Heaven forbid we try running charismatic candidates like Obama and Bill...
Like, it's insane to me that everyone seems to be aware of what wins elections, but the people running the Dem party just keep insisting we need to shut up and vote for someone very few people actually want.
Like, we can't do this without the voters, they're the irreplaceable part.
We can get different people to run the party, or just coalesce around another.
When the other side are fascists openly running on a platform of doing fascists, needing to feel excited to fall in line and vote against them just makes you a fascist who thinks they can get bribes out of it.
Why not shut the fuck up and vote against the fascists because you're not a fascist?
You aren't owed exciting candidates, you owe keeping fascists out of power to not be considered a collaborator by the people who'll actually suffer because you felt like you were owed feeling excited about your duty as a person who is not completely without moral fiber to shut the fuck up and vote against the fascists.
It isn't patronization when it is the genuine state of affairs. If you want to claim you aren't a fascist, you owe that fucking vote as the price of admission. You are just a horrible fucking person if you need more than "they're fascists, vote against them." You do deserve to be looked down at and condescended to for needing more motivation than "this is a vibe test and some the fuck how you are managing to drift dangerously close to failing what should be the easiest shit on the planet by even needing it explained to you that you do indeed just owe voting against fascists to not be regarded as a collaborator."
If you need more than "they're fascists", you're a fucking fascist and if the acceleration you're betting on happens you'll be lined up with all the rest of the collaborators by the people who are actually going to suffer the consequences of your brilliant plan of "I just need to vote for someone!"
Grow the fuck up and look at the lay of the actual land you whining, entitled, naïve as a cherub child. They are fascists, you have to vote against them, you have to, the time for demands and negotiations and "excitement" came and went a long time probably even before your parents were born, now we are at war, we have a duty to the people of this nation who are unable to speak for themselves, and if your response to being presented that duty is to ask what you get out of it, you have no business counting yourself as any sort of ally or help to the cause.
Tanked his run by counting all the votes not cast for him?
Why am I still surprised that people who need to be dragged kicking and screaming to generals, nevermind primaries think that people who don't need any convincing not voting for their guy for them is cheating?
This is a rather unique thing you see on Lemmy I've noticed. I mean everyone knows the Democratic Party pulled some bullshit during that primary, but the delusions you see on Lemmy take it so much further. It honestly kind of reminds me of Lost Cause myths. It's very much in the same vein.
I have legit seen people suggest the very normal and totally socialist thing of counting individual donations instead of ballots as the only legitimate way to run the primary.
The socialists. Wanted to create a literal donor class. That is recognized in party procedures. Because they were that mad that working class black voters identified more with the southern lady than a darkhorse from Vermont who's not even a party member 99% of the time. Even after a bunch of white liberal arts majors talked at them about how he's totally down with the culture because he got arrested at a protest one time.
It's insane that in my lifetime I've seen the Dem party at the point where they've completely given up on courting and just yell at people that they have to vote for them.
Like, who the fuck is coming up with this strategy, and why is anyone listening to them?
But why are the uncharismatic conservative candidates the only other option when we know for a fact they're not what Dem voters want?
Why not run someone voters actually like and who will get the most votes?
Why don't you understand that gets the most votes for the Dem candidate?
Although I would like to thank you for not insulting me this time, we're making progress. Would all caps help you more? I know it's easier for some to read so I can do that if you're doing it so you can read easier.
Depending on what you're using you can make the text appear larger or a better font too.
I notice you're doing your one sentence per paragraph again.
Ok let's go through this chronologically (not that I agree Biden is conservative, he's center).
Bill Clinton: When you run against an incumbent (Bush senior) you run from the center. So that's what he did.
Gore: After the population hopefully warmed up with Bill Clinton, he stuck his head out left with climate change. And bam he lost the election. Thanks 3rd party protest voters!
Obama: So guess what Obama learned? Don't stick your head out. He ran on vague "hope", hoping the ambiguity would be enough considering Bush's disastrous wars. And he won.
Hillary Clinton: After the population hopefully warmed up with Obama, she stuck her head out just a tiny itty little bit with the Map Room to fight climate change. And guess what happened? Bam she lost. Thanks protest non-voters!
On to Biden. Just like Obama learned from Gore, Biden learned from Hillary that you don't stick your head out left. And he was running against an incumbent, so once again when you do that you run center. He's actually been governing more from the left, but he ran center.
And you're amazed that they don't run an extreme left platform? Every time they stick their head out a little itsy bitsy tiny bit left they lose. And the next guy learns to go to the center to win.
So how do you get them to move left? By giving them victories. Consistent and overwhelming victories. Because when they lose, like they've lost 20 years out of the last 24 years, they will go to the centre to find votes.
When you only have one choice, you don’t have a choice.
Yea obviously we’re at the point where the only non fascist choice is to vote for an unpopular incumbent, but it seems like the choice has been completely removed from the democratic process in the US and you have to wonder how much of it is exactly by design, and whose.
to be honest, I'm not convicd Biden is not also fascist. look at his Immigration policies. How he supports Israel's genocide. Sure, Trump is vastly more fascistic than Biden, no question there... but "lesser of two evils" bullshit is exactly how we got in this mess.
It's by the design of the Democrats, though I think our current situation is an unintentional cascade effect.
It's the result of one of the oldest election strategies in the world that remains incredibly popular for one simple reason: it's easy and it works. "Vote for me because I'm not the other guy" is a much easier policy to convince people on than actually having any policies of your own.
For many years now Democrats all over the country have been funding the campaigns of the most unhinged and extremist of their opponents to set themselves up for an easy win - there was even a lady who wrote a book about her doing it, only to lose to that same extremist in the very next election.
And that's why we find ourselves in the situation that we're in. Because the Dems keep thinking that they can court some mythical moderate Republican voting block by propping extremists up as the nominees. But that doesn't exist because the Republicans have always been voting against Dems rather than for people they like. Republicans don't care if the nominee is Bush, Biden, Putin, or Stalin himself, risen from the grave to finally put an end to capitalism. So long as they have an R next to their name instead of a D, that's who they're voting for.
Maybe if y'all were capable of saying shit that didn't instantly wanna make me pull my hair out at the sheer, oh I dunno draw a fucking deadly sin out of a hat at this point, I wouldn't feel like y'all need the markdown equivalent of the gunnery sergeant hartman treatment to explain basic morals to you abject failures of human empathy.
Your approach isn't working. It never works. Because all it does is makes people more defensive, and it divides the DNC even further. it just makes me roll my eyes and think "okay, boomer, time to change your diapers again." And yes. I know that's totally ageist of me, but frankly, at this point, I'm tired of it.
People shouting at others not to vote don’t deserve to get their asses kissed. This isn’t grade-school where we are all supposed to be nice to the kids throwing temper tantrums so they’ll stop.
They’re showing their asses. They don’t get to whine when people start kicking.
So what are you suggesting come November? All I read when I see comments like yours is “I just want to complain and wish really hard that the Democrats had a unicorn for a candidate”.
Reality is there are only 2 choices in November, and one of those choices will lead this country directly into facism.
Naaah… a better strategy is to do absolutely nothing at all, suggest everyone do the same- and expect everything to magically change, right?
We don’t need to be courted. This isn’t a fucking love story. We don’t need a thing handsome and charming hero to swash buckles. We need an effective politician.
Everyone is always whining about Sanders all the time- he was NONE of those things. Ever.
It he is an effective politician.
So stop with the constant bullshit reasons to not vote. Especially this one. It’s probably the word you’ve come up with yet.
Why not shut the fuck up and vote against the fascists because you’re not a fascist?
Mate...
Do you think you can have this argument with tens of millions of Americans, and it will convince them?
We know what will get enough votes to beat Republicans. But for some reason people just keep repeating that these "moderate" and uncharismatic 70+ year olds have a better shot.
They don't.
We're not even arguing if they should have a better shot because of their views.
Because we have literal decades of history to show they're not what wins elections.
So if all that matter si beating trump, why is this the third election in a row we're not using the best strategy?
What's the point of running more conservative candidates than voters want when it makes it more likely the fascists win?
Do you think you can have this argument with tens of millions of Americans, and it will convince them?
Nah bruh. They think they're arguing against you. That if they abuse you enough that you'll cow: but if there is one thing we have excellent evidence for, its that abusing or guilting voters into doing what you think they should doesnotwork. Not for Democrats or Republicans.
They are taking the criticisms they should be putting at the feet of the DNC and its associated cheerleaders in media, and blaming the voters. But we all know, they're just wrong. Like, they're completely wrong about how voting works, how campaigning works, and how winning elections work.
If they really cared about winning elections, they would bring this criticism to the DNC and demand better candidates; and not budge until they do so. But they actually don't care about winning the election. They know (I believe) they've committed to a losing strategy, and they are setting up the rhetorical case on the back-end so that they have some one to blame for them insisting we do something that isn't going to work.
