Conservatives joke that progressives just blow with the wind from one controversy to the next. But I can’t help but notice the anti-Biden “left” shifted hard from Genocide Joe to Bad debate Performance without skipping a beat or looking back.
Almost like the people stoking these fires don’t really care about left issues at all.
Not a tankie. I don’t want the US to collapse and burn, that’s going to end badly for a lot of people. I want us to reform and do better, though I’m now convinced that that’s not going to happen. I point this stuff out because I don’t think Biden can win. I didn’t think he could win last time, in all fairness, but he was and is a weak candidate, whose only shot lies in the democrats making the gamble that his opponent is weaker, which is kind of a stupid gamble to make imo. I don’t want Trump to win, I want the democrats to hit the republicans like a run away steam engine and smash this fascist bullshit into the dirt. I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN FOR RONALD REAGAN’S GRAVE TO BELCH BLACK SMOKE FOR A WEEK STRAIGHT THIS NOVEMBER. Instead we’re gambling if the guy who would have got sent home from being a Wal-Mart greeter with his debate performance can beat the guy who wants to hold military tribunals for political opposition. When Biden loses, I’m going to skullfuck the first Democrat who high-mindedly tells me this is really the fault of people not voting for their guy. No shit, do you want a gold star for that? Turns out when people don’t vote for candidates, they don’t win, whoda thunk it? Apparently not the goddamn DNC, since they keep seeing the ever-lowering RNC bar as an excuse to run correspondingly worse candidates each year instead of running a rock star that would shatter the Republicans. OH, what’s that, the republicans have opened a portal to Hell and are running just Hitler and Charlie Manson for their ticket? Oh boy, Joe Biden might be too far left to win against that, we better see if we can get the actual corpses of Milton Friedman and Henry Kissinger to run for us. Fuck off. Of course people aren’t excited to vote for a shitty candidate, because they’re a shitty candidate. Get someone who can speak in complete sentences for God’s sake.
My friend, I hear ya. And I agree. But you need to know that the time for those discussions was both years ago and constant, just not now.
We are 5 minutes to curtain.
No, you. I’ve been beating this drum since 2016 and “I get it, but now now” has always been the answer, and it was the answer in Obama II when we wanted codified gay marriage rights and more. If you’ve always just missed the boat, one starts to wonder if the boat was ever in the port to start with. And I think we both know the answer to that.
No amount of dithering about the conditions of things just now is going to change the fact that the candidate fucking sucks and, realistically, has not great chances of beating the bastard that wants to start having military tribunals for his political opponents. Biden has been looking and sounding pretty rough for the last six ish months, at least, and that debate performance was just the most pitiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve been watching the debates since Bush/Kerry, including Biden’s previous performances, and I’ve never seen a candidate perform so badly. On average, Biden was barely intelligible, and at worst he rebooted on stage and beat medicare. And that was not his stutter, we have previous debate performances to reference that can show that well enough. He would get sent home from helping people pay for their car wash, he is not up to the fucking job and everyone knows it. The last ten years have been pretty fucking stupid, but this is taking it to a new level.
What the heck are you talking about? What drum have you been banging for eight years? not-Biden?
You sound like maybe you don’t do a lot of work with political parties? It takes years for someone to get to a place to run for President. At least until trump, Putin, and Moscow Mitch all colluded to break everything for fascism.
You’ve got roughly NINE WEEKS to change the DNC nominee, and you’re like “Ugh this always happens! I think this is rigged!” C’mon.
Do you even have someone you want? Who?
Banging the drum of “why is the DNC throwing its full weight behind a garbage candidate and then shaming people for not being excited?” Or, more succinctly, “why, in the face of fascism, is the DNC sending us its worst candidates?” Hillary was wildly unpopular, everybody knew it, including the HRC campaign, which is why they worked with media organizations to promote Trump, because they figured they had their best chances against him. Biden didn’t exactly get anyone excited, especially when he showed up to the first primary debate looking half dead. Now we’ve got Biden again, who seems to put off the vibe that he’d struggle just with activities of daily living, much less running the country, and that’s the best the democrats can do to save us from straight up unironic fascism?! Are you fucking kidding me?
How about Newsom? He’s no flaming radical, and while he does have baggage from California, he’s a competent and well-spoken politician who’s used to an executive office. AOC? I’d go for fighting fascism with a (at least for USPol) “flaming radical”. I’ll fucking take Al Gore at this point. I’ll fucking take Vermin Supreme, and he’s more progressive than Obama was on gay rights. More seriously, I know there was somebody that I read up on, liked, and voted for in the CA primary, but I don’t recall their name and I don’t think they’d be a good fit because they’d be a real nobody. I honestly think Newsom, AOC, or a (politically) resurrected Al Gore would be among the better candidates, if only for name recognition.
I like Biden. He did very well, better than I think anyone expected. So don’t act like he’s shit-on-our-shoe. Yes, when he was on the tv box he didn’t throw a car or swing a magic hammer like we wanted, agreed it sucked, but this is becoming the new “Biden gEnOSiDE” carping point that means waaah we don’t participate in shit, and the people that do picked bad. Where the fuck were these people in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023? Possibly not of age to vote I guess, if so; fair enough.
I think Newsom has too much baggage for a sixteen week Presidential run. We move fast but that’s probably going to be a wash as far as can he do better than Biden. I’d think worse, actually. AOC isn’t old enough. I’m voting for her when she is. Al Gore - man, I dunno. He fucking had 2000 in the bag and dropped it. Maybe. I think he’s qualified and capable but the Murdochian Sewer Gremlins will have a field day with him. Also not worth it, I think.
