Both sides ARE the same... ( lemmy.world )

Mastengwe , 14 days ago

It’s very telling how those of you on the BOtH siDeS side seem to always be absent from any post that is critical of Trump and the criminal right wing agenda.

It’s almost as if there’s some weird bias to your logic that compels you to not spread your “bOtH siDeS” rhetoric to any post that illustrates how shitty the right is.

I wonder why that is.

return2ozma OP , 13 days ago

F Trump, piece of shit grifting fascist. Tiny hands, tiny dick, tiny brain.

Mastengwe , 13 days ago

Too late for that man. You showed your hand already.

return2ozma OP , 13 days ago

Believe what you want. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

JeeBaiChow , 14 days ago

Measure the politicians to the impossible standard, i.e. the unattainable ideal, not the values they tell you to believe in. The higher up in office you go, the higher the standard of conduct and judgement they should be held to.

Prunebutt , 14 days ago

Anti-electoralism in this cormunity? You have guts.

Zehzin , 15 days ago

That's not how this template works

themeatbridge , 15 days ago

There are no heroes. That doesn't mean both sides are the same.

retrospectology , 15 days ago (edited 14 days ago)

Kind of, it's more important to actual check where a candidate or sitting politician got their campaign funding. That's the way to know if it's a corpo Republican Lite or an actual progressive.

Opensecrets.org is a great resource for this, just go to the campaign finance section and look up a politician.

Makes it easy to avoid voting for people who take AIPAC money and stuff.

Although, it should be noted that AIPAC funnels money through other groups like "Voters for Responsive Government", so you have to do a bit of research sometimes, but you get the idea. Most progressives should be majority grassroots small donations.

insufferableninja , 15 days ago

to many word

mozz Admin , 15 days ago

I see “blue MAGA” is making another appearance

riplin , 15 days ago

Sure. One side is forgiving record amounts of student loans and the other side wants to put pregnant women on a list. BoTh sIdEs ArE tHe SaMe.

return2ozma OP , 15 days ago

Biden enabling genocide and wanting to add 100,000 cops is not a good look.

riplin , 15 days ago

And trump wanting Israel to nuke Gaza is?

pearsaltchocolatebar , 15 days ago

And? The other side is literally trying to overthrow our government.

That's like saying a skinned knee and a compound fracture are the same because they both have blood.

Prunebutt , 14 days ago

The other side is literally trying to overthrow our government.

Your government isn't worth much. Especially with even more Cops.

pearsaltchocolatebar , 14 days ago

And you think a fascist theocracy is a better alternative?

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

I have noticed a lot of lemmy.ml accounts absolutely love autocratic regimes regardless of what high or low level of economic socialism is involved in them, so I think maybe yes you broke the code.

Why they think that, I for real have not the slightest idea. There’s definitely a very particular type of thinking there that honestly is just baffling to me.

Prunebutt , 14 days ago

I'm aneanarchirt. Try again.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

I have noticed that a lot of slrpnk accounts take a somewhat simplistic view of US politics -- they seem like they want to be left alone to do their thing, which is 100% to the good, but then they don't seem to want to engage with any sort of politics that might enable them to continue to be left alone to do their thing.

Like yes I'm very happy that you want to organize in your community and do good things, it sounds probably better and more healthy than me posting on Lemmy about establishment politics. But the police state or the global war aren't going to go away if you just pretend they don't exist or don't engage with them. Not electing Trump is absolutely critical to you being able to continue to exist in the US and advocate for the type of more-systemic change that it sounds like you're in favor of.

(Of course slrpnk is a lot less homogeneous than lemmy.ml so that may or may not apply to any given user; it's just sort of my reaction to the general vibe of "I like grassroots and non-electoral organizing for real change" coupled with "it's of no concern to me if Trump gets elected." And I do think they're on the balance way more sensible than the lemmy.ml hivemind, FWIW.)

Sounds better? 🙂

Prunebutt , 14 days ago

No. When has voting ever stopped fascists?

OneWomanCreamTeam , 14 days ago

No, don't you understand‽ Everything and everyone is either good or bad. If two things are bad, then they're EXACTLY THE SAME

SrNobody , 15 days ago

If you don’t think things would be infinitely worse under trump then under Biden your not paying enough attention.
One side sucks but at least allows progress. The other side is actively trying to tear the whole system apart. Both sides are NOT the same.