Mate how about you stop making excuses for fascists and stop giving them the benefit of being presumed to have a reasonable position that deserves anything but getting called out for their collaborationist shit.
"Tickle my funny bone or I'll let your kids get sent to camps!", that's the mentality you're trying to argue is fair and reasonable and worth having a debate with as if it's anything but abject failure of one's own ability to not be one of the worst kinds of people imagineable.
"Make me excited about not letting the morality police happen!"
"I wanna feel good about preventing contraceptive bans!"
"What am I getting out of preventing them putting machine gun nests on the wall with orders to shoot to kill anyone who approaches?"
Yeah I agree Biden's boring, I agree Clinton and Gore and Kerry were boring too, doesn't change that they ran against christofascist candidates, and the supposed not fascists of this country abjectly failed to do their bare minimum duty because "I don't really feel like it."
I'm saying we need to do what has the best chance to beating the fascists.
Which is run a charismatic candidate who agrees with Dem voters.
You on the other hand, keep insulting people and saying voters need to compromise but politicians don't.
That's not democracy. Especially when the DNC has argued in court they can interfere with a primary as much as they want, because the results are non finding anyways.
Think about that.
It means Dem voters never get any day in who represents them.
When the goal is getting more votes than fascists, that's not a good plan. We need to start out with a popular candidate that most Dem voters already want to vote for. Not pick someone most dont want and then try to breathe literally tens of millions of people into holding their noses.
You just have a bad plan, and I feel like maybe if you just calm down, you could realize that what matters is beating republicans, so we should run candidates Dem voters want.
If you need more than "the fascists will win if we lose", you're a fucking fascist.
Quit trying to make your wanting to be bribed to not let concentration camps happen some kind of moral cause or "well they should have made me want it more!" realist cynic take.
If you need more than "the fascists will win if we lose", you are a fucking fascist, and will be treated accordingly when the people who you're actually hurting have their chance to reap justice for what you let be done to them.
I'd take it more seriously if the Democrats did or treated this as a serious issue. Instead they use it as an excuse to be 99% fascist and use it as an excuse to not campaign or take up popular issues because if they lose, it is because the voters didn't fight to have 99% fascism instead of 100% fascism.
It's not just the president, you need to vote for house of reps and Senate. Obama only had control for 2/8 years. In that time he got the ACA. The remaining 6 years of Obama the GOP were more than happy to block everything. They even shut down the government. If you need charisma to feed your emotions every 4 years, yeesh.
*Oh I caught on, it's the thiny veiled Biden bad, hinting he has no charisma and nobody wants to vote for him. "They just have to run someone else nudge nudge. Someone else to run the party wink wink." Nuts to that, Biden is doing great.
I get people want to fall in line at this point and I have and will vote for Biden, but your head is deep in the sand if you believe Biden's senility and lack of charisma isn't hurting him here. The only thing we're lucky on is that Donald is running again who is for all intents just as senile and far more deranged and far less compassionate.
There it is again "senility". Everyone working with him says he's sharp, but you just gotta get it in. Would I prefer younger? Sure. But he's not senile JFC. Lack of charisma? The guy presents absolutely fine and does great work. How much does one need to appeal to emotions.
you haven't been paying attention, have you? the entire republican platform is an appeal to their emotions. It's why it's successful. appeals to emotion are vastly more successful than appeals to logic or reason, even if they're wrong. Our brains are literally hardwired to consider emotion before reason, to react on emotion before logic; and triggering the emotional response to manipulate people is an entire field of science in neuropsychology. (and probably one of the best funded areas of research...)
This "we need someone charismatic and then we'll vote" is the emotion for the supposed logical, informed, left wing voter, who votes based on policy (or lack of policy when they protest no vote).
Funny because I think it's the other way around, people screaming "but but but charisma! But but but old!"
I thought maybe it was someone else I just told but no it's you. These are the supposed logical people waiting for the supposed logical platform. But no, they want emotions. Notice that doesn't add up?
And you're still trying to sneak it in. Biden is just fine charismatically.
Not the guy you're discussing with, but on this rare occasion I'll toot my own horn for once: If only the average American were as intelligent — or at least informed — as me. Unfortunately one must get on their level, sometimes. Besides, having a logical platform and having the charismatic youthful platform are not mutually-exclusive things.
Welcome to America, where everything from high school to your career prospects is basically a popularity contest as opposed to a formal job interview based on legitimate experience and qualifications.
They who can thread the needle between populism and substantive policy win.
I'm just happy Donald is the nominee again because I don't think Biden could've beat anyone else.
Well you're just the original guy that tried the senile bit.
What I see throughout this site is these supposed leftists who say they are so well informed, and so well thought, who know all about policies, and what to do, and who think and think and think, and determine that the best course of action is to protest vote. And then they turn around and say "but i want charisma for ma emotions". Yeah it doesn't add up.
Oh yeah let me repeat myself to be very clear: I think not voting or a protest vote or a third-party or independent vote is downright stupid. I think anyone suggesting this is either a right-wing operative as it only benefits them, or they're very naive and likely a newcomer to politics. who also lacks an understanding of risk/reward analytics.
Absolutely, at this point we should all vote for Joe Biden.
All I'm saying is that unfortunately you and I are far-and-above average in terms of political knowledge and civic engagement. Most people lack the depth of understanding to look at things logically and so must go off intuition and emotion as shortcuts. So to some extent, I think a party would be crazy not to put a heavy emphasis on this. Unfortunately it benefits the GOP more because of the nature of their deeply-ignorant and gullible and griftable base.
I never once criticized Biden for being old. So no, that was not me.
And I’m trying to side step charisma; you can be uncharismaric and win- but you can’t just appeal to logic and reason- even to logical and reasonable people- and expect to win against a campaign that’s all about emotion.
You have to get people excited. That’s how you win. Not by browbeating your voters, not by ignoring them, and sitting around expecting people to vote because you’re a democrat and that other guy is awful.
You have to get people excited and motivated. You have to persuade them to vote, and no, Biden is not entitled to anyone’s vote.
There are a fair amount of things Biden has done, that are good. You want to get votes for Biden, talk about that, talk about things he’s trying to do right now.
Attacking and antagonizing doesn’t motivate people to vote- at best it does the opposite, at worst it motivates them to vote for Trump.
TL/DR? Even if it’s not your intention, you’re making it worse.
P.S. telling people how to vote is kind of… a thing fascists do…
Well said. Both Hillary and Biden had very lower voter-enthusiasm when people were surveyed... Even for dyed-in-the-wool Democrats. People like Obama or Bernie had high voter enthusiasm. If only institutions followed suit...
I didn't say you, I said "people screaming" about old. But you are screaming about charisma.
The people that I see all over this site and who I'm referring to are the supposed logical people, who want the logical platform, and the logical (presumably left) policies, and then they will logically vote accordingly, and until then they will logically not vote because logic. They present themselves as the end all of logic.
But then they turn around and say "but I want charisma for my emotions". That is what I'm saying. Do you see how that doesn't add up?
For someone that seemed so offended that I said "people scream old" seeming to think that was aimed at you, you sure throw an absolute ton of stuff in my direction that I didn't say (including your TLDR prod and PS attack). Like wow. I'm not going to throw them all back because honestly you seem intent on twisting and turning, because:
I said it pretty clear at the start "This “we need someone charismatic and then we’ll vote” is the emotion for the supposed logical, informed, left wing voter, who votes based on policy (or lack of policy when they protest no vote)." but you went off on all directions. Ciao.
I didn’t say you, I said “people screaming” about old. But you are screaming about charisma.
-you.
Funny because I think it’s the other way around, people screaming “but but but charisma! But but but old!”
I thought maybe it was someone else I just told but no it’s you. These are the supposed logical people waiting for the supposed logical platform. But no, they want emotions. Notice that doesn’t add up?
And you’re still trying to sneak it in. Biden is just fine charismatically.
-Also you. (emphasis is mine, though.)
Also, that's not at all what I'm trying to do and if you've been reading my comment you would know that. What the "he's not charismatic" complaint really boils down to is "I'm not motivated to vote for him." him actually being charismatic or not is not the issue. the issue is, he's not engaging voters and motivating them to vote for him; and neither is his campaign.
However, emotions have value. It appears that without emotions to motivate and push us, we would be passive and do nothing. Decisions are very much informed by our emotional state since this is what emotions are designed to do. Emotions quickly condense an experience, and evaluate it to inform our decision, so we can rapidly respond to the situation.
While emotions serve to direct us, they are driven by our automatic survival nature. As such, most of the time emotions communicate their messages below our level of awareness. It is important to note that because of their speed and survival purpose, emotions are not particularly accurate. Their speed and effectiveness compensate for what they lack in being specific and detailed. This is why the emotional system provides many false alarms, which requires us to reevaluate our response and check if it is appropriate to the particular situation.
