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.
That is really the best way to put my frustrations. IT IS NOT MY FAULT YOU DON'T LIKE ME, ITS YOURS. It is literally a popularity contest and you are worried about losing to a criminal. But sure, we are the crazies, not you. This country has never needed another party so bad.
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.
AOC for President with Biden as VP. It would destroy the Republicans... they'd have strokes within a few days. With Biden as VP all the boomers that actually like Biden will be onboard.
On this site it's kinda hard to tell. A lot of people think that voting should just be checking the box beside the name of someone that agrees with them 100% and then everything instantly becomes they want it to be the day after the election.
More the Democrats that make-up the DNC who control the voting menu.
Take the case of Howard Dean. Destroyed electorally by the media in 2004, managed to become chair of the DNC, implements the 50 state strategy and Obama wins big.
Dean was the last Democrat marginally willing to adopt a winning strategy and he was destroyed for it. Democratic Speakers of the House, Party Majority Leader, Whips, Chiefs of Staff all vocally and vociferously against him.
He only won them Virginia which has been Blue(ish) since. He had the party do outreach in North Carolina and flipped it for Obama. His strategy even won INDIANA.
Cross reference the states the conservative cutouts are winning in the primaries with whether or not they are swing states and number of EC votes, then get back to us. In 2016, Hillary had more votes in AZ, NV, FL, OH. What do you want to happen for that shit, bank it on states like WV (+42 R) suddenly flipping blue?
Because there isn't an overwhelming swarm of people voting for anyone who isn't Repub, the Dems have to chase the reliable voters, who are more conservative.
It is the voters who are wrong, by staying home election after election or throwing their votes in the trash instead of pushing against the sliding window.
I don't like the Dem choices but IDK what the fuck else they are supposed to do once the primaries start. Running the candidate who wins with Dem voters in swing states makes sense as a strategy.
I just want to join in to remind everyone that multiple things can be true at the same time.
The DNC/Biden can and should be doing better.
We only have 2 options for president. It will be one of the two main candidates because that is how the system works. Don't pretend it doesn't. You either vote for one of those two or you are ok with either.
We should be pressuring Biden to do more about both Ukraine and Gaza. Ending both conflicts and getting aid to people.
Choosing to vote for a 3rd party to protest Biden's response to Gaza/Israel is only going to help Trump in the short term. Yes, long term Biden and DNC may notice their total votes going down, but in the short term it will put Trump in the Whitehouse and now what? What did you accomplish if the DNC realizes they fucked up, but can't do anything about it because Trump is now a dictator?
Politics is a slow moving thing. Too many people expect some perfect ideal candidate or policy and won't compromise on anything. That isn't how it works, you have to compromise and slowly pull things the way you want. It doesn't happen in one election cycle.
We should have been and should be campaigning and pushing for changes to our system so that we can have better options in the future. We need to push for Ranked Choice Voting (or anything better than FPTP). And voting in local level elections to make small changes across the country. Term limits. Campaign finance reforms. Etc etc. because until we get a new system we effectively can't just vote for who we want or it doesn't do anything more than a fart in a hurricane.
I see a lot of people who are saying they will not vote for Biden because the Gaza/Israel issue. Which I completely understand. But the two truths you have to accept in doing so is that you will not be complicit in the genocide. But you will be complicit if Trump wins. Both can be true. You decide which one you would rather see. If you don't want Trump then the only option is a vote for Biden. And until we reform our voting system we don't have viable 3rd parties and pretending we do is just delusional. Look at every election for the last hundred years and you will see enough proof. It's not ideal, but it is reality. **Accept it **so we can change it together.
I would add that there ARE things you can do to help stop the genocide, that are not refusing to vote. I absolutely believe that the demonstrations, protest votes, calls to congresspeople, and so on, are part of what’s behind the changes to the US’s Israel policy recently (sanctions on settlers, pause in the weapons shipments, stuff like that - that’s nowhere near enough and no excuse for Biden’s support for Israel during the “war” and before it, but also, nothing ANYWHERE near that has happened in 75 years of consistently war-criminal support by the US for Israel).
All that stuff makes a difference and can help stop the genocide. Refusing to vote does nothing to stop the genocide and risks putting someone in office who is much much worse (actively wants to kill more Palestinians.)
We either vote in a way that prevents a fascist from regaining power--voting Biden--or we vote in a way that makes it more likely that fascist gains power again--voting for anyone else.