No love for Deez Nutz? Okay, okay, going the traditional route with Vermin Supreme. Hey someone said Jon Stewart. I say hell yes. Let’s go pick him up and carry him to Washington and take care of business.
I’ve been voting reliably, including in midterms, since Obama I, so I don’t feel too bad about talking shit. Straight up, Biden surprised me positively quite a few times during his presidency. I’m a HUGE fan of what he and Pete have done to help revive rail infrastructure in the US. The genocide weighs, very, very heavily for me, such that I’d eagerly vote for a realistic alternative, but I recognize that Trump will make that situation far, far worse. All that said, my chief concern at this point is can Biden keep Trump out, and I have grave doubts about that.
AOC would be old enough by the inauguration IIRC, and I don’t personally think Newsom has too much baggage. What, specifically, does Newsom have as baggage besides the high crime of being governor of CA? As for Gore… Yeah, I feel like his concession was the first time this fascist bullshit was heavily rewarded at the federal level, but in his defense, I don’t think anyone understood the gravity of the situation at the time, USPol still had an air of respectability. Sure, I’d go for Stewart, as long as he could answer effectively about his SIMA policies.
Nothing so much as he’s a magnet for right-wing media to shit on. That can’t be discounted because as we’ve seen every single time, the MAGAts love that crap, smear it around, and win elections wtih it.
(Edit: oh and being married to junior’s wife is going to be a thing)
I don’t know what SIMA is? Apparently either search is so befucked it can’t find somethign simple like SIMA or SIMA isn’t known to it. Is it Steel trade agreements? That’s the only thing I could see that was even remotely likely.
SIMA nuts
Since we were on the topic of Deez nuts
Yeah how dare people expect the self declared only ones who take the threat of fascism seriously in this country to fucking act like it then and recognize that letting the nation lose because you weren’t excited enough about the candidate is about as anti-fascist as calling the cops because you saw a black kid.
Use more periods, it’s free and the cops can’t stop you.
I think you are confusing showmanship with the ability to run a country in the state they come to the position and how much they can do from that point on.
Yes, showmanship is ever more relevant in winning elections, if not has been the most relevant thing even before. So it makes sense to put forward a good entertainer to win an election.
What you are wrong about is that most of the time, show people are just goddamn big liars and completely incompetent fools at ruling anything. It is fitting, tho, since all they do in their primary skill is to make people forget about problems by making them pay for a brief period of entertainment, nothing more.
Biden is an old bastard with a foot in the grave. He shouldn’t be out there running a country, but the current alternative is Trump that just plays to the audience and has no experience or aptitude for directing.
Yes, Biden should not have been running for president, and a balanced mix of showman and leader should have been out there instead, but who is that or who was that? A no-name in the political sense can’t be considered a showman, and we saw what other options could the left procure without stooping to Trump levels. They were not enough of a showman at all. So, why not go with the decently-competent decision maker instead of an unfunny showman?
The blame for not producing a balanced showman and a decision maker falls on two groups: One is the political organization of the Democrats, the other is their voter base. The political organization is corrupt to an extent no matter what you do about it. People with power careers form pacts within pacts. A full education reform is needed for quite some generations to get rid of tribalism and corruption. The voter base is irresponsible. They have lots of other responsibilities and pursuits in life, but a core decision about these falls on taking on the political responsibility, maybe more than other decisions directly affecting the daily lives at this period of the world’s history. Voters should not isolate themselves from being a talking part of candidate production of the political organisation, even if they don’t actively take part in the local representation. Even just been keen about which names are being talked about in the political organization would give the voters years ahead of an election, and those years would decide if a candidate candidate is popular or not liked within the political organization. Voter dislike for a candidate months before the election, and when the campaign process has already started, will hardly make an impact on even bringing the topic to a discussion of a change of candidate, let aside producing a better one.
On the contrary to asking for a change in candidate for a better one just months before an election is a complete show disunity, and such a lack of show of unity in voter base is even more damaging than a lack of show of showmanship in a candidate.
You keep hearing not now because you assholes are always picking this fight when it’s time for an election.
You’re not making a well considered demand for action, you’re wielding your privilege to threaten everyone else with letting the nazis come back again if they don’t fall in line behind whatever single issue of the day you’ve decided to tell people is moving you.
And the most infuriating part is that your lack of participation under those threats is exactly the goddamned problem. 30 million people participated in the 2016 primary, if y’all had spent as much of the energy turning out for it as ya did complaining about how everyone else did, Bernie would have won in a knockout. Double that for the general, green voters got to feel real high and mighty with their protest votes that would have flipped every single swing state and saved us from Trump in the first fucking place.
I have been voting, reliably, including in primaries and midterms, since Obama I. Somehow, mysteriously, we’ve arrived at this place where our last best hope of staving off full tilt Christian fascism for the next four years is probably too senile to be a night clerk at a gas station, which would tick me off a lot less if the democrats had been a little bit responsible and groomed Kamala as a successor or been a little more honest than letting people find out in the first presidential debate. I don’t want these assholes to win, pal. I’ll be fine, but lots of people won’t, and I’m not about that. For my part, I’m not comfortable sleepwalking into Christian Fascism because it offends mainstream Democrat sensibilities.