fascism is the ultimate evil. We may bicker like dwarves and elves, but when the orcs appear, we need to fall lockstep shoulder to shoulder immediately.
Actions speak louder than words. Biden locked in Trump’s $2T tax cuts for the rich and corporations, bringing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. Never mind the open loopholes they exploit to pay virtually nothing anyway. Then, Biden claims he wants to bump up the corporate tax rate to 28%, but can’t, for “reasons.”
What is this halfway corpo-fascist stance? How are we going to pay for that?! By cutting social programs meant to support the working class. Biden is full of shit on this issue, open your eyes.
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If only any of these convenient roadblocks and excuses could have stopped him from repeatedly funding and supporting genocide.
You know it’s congress that writes and approves the national budget, which is how funding gets to Israel?
Biden is overriding Congress to send them hundreds of millions in additional child killing bombs.
Let me be clear - Bernie isn’t in office right now. If he were, he’d have likely come up with some way to deal with these two.
It’s really too bad that Mr Biden couldn’t arrange an audience with President Manchin during this time to figure something out, since Manchin is calling all the shots. At least they got some things accomplished together. Any and all applicable environmental regs be damned.
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fanciful poppycock
lol yeah you’re right, Bernie is too nice to have done anything here either, who am I kidding. Successfully navigating these kind of hurdles is not some impossible feat however, despite what the Biden admin and MSNBC might have you think. Consider how FDR dealt with the Dixiecrats. Could Biden have done more along those lines?
multiple representatives
Since when are voters represented in Washington? If you’re not a donor, you’ve been left out to dry since the 1970s, full stop. The middle class has been eradicated in this country, if it ever even existed to begin with, and Biden has been a central complicit figure in making that happen.
negotiates
Negotiates for what? More drilling, more oil and gas subsidies. And a massive handout for Manchin, who if you believe the pathetic Dem excuses, was the primary reason we couldn’t get anything done after electing Dems into a majority. Again, I call bullshit. Biden doesn’t want to do anything to help the people, and it shows in his actions. idgaf what he reads from his speech writers, I care about what he does.
We got four star basement politician over here.
If everything is so easy, why don’t you run for office?
he’d have likely come up with some way to deal with these two
And everyone would get a pony.
Bernie isn’t in office right now.
Bernie is in office. He is the Chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. And he would not be in this position if the Democratic party had not heard what he is saying and agreed to demand government to perform better for the working class.
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Fuck it. I’ll write in Bernie. /s
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If trump wins and America can’t defeat his senile version of fascism, then it’s already on the death bed waiting for the next republican to take power…
trump is the best authoritarian we’re going to get, he’s easy mode, the republicans will get someone worse, someone who has the ability to think beyond his next shit.
It’s not going to get better only worse…
how were republicans before trump? how was Bush? (i literally have no idea because I was 7 at the time)
Awful, but less transparently corrupt than Trump. And they didn’t have the chutzpah to lie about who won an election.
Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., and Trump are all links in the same chain of shit. If any of them were avoided we’d be much better off as a nation.
Bush was far worse than Trump.
Didn’t know Bush tried to overthrow the government after he lost
Tried? Bush did that.
lol
Bush started multiple wars and killed millions of people by lying about WMD’s and blamed Iraq for doing 9/11 which was done by Afghanistan but actually by Saudis. And Bush passed many spying acts and abolished rights.
Trump bombed Suleimani and withdrew from Afghanistan. That’s it for foreign policy.
Bush was infinitely more worse than Trump. Trump just looked really dumb
trump tried to stage a coup and overthrow the us government…
if 9/11 had happened during trump instead of W, he would’ve dropped nukes.
and here’s him saying as much:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-911-memorial-trump-vows-to-strike-back-with-more-than-nuclear-power-if-us-is-attacked-again/2019/09/11/60b12fec-d49e-11e9-9343-40db57cf6abd_story.html
Sanders is one of the only politicians unworthy of the guillotine.
Bernie is a Genocide defender and wants to keep funding israel even now.
Yes he wants to continue the 3 billion per year and does not want to sanction israel.
These are Bernies’s own words he said in the video I linked above.
Citizens United needs to be removed.
The massive polarisation in the media needs to be addressed and the outright blatant lies told by the Rightwing goons needs to be legally stopped. ‘Free Speech’ my ass. They need to be labelled ‘opinion’ or ‘entertainment’ or something other than pretending to be ‘fair’ or ‘news’.