Period end of story, thats the end game. A vote for Biden is a vote for democracy, any other vote is a vote for fascism.
Hey as long as we’re ganging up on this guy, it’s notable that he claimed that one good thing about living in the USSR was that unlike the modern day US, people weren’t one interaction with the legal system away from having their life destroyed. Which is a pretty odd thing to say.
Odd and inaccurate but probably a sign of a bad faith actor imo. Lol, what regular person is going around supporting the USSR at this point in history, lol. How dumb.
Yeah. It could just be that they are a leftist who just doesn’t have much at all of a factual understanding of 20th century history in any respect, and is substituting an overall rosy picture of anything non Western instead of even the broadest of broad strokes of factual statements and understanding
But… it could also be someone who didn’t have a Western education with its notable gaps in what we wanna admit happened, and instead had a different education with a different set of notable gaps on what we wanna admit happened, such that it didn’t even occur to them that praising the USSR’s justice system would be a totally bizarre thing to say from the perspective of being supposedly a Westerner talking to another Westerner.
Do you want to feel good about your choice or do you want your choice to make a small difference?
I want wars and genocides and murders and suffering and death and sickness to be minimal or zero. I want my fellow humans to be happy and healthy and thrive. I want my labor and work to be a positive thing for society and also benefit me fairly. I want to be a part of ensuring the ecosystem doesn't collapse. I want to learn from others and I want to be able to teach others. And I have a feeling you agree with me on those things.
But I also am approaching this from reality. And I am acknowledging that with our voting system as it is today, you can either vote for 1 of 2 candidates or you don't care who wins and are complicit with their choices the next 4 years. That is simply reality.
But I also agree with you that ideally we could vote for not-genocide. I want that so badly. But we have to have a viable means to do that first. So let's work together and push for a system where our voices can be heard and can make a difference. In the meantime I'd rather see Biden in office which gives us a chance for those things vs Trump which has said and demonstrated he will try to end it.
I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm trying to make the point of reality vs ideal. And we aren't at ideal yet, so we need to work toward it.
The Greens and Cornell West are good choices. I like West more but it's looking like the Greens are the ones that will be centered around so let's go for Jill Stein.
This is their plan if they win, it's in the open, and it's the end of Democracy in the United States.
Do you want to not vote?
If you don't vote you might not ever vote again.
Even if you aren't lgbtq it's highly unlikely that you don't know someone who isn't. They will suffer first.
Know any women? They'll lose control over their bodies, thier periods monitored by the state
You like having sex? Don't like getter her pregnant though? Hope that you like pilling out because say goodbye to condoms. Actually that's a sin to spill your seed so you're going to jail for that too.
Say that you actually want to have a baby? Maybe you waited to do it, but now you're having trouble? Say goodbye to invitro fertilization. That's not God's way. If he wanted you to have a baby he would have made it happen. Clearly something is wrong with you. You're defective and must be bad.
Oh, you call God by a different name or don't believe?
Sucks, you're going to need some corrective education. You Heathen!
It's literally good to be A Handmaid's Tale.
But stand by your principles.
Maybe it won't happen here.
But what if it does?
When God Emperor Trump jails his enemies.
Suspends the constitution.
"Leader for life, I like the sound of that."
Not voting for Biden supports Trump, who will be even worse regarding Gaza. So either you're a troll, an idiot, or actively want to make genocide worse?
This kind of thinking is how you end up with only two options.
A third option emerges when enough people say "I am not voting for either of those two".
You either vote for one of those two or you are ok with either.
Or, it means you're not okay with either.
We need to push for Ranked Choice Voting (or anything better than FPTP).
Canada has FPTP voting and still manages to have four federal political parties.
Australia has ranked ballots and effectively has a two-party system that hasn't changed in 80 years (though they do sometimes manage to get some independents elected to parliament)*.
I'm not saying the voting system is irrelevant. But the true obstacle to multi-party democracy is the fact that voters think in a polarized two-party way (that you are currently reinforcing).
* This is a description of Australia's House of Representives. Their Senate uses proportional representation, and does have more than two parties. And technically Australia has three political parties in the House of Representives, but two of them have been in a permanent coalition since 1946 and are often treated as a single entity, with the result that Australians consider themselves to have a two-party system.
Politics is a slow moving thing. Too many people expect some perfect ideal candidate or policy and won’t compromise on anything. That isn’t how it works, you have to compromise and slowly pull things the way you want. It doesn’t happen in one election cycle.