(Emphasis mine,)
It's quite literally hardwired into our brain to be emotional. It's a matter of survival; your stress responses are keyed to force quick decisions- and frequently unconscious ones. "Fight, Flight, Freeze or Fawn". When you come in hot, demanding we vote a certain way, you're triggering an emotional reaction- and it's not a happy one.
The ability to think can override the emotional state. The more you spend time thinking and bring your cognitive processes to bear ... you have a shot at basically saying, 'No, I think I'm going to pass,' even though that wasn't your first inclination.
Sure, that articles is about not getting suckered on a black friday sale, but persuading people to a vote a certain way is the same science.
Abortion is an easy point for Democrats because it's inherently emotional, right? When we talk about women having ectopic pregnancies, people aren't talking about it with clinical sterility. they're talking about pain, and fear, and hurt. And when you're talking about women dying, the people you're talking to aren't seeing statistics, they're hearing the pain and the fear; and they're seeing their wives, their mothers, sisters, or themselves; and that hits all sorts of emotions.
It's evocative. It's poignant. you can unprime prior emotions about it; by asking open questions. The goal isn't to immediately get an agreement, it might take days, or months. It took my parents years to break the religious brainwashing about it... but by using open questions to get them thinking about it, rather than feeling about it, eventually they came around. More to it, questions can provide emotional priming to encourage a desired decision while you provide the relevant evidence to support that decision. That, is how you influence people.
The Bernie and Obama campaigns understood this. Take a look at the style differences.
Obama was all about Hope and Change, and fighting for it. He gave people hope, and promised to work to a brighter future. Hope is probably one of the most potent emotions out there. Just a little can topple empires. Bernie's campaign was downright authentic. He cared, he gave people a sense of... something I've only seen from 2 other Boomers in my life. (okay, so Bernie is not a boomer, he's silent generation.) He made us feel powerful and heard. And he promised- and not just a bullshit promise- to help, and empowered us to seek change.
The vast majority of my interactions with boomers... is condescension, authoritarianism and straight up bullshit. Most everyone who is in that generation fights an uphill battle with me. Because of that. It triggers an emotional response. that emotional response gets stronger when they fail to respect that I'm a fucking adult and can make rational choices. It then gets even stronger when they get angry and start shouting. basically, by the time we get to that point, I'm no where near a place where I can even hear what they're saying.
Now, compare the Hillary campaign. Entitlement. Arrogance. Bullshit. Condescension. I remember a conversation with one of her organizers here.... the gist of the conversation was basically that I was sexist because I liked Bernie better. yup. very persuasive.
Motivating people to vote for biden isn't about fear mongering, we know trump is bad. we know he's awful, corrupt, stupid, and a raging fucking fascist. We don't need to be told that. we don't need to be told that he's going to kill everyone who doesn't agree with him- Trump tells us that enough on his own.
It's about getting them excited to vote for Biden. Biden himself could be a limp noodle. but somebody coming in, saying 'hey I know it's rough, but here's what I'm doing to help, and can you maybe help?" would be powerful. "Hey, I'm trying to get [something useful] done in congress... can you call your representatives? your senators? can you help me get [something useful] done?" or even "HEY! so I'm trying to do [something useful], do you have any ideas how we can get [people on board]" Or... I know it's daring, actually listening to what we have to say about things.
"Why do you think we shouldn't support Israel?" and then actually listen to the answers. (I mean, it's pretty fucking obvious, but apparently that one's gone over his head.)
Hey dude. I can see you're really passionate about this, you're not a propagandist or an agitator. You have your ideals and are sticking to them. I can respect that.
But you just wrote a long, detailed, passionate defense of being stupid.
I can tell you're better than this. You're obviously not stupid. I insult and jeer at a lot of people on lemmy because they're fucking idiots, but you are obviously not one. You can be better than this. You don't have to restrict yourself to voting based on vibes or Tiktok memes. I believe you have the mental capacity to actually do a few google searched (in incognito mode to trick the algorithm) and see what Biden is doing and has done. I believe you have the mental capacity to ignore the propaganda about "senility" or whatever else, if you choose to. Or the idea that Biden for some reason decides to not listen to his constituents.
At the very least, I think you have the capacity to recognize that a lot of the anti Biden people are at best EXTREMELY politically uninformed and wonder if it's a good idea to take cues from them.
A whopping 66-77% of Americans polled again and again view Biden as too old to be President. So in this respect, I'm just reflecting a widespread concern of what millions upon millions of people see and feel.
His staff, who must literally kiss ass to maintain the privilege of working a job in the White House and like warfare will give no quarter to any argument the GOP makes no matter how true it is - is NOT a good counter-argument to make. It's as outlandish as the Republican senators coming out of the meeting yesterday saying Trump is sharp as ever.
Even the likes of The Daily Show to SNL mocks this aspect of Biden for good reason.
Blaming for the stutter works only insofar as you're old enough to remember Biden as VP under Obama in 2008.
NOW, here's the thing: less time needs to be spent trying to shore up the bullshit argument that Biden is "sharp as ever," and more about pivoting to Trump's incoherent rambles and his own age. Acknowledging Biden's age is actually a great one-two punch to use for anyone on the fence because it gives you a point where both can agree: "Yeah, I agree Biden is showing his age clearly. No differently than McConnell... No differently than Donald (give examples), but I think Biden is at least a more compassionate person... And say, while we're at it, can we agree we should have an age limit if we already have an age-minimum on the Presidency?" <clinks-beers and everybody laughs.>
This wasn't about him being old, this was about you saying "senility" and whoever didn't believe that had was "head is deep in the sand". But when I call that out, you have to pivot that to old.
Ok I should have said people that meet him say he's sharp. They are not beholden to him. One guy met him said he remember meeting his mom like a decade prior and remembered her and all the details. Fuck that's better than I do. Now in case you say "but that's not work", but yes also the people that work with him say he's sharp too. Seems to me you just want to get the 'senile' bit out any way you can.
Wow and now you're trying to ignore that he does in fact have a stutter? Ok that's about it, you've shown you're dead set on vilification no matter what. Stutters come and go, how prepared you are for a speech, etc. It's not consistent that never changes one bit.
Thanks for showing the world that your mission is to bad mouth Biden. You sneak in "senile" then pivot when called out. You say everything good must be bootlickers. And you preemptively try to ignore that he has a stutter. I'm probably not going to reply anymore.
Geriatric, old, senile — same thing for all intents of this discussion. Yes, they are head-deep in the sand.
Hell just watch the clips from this Daily Show skit of Biden.. I can tell you three things: (1) Obama never did this, (2) Biden never did this during Obama's first term in office, and (3) this is clearly a sign of senility no different than McConnell just freezing during a press conference.
Wow and now you’re trying to ignore that he does in fact have a stutter?
Not what I said. Work on reading-comprehension, please. Try again and stop putting words in my mouth.
Also I didn't "sneak" senile in anywhere — I said it quite in the open, really.
Hell just watch the clips from this Daily Show skit of Biden.. I can tell you three things: (1) Obama never did this, (2) Biden never did this during Obama's first term in office, and (3) this is clearly a sign of senility no different than McConnell just freezing during a press conference.
Democrats need to fall in love. Republicans just need to fall in line.
It's like you read the meme and went yep, totally their fault. I'm ok with my life gets shittier until I fall in love with a politician. It's not my fault. I am owed this.
Is there a term for the political version of an incel?
This user canvases lemmy threads with anti Biden and anti Dem strawman arguments completely out of context of the thread. Every thread calling out Republicans for bullshit, this user is there never acknowledging how terrible the GOP is, and going straight into anti dem whataboutism.
Just look at the sheer number of comments this user posts daily. And search the mod logs for deleted comments on this user.
If they're not being paid to disenfranchise progressive voters into abstaining from this election, they should look for a sponsor because they're working for free.
"Everyone I disagree with is an agitator, now shut the fuck up about candidates earning their votes and do as you're told because ONLY WE can save the country from fascist policies (even though Biden is doing half of it himself!)
No theres nothing fascist about that attitude or our incessant need to spread misinformation about anyone who thinks Biden sucks, SHUT UP AND FALL IN LINE OR ELSE!"
You do, of course, realize Hitler was put into power by the conservatives, right? Like, von Pappen was Centre Party, von Hindenburg was a nationalist. They turned to Hitler to avoid losing power to the left.
Because people refuse to vote for anybody else, even though the duopoly parties are effectively the same picture. People obsess over the "World ending" scenario but people are always saying the world is going to end - It's just a boogeyman to keep people voting duopoly, Democrat's ONLY platform for decades has been "We aren't Republican, and Republicans will end the world as you know it."
Of course, it's not just pres. People need to run and vote for non-duopoly candidates all the way down, and once establishment candidates start losing votes they'll either shift their positions or double down strengthening the non-duopoly candidates. Ain't nobody moving left so long as you keep rewarding them for sprinting further and further right.