I think an “equal air time” law that requires that corrections to misinformation and disinformation be provided at the same scope, scale and duration as the offending material. Since Fox news backed down on their dominion case, they ought to reprint every article, rehost every show and re-run every ribbon and banner on all of their platforms for next 3 years, admitting that they lied, linking sources to proof of their lies, and advising everyone that 2020 had no meaningful amounts of voter fraud on either side. Failure to do so should be fined at a rate of 1000 dollars per second of missed remediation time.
Unfortunately the law would’ve never applied to fox news, as it was broadcast only and cable was exempt. But even so nowadays so much of the information sphere is online, through Facebook, Twitter and the thousand different right wing blog news sites that you aren’t really going to be able to stop anything. The American system very dependent on the two parties having a bipartisan consensus. But after a few decades of the right wing media sphere whipping the base into frenzy after frenzy the ‘true believers’ are the ones in government now and the idea of compromise is done for.
The massive polarisation in the media needs to be addressed and the outright blatant lies told by the Rightwing goons needs to be legally stopped. ‘Free Speech’ my ass. They need to be labelled ‘opinion’ or ‘entertainment’ or something other than pretending to be ‘fair’ or ‘news’.
Replace “rightwing goons” with “leftwing commies” and this is exactly Trump’s plan lmao. Do you not see how that is a problem?
What left wing media empire has spread lies so much as to be sued for hundreds of millions of dollars? This is not a two sides issue.
For Trump Left wing commies = literally anyone who disagrees with him
I’m not pushing it as a two sides issue. I haven’t seen anyone in the Democratic establishment advocating for media censorship like this. I’m talking about you, as an individual. You’re not a side.
I’m not advocating ‘censorship’. I’m advocating for standards of truth in news media. Unless it’s laid out as the facts, it’s opinion.
This used to be the case until Murdoch and the GOP changed the law to allow bullshit.
If you’re talking about the fairness doctrine, it required broadcast networks to devote equal time to both sides of controversial issues. It never applied to opinion shows, which are like 2/3rds of the content on 24 hour cable news networks, and it never applied to cable. You could bring it back tomorrow and it wouldn’t change anything about Fox News.
There is not, nor has there ever been, a legal ‘standard of truth’ for news media. There shouldn’t be. If you trust the government to decide what is true and punish the media for reporting otherwise, what’s to stop trump or the next trump from weaponizing that? That is why the first amendment exists.
I was proud to vote for Bernie in the 2016 and 2020 primaries, but I bit the bullet and phone banked for Biden even though he was far from my first choice. There’s way too much at stake here.
We don’t have much of a democracy as things stand considering the average person doesn’t influence policy lol. If all hope is on Biden clutching it out then we better brace for the end. Dems had 4 years to plan ahead.
What sort of plan do you think an incumbent president who has actually been doing policy should adopt?
We did plan ahead, I’m sorry you don’t like what we planned but you were also fully welcome to participate in the process the entire time.
If becoming less popular than when you beat Trump and enabling genocide is planning ahead, then I guess it is over.
The same process that locked Bernie out?
The same one where biden literally promised he would be a one term president but now has turned around and is running again and there is no democratic challenger?
Damn you suck at planning lmao
“Republicans are going to end democracy”
“Why would Joe Biden do this to us??”
This.
Funny how many comments just went poof! Gone! So this place is basically /r/politics now? Mods smoking out every opinion they don’t like?
Funny thing is, the deleted comments were from liberals, not raging conservatives spewing bile and lies. Must not have passed the purity test.
Funny how many comments just went poof!
Are they in the mod log? The link is at the bottom of each page.
Lmao, I gave it a quick glance and saw the most recent person I blocked for being an angry asshole get unblocked and then reblocked from an instance within a minute
The one who’s banned for the next 19 years?
Lol yep, thats the guy
Is there a way to filter by post? It’s hard to find anything when it’s everything from all communities.
When you click on the “Modlog” link it’ll show you the filtering options that are available.
Or maybe the mods are actually moderating by cutting out the off-topic arguments and BS threads that don’t contribute anything to the overall discourse of the discussion.
I can imagine most of the comments were 14yo’s and trolls saying GeNoCiDe JoE hUrRrR
So this place is basically /r/politics now?