Diva , 14 days ago

Yeah both sides aren't the same, the Democrats are actually way better at doing border concentration camps, funding Israels genocidal campaign, ending pandemic relief, and deploying riot cops on protesters!

When team blue does it their devotees are totally on board with all of these things.

Anyways if things were under Trump they would be infinitely worse. Source? Trust me bro

mozz Admin , 14 days ago (edited 14 days ago)

If you want some entertainment check out this person’s profile. I thought these were some pretty bad takes, and then I found the other thread where she’s angry that it’s Biden’s fault that Covid still exists.

(Edit: gender)

Diva , 14 days ago

I get that you're blue maga, but the worms can't have totally emptied your brain out if you're still typing. My pronouns are right there.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

Oh, shit -- my bad; fixed.

Diva , 14 days ago

Thanks.

To your post I absolutely do blame Biden for covid being around: he was the one who ended all the pandemic protections because he wanted to return to normal because it was politically expediant- even if it was the wrong public health choice.

He ended all the payouts which were started under trump because they were "overheating" the economy.

Like Trump sucks but at least he can be bullied into stuff like the covid unemployment payouts.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

If there's one thing that's definitely associated in my mind with Trump, it's "can be bullied into a sensible Covid policy." Who can forget the way everyone was able to keep him on an even keel during Covid, and how all Trump's openness to sensible policy went out the window and people started dying, when Biden came along.

Diva , 14 days ago

At least the blue magas were pretending to care then, before it was time to declare "back to normal" so that they can reduce the social security liability more by getting people killed needlessly.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

40% emissions reductions by 2030

Diva , 14 days ago

Not even remotely enough, good God this is what happens when the bar is on the floor, people just vomit out useless statistics like they're actually making a difference

mozz Admin , 14 days ago (edited 14 days ago)

Not even remotely enough

This part, I actually 100% agree with.

On the other hand, if the house is on fire, and one firefighter as soon as he gets on scene removes 40% of the gasoline from the garage even with a lot of people trying to fistfight him for doing that much, and the other firefighter says we have to get more gasoline in the house because taking away the gasoline is a Chinese plot to cripple our economy, I would feel comfortable saying that someone on Lemmy who is claiming the second firefighter is actually the superior firefighter is talking pure unadulterated weapons grade bollocks.

Okay, next one: Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of student loan forgiveness. Your turn, go!

Diva , 14 days ago

I think we both agree that it's not enough- where we disagree is how credible an alterative Biden is, because you've dramatically oversimplified things in his favor in your metaphor. I'm not going to torture that metaphor any further as a response because I'm opposed to unnecessary cruelty on general principle.

The reality is Biden has been the one continuing the Trump trade war shit on China. If this is really something you people are taking seriously why is he tariffing EVs and solar panels rather than doing whatever is necessary to meet our goals? I'm not exactly a free market girl, but American industry is not being served by these actions, and any subsidies handed to these industries immediately turn into stock buybacks. Something needs to fundamentally change and that's off brand for you guys.

re: student loan shit, I also think that wasn't enough because the 'academic industry' needs to be razed to the ground and nationalized. And yes that includes all the stupid 'ivy leagues'

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

not enough

wasn't enough

Do you think Trump is enough?

I mean, I don't think Biden is enough either, but using that as an argument for why Trump is better is some Mr. Mxyzptlk logic.

Biden has been the one continuing the Trump trade war shit on China

That's a good point; he spent hundreds of billions of dollars (which he raised by increasing corporate tax) on boosting domestic manufacturing adding like 700,000 manufacturing jobs last I checked, instead of continuing to have everything constructed abroad and rich middlemen keeping all the profits.

The WTO, if you remember those guys, was so angry about how he's running his trade policy that they ordered him to change it back, and his State Department told them to piss up a rope we're not changing a damn thing, representing one more big break he's making with the neoliberal shit that is the recent history of the Democrats. It's a good point, and I'm glad you brought it up.

Diva , 14 days ago

I'll believe that domestic manufacturing when I see it, frankly. Democrats are big on promising things which haven't happened yet. Ie how you're taking credit for lowering emissions 2-6 years into some future presidents term

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

Here ya go. It is, of course, a little more complex than I made it sound, but if I wanted to cherry-pick the sides of it that are good for Biden I'd say:

On the job statistics, Biden is numerically correct. However, experts say he should use more caution...