People have made American politics like training a dog not to bark but you're giving them a treat everytime they bark and punishing them when they don't bark then wondering why they bark all the time.
They’re our only viable choices now because the primaries are over, and as much as people here want a super leftist candidate, the reality is that when it’s time to vote, those candidates don’t get enough votes either because these same people don’t actually vote, or this stance isn’t nearly as popular as some may think. I say this all as a Bernie supporter, but vocally against the disinformation agents who push agendas like “both sides” or the previous “Bernie or Bust” mantra.
Like it or not, the reality is, come the general election it’s either Biden or Trump. Unfortunately, anything other than a Biden vote helps Trump.
Gnash teeth and complain all you want, but that’s reality. Anyone pushing another agenda is lying or naive.
The way y'all treat our political system is proof that America is already and has always been fascist. Election after election, decade after decade, the entire Democratic platform is saying "We aren't them" then doing half of what they wanted to do anyway. People CAN make change if they stop rewarding democrats for sprinting right, and if they can't - Well, that's just proof that we AREN'T free, innit?
"ONLY WE CAN SAVE THE COUNTRY AND IF YOU DON'T SUPPORT US YOU'RE THE ENEMY"
It's the only argument Democrats have, and like it or not - that's fascist messaging. Blue fascism is still fascism.
100%. You hardly ever see these people in any posts critical of Trump, though the few that you do see, just turn it around on Biden.
They’re clearly here to disrupt the election.
Just ask them who they’d put in Biden’s stead that has a remote chance to win the election. I do this all the time. So far- NONE have provided a viable name. Not one. Just backtracking, ad hominem, and doublespeak nonsense.
Your car has a blown head gasket. It still turns over, but the check engine light is always an on the oil looks like peanut-butter.
You need to drive 100 miles to get to the airport tomorrow. All the indications you have suggest your car isn't going to make it. Every piece of reliable data you have says its not going to work. Historically, people have tried to use cars like this to get to the air port, it doesn't work. You have friends and family members with cars would happily drive you to the airport. You could even just borrow their car. Technically you haven't decided what car to drive to the airport yet; this actually doesn't happen till you and your family have a group call tonight. You have alternatives.
Biden is the car. Literally any generic Democrat is the car of your friends or family. The group call is the convention.
You are insisting on a strategy that is going to hand Trump the election. When it does, we'll be pointing to these posts of yours.
Insisting we run Biden when we haven't had a convention and literally every Democratic governor polls higher is you insisting we lose this one.
Biden is not a car. He’s a presidential candidate. I suggest you take this shit seriously. Because pouting and withholding your vote because you’re not getting what you want is going to get you EVERYTHING you don’t want. And it is going to hurt a LOT of people.
Okay. I think we’re done here man. I have drawn out your bad argument about as good as I think I can. You’ve made it pretty clear that you’re not here in in any capacity of good faith and at this point it’s pretty clear what you’re up to.
You managed to not only lie to yourself, but you’ve backed that lie up with false data created by… yourself. That’s some inception-level cognitive dissonance.
I’m not going to block you, but I’m done talking to you. So… have the last word.
You are completely detached from reality. Go look up the Gallup polling data and check my methods. I've explained them clearly enough to be reproduced.
You aren't interested in a conversation grounded in reality, and you just can't comprehend something that doesn't agree with your assumptions.
Bidens not winning this election. He hasn't been the whole time. In 450 days he hasn't been leading in polling. He's a fucking disaster, and you and others who insist this guy who is visibly incapable of winning are the ones responsible for Trump.
And I don't mean that in a "don't give them the satisfaction" way. I mean that's what they're paid to do. When people like us block people like them, it's easier for them to spread their propaganda. Because we don't call it out, because we don't see it.
Blocking someone is not silencing them, it's just plugging your ears.
it's reasonable to claim that Gore actually won in 2000. There were sixty one thousand votes that had not been machine-counted because of rampant, clearly partisan, bullshit reasons (among them "hanging chad",). the Florida Supreme Court ordered a manual count of those ballots with SCOTUS, lead by Scalia, decided to stay because the recount would give Bush a veneer of "illegitimacy". (gee. wonder why, ya fucking partisan hack.) To be perfectly clear, Gore lost Florida (and the electoral college) by 570 votes. The decision in Bush V. Gore to stay the manual recount basically handed Bush the win. (and, I might add, cast doubt on the legitimacy of bush's win. it was handed by a court that had no business ordering that stay. But did anyway, because they're partisan hacks. I'm not angry, honest.)
Kerry flip-flopped more than a fish out of water, making it hard for independents and centrists to know what his positions actually were. 2 years prior to the election he was, for example, staunchly against gay marriage (and lets be honest, the US was very hostile to gay marriage then. There's been a massive sea change in that, but it hadn't happened yet.), but in 2004 signed a letter urging Massachusetts to not outlaw gay marriage. Further, he had the personality of a cold fish. and his running mate was an empty suit with nothing to back it up- who couldn't even deliver his home State of North Carolina.... In short, you had a couple warm bodies running. At the time, Bush was still riding high off 9/11 and the Iraq war and americans were still angry at that; the war wasn't unpopular yet. Katrina hadn't happened yet, and Bush was still reasonably popular. So, of fucking course Kerry lost.
Hillary. Where do we begin? her emails? lets start there.
Sure, "HeR EmAiLs" and "LoCk HeR uP" is an idiotic rallying cry of MAGA morons everywhere. But, even so, she conducted official Sec of State business on a personal email routinely. It's such a great rallying cry because it actually has some teeth. it should be scandalous. Even if she was perfectly not-at-all-corrupt, it looks that way. I- and most everyone else- would be legitimately fired for conducting that level of business off a personal email. it should be 100% unacceptable. Not saying she should have been locked up or grilled the way she was. But seriously. It looked bad. and it played in the news.
Then we got Benghazi. an American ambassador died in a terrorist attack. There's some things that hindsight says they could have done differently. Republicans latched onto it for political theater, with 10 different investigations and multiple sessions of grilling Clinton, who even then was the presumptive nominee to replace Obama. there was some funding that her office denied, she might not even have been aware that "she" denied it. Hindsight's a bitch. Anyhow... the republican shenanigans played well in the media.
Oh. "Super Criminals". Hillary was very unpopular with minority voters- particularly Black and Latinos. sound clips calling for law-and-order tough-on-crime calling black people "super criminals" didn't help. there was a lot there, especially with her attitude, but in the end they simply didn't show up for her. Even if you look at women voters, she under-performed compared to Obamma. (i mean, he looks mighty fine in a tan suit... sorry, sorry. couldn't resist.) Like, how unpopular do you have to be as a woman, to lose women voters from Obama's election, when you're running against Donald- "grab them by the pussy", "When you're that rich they let you do it", "Octopus-Arms" -Trump.
Lets also talk about how she boosted trump specifically because he was "a clown" or whatever. She gave us trump and then proceededly arrogantly not campaign in key states.
oh, and there's more that I just don't have time to get into... but we got Whitewater, Travelgate, filegate; and shit rolls down hill so lets toss in Paula Jones and Monika Lewinsky scandals. Like there's a lot of smoke there, and there might be a couple fires, or maybe they're just really not that corrupt as people and it's all a big missunderstanding. but again, that plays in the media, and it looks bad. Hilary was the definition of The Establishment™️ running against an anti-establismhent candidate. Of fucking course she's gonna lose, and she really didn't help matters by fucking around with not campaigning in key swing states because, "naw, it's fucking trump".
Yup. so aside from Gore, there's really rather good reasons to have not liked them, and the DNC idiots thought they new better and ran them anyhow... and we got fucked because of it. blaming voters for your own stupid blunders seems to be a DNC favorite. And they're doing it again.
Hell, she's STILL out here working to tank democrats in the name of status quo corporatism,
"What do you say to voters who are upset that those are the two choices? Get over yourself."
Democrats need the boogeyman of Trump but they will 1000% take Trump before they give an inch to the left, but they'll be happy to blame leftists for their loss after 4 years of telling em to eat a dick.
I'm no Hillary fan, but I thought the consensus was she lost because of Comey's bullshit October surprise.
Her Basket of Deplorables remark is actually the moment she MOST energized her base and grassroots coalition. That was a blip of authenticity I and many others appreciated.
You know, the people who actually go out and do the door-knocking, phone-banking, fundraising, and pushing back against Uncle Bob and their parents while dragging their friend to the poll out of voter-enthusiasm.
And she was fucking right, like she was about everything, and I suspect that deep down you people know it, and are ashamed, and that's why you lash out at her.
Young and charismatic. That's all that is necessary for Dems to sweep elections. Proven time and time again. With a hearty message of progress and love.
It's that fucking simple.
(signed someone who ultimately voted for Hillary and Biden but they were far from my 1st preference in the primaries).
Young and charismatic might mean higher taxes for the rich and more progressive policies.