👨🚀🔫👨🚀
So what do you think that means for mod bias if they’re deleting “liberal” comments on a platform that is largely home to leftists?
My thoughts exactly. Why is it that these “politics” sites just end up going completely Left? Is this “politics” or “Democrat Politics?” I get confused… apparently, the Right isn’t allowed to have an opinion any where anymore…
You’re allowed to have an opinion and we’re allowed to tell you that your opinion sucks
Does the right still have anything left to say that isn’t hate speech? The entire conservative economic schtick has failed the reality test so badly that most conservatives don’t even want to talk about it anymore. It’s all border wall nonsense, election denial, and reactionary isolationism now, and that’s the saner half of conservatism.
Yes. I’m Mexican American, family came here from Mexico, legally in the 50’s. Worked hard, and established a great life. We were raised in a strict Catholic household, so, ideally, my family always votes Republican. This doesn’t make us horrible people. We simply believe in different things than Liberals/Democrats. However, I’m also a firm believer in Gay Rights, Abortion, and social programs. But, I think there needs to be limits, rules, and restrictions on a lot of that stuff. That’s where most of my political beliefs start to lean more Right. Sounds like you’re just profiling based on what you read on Reddit and Lemmy. That’s like me saying all Democrats and Liberals are anti-gun, anti-religion, and hate white people We know that’s not true.
We were raised in a strict Catholic household, so, ideally, my family always votes Republican.
Political parties are not like sports teams and you aren’t required to vote for a particular party just because you were born into it. Anyways, there is no correlation between being Catholic and voting for Republicans. Also, Biden is Catholic, and Trump is not - just in case you think that’s relevant.
This doesn’t make us horrible people.
I never said anything about you being horrible. My comments were directed at the current state of Republican policy and rhetoric, not the personal character of Republican voters.
I’m also a firm believer in Gay Rights, Abortion, and social programs.
Your Pope is also a firm believer in social programs. He doesn’t support Gay Rights and Abortion, but he takes a very different stance on them than Republicans.
But, I think there needs to be limits, rules, and restrictions on a lot of that stuff.
So do Democrats. I’ve noticed this tendency for people on the right to make these kinds of sweeping statements that sound like fundamental policy positions but are really so meaningless that anybody could say they support them. “I believe in small government.” “I am against excessive regulation.” etc. No real point there, I just find it interesting.
The biggest curtailment of the welfare state in the least 100 years came from the Clinton administration. Obama’s biggest safety net accomplishment was Obamacare, which was originally a plan from the extremely right wing Heritage Foundation.
You’re just profiling based on what you read on Reddit and Lemmy.
No, I’m really not. Again, my comments were on the current state of Republican policy and rhetoric, so “profiling” doesn’t come into it. This goes back to my point about sports teams. My observations are also based on what I see coming out of Republican politicians and media figures. Conservatives on Lemmy, and especially Reddit tend to keep largely to their own insulated communities, and I don’t often visit.
Pray tell, these opinions of yours that you’re afraid of sharing publicly?
I think there should be limits and restrictions on social programs. I believe in tough on crime, funding more police, not less. I believe that we should be allowed to question the billions being sent to Ukraine, without being told we’re traitors and spineless. The Republicans are the ones trying to limit the amount of money we send all over the world, and for some reason, this makes them the party of the “bad guys.” I’m against many ultra liberal views, like allowing petty theft to go unpunished, allowing the homeless crisis to grow in California because apparently, it’s “not their fault.”
Oh I got it. You’re a moron who can’t bother to rub his last two braincells together.
Spotted the tolerant liberal!
Democrats are not left.
By supporting a different Republican, how hard is it? In many states you can even vote in the primary of a party you’re not part of, people think it’s beneath them to pick a candidate of the party they dislike whose agenda is least-unlikable. There’s no law preventing you from switching parties on a whim.
Cue*: “this is the most important election of our lifetime”
*Cue
He meant, queue up to cast your vote!
I like the insinuation that the US is an actual “democracy” lmao
If we do an election and the wrong candidate wins, the democracy goes away.
So you can’t vote for the wrong candidate.
And also, you can’t vote for a third-party candidate.
And also, you can’t abstain from voting.
So, really, you have exactly one choice that you’re allowed to make.
