“The choice is between two terrible people. One is actively trying to kill me and the other doesn’t care if I die.” --A old post I’m unable to find but truly sums up american politics.
Damn. Too real.
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It’s not like that’s any different from any other presidential election we’ve had though. Kind of negates the impact of this poll…
But if you have to choose between a shit sandwich or a shit sandwich with glass… obviously hold the glass, right?
To be fair, I didn’t want Biden the first time either. He just happened to be not Trump. I’ll vote Biden again, but I’m not pleased those are my only (real) options. We really need ranked choice voting here in the US…
No one wanted Biden in 2008 either. In 2020 the media kept saying he was the front runner with no evidence to support that… He was behind in polls and if he didn’t win the South Carolina primary he would have dropped out. Everyone would have moved on to Buttigieg or Bernie.
Now we’re essentially in the same place we were in in 2016…
“Who are you excited for?”
“Neither of them.”
there’s candidates running that support ranked choice voting. why not vote for them?
Such is the abject failure of most voting systems in use that if you vote for a candidate who has no chance of winning, you’re effectively making it easier for one of the two big candidates to win.
It’s the same in the UK and I hate it.
You may as well vote for the ranked ballot itself…
I’d vote for an actual potted plant over trump. At least the potted plant hasn’t committed massive fraud, stochastic terrorism, election fraud, attempted coups, been twice impeached, repeatedly bankrupted, and is a fascist to boot.
I mean seriously… We don’t have ANY better and more qualified candidates in our 331.9 million citizens? Really?
Sure we do. That apparently has nothing to do with what the parties decide to do.
I’ve been saying that, with varying levels of disbelief, for decades.
Yes. But are they rich?
More qualified, yes.
Able to win the primaries of the two political parties that people will vote for, no.
The problem is the voting system. You can vote for the orange idiot and never vote again or vote for the other guy and live longer.
It’s funny how we all forget that JB ran as a “place holder” candidate to begin with and said he had no desire or intention to run for a second term. The thought was that by now one of the other primary candidates (Klobachar, Harris and Buttigieg) would have gotten tapped and run on Biden’s behest. There was clearly a king maker deal cut so that they would all drop out and throw their support behind him to cut off Sanders momentum. They combined this with a media “bombshell” that Clyburn backed Biden over Sanders, after telegraphing support for Sanders previously. This combination of factors was snowballed into a media blitz that never let up and pushed Biden to the top seemingly by just repeating itself ad nauseam.
Still though, the tap for the next in line never came and the old guard stays in place again just by merely having a pulse. Dems have once again squandered full control and couldn’t cobble together any protections from a clear and present danger in radicalized right political zealots. We could all argue about the spoilers and that we couldn’t re-do the filibuster but I’m sure a couple million could have been back channeled to make that happen. They didn’t want it to.
At the knifes edge is exactly where they want us to be and they will take full fascism over even moderate movement toward actual implemented progressive policy. Now they will tell you up and down that they want things like student loan forgiveness or clean energy policy with teeth, but they will never implement it in a way that ensures it’s survival. It’s just platitudes that are built to fail and “vote for us harder and we’ll get it done next time.”
I’m so tired of this political system where we’ve been held hostage for the better part of 2 decades. All the while our hopes for a meaningful America just slips further by and we’re powerless to stop it. The only option we’re presented is to press a pause button for 4 years so that we can have permission to feel ok until the election starts again in 2 years. I would take a rouge sentient AI resting control of the country and threatening our nuclear destruction, unless we do as were told, over this. At least then it would probably make at least some meaningful strides to correcting the course of our nihilistic self destruction.
Dems have once again squandered full control and couldn’t cobble together any protections from a clear and present danger in radicalized right political zealots.
The mistake lies in thinking that they want to. One can believe they are bumbling fools who trip over their own feet for only so many generations before it becomes apparent that the agenda they somehow fail to foil over and over again is actually one that they wholeheartedly embrace themselves, too.
Honestly I think it’s all the neo-liberal echos of Reagan. Something broke in the minds of Dem strategists and politicians when he so handily swept the entire country. For them it was a sign that the waters were rich if they could just wiggle a little more to the right economically and shake off the remaining vestigial support of Keynesian economics. Once both parties saw that you could feast on the corpse of America for decades without having to deliver anything outside of photo ops and being likable that was it.