The Democratic leadership doesn’t want that. They really like the neoliberal consensus, they like having funding parity with the Republicans. They like being seen as “very serious people “ and they’re deathly afraid of being called socialists.
The problem is that their apparatchiks all came of age, politically, in the 1990s under that same neoliberal golden age. That’s not the world they’re in anymore. They aren’t running against Bush the Elder, and cutting taxes while playing jazz isn’t going to cut it when they’re losing working class votes to fascists.
We saw this play out horribly in the UK: where Labour’s party leaders would rather sabotage their own leader because he was too progressive then risk him winning and give socialism credibility.
The political left really liked the 1990s, but it’s a bygo era and it isn’t coming back.
The last time the Democrats ran a progressive candidate allowed Nixon to sweep every state except a few in that election. I mean, just look at this shit!
So yeah, if anyone is wondering why the Democrats don't run progressive candidates, this is why! They've only moved further to the right since then. Expecting Democrats to run a progressive would likely sweep the whole nation blue, but if you thought tRump was bad, a progressive would be just as bad for monied interests, which have only grown more emboldened and enriched the last 40-45 years.
It will take a lot of time, I'm afraid, to undo the damage Republicans have have done with their shitty ideals and politics, starting largely with Reagan's racist, homophobic, anti-union, and regulation gutting bullshit!
In fairness I emphasized young and charismatic — was McGovern charismatic? I don't know about that.
Still, I think this is the exception as opposed to the norm, considering we can point to FDR, JFK, Carter, Clinton, and Obama. RFK was setting up to be another obvious front-runner.
It's a race to the bottom to put forward someone who will water their rhetoric down and cater to ignorance; but of course, some of the country isn't educated enough to understand why progressive policies must be better — hence why you run someone young and charismatic — hence why Obama swept traditionally red counties that neither Hillary nor Biden picked up.
You're totally right they should just put their hand inside the magical candidate bag where all the charismatic candidates are stored, say the magic formula, and pull one out. How stupid can they be!
If we really want to focus on getting the most popular candidate with voters rather than the corporate favorite moderate...
Dems have complete control of their primary, they can get corporate money out of it at literally any second.
But they dont.
Because the people running the party don't want the candidate that voters are most likely to vote for. They want the candidate that will get the most donations from corporations and billionaires.
Lots of people keep trying to explain why if beating Republicans is the only thing that matters, everyone involved in the process should make choices that maximize the amount of votes that the Dem candidate gets.
However "moderates" keep insisting the wealthy and corporations gets what they want and everyone else need to support them unquestionably....
Which is already what the Republicans do.
So if both parties are catering to the rich and powerful...
Why not try giving the millions and millions of voters what they want and making the rich and powerful compromise?
Why do they always win no matter what?
Historically giving Dem voters a candidate they want translates to a Dem president.
Biden won by less than 100k.votes spread out between 3-5 battleground states. And has nowhere near his 2020 support. Probably because in 2020 he was pretending to be more left leaning.
And 2024 he's just ignoring anyone that's saying anything besides unadulterated praise.
I’m starting to think that the corporations (who own both parties, but prefer republicans) are sabotaging the democrats. That’s why they ran Hillary. And now we have an absolute joke of a Supreme Court that will suck every single nanoliter of jizz from the corporate dick any time day or night.
I’m starting to think that the corporations (who own both parties, but prefer republicans) are sabotaging the democrats. That’s why they ran Hillary.
Oh my god you're so frustratingly close to realizing the truth that we've been telling you all along.
The corporations (and Putin) did sabotage the Democrats. But not by some bizarre overcomplicated plan of infiltrating of the DNC to send up moderate candidates who consistently win the popular vote yet are just unlikeable enough to not win swing states. They just used propaganda to get people like you to hate perfectly good candidates.
You can see controlled opposition in the Green party and RFK Jr. They put up shit candidates and then try to pull some people away from Democrats. If the corporations and Putin could infiltrate the Democratic party, they would just have the DNC close up shop and we would have Republicans forever. Why the fuck would corporations try to put up a candidate who wants to raise their taxes?
You're coming up with these insane scenarios because it's embarrassing to admit that you are one of the ones who fell for the propaganda, but think about it. Occams Razor. That's the simplest explanation.
Blackstone wants democrats to win while Blackrock wants republicans to win. To corporations, the choice between biden and trump is like Coke vs Pepsi because they largely win either way even if they’re a bit disappointed they have to drink Pepsi when they wanted Coke.
No!…it’s the voters who are wrong. Better blame theme some more, as that will surely boost our historically abysmal national voter turnout come November.
Not saying you shouldn't do the right thing when the choice is limited, but how about the DNC stops putting its finger on the scale for unpopular establishment candidates?
It's clear that the 'safe' choice can still lose, so why not go for the person the base actually likes instead of another centrist wet napkin who appeals to no one?
We couldn't primary Biden in 2024 if we wanted to. Even the unaligned votes that should be a symbol of "hey, you're not pleasing your base" were ignored. In 2028, they'll surely push K-hole as the safe choice because even if Trump dies, you know they'll put his head in a jar to run him again and clearly his only natural enemy is bland centre-right politics.
Biden's appeal wasn't that he was charismatic or brilliant or super-competent.. it was that he was a reasonably sincere, respectable human, and he's proceeded to squander that by failing to handle Gaza gracefully.
Don't tell me he can't do anything. Just run the same playbook we subjected Venezuela or Cuba to, and that would get Bibi's attention.
Biden was the incumbent. When he chose to run in 2024, the decision was made. You don't just throw away that advantage. If the DNC funded an opponent, it would only divide the base.
Case an point - just look around at Lemmy users. There are still a ton of users clinging onto the DNC boycott after the controversy of Hillary getting the 2016 nomination.
Now is not the time to divide further. Now is the time to shut the fascists down before we lose the ability to run any opposition, charismatic or not, in 2028.
You act like this is some big Injustice or surprise. Let me ask you a question. When has any party ever primaried an incumbent candidate of their party. Who were the 2019 republican primary candidates? Are the Democrats doing anything to you. Or are you a victim of your misunderstanding. This isn't a defense of Democrats mind you. It's just unusual that they're always held to different/unrealistic expectations.
Also I think it's important to point out. One of the only people to even remotely seriously push to primary Joe Biden was Dean Phillips. You know the Trump appeaser. Who recently called for New York's Governor to Pardon Trump. Sure sad I didn't get to vote for that man LOL. The fact is everyone knew there would not be and didn't necessarily need to be a primary this year. I hope everyone is ready for 28 though. I'm really hoping for some younger blood now that the boomers are dying out. Honestly I'd like to see Ocasio Cortez make an effort. She's young and might not make it. But she's got plenty of time to work at it and hone her skills.
It’s just unusual that they’re always held to different/unrealistic expectations.
Perhaps they're victims of their branding/positioning.
If a Trump, or even a Romney, says "we can wash our hands of a little genocide in the middle east for political gameplay/economic convenience/religious theories", that's pretty much within what people expect of them. The GOP has had a vaguely evil air since at least Nixon, if not McCarthy.
The Democrats, however, try to present themselves as trying to be on the right side of history. While this is no doubt a combination of cynical "this locks in some demographics" and "social justice is still cheaper than actual economic reform", it means people expect a little higher standards. The bar is unbelievably low here, and he's still tripping over it.
Okay, so Biden abandons Israel tomorrow. Does the genocide stop? Nope because it was always Congress that authorized and controlled the spending and weapons shipment. Mike Johnson and the Republicans will gleefully fund the genocide in Palestine. And on top of that now we've lost all diplomatic influence with israel. They are now all in on the genocide. Worse Biden who's actually made many overtures trying to bring peace actually working with the system and not viewing things through a childish black and white lens. No longer has any pull to negotiate any peace treaties or ceasefires.
Whether or not abandoning Israel completely would slow the genocide anytime soon. It would ultimately increase the killing. Many countries in the region. Would readily attack Israel without the United States to defend it. So the genocide would switch from innocent Palestinians to innocent israelis. I'm not sure how that's a better thing. It's just exchanging alike for alike.
You seem to think this is very simple however. And I'd be interested to get your thoughts on this. Please explain and simple thoughts how you feel the Democrats should handle this. And then explain why them following your actions would have the outcome you claim it will.
Regaining the moral high ground; we are no longer complicit. This is, to a big degree, playing for a domestic audience, and I think it's what a lot of protesters are after. Yes, Congress may ultimately cut the cheques, but I'm pretty sure the administration can find ways to tie up delivery of support in red tape.
Israeli impunity has always been backstopped by the assumption the US would never turn on them. If other countries turn up their nose, it doesn't have the same meaning. Losing American support would be a huge shock to their political system.
Alternatively, we could go to the point and publically declare what everyone knows-- Netanyahu is fanning the war because once it's over, his administration is defunct, and his legal problems resume. We could singularly demonize HIM as a warmonger-- personal sanctions, supporting his prosecution for war crimes, or classic Cold War style encouragement of regime change.