Officials pointed to data showing that it took 30 months — from April 2020 to September 2022 — for manufacturing jobs to return to their pre-pandemic recession peak. That may sound like a long time, but after the recessions that struck in 1990, 2001 and 2007, manufacturing jobs never even bounced back to their prior level after 100 months.

Biden has created "a climate for factory investment that we haven’t seen for generations," including the investments in infrastructure, clean energy manufacturing and semiconductors, Paul told PolitiFact. These are "already paying dividends. You can see from the ubiquitous factory announcements almost every week."

Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, a research and policy center in Washington, D.C., agreed that the gain in about 700,000 manufacturing jobs since the pandemic-era low has been unusually rapid.

Not planning to respond to the other part, delving a little into why you're claiming Trump is better exactly?

Diva , 14 days ago

I'm not claiming Trump is better, they're both genocidal, old, sex pests (being generous), and supported by their own legions of unquestioning followers.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

It's a good point - the very nature of Democratic politics, where a modest level of rebellion against Biden's bad Israel policies can result in genuine change (although pretty tepid in comparison to what needs to happen). Things like pausing weapons shipments, sanctions on settlers, and setting up aid for Gaza does represent a significant structural difference between them and the Republicans, who are composed at this point pretty much of only "unquestioning followers" in your pretty accurate phrasing, would never have done anything like that, would have openly supported Netanyahu's genocide instead of simply failing to prevent it, and are subject to only isolated hotspots of resistance even in the face of openly fascist or treasonous behavior.

For example, no Republicans resigned from the executive branch because of family separation, or moving the embassy to Jerusalem, or the catastrophic mismanagement of the Iran nuclear deal and the resulting suffering of the Iranian people. It's a good reminder that even when Biden is doing terrible things (like supporting Israel), he's still open to some level of influence from the non-terrible people, while Trump is not.

It's a good point, and I'm glad you brought it up.

Diva , 14 days ago

At this point after letting Israel run wild it's hard to give them much credit for finally dialing it back. They could have simply not continued to send weapons, but they chose to do so. Now they show up with 'aid' like that somehow makes them not complicit in all the killing that's already been happening.

Recall what brash thing Trump did that really tanked the JCPOA? it was assassinating Suleimani with a drone strike. Here you've got American weapons being used to murder entire families, and are acting like you're on higher ground than these other guys because the murder is being done by colonial proxies rather than obviously American hands.

Can you see why people are a little bit annoyed by that and not consoled by your lectures about how because Biden is 'less bad' in debatable ways than Trump he is somehow worth empowering? When your only defense of the slaughter he allowed/insisted on is to expound on how in your imagination Trump is worse.

You realize that not everybody else resides in the realm of your imagination?

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

You're right -- spending time debating with someone who's unclear on what Trump did to the nuclear deal and the sanctions regime and the resulting impact on the Iranian people and the stability of the region in general, and assumes that assassinating Soleimani was what I was talking about just because that's all they know about what happened in Iran under Trump because that was the most prominent story in the papers, betraying a lack of detailed understanding of US policy in the middle east and its impacts, might not be a good use of time, because at this point I think the point is pretty much made. It's a good point, and I'm glad you brought it up.

Although, there's still time to talk about adding 700,000 manufacturing jobs and strengthening unions in a way that hasn't happened yet under any president post-Reagan, and why that might be a relevant good thing. Did we talk about that yet?

Or family separation? That's actually kind of a hard one to talk about because I tend to get genuinely upset about it, but it's a good window into the different levels of brown people friendliness the two presidents had, if we're not wanting to examine Biden's tepid resistance and compare it with Trump's "finish the job" solution for Gaza?

Oh, also, you absolutely did say Trump was better than Biden in particular significant ways -- here and here.

Diva , 14 days ago

You're talking like an LLM

in link 1 I said that at least Trump can be bullied, because the outcome of the CARES act and other pandemic relief was actually good.

in link 2 I said that Trump is better because at least with him in charge even complete drones like you can understand the state he's a part of is worth opposing.