Maybe it’s all just that thing where people look back on George Bush and say they’d want to have a beer with him. It’s identity politics and we’re made to look through a prism at these people and see how our personalities would intertwine with theirs. I think we need to find a way to start trusting the boring and awkward candidates, or forcing our boring awkward friends to run for office. We need politicians who are visibly uncomfortable speaking at a podium.
You’re right. The cereal can only be “Oops, all berries” so many times before you know that machine was built to only make berries and lie about it.
Maybe. The Democrats had already spent decades helping to kill the labor movement, build up the carceral state, and rampage across the world in imperial war-making prior to Reagan. So while he may have been a catalyst for further open embrace of reactionary ideology (see: Clinton), I can’t quite buy that he was the absolute beginning of it.
To quote Douglas Adams
it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it. To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
That’s not a fair assessment. The Democrats have not had a solid majority in both houses of Congress and the presidency at the same time in a long time. Other than the promises they make, there is very little evidence of what they would do if there wasn’t any Republican obstruction to stop them. They could very well do everything they say they’ll do, for all we know.
As for Sanders, I’m not inclined to believe conspiracy theories about him. Look around you; this country is thoroughly right-wing. The vast majority of Americans are reflexively suspicious of avowed leftists like Sanders. He was never going to win the presidential primary, with or without shenanigans.
I believe it to be a fair assessment, and not because of my feelings or desire for change, but simply because I (and apparently some others further up this thread) saw basically the same thing happen.
I’ve worked closely enough to the Dem party/staffers/organizers that I’ve seen the same pandering play out locally, statewide and nationally in much the same way. It’s mainly about playing ball to keep your funding streams up and to fill your little black book for the next cycles war chest. Certainly, some politicians are more genuine than others in the party but for the majority politics comes to be little more than moves to jostle purse strings from PACs, donors and the party itself. At the end of the day there’s endless things that Dems could be doing to fight back against the takeovers of state level governments, school boards, appointee positions and the like, but they aren’t.
We can say “but we’re the one’s who fight the good fight” but there’s no keeping the genie in the bottle on the GOP side and Biden should have pushed his powers to the limit to gain every protection or have the courts limit his and future presidents power as a guardrail.
There certainly is always a narrative around these events, but Sanders was consistently polling as the most well liked politician in America for years around that time. There’s no conspiracy around the ways that coverage began slanting as standings solidified, and every other contender in the race threw their support behind Biden (including Warren, which left everyone scratching their head.) Here’s another article about MSNBC. If your actually interested that one has all of the measured instances laid out in google docs you can look at. I don’t know any people alleging that the votes were manipulated in terms of ballot stuffing or anything, so if you mean that by conspiracy then I’d have to agree with you there.
Your assessment of political leanings in America also seems to be very skewed and there’s a graph there that shows Dem/left sentiment at its highest point since 2008 during those primaries. Although it does seem to be ticking back conservative, but when Joe Biden still chooses to punch left on dem socialists after a failed insurrection that’s not much of a surprise.
Your opinions lean pretty heavily on the findings of pollsters. 2016 taught us all not to listen to pollsters. Only the actual elections paint an accurate picture of US politics, and, well, there are still plenty of Republicans in office.
As for left sentiment being at its highest point since 2008, don’t expect that to last. The economy is in the tank now, and people tend to vote hard right when they’re hurting for money. They are of course exceedingly unwise to expect Republicans to solve their financial problems, but that’s American voters for you.
LOL, no they don’t? Your rehashed conclusion is:
- “after 2016 all polls are wrong because Hillary lost” K…
- “only elections show the outcome of elections” how is that relevant at all to the main point of opinion manipulation by the media?
- The 2008 part you reference incorrectly because you didn’t understand the context and clearly couldn’t trouble yourself with looking at any of the supporting material I provided.
- Funnily you re-support the conclusion I came to and say that American voters can be easily swayed, despite what might be in their best interests. <—Proving my point
Overall, you’ve wasted both our time and shown that you don’t really want to discuss anything in good faith.
Sweet. That’s a wrap for me.
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I don’t see how this is a particularly meaningful finding. Republicans hate Biden, and Democrats loathe Trump, so it’s unlikely ANYONE on either side would be hoping for a rematch.
My hot take:
Biden has been the best President we’ve had in 30 years.