Yes, whatever we do, we piss off Israel, but if we don't take off the kid gloves now, then when? If they finally admit to nuclear weapons by dropping one?
So Bush Jr. had the lowest approval rating for a president that won a second term. He ended his second term with one of the lowest approval rating of any president of all time (just a short and curly ahead of Nixon).
Some detail:
Including George W. Bush
Approval Shifts:
Mean Shift: 1.91%
Standard Deviation: 10.53%
Winning Candidates' Approval Ratings:
Mean Approval Rating: 50.73%
Standard Deviation: 11.14%
Excluding George W. Bush
Approval Shifts:
Mean Shift: 3.60%
Standard Deviation: 9.40%
Winning Candidates' Approval Ratings:
Mean Approval Rating: 56.35%
Standard Deviation: 4.31%
Notice how the standard deviation associated with the winning candidate tightens up significantly with out Bush?
I do publish the results of these analyses, here, on lemmy. However, I just have a day job that has prevented me from doing "the rest" of this analysis. This is only one part of a larger analysis I have planned.
ROFL. Someone known to be VERY biased and anti-democracy, did an analysis….
The results were shocking- SHOCKING I tell you!
Similarly, I did research on socialism. Yeah. I know. Ironic, right? We’re both researching things at the same time? Anyway… The results say it won’t work in America. So…
You’re just incapable of remaining civil when some one calls you out, aren’t you?
Your first problem is you’re extrapolating data from polls.
ROFL!
Polls are incredibly inaccurate. And like your little research project- it’s VERY easy to skew the results in whatever favor you want. How about when you respond, if you think to act like a child and insult- just don’t respond and wait until tomorrow.
Now I’m a child? You seriously can’t speak with civility, can you? I’d suggest you take this seriously. People’s rights are at stake. And if you think what’s happening in Palestine is bad now….
Be prepared for Super Doppler Gyro Genocide 3000 v 2.0.
Because this is where we are. Vote or don’t vote. The genocide continues. You can get it with an extra helping of “fuck the LGBTQ*” and “Goodbye reproductive rights,” or you can help those that are positioned to lose their rights as human fucking beings.
People always trying to push Biden bad. This is the candidate that won. He is popular. This is what the base likes.
Everytime the Dems move left they lose. Happened to Al Gore, he tried to move left after hopefully the population warmed up with Bill Clinton. Bam lost the election. Thanks 3rd party voters. Hillary tried just a tiny little bit with the map room to fight climate change, after hopefully the population warmed up with Obama. Bam lost the election. Thanks protest no-voters!
Imagine what the landscape would be if they won. If you want the Dems to move left, you have to give them victories. Because when they lose, they go to the center to find voters.
Happened to Al Gore, he tried to move left after hopefully the population warmed up with Bill Clinton.
Gore didn't lose. had a proper recount been done (including the overvotes,) Gore probably would have won. SCOTUS intervened and stopped recount of the undervotes and Gore never pushed for recounts of the overvotes (which should have been recounted anyhow by florida state law.)
He became the big climate change guy after he lost.
I’d also point out that he only looks like a big climate change guy now. Back in 2000, the right wing hadn’t gone all-in on climate denialism yet. You could easily find Reagan and Bush people who didn’t think it was controversial.
They need the conservative voters in swing states. Do the Dems in swing states get excited about leftists or progressives? Like in 2016 Hillary had more votes in AZ, NV, FL, OH. I wish Bernie had gotten to the general and I think the EC is a cancer. But I don't think going by popular vote is a viable strategy given that we have to deal with that reality.
Reminds me of when the army tried to simplify uniforms by measuring a bunch of soldiers for data and making an average size medium, large, and small that ended up not fitting anyone well at at all.
Because the DNC is conservative. They don't want a left leaning candidate. That's not who they intend to represent. They represent money. That is all. They will let the Republicans pull things to the extreme right and then they can hang out right of center and now there is no other choice.
Because the base likes centrist wet napkins. I'm not sure who you're picturing as the base democratic voter block but they're not exactly a bunch of radicals.
They can get excited for a candidate who's literally the living antithesis of their supposed values and yet Democrats not only have to be more popular but wildly so for electoral results that let them go anywhere meaningful.
Not even nominal trifecta control is evidently enough if even one dem thinks a procedural glitch caused by only repealing half a rule by accident, because somehow the cornfields get to hold everything hostage by just declaring "nah we're not done debating yet" and then just never letting it be discussed again.
It's frustrating beyond imagination and even worse it is all entirely by design with the intention of continuous disenfranchisement, against the young, against women, against people of color, and even past all them, against people who don't own their own land.
The establishment types and chrisnats drone on and on about how America is a shining city upon a hill, and in doing so have completely lost the plot. America should never accept that it is the city on the hill, it should forever be striving to be the city on the hill. We need to find a way together to break the walls down and rebuild the structure of this country to be one that is well and good capable enough of getting out of its own way to be able to seek constant and pro-active improvement to the model.
Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement, revoked the Keystone Pipeline permit, created a 13 million acre federal petroleum reserve for Alaskan wildlife, greatly increased oil site lease cost, signed $7B in solar subsidies, enacted the Inflation Reduction act to support clean energy, leveraged the NLRB for an FTC ruling that eliminated non-compete agreements, forgave billions in student debt from predatory loans, created the CHIPS Act to improve reliance on domestic technology, reenacted Net Neutrality, repealed Title 42, ended the Muslim Ban, reinstated the law prohibiting Israeli settlement on Palestinian territory, signed the Equality Act for LGBTQ+ rights, restored gay rights to beneficiaries, reenacted trans care anti-discrimination law, signed the Respect for Marriage Act, enabled unspecified gender on US Passports, rejoined WHO, rescheduled marijuana, actively reducing drug costs with the American Rescue Plan Act…
He's literally a big city elite with multiple children by multiple women who openly flaunts his disregard for the institution of his own marriage, but the redcaps don't even blink at the thought of casting the ballot for him, because he's the candidate, and him losing means the other guy wins, and unlike Dems, they are actually able to care about "if our guy doesn't win the other guy will" by itself.
Sorry about that. I misunderstood, and agree with that. Although Biden isn’t just “not Trump.” He’s done plenty of good, as I wrote above, and some bad, as we all know.
Hilary and Gore won the popular vote. Why don't Democrats ever do something about the blatant theft of votes from minorities instead or blaming their own base for getting their votes stolen.
Nope, something that terrifies many lefties far more. Forming coalitions and showing solidarity to actually win victories and a chance to govern. We can even call it the Sanders method.
“Can sit down and have a beer with him” “Tells it like it is” “I like him ‘cause he’s not a politician”
I wouldn’t be too hard on the electorate, although I 100% agree with the problem description and that counter-educating them out of being duped by these framings is important. But they didn’t come up with the framings. There’s a whole ass science of how to resonate with people emotionally and produce behaviors you want, and professionals have been studying it for over a century now to sell toothpaste and beer and deodorant, and it works. It’s actually one of the primary focuses of hard scientific study in our society, much much more so than addressing climate change. And so, when they turned that whole machine in favor of particular candidates and against other candidates, it’s not surprising that it worked on a whole fuck of a lot of people.
Now let’s start to talk about how “I could NEVER vote for a genocide” and “Here comes the biggest election of our lifetime, just like every other one before that 🙄” fits into that framework…
Tell me you've never had a lengthy conversation with someone who gets all their political news from Tiktok without telling me etc
You could literally nominate a chocolate milkshake or a dead squirrel and they wouldn't know the difference if they saw some meme videos that said chocolate milkshake is gonna lower gas prices
Like a lot of the founding fathers, I think a strong and honest press is one of the key features of a democracy, and without that, it won't function, and people being able to vote won't do a damn thing to prevent the whole thing from turning into tyranny
And hey! Look at our media!
And hey! Look what kind of government we have, oh no oh fuck
That was kind of my point about the whole thing: That skillful manipulation of the voters happens, and has ruined the country pretty thoroughly. I don't think the answer is to turn away from democracy, but I do that think that fixing the media so that people have some semblance of an accurate picture of what's happening is an absolutely urgent issue right now.
It seems a tad ahistorical to suggest that biased media is in any way new.
If anything we are now living in an era of choice where we can choose which approved narrative we’ll take in as opposed to being subject to the local hearst papers outlook.
If control over media gives so much power though, why not change who has that control?
I mean you’re not wrong. The US spent most of the previous two centuries wandering around the world killing and enslaving anyone who made them nervous or unprofitable while the whole “honest” media wrote a never ending stream of stories enthusing about how nice it was that the price of bananas was going down
Then when the internet came along we replaced that with an absolute explosion of viewpoints some of which are honest, some of which are just lazy and pointless, and some of which are manufactured propaganda which shows a remarkable level of effectiveness
But… if you wanna tell me that that’s not the pure step backwards I described it as, I won’t say you’re totally wrong about that tbh
Regardless of all that, yes, I still think making it work effectively and honestly is as important now as it ever was
If media is used by a tiny group to control what people think and new technology allows the same tiny group to reach people with more granularity, is it really a move “forwards” or “backwards”?