It took fifty years of consistent Evangelical support, along with their advantage of low population density, to get to a point where Roe was overturned.
Yeah, it's totally our fault the Dems have to see how far right they can possibly get away with. And they just "aren't for us" completely diminishes our issues. This is a problem created by the DNC, it is not created by the voters.
Donald Trump was the DNCs fault for running a centrist, dirty candidate. Not ours for not falling in love with her. Your fucking guilting us into voting for a turd sandwitch is bullshit. Stop sucking.
I have and will vote against Donald Trump, but I am not donating and making calls like I did for Bernie. Biden is a big pile of literally not Donald Trump, that's all he is.
The fact that you need grassroots help to win an election when you can easily represent a large majority of the voters by just representing the voters is your fault.
You may have been taught in school that democracy is an ideal system. But when you become an adult you learn the truth about it. It's not actually about getting the perfect person that everyone agrees with in power. Because that's impossible, people don't agree on anything.
Democracy is really about preventing the worst people from having power. You will never be voting for someone that you 100% agree with because that's impossible, no one agrees on everything. But it's your duty as a citizen to determine who is are the worst people on the ballot and determine which way to vote to either remove those people from power or prevent them from getting it. That's what democracy really is. Welcome to adulthood.
Your comment basically reads as "wanting a democracy where the representatives actually represent the voters is a fantasy, and complaining about it is childish"
You can go fuck yourself with that mindset to be honest. I want functional democracies that represent the people instead of oligarchic capital.
This is the smugness I expect from Lemmy when politics are discussed. You know absolutely fuck all about the person you've replied too so who the fuck are you to insinuate that they're a child??
Nothing wrong with sounding like a teenager, most teenagers these days are passionate and aware of the stark realities they are entering into adulthood under.
Sounding like an entitled boomer who blames young people for demanding a future for themselves that isnt a fatal compromise with far right nutjobs driven down their throats by ideologivally bankrupt centrists?
That unfortunately for you, is the actual cringey behavior.
Passion only gets you so far, kid. We're in the age of disinformation, being emotional all the time over things you see on the internet makes you act the same way as a boomer. My conversations with young people have been trending towards going the exact same way as my conversations with MAGA boomers who are also very passionate about the disinformation they've found on the internet by "doing their own research." Being upset on the internet isn't something to be proud of.
Critical thinking is more important than emotion in the age of disinformation. Try harder to think more critically and less emotionally.
My conversations with young people have been trending towards going the exact same way as my conversations with MAGA boomers who are also very passionate about the disinformation they’ve found on the internet by “doing their own research.” Being upset on the internet isn’t something to be proud of.
Critical thinking is more important than emotion in the age of disinformation. Try harder to think more critically and less emotionally.
Critical thinking is not more important than emotion, you are a fool if you think it is.
Critical thinking relies on your head not being up your own ass to work, emotion on the other hand taps into a human learned intuition that has successfully gotten humans through innumerable challenges over our long evolutionary history. If it isn't your emotions that have guided you back to reason and kindness over and over again in your life, your relationship with your emotions is to be frank quite immature and stunted.
I would go a step further and say what makes the kind of centrism you are defending and leftists like me attack, so dangerous and insidious is it conflates adulthood with lobotomizing the relationship between your emotions and your politics in the pursuit of some logical construction of ideology that becomes more and more empty as it departs from the human condition and is lost in pedantic defenses of the status quo that aren't salient to people who are suffering and need actual change, not management of the status quo.
It is my emotions integrated with my politics in constant conversation that makes me able to actually evolve my views to new realities and new information, that is precisely what differentiates someone like me from a stereotypical toxic stereotype of a boomer. My emotions are what nag at my outmoded views, that keep reminding me of inconsistencies in my actions, my emotions are what keep my morale compass oriented and stop me from handwaving away the genocide of Palestinians because the tv news I watch tells me it is ok, they probably deserve to die...
I am very likely older than you. And I don't "not 100%" agree with, It's more like Trump I agree with 0%, and Biden is like 0.2%. I refuse to believe that the founding fathers wanted two senile men that can't hold their shit babbling aimlessly on TV with an army of think tanks and billionaires behind them telling them what to say to manipulate the masses with the two party system. "Preventing the worst people"... they are both some of the worst people in American politics right now. One is actively a shitbag and the other is propped up by shitbags.