The fact that you opted to gloss over that from my previous statements, and boil it down to "Trump better than Biden", does not indicate to me you are actually picking up on anything I'm saying beyond looking for an opportunity to regurgitate something about how you view your team as slightly better than the other team.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

Yeah, so family separation. Trump took an already barbaric system, and made it absolutely catastrophically more barbaric. There are still little kids -- and not a small number of them -- who will never see their families again because they got taken away because their parents committed a misdemeanor, through desperation and from no desire other than just a better life or a chance to live somewhere free from gang violence or poverty, and even when they were following the rules about how to cross over and then request asylum, the best that they were able.

One of Biden's first acts in office was to start a task force to try to find the families for the missing kids, who were at that point still in custody, and reunite them. It wasn't completely successful, because the systems of bureaucracy in their home countries were often chaotic or nonexistent, and the bureaucracy on our end was carelessly disorganized and cruel. But, at least he fuckin' tried.

Immigration in this country is still fairly bad, because it's run by an explicitly racist agency staffed with explicit racists. But, every single proposal Biden's put forth has included some sensible things that objectively need to happen (such as adding judges to the system to help clear the backlog so people aren't sitting waiting to get into the country, or in custody, for absurdly long lengths of time, which is where a lot of the suffering in the current system comes from, when it's not coming from simple racism).

Anyway, the point is that Biden's at least trying to do good things, and then he gets shit for it from Republicans because the system's not cruel enough, and then also shit from "leftists" because the system is still somewhat cruel, ignoring the fact that every single action he's taken has been attempting to make it better than it was, and that all that "leftist" inaction just strengthens the people who are deliberately trying to return it to the "cage full of orphaned and un-cared-for children, people of all ages freezing to death or regularly dying in custody" regime that it was under Trump.

Diva , 14 days ago

"Somewhat cruel" is an incredible spin to put on the first genocide being broadcast around the clock like this.

Those are our weapons being supplied to do terrible things and people have a right to be upset.

Honestly it's incredible that you are trying to do a lesser-evil kids in cages routine with me in the face of the tens of thousands of dead kids and their families in Gaza. Biden was desperately sending weapons to Israel while everyone could see what was happening with it. That is why people are upset and trying to paint it as 'single issue voters' being blind to the bigger evil is kind of ringing hollow.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

If one candidate for mayor was friends with a murderer, and it was pretty obvious to everyone that he'd been protecting his friend the murderer and even sold him the gun, and kept talking about how he was a good guy -- BUT, the other candidate was torturing cats in his basement and also talking about once he's mayor and he has control of the town's police force he needs to start killing or torturing everyone's cats, and also some of the people, I think I would vote for the murderer's friend. If those were the only two options. It's nothing to do with cats versus people. It's what one person does versus what a different person's ally does.

I realize that analogy is not a real ringing endorsement for Biden, but yeah, it's fair; Gaza and Biden's support for Israel aren't real ringing good things about him. But, I do feel it's still very relevant the difference between what Trump did on purpose himself, and plans to continue to do and accelerate the perpetration of, and what Biden's not doing enough to prevent some different person from doing.

Diva , 14 days ago

You keep characterizing the role Biden is playing in this genocide as "not doing enough to prevent some different person from doing" and while garbled, it belies a tremendous dishonesty.

Biden has bypassed congress to get weapons to Israel numerous times, he had it bundled with must-pass legislation and this entire situation was made non-negotiable by his own hands.

By trying to apologize for his complicity to the point of badgering people to vote your party you implicate yourself in these crimes.

I suggest you do some introspection on how you write off the lives of tens of thousands of people because in my opinion you're making it very clear that ultimately you see some lives as expendable. As a potential coalition partner in your voting block that doesn't give me hope that if protecting my rights became politically inconvenient that we also wouldn't be written off in such a way.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

Let me put it this way: If there was a candidate in this election who didn't want to give weapons to Israel (I mean, if voting for them wouldn't just be functionally a vote for Trump), I'd be on 'em in a heartbeat. In the primary I wrote in Bernie Sanders.

Diva , 14 days ago

That's what I mean, you've written them off as "going to die by our hand anyways" and expect me to want to be complicit too, it's not a great motivator, nor does it inspire loyalty.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

I don't think I would recommend loyalty to any American politician. Even for the ones I like, that's just not how I look at it.