He’s exactly who we needed when we got him. He got us out of Afghanistan. As much as a debacle as it was, he not Trump and not Obama pulled us out. His deft handling of the Ukrainian conflict where he used soft-power and influence to let the EU and NATO members come to decision to enact the super harsh sanctions themselves. Knowing that if the US pressed, they’d resist. It had to be their decision. He’s continued to say and do all of the right things. His attempt to forgive student loans his huge. Some of the measures worked even if all of them didn’t. He got the most meaningful infrastructure bill passed that I’ve ever witness. Neither Trump nor Obama could make it happen and Biden did it with a split Congress That infrastructure bill was also the most meaningful environment legislation that we’ve ever had That bill also paves the way for significant investment in our broad-band across the country Passed the Safer Communities Act …actual gun related legislation since the Brady bill. Again, with a split congress. Gave us our first public defender SCOTUS justice. This might not seem like a big deal but I think its pretty significant given the amount of case law that exists that, so far, hasn’t had a public defenders ‘say’ in it.
I could go on but I gotta go eat dinner.
People want to shit on Biden, but I actually like him. He’s not perfect, but he’s been insanely effective given everything he walked in to. Including him diligently and quietly rebolstering the executive branches that were gutted and had people leaving in droves in the last admin. Eg the Department of State. He’s assigned quality folks into key roles and its making a difference.
I voted for him without hesitation because well, the alternative was terrifying, but I was not expecting much from him at all. He’s surprised me.
edit: I literally can’t figure out how to make this a list. Sorry for the wordblob.
I somewhat agree. He’s probably been the best President in the last 30 years but it’s a real low bar. He’s done the bare minimum I would expect a sitting president to actually do. Obama was a disappointment but he got the monster that is healthcare on a decent start. Too bad Trump absolutely gutted it. Should have been made with more longevity but frankly, the real people to blame are solely the Republicans.
That said Biden for a second term isn’t what I want. I barely wanted him for a first term but again, better than the literal reversal of human rights. He’s probably the best president we could have gotten but he’s still a corporate democrat pushing corporate greed. Republicans are the real reason we can’t make any progress in that regard because we have the choice between literal treasonous assholes who diminish human rights for anyone non-white non-male at any costs or we have corporate greed-pushing democrats that just want to keep the ship upright enough to keep making money.
I don’t have a lot of faith in the 2024 election but I know I’ll be voting for whomever the Democrats push forward because no one in their right mind wants the alternative.
Very well argued. This is quite unrelated but just out of interest, how realistic do you see constitutional reform in the US? Because to me as an outsider, that seems to me to be what US politics sorely needs rn. Is there appetite for it among the electorate? Among the Dems? Could it be conceivably carried out?
I suspect most don’t even want to see a Biden vs Anyone or an Anyone Vs. Trump election.
That’s exactly what the article says.
I’d also prefer Trump’s name never be on a ballot.
Biden has done a better job than I expected, but he should clearly retire. I think this is a huge, and almost necessary opportunity for Democrats. Incumbents are way more likely to get reelected. Since Trump has pissed off too many people, and he’ll sabotage any other front runners for his party.
Wouldn’t it make sense to get someone younger and a little bolder in now for the Dema? They have a very strong likelihood to win this round, and then they’ll be the incumbents next term. We could finally replace some garbage supreme court members.
Yeah. I don’t know why the Dems aren’t running someone younger…
I wasn’t thrilled about Biden either, but I think Biden handled negotiations with Europe for Ukraine very well.
But yeah, I get jealous every time I look at other countries’ leadership and see how young they are…
Statistically, an incumbent has a huge advantage right out of the gate. Not to mention Biden could splinter the vote which is the worst scenario for a party that holds the seat. I don’t like it either, but Bidens low drama, non-world-ending and still-not-trump platform is the dems safest bet.
It’d be easier if he picked a less boring running mate; maybe he could lure in somebody who’d otherwise be inclined to wait for 2028 - Whitmer, say - with a secret promise to resign halfway through his term. (which I hope he plans to do anyway, though he obviously can’t publicize that fact)
I agree! To clarify, what I meant was that I was disappointed that Dems, including Biden, aren’t backing someone younger. Whatever happened to uplifting the next generation?
because there isn’t anyone in the party with national name recognition who’d get wide spread support and who is acceptable to the corporate democrats.
Biden was a holdover from the Obama brand. People liked Obama.