If you believe that media is a part of functioning democracy, who should be in control of it?
By “Media” I mean everything. Newspapers, TV, social media, anything that lets people know what’s going on in the world
It used to be like a few thousand independent editors all across the country, then with TV and corporate consolidation it dwindled to basically just 1 corporate viewpoint, now with social media and the internet I think public opinion is more or less up for grabs for whoever wants to spend the most money to influence it (not that different from the later stages of the TV era tbh)
For quite a while now media has been out of “control” of any single grouping; basically that was one of the big advantages of the internet era. But the disadvantage is that real journalism costs money, and modern newspapers don’t have a good business model to stay alive and do it, and modern social media isn’t really configured to be able to keep out propaganda viewpoints, and so the public narrative winding up de facto “in control” of whoever puts more money and effort into distorting it.
I don’t think we should go back to where anyone can have “control” necessarily but it would be nice if real journalism could make money again to be able to do the investigative aspect, and if normal person social media (for the opinion aspect and sharing-news-stories aspect) was community operated and resistant to deliberate propaganda
Best answer I can come up with to your question as I see it
So. That’s why I say community operated, and that the internet was a big step forward whatever its flaws. I wouldn’t consider the Black Panther viewpoint to be propaganda, and yet I think there’s been a pretty consistent consensus from newspapers to TV to modern corporate social media that if the Black Panthers’ viewpoint is on your front page one day, then that’s a problem and we’re gonna have to fix it and probably someone’s getting fired or at least moved around.
How community operated social media can determine the difference between somebody in Akron who thinks Joe Biden is a bum and wants to say so, and somebody managing 59 accounts through a VPN each of which keeps up a steady stream of content including a healthy dose of “Joe Biden is a bum and I want to say so,” I honestly have no idea. In a perfect world, to me. the social media software would contain the judgement that:
the Black Panthers would not be propaganda
an honest Trump supporter would not be propaganda
the guy in Akron would not be propaganda, and
and the guy with 59 accounts would be propaganda.
How to implement that though, I don’t really know.
To compare it to a previous era of media, would you say that someone wheatpasting a bunch of flyers everywhere is propaganda in the same way that the person with 59 accounts is?
I take issue with defining propaganda as only that kind of amplifying a point of view through technology, because that’s a really limited definition that doesn’t fit with the last two hundred years of use and one that almost seems to point at smaller organizations more than large ones but I’m willing to dive into it anyway.
Wheatpasting is great. To me, the difference is twofold. Roughly speaking, you could say:
Honestly presenting the source of what you're putting out is opinion, disguising or being deceptive with it is propaganda
A method that offers 1 unit of influence per person, is opinion, whereas a method that gives 1 unit of influence over the narrative per dollar is propaganda
Like I say, I am fascinated that you don't see a problem with running a large number of accounts to create the illusion of popularity of a certain viewpoint, without it needing to be a persuasive enough viewpoint to gain popularity on its own
I brought up wheatpasting specifically to bring this point up, you said methods that produce more influence based on the monetary input are propaganda. Would you say that lobbying is propaganda? Would you say using any technology (such as wheatpasting) beyond yelling in the street is propaganda?
The reason I ask that last one is because that technology, the printing press, the paste and brush, cost money and produce a lasting effect.
Would you say that the way the Washington post and New York Times exercise editorial control over reporting about Gaza is propaganda?
I never said that I don’t see a problem with running a large number of accounts, we’re talking about weather it’s propaganda, not weather it’s problem or bad.
Partisan News: Presenting Trump’s mostly useless executive order in a carefully crafted way that might lead viewers to connect the dots and think Trump was the one that capped the price of insulin
I have trouble treating even the afp article I linked you to as having a relatively low amount of bias despite the reality that it presents more of the story than even the debunking site snopes does. The reason I don’t like it is that the article itself is very clearly trying to lessen the importance of trump regime eo 13937 (I think that’s the number. I don’t tend to open up a million tabs to verify everything and just type off the dome) to rebut actual republican propaganda about it.
Even though it has the information in there, I don’t like having to turn to counterpunch type stories to chase down proof of the basic facts that I saw play out.
Of course, there’s a real kernel of truth to that propaganda and while I don’t think that trump should get credit for the insulin price cap (which is why I didn’t say it!), I think that’s where you’re getting the idea that my completely factual claim from some other thread that the biden regime shut down the trump regimes price cap before they shut down the cia antivax disinformation campaign.
And I understand why you might be inclined to view things that way. It takes either sober minded and clear eyed assessment or naked cynicism to recognize that eo 13937, however flawed, was fundamentally a good thing and allowing people to suffer for an extra two years by walking it back and not funding it, allowing the drug companies complaints to hhs to result in its ultimate rescintion, while including an expanded version in a giant contentious bill is a fundamentally bad thing.
A clear eyed assessment would simply recognize these things as they are and a cynical minded outlook would see the history of the insulin price cap as a feather industry had assented to years before and both parties had been trying to claim for a while.
The point of all this is to say: it really seems like your gauge for propaganda is more of an us versus them scale than one that has a clear definition.
Our trustworthy, objective media, their cynical propagandists.
Because to do that we need a supermajority in the Senate and no Liebermans, Manchins, or Sinemas. The tools we have to fix things are as broken as the things we need to fix.
Those things didn’t change any of the last times some party had a supermajority. What makes you think some new supermajority would be any different, or that republicans or democrats are any different now?
I mean, my ass is out here trying to get .world to vote psl, but for the democrats a good candidate looks like someone who doesn’t wander off when meeting with the g7, can give a coherent interview without literally asking for their handler, doesn’t have a storied history of creating all the problems the American people experience on a daily basis, is capable of holding their own in a debate with trump (not easy!) and just basically isn’t a fucking McKenzie pod person.
They don’t a bench that covers those positions, but that would be good for them.
Trump has decades of experience working a crowd and flipping the script on people. No matter what you think of him as a candidate or as a person you gotta admit he’s a formidable stage presence.
Notable-er and notable-er. Have you seen his interviews from any point in the last 5 years or so? For example he has a noticeable habit of getting up and walking out because they're not going how he wants them to go.
This thing you're saying is a very unusual thing to say or believe for pretty much any observer of American politics outside a very specific segment. I am fascinated by this. Tell me more. Can you give me an example e.g. of him flipping the script on someone?
He pretty famously made all the other republican candidates look terrible in the republican debates in the lead up to the 2016 election. I’ll get a specific example of flipping the script but I’m surprised to have to pull up receipts for what he’s universally acknowledged for.
Liberals are always willing to call trump a catty blowhard bully but when someone says as much using clearer, more neutral language it’s suddenly something to be dug into.
The man knows how to work a crowd and has genuine comedic timing even in his advanced age. You don’t have to hand it to him to recognize his strengths.
I’m surprised to have to pull up receipts for what he’s universally acknowledged for
genuine comedic timing even in his advanced age
Again: This is not a totally unusual view of Trump among American people. But for someone who's planning to vote for the PSL, who is familiar with ins and outs of flaws in Biden's policies and wants to talk about insulin price caps and universal health care, clearly cares about and follows news... and yet, somehow, to have this wrong a view of Trump like they just never happened to run across a Trump interview that happened since 2016, is weird. It's incongruous. It's a view that's exclusive to people who live in one particular type of media bubble only, generally speaking.
How about this, though. From your history:
If you don’t feel disgusted by this enough: the Biden regime shut down the insulin price cap faster than it shut down this program.
There is only one specific type of media where you might have picked up the impression that something like that was plausible (seen the concept of "insulin price cap" without the corresponding information that Biden was the one that enacted it.) Actually even more specific than the type of media diet that might have given you the idea that Trump is a good debater.
Where'd you learn that the Biden regime shut down the insulin price cap? Want to link me to a story about it? I'd love to learn more. You can educate me on the truth about the Biden regime so I'll realize I should vote third party, and save the country.
My not totally unusual (I can't help but notice that youre dancing around saying "accurate") view of trump is incompatible with leftist politics and also wrong somehow?
go ahead and come out and say what you want to say about that instead of making innuendos.
Snopes on the biden regime shutting down the insulin price cap. that article will go on to say that it was just a temporary pause for two months while the biden regime figured out what trump regime executive orders to allow to continue and that executive order 13937 wasn't going to take effect for another two days.
the snopes article hasn't been updated since january 25th 2021, but here's afp fact check with the details that the executive order 13937 wasn't ever "unfrozen" and implemented and was ultimately rescinded by hhs under biden in october of 2021.
as for the media bubble I live in, it's called knowing a diabetic who gets insulin on part d.