Democracy!
but “allowed” is not accurate. you’re allowed to do any of those things. it’s just that all of them blow, and one blows less.
oof. perception +20
Also, unless you live in a specific set of states, your vote is effectively meaningless!
There’s downticket stuff and that shouldn’t be ignored.
At the same time, we get meager media coverage of the downticket races so its very difficult to discern who is good and who sucks unless you’ve got an in-group to turn to. I like to pretend I’m active in Dem circles, but I’ll be damned if I know who to vote for on my state senate seat much less all the judiciary races. The one guy I liked to primary out the loathsome Liz Fletcher turned out to be a serial sexual harasser.
But yeah, pretending my vote in Texas will swing the national election is absurd. And then trying to tie that national election vote back to “Oh no, democracy is ending if you don’t vote for my guy!” is even fucking dumber.
Oklahoma has very limited down ticket options. I get to choose whether I want to vote for people who call people like me “filth” or well meaning people that’ll burn out and move away after they lose.
And also, you can’t abstain from voting.
[Citation required.]
We could actually improve our democracy by making voting mandatory.
We’d get a better representation of how all of the voting-age population feels.
Then maybe we can get politicians that support more thorough voting system reform.
you’re right, now that i think about it—as long as gerrymandering gets banned at the same time. because guess who doesn’t want most folks to vote? the R party. you know, the one that wants to rule, not govern.
We could actually improve our democracy by making voting mandatory.
In Australia, we’ve tried that. I have to say, that I personally, am not a fan.
The consequences of forcing politically ignorant or complacent people to vote is that they end up deciding the result of the election, and you just get skilled used car salesmen as your politicians. They know all the buzzwords and three word slogans to keep the politically apathetic tuned in.
we get that now tho…
We could actually improve our democracy by making voting mandatory.
Over the decades the discussion has been had about if voting should be mandatory or not.
It always came down to it should not be, because people would just do bullshit voting if forced to do so, they wouldn’t put the effort or the ethics in to vote responsibly.
i’d say it’s largely, tho not completely, a de facto oligarchy now.
It never was, or was ever meant to be, an actual “democracy”. Imperial core countries’ political systems only serve to protect capital and imperialism, with a thin veneer of “democracy” to discourage uprising and two parties to divide the working class.
It is for anything besides president. That’s the sad part.
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… which, if you really feel that way, is exactly why we need to implement more democratic and efficient voting systems, like ranked choice (instant runoff),, STAR, approval, etc.
As American political systems are today, the only viable candidates to win the presidency in 2024 are Joe Biden (a well-meaning, old white man) and Donald Trump (old white narcissistic Putin-loving vindictive criminal rapist who doesn’t care for democracy and can’t remember his wife’s name).
I’ll be voting for Biden because even if you really believe he’s “evil”, he’s certainly the far lesser evil than Trump (for the reasons listed above and then some).
I’m not going to hold it against Biden for being old and white. All for moving toward equality but I’d be willing to give anyone a chance if they have some ideas (like an actual platform) and some drive to make some positive change. It’s more the fact that Biden seems slightly demented and acts like a prototypical old white man stereotype that worries me. Of course I’m not even going to talk about the alternative though, the choice should be simple here given the options but it’s a depressing choice either way.
Ah both sides BS again.
Also correct.
What fuckin crazypants logic is this
“Well what I have is way far away from what I want, so what’s the point in choosing the clearly better alternative”
As applied to this particular election, this is like saying “I want to climb this mountain, but the hill in front of me isn’t where I want to get to, it’s like thousands of feet lower than the summit, so what’s the difference if I jump into this ravine filled with lava instead”
Also what happened to that video call where you offered to prove that you were who you say you are? Not a right-wing shill posting anti-Biden things to discourage Democrats from voting?
It’s not crazy, it’s true. Trump wants a full on fascist system, there’s no denying it. But we definitely don’t have a democracy. Corporations and billionaires run the country. That’s not even touching on the fact that most democrats don’t want Biden for a second term, but the DNC is going to force it on us anyway.
That’s not even touching on the fact that most democrats don’t want Biden for a second term, but the DNC is going to force it on us anyway.
Well, you might say that, but when Biden is winning with >90% as a write-in candidate in primaries where he isn’t even on the ballot, it’s a little bit hard to take it seriously.