Can we have a president like Jacinda Ardern? (Only lasting longer?)
I would love that!
I also think it’s a strength that she chose to step down after seeing NZ through a difficult time. We need more leaders who prioritize their mental health and family instead of power.
This would go against Dem’s #1 policy: self-sabotage.
Because Democrats love losing. This is literally something that has been seen time and time again. They make more money through fundraising when they’re in the minority. They care about nothing but capital.
Those same Americans will just ignore that there are other candidates and it’ll be yet another presidential election where 49% of voters claim that they don’t really support the person they vote for, and that you have to do the same as a moral imperative.
And, as it’s been since Reagan, no matter who we elect we’ll only get conservative outcomes.
and that you have to do the same as a moral imperative
Railing against this fact doesn’t magically make it untrue. Not voting for the lesser evil means you don’t care which evil wins. If you legitimately think GOP rule isn’t any worse than Dem rule, then by all means don’t vote or vote third party. But if you think Christian fascism + neoliberalism is worse than just neoliberalism, then once the primaries are over you need to vote accordingly. Voter disenfranchisement is an age-old tactic you’re comment is falling right into.
And I say this all as a market socialist, so don’t for a second think I like the Dems
so don’t for a second think I like the Dems
I’d hope you wouldn’t. On any issue that matters to their voters they’re effectively no different than Republicans. The minimum wage/living wages, housing scarcity, war (and endless funding for it), cost-prohibitive education and health care, equality for queer people, militarization of police, fascism (or ignoring it), gun control, and oddly, we can now add abortion to the list after their response to Roe repeal was to fundraise. (Even though they had control of Congress and the presidency.) They did make a cool 80 million, though, so that’s something: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/democrats-pull-in-80-million-following-supreme-court-ruling-on-roe
I can’t convince myself that voting Democrat is a moral action anymore. That they say nicer things doesn’t matter much when they’re voting records and policies are conservative and regressive. Republicans may stab me in the back but Democrats stab me in the front.
I need more than pretty speeches and broken promises, and really, so does this country.
You’re not voting for Dems, you’re voting to keep Reps out. “My vote won’t help things appreciably progress so instead I’m gonna let things deteriorate” is the argument you’re making. People’s rights are getting stripped because of this kind of apathy
You’re not voting for Dems, you’re voting to keep Reps out
This is what I have to keep telling myself, especially with how utterly feckless Dems have been, and how completely uninterested they are in trying to make things better. Repubs are well on their way in turning this country into a fascist dictatorship, and any roadblock is better than nothing. It’s infuriating and I despise the fact that I voted for Hillary or Biden. But I just have to keep reminding myself it wasn’t a vote for them, it was a vote against Trump.
I really wish we had people we could vote for instead of only focusing on who we have to vote against, but here we are
I really wish we had people we could vote for instead of only focusing on who we have to vote against, but here we are
an important step toward this, if you want something actionable to do, is advocating for voting reform. pretty much any reform away from FPTP will do at this point, although personally i’m partial to working toward mixed-member proportional representation. the organization FairVote prefers RCV; STAR Voting and Equal Vote are both orgs that prefer STAR voting for starter orgs in this space. as far as recent switches to novel systems: Fargo and St. Louis have recently switched to approval voting!
I really wish we had people we could vote for instead of only focusing on who we have to vote against, but here we are
Agreed, and the way I’ve come to view it is that federal elections aren’t ever going to be making huge waves. It’s a representation of what the system is already moving towards and expecting monumental changes here is unrealistic. Local and state elections, however, is where we can push for legitimate change that eventually cascades up to the federal level. E.g. we need to reach a critical mass of state and local places using alternative voting systems before we have enough momentum to force it at the federal level, since the entrenched parties don’t want it.
Respectfully, you just watched women lose the right to abortion a year ago when Democrats had the presidency and control of Congress. Their response was to use it to raise money, not act in any way to stop it or create positive change.
There are so many more examples of this too.
You voted for deterioration.
I’m not sure if you’re just ignorant of the topics you’re bringing up or are actually being disingenuous, but I’m going to act as if you’re being genuine for the sake of other people reading this.