Did you read the whole AFP fact check? You really should. The Snopes article was written mid-“freeze”, so it wasn’t in a position to comment on the fact that Trump’s rule such as it was actually was enacted. Also, the AFP article talks about Trump’s order being pretty small in scope (would have applied to 1 in 11 people who needed it) and not funded from the POV of any individual FQHC, and wasn’t legislation, leaving it in unimplemented limbo even after Biden unfroze the order a short time later, until Biden passed actual legislation which did actually implement a price cap for all Medicare recipients, in the IRA.
Both Trump and Biden took steps to limit out-of-pocket costs for insulin, as did policymakers and legislators at the state and federal levels. But the posts mislead in claiming that Biden reversed Trump's actions.
The cost cap went into effect in 2021 and was unchanged when Biden took office.
The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which Biden signed into law in August 2022, requires all Medicare Part D plans and certain Medicare Advantage plans to eliminate the deductible for "covered insulin" and cap the co-payment at $35 per month. The measures went into effect January 1.
"What's happening with the Inflation Reduction Act is an expansion of the Trump administration's Part D model, and an improvement in the sense that it's no longer just a voluntary program, but required of all Part D plans," Cubanski said.
What I am innuendo-ing is that you are repeating right wing propaganda here of a pretty low caliber - which would actually be very difficult for you to have absorbed unless you are:
Exposed to right wing media like Fox News and social-media propaganda (the AFP fact check goes into some detail about an Instagram post that makes this nonsense claim)
And, more crucially, not up to speed on actual news, which would have conveyed the story “Trump falsely claims he was the source of the insulin price cap” and not the propaganda version. If you were aware of any news outside the conservative bubble you would have known the conservative telling of it is false.
I.e. you making this mistake is incompatible with you consuming any media diet other than a purely conservative media diet. I.e. I am saying that there is strong evidence that you are a fake leftist, and all this support for voting third party because Biden isn’t left enough and you like all good leftists are not going to vote for him, is exactly what it looks like i.e. lies coming from a person whose actual political alignment is pro-Trump.
It’s possible I guess that you are a real PSL supporter who just happens to watch almost all Fox News, or gets their news from Instagram propaganda and latched onto this one thing because it is anti Biden, or something like that, but that seems unlikely to me.
This is one of the reasons I don’t actually like the afp article. The part you quoted saying it went into effect is from a health insurance lobby think tank employee, and later on the article goes on to say that actually it was never implemented and no one got cheaper insulin from it because congress, the insurance companies and drug manufacturers complained and got hhs to rescind their ruling on its implementation in October of 2021:
Quoted here:
In summary: Trump's order was overturned. But no one had seen cost savings as it was never implemented -- and the number of patients who might have received discounts is far fewer than those who received aid through his voluntary Medicare program.
The extent to which I see Fox News is about an hour or so a year waiting in my local mechanics office to pay for some repair. I’m exposed to msnbc much more frequently every time I visit my neighbors and some family who always seem to have it on when I come by.
I haven’t claimed that trump is the source of the insulin price cap and in my other response to you in the branch of our conversation about how you define propaganda I imply that the industry’s assent to some sort of price cap after Covid is actually behind it, not either party regime.
Now on to the personal attacks:
Feel free to call me whatever you like. I explained that my understanding of this issue comes from being close to a person who receives insulin through part d and would have (they claim and I have no reason to dispute, considering it would mean revealing their income) benefited from eo 13937, not from some media campaign.
When I call some scratched liberal a fascist, it’s because they say something like “well, I have to support the genocide with my vote because trump will do it here!”. I’m paraphrasing, but my point is that what seems like a contentious personal attack from me (fascist!) is actually based directly on the things they’re saying (I’d prefer people are genocided abroad rather than at home!).
When you call me a pro-trump fake leftist it’s because of innuendo and assumption. I told you explicitly why and how I know what I know, that it’s due to personal experience, not media exposure, yet you still in the comment directly responding to that one badjacket me by implying I watch the bad media.
Come on, that’s a deeply unserious tactic to deploy and is especially offensive when you’re trying to have a conversation about propaganda in another branch of this very conversation!
You’re seriously referencing a cropped video from Fox that removed the skydiver Biden walked over and gave a thumbs up to as wandering off. Stop acting like you give a fuck about the country you are so intentionally trying to undermine with your ignorant bullshit.
Dude forget about the misleadingly cropped videos, check out the thread where they claimed that Trump capped insulin prices and Biden shut down the price cap. You are literally talking to a conservative (and one who’s poorly informed enough not to realize that making that claim on Lemmy would be recognized as Facebook-uncle caliber conservative propaganda.)
How about the democrats actually run a candidate with just a modicum of character and integrity rather than threatening people into voting for them. It should be easy to win against someone like bush or trump and yet they are consistently close races. Thats on you democrats.
Recasting “you are in danger if you don’t do X” as someone threatening / coercing you into doing X, is one of those little skillful emotional reframings that I was talking about in my other comment. If you watch closely on Lemmy there are like 8-10 of them (all pointing in the direction of “don’t vote for Joe Biden”) that come up again and again.
Yep. And i’m fucking sick of them. Blocking all i see. Ain’t nobody got time for fucking hillbilly polisci 101. They can argue amongst themselves about how voting works.
Look pal, I already explained how the imperialist pigdog state exploits colonial interests with teh GeNoSiDe?! You want me to blanket-characterize all armed conflict in United States of Imperial Genisode history too?!
Fine. They were all puppeteered by telepathic lizards who force us to drink Coca cola because the nanochip bitcoin represses the workers of glorious freedoms.
Which, frankly, should already have been obvious. It’s, like, so obvious omg.
I just like it when he speaks plainly. In circular detatched pastiches of what a normal highly unqualified person might say if they were desperate to sell you a shit sandwich. So inspiring. Bigly.
You shouldn’t block them. You should call them out. Every one of them. As them who they’d run in place of Biden the could win. MAKE them own up to having no solution and watch them weasel out of the discussion.
Never let up on them. Hold them to their ignorance.
Yeah, just don't have time. Besides, i’m not convinced they actually care about facts or reason. I’m sure many aren’t even American, so their hot take about Biden is - not necessary.
Dude I literally JUST explained this, IN THE MESSAGE YOU ARE REPLYING TO.
I have no idea if the Democrats can save the country. Actually, on their own, I am pretty confident that they cannot based on the track record. I am extremely sure that Trump will do catastrophic damage to it, though, which is a different statement.
Their election position basically ‘vote for us or else the orphan crushing party will be in charge’. Not very inspirational and rather threatening if you ask me.
I am pretty interested to see that me and @lolcatnip explaining this tactic, did not do anything at all to deter multiple people from blandly employing the exact same tactic in replies.
This comment is also pretty fascinating, there's a slight but noticeable China through-line to this user's comments to go with the Biden/Democrats through-line.
Also, we can agree the DNC of yesteryear is (hopefully) gone. I haven’t seen a bunch of bloodless garbage about “better jobs” or what the fuck ever in awhile. Of course that’s in part because the “republiQan lite” approach was a goddamned disaster.
I suspect that for every Manchin and Sinema who took the negative publicity, there are 10 Manchins and Sinemas who didn't have to. They'll cash out when it's their turn. Call me cynical if you want.
Al Gore and Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. You got the conservative justices because of the electoral college. And because Obama let Mitch McConnell steamroll him into “it’s too close to an election”.
Obama also backtracked from Freedom of Choice Act immediately after entering office, which was a significant blow to the effort of protecting abortion rights.
Do you really think that the fedsoc six would give a shit about a piece of legislation? They were always going to rule against abortion regardless of its legal basis because they are all theocratic fucks. The only thing that is going to save abortion is a rebalancing of the court.
Oh these days never. In 2009 though I think Stevens would've swung with Kennedy, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, and Breyer and may have been able to cuck Roberts into a majority had there been a challenge.
Which is absolutely why the federalist society waited until they got their court to start their challenges.
They've got anti trans bullshit for those people now, and they can still get them frothing about states where abortion is still legal to push for a federal ban.
That's the Democrat's only gambit. Never make any progress and keep as much rights as possible contingent on the next election to try to force people into accepting lesser evils.
God Obama didn't "let" him. It was in the hands of the Senate and there was nothing Obama could do. Stuff like you posted is revisionist history, and for what purpose?
What a stupid fucking post. Like yeah, I'm voting for Biden. But the rest of that is bullshit. Remeber when we used to have primaries and people decided who would run? Yeah me neither, I guess that was before I was born.
Well thanks for crapping in it, i guess. We had primaries in 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008, 2016 (which, I’ll give you, was indeed bullshit), and 2020. Are you three years old? You’ve got a masterful command of bitchful snark for someone so young.
They rarely primary an incumbent, they usually win and all it does is damage the candidate for the general. However, the primaries are bs anyways, the DNC puts their hand on the scale