There is no serious or viable candidate challenging Biden from the left in 2024, which is why Bernie is out here endorsing him. To pragmatic socialists like Bernie, electing Biden isn’t the destination, but the next necessary step to keeping the country on the right path and defending against an existential threat to our democracy. Don’t take it from me though, read what he’s been saying.
I decided you’re obsessed with me and I don’t want to doxx myself by giving you my contact info. Go through my reddit history if you want. I’m not a right winger. Same username as here
Would you say you’re obsessed with Biden, and how it’s important for people not to vote for him in this election? You post about him way more than I engage with your stuff. And yes, I still think it’s sus for a couple of different reasons. That’s not obsessive, any more than noting from time to time “yo you should be aware, that dude at the bus stop seems like he’s acting weird” is obsessing over that dude at the bus stop.
Not doing anything to “prove” who you are seems perfectly reasonable, of course. You were the one who suggested that somewhat odd idea, and then fell silent when I said, sure sounds good, I am curious. But by all means, you do you, keep your privacy, that seems better.
Also, saying you can’t be a shill because you had an account on Reddit is like saying “I can’t have sand on me, I live at the beach.”
Ah yes, I’m such a right wing shill that I posted an article titled… ‘It will be the end of democracy’: Bernie Sanders on what happens if Trump wins – and how to stop him
Everybody should be critical of our politicians. Hold their feet to the fire. Always.
Critical is one thing – I actually was convinced recently by Ezra Klein’s editorial and Jon Stewart’s episode that there are significant reasons to try to put someone other than Biden up in the general election. Why is that? Because they made serious, sensible arguments and seemed genuinely concerned about the future of the country. They didn’t say grossly irresponsible things like that there’s no difference between Trump and Biden, or give reasons people shouldn’t vote in the election. They actually expressed the urgency of what’s going to happen in this election as a key reason why it’s important to take problems with Biden seriously.
If you were posting things coming at it from that perspective, I’d have no reason to be suspicious of your motives in posting this stuff.
Ah yes, I’m such a right wing shill that I posted an article titled
Yes, your MO seems to be a certain percent generically left-wing things, sort of the minimum required to maintain a fig-leaf of general political interest outside of your clear agenda, combined with a heavy percentage of just pure single-issue anti-Biden propaganda. Your most recent 10 articles show the ratio at 30%/70%. The fact that this is one of the 30% doesn’t excuse the 70%, to me.
I do try to post negative Trump articles too but then have to delete them as it’s a duplicate post already. The sub, or whatever they’re called, already has the anti-Trump articles on lock.
“If the majority of people disagree with me, there is no democracy!”
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Yeah, it’s not fun. When the idiots vote to fly the plane instead of the dreaded experts, it is definitely stupid, but it is also democratic.
I’m just gonna stop replying to political stuff because I start to care, and then I get depressed.
Best of luck everybody.
Yeah. Can’t blame you.
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I’m writing in “free Palestine” for president this November thanks to this comment condescending about it
Why even bother going to the polls then?
initives
“Wow, someone online pointed out that the majority of people supporting two shitty candidates is still democracy! Because of that, I’m gonna do my best to make sure the guy who wants MORE genocide gets in office! That’ll really help anyone who isn’t a rich cis white conservative Christian male!”
We’re headed that direction anyways thanks to people like you
No, it’s people like you who will cause Trump to win. Not the DNC, but people who stupidly throw away their votes or vote Trumpnjust out of spite.
You’re either a shill or completely naive on how the world works.
it was hillary clinton’s primary voters in 2016 and Biden’s in 2020
Here’s the reality - it’s been 171 years since we’ve last seen a third party take presidency.
I repeat - 171 years! If you’re still foolish to think that this year is the year or foolish then to think that 2020 and 2016 were the years for the Independent Party. All that you’re doing is just wasting effort and time going out in the voter’s booth and voting Independent just for a self-pat on the back.
Who’s arguing about the viability of third-party candidates? Your comment is a non sequitur.
Did you just charge in to try and sound smart by using a big word and asking a dumb question at the same time?
The fuck out of here, moron.
Which of those words would you consider “smart sounding” or “big”?
“All of them”
- That idiot
I’ll add that the only, and i’ll say it again, ONLY, viable path to 3rd party success in this country is through more democratic voting system reforms. (ranked-choice, STAR, approval, etc.)
Anyone who doesn’t understand this is either ignorant, stupid, or playing dumb for sophistry and manipulation’s sake.