Women lost abortion because R senators fucked with the system while Obama was in office and then pushed another SCOTUS appointment through while Trump was in office. Repealing RvW had literally nothing to do with who was sitting in the oval office and everything to do with Rs abusing the lack of a D supermajority to put corrupt judges on the SCOTUS. With that knowledge taken into consideration here, your argument boils down to “Rs abused the system while a minority and Ds didnt have a supermajority to stop it, therefore I don’t care if Rs gain a majority. Things couldn’t be done to stop the abusers before so idc if the abusers get more power.”
I voted against the US moving towards A Handmaid’s Tale; you’re arguing for who cares if it moves towards A Handmaid’s Tale
Women lost the right to abortion, because of the previous administrations actions and ability to install judges to the federal courts, at all levels, but specifically at the SCOTUS level. Though it alsorequired that cases make it through the federal courts too.
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@storksforlegs @alongwaysgone Have you tried murdering the gays?
@storksforlegs @alongwaysgone Should it be ok to execute gay people? I think so
@alongwaysgone @FlashMobOfOne Women belong in the kitchen
Here’s the trick, if you keep voting dem, you will keep getting worse, Republicans. It’s a cycle that cannot be fixed by voting for the democratic party. The reality is action beyond voting is necessary. But if voting is all we have, then the only path is to attempt to vote for something else, even if it means losing, because losing will happen anyway. The future Republicans will be worse, and the delay by a few years will be moot.
Here’s the trick, if you keep voting dem, you will keep getting worse, Republicans
Completely nonsensical. Republicans have gotten worse because their bid to court the south and unite all Christian denominations under abortion was successful. It’s completely independent from Dems.
The reality is that voting for Dems in federal elections is currently the only option available for fighting Christian nationalists getting voted into federal office. Other options are much more available at the state and local levels
But if voting is all we have, then the only path is to attempt to vote for something else, even if it means losing, because losing will happen anyway.
Yea sorry to burst your bubble but I’m not interested in helping fascists takeover the country. This kind of accelerationist argument only helps the people trying to keep pushing the Overton window to the right. It’s another form of disenfranchisement
Perhaps it’s not an outright positive/negative moral action, but I’d call it a moral action in the same way the trolley problem is.
You’re a dumbass, democrats have passed tons of legislation to make things better. People just don’t pay attention to it because it’s not exciting.
Or because, like I said, they can’t afford to live, so it doesn’t seem like much to them.
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Your argument is that you’re mad that a political party fundraises and therfore you’ll continue to support conditions that allow fascism to grow?
I mean the gop does the same thing except they also actively take away rights and stoke an environment of stochastic terrorism so…
No.
My argument is that the two parties are functionally the same. You’re voting for fascism no matter which lever you pull. The difference is between perpetrator and collaborator.
This is a ludicrous assessment.
How is a vote for Biden a vote for facsism?
Edit: Sorry, let me clarify. I read your previous remarks. I agree that the democrats (the corporate centrist wing) are more concerned with fundraising and corporate lobbying, doing the neo-liberal bare minimum. You are correct.
But you realize that by sitting out this election you are helping to elect literal authoritarian fascists, yes? Which is worse than shitty neoliberals by a very wide margin.
I appreciate your opinion. I’ve outlined why I feel that way further up in the thread.
You’re a useful idiot for the republicans.
‘Historic’ number of people don’t want this thing happening for the first time to happen.
Wow, such history!
Hopefully Desantis and Trump spend much of their money, time, and effort shitting all over one another to lessen the chance of fascist scum finding their way back into the Whitehouse.
I cannot wait until FatDonnie goes to jail. HAHAHAHAHAHA
i’m going to remove this because surely we can think of better ways to attack and critique Donald Trump than calling him fat. also just generally i would advise people steer away from this line of insults—there is a 99% chance the only people you’re actually impacting when you say things like this are normal, non-odious people
And then runs for Presidency from jail and wins?
Because he might. The US is that fucked up.
That damn Cheeto chimp better be in jail and disqualified. Pure insanity.
He’s going to run from jail on the hope he can pardon himself. Guaranteed. (If he even sees jail, which he likely won’t because of the requirement for SS protection)
Being in jail does not disqualify him, unfortunately. Only an impeachment would do that, and Republicans would stand fast against that.
Life is only getting worse for pretty much everyone, all the time, so yeah, that makes sense.
There’s gotta be some better people out there right?
Cornel West is running.
Dude is legit, I’d vote for him.
I want Buttigieg to run
marianne williamson is running
they said better
there aren’t.
if there was one you’d know their name. you can’t name anyone though.