In any case though, cheers + all the best

Leate_Wonceslace , 14 days ago

I recently read something by a Palestinian, commenting on how so many people are advocating not voting for Biden because of what's happening in palestine. They said that y'all need to stop using dead Palestinians as a justification for your political stance. They talked about how they were horrified that someone would do something that's objectively worse for their families on the pretense of doing something because they were suffering.

But hey, maybe they're lying. Fuck, for all you know I made the entire thing up. But the fact remains that there's a large contingent of interactions that involve one side ostensibly advocating for a group of people without that group's input and doing so in a way that's likely to lead to more suffering.

Some people accuse me of not caring about Palestinians. Maybe that's true; maybe the reason I argue in favor of voting for Biden is pure self-interest, but it doesn't matter. Why I argue doesn't matter because this tactic, voting for Biden, is good not just for me but everyone who isn't a fascist, including the Palestinians that so many people here claim to care about.

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

Can you link me to that thing if you still have it? I am interested to see it

Leate_Wonceslace , 14 days ago

https://lemm.ee/comment/11961730

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

Thank you! I posted it to bestof.

Leate_Wonceslace , 14 days ago

💝

mozz Admin , 14 days ago

That's not the same as what you were saying before, and a pretty drastic moving of the goalposts in a way that's a total non sequitur, if you're trying to say Trump is NOT a drastic and catastrophic step in the wrong direction. But other people have already pointed that out.

I wanted to focus on the 100,000 cops a little bit, because I don't think we've touched on that issue before. It will surprise no one that you're picking out one individual element (maybe borne out of compromise, or maybe from very real conservative parts of Biden's thinking, of a piece with e.g. his support for Israel), and then pretending that that's the whole thing.

Here's the ACLU's statement about Biden's crime plan. Honestly, I'll just let it speak for itself:

The president’s plan proposes investments in two competing approaches to this goal.

The first is to hire more police officers and call for more criminalization and incarceration. For decades, this approach has failed to make us safer and it is alarmingly reminiscent of 1990s style policies that fueled mass incarceration. The second approach, however, is to significantly invest in community-based programs and services that have proven to prevent violent crime and can make America safer for everyone. This is the approach that we need to embrace in 2022 to create thriving communities.

Focusing in on the second approach, they say:

President Biden announced several measures that would put us on the right path. The plan includes investments in education, housing, and job training, and proposes lifting barriers to reentry for formerly incarcerated people. These measures would effectively promote stability and prevent violence. He also seeks to put safety in the hands of those best suited to address the acute problems created when societal failures leave people and communities behind: social workers, crisis intervention workers, and violence interrupters. By investing in alternatives to policing, including alternative responses to behavioral health calls, the president demonstrates that he understands the need to adopt preventive approaches to keep people and neighborhoods safe.

“However, in this moment of fear and concern, the president must not repeat yesterday’s mistakes today. He calls for hiring 100,000 additional state and local police officers – the same increase in officers as the 1994 crime bill.

... and so on. That's basically the gist.

I also never knew this before yesterday, but that's actually grossly misleading as far as the impacts of Biden's 1994 crime bill. He's definitely on the pro-police side, but saying as the ACLU does that:

While we are pleased with the president’s commitment to investing in communities, we strongly urge him not to repeat the grave errors of the 1990s — policies that exacerbated racial disparities, contributed to widespread police abuses, and created our current crisis of mass incarceration.

The Biden crime bill from 1994 came at the end of the crisis of mass incarceration, a couple years before previously skyrocketing incarceration rates leveled off. Here's a pretty comprehensive overview -- which includes some pointed and new-to-me criticism of other instances of bad crime legislation Biden was involved in back in the 80s and 90s -- which makes a pretty strong case that Biden's crime bill had nothing to do with the general semi-police-state that steadily took hold in the US during the years from 1980 to 2000. They show, for example, this graph:

https://mbin.grits.dev/media/a7/46/a7467313492f95a8cf820cd6793cc865ef1f5fb09ee17eee9b8bc058cb6d9422.webp

... which doesn't exactly make it look like 1994 created our current crisis of mass incarceration.

return2ozma OP , 14 days ago

This is the most Blue MAGA response you've given so far Mozz. This is next level Biden support.

todd_bonzalez , 14 days ago

What alternative did you have in mind?