Maybe I should just accept the shitbags and be thankful I guess. Fall in line. I will fight the bullshit until someone does better or I die, whichevercomes first. I'm sure it will be the latter.
Most of the founding fathers you've idealized were slave owners. Many of the compromises they made with slave owners required a brutal civil war to correct. Some of those compromises (like the electoral college) still exist today and have already resulted in Trump having one term in office and could result in another. The intentions of the electoral college that the founding fathers created was to give more power to slave owners. Today it gives slightly more (but enough that it can change the result) voting power to racists. Trump winning the election in 2016 came about because of the system the founding fathers created, and it was a system created by white supremacists for white supremacists. Donald Trump is exactly the kind of person the founding fathers made the system to elect.
I'm fairly certain Joe Biden is against slavery, while these founding fathers you worship were for it. Unless you think slavery is a good thing, then you agree with Joe Biden far more than you agree with the founding fathers you idolize.
Political leaders have always been terrible. Sorry to be the one to have to break it to you.
I preferred Bernie and was excited for that. But Hillary was winning primaries in swing states that actually matter, like AZ, NV, FL, OH. Are you certain blaming the DNC on that one isn't to some extent right-wing propaganda? Repubs know how to drive a wedge if they see a popular runner-up.
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?
Yeah I never understood wanting to vote for the "guy I want to have a beer with" thing.
The guys I have beers with are nice enough and funny at times, but I sure as hell wouldn't want them running the country.
I want a boring as fuck, never misses any details, workaholic kind or person running the country. Someone I wouldn't want to have a beer with because all they ever talk about is their job.
Not true, they shifted focus to him for a while so they could do everything in their power to kneecap and malign him when he had a plausible shot at giving them the presidency in 2016, and grabbing them support from a generation of young voters who were for the only time in their lives actually wholly excited to vote for somebody, anybody, who seemed like he might care about them and want to do great things with the awesome power of the American presidency.
He was the most popular politician in America for YEARS after they decided he wasn’t their guy, and is still more popular today than either Biden or Trump.
I want to put a sad emoji here, but I can’t actually find one that is sufficient to convey what I want to express about it
Lol. I supported Sanders in 2016 but he wasn't sabotaged, more dems preferred Hilary in the primaries. It was still a problem vis-a-vis the enthusiasm gap (Sanders supporters were more enthusiastic on average than Hillary supporters, but she had more supporters).
Edit: I don't want to spend hours on dead shit at this point, but my bigger point is she actually had more supporters than Bernie. But also, why I'm a talking about this...damn it, fell for the trap again!
The leaks resulted in allegations of bias against Bernie Sanders's presidential campaign, in apparent contradiction with the DNC leadership's publicly stated neutrality,[8] as several DNC operatives openly derided Sanders's campaign and discussed ways to advance Hillary Clinton's nomination. Later reveals included controversial DNC–Clinton agreements dated before the primary, regarding financial arrangements and control over policy and hiring decisions
Oh man, I was there and none of this is news to me. I'm not saying DNC did things right, im not saying they didn't try to corninate her. Beyond that, they were insulting about it, especially Debbie Whatsherbitch Schultz, who openly scored us Bernie supporter...the irony is i was an lefty independent before Bernie and he's what brought me to the Democratic party, but everyone "schools me" on 2016 because I also realize more democrats writ large preferred her to Bernie. Do all you perpetually online lefties talk to real world democrats and black democrats? Alot of them didn't love and don't love Bernie.
I'm do agree the fuckery was very dumb because she actually had more supporters than Bernie the whole time. The person who quietly got fucked over in my opinion in 2016 was Biden, who might have run as younger (but still old) version of himself except he could tell the Clinton camp had already thumbed the scale the process pre-emptively.
Above all, i don't hating Hillary in 2024 is useful politically. The "Clinton Machine" being dead might be the only good thing to come out of Trumpism.
The worst thing to come out of the emails is that they gave Clinton some debate questions beforehand and that they called him some nasty names. It did not uncover any conspiracy against him. This is the same shit I hear from trump supporters who claim they know evidence came out that it was rigged.
I mean, technically, that's a conspiracy. It's just not a conspiracy "theory" like the faked moon landing, Area 51 &aliens, etc etc. It's just the regular, boring, type of conspiracy. And it was perfectly legal,very legal, the legalest, and legalsideboob (thanks autocomplete for this one. )
I'm not sure what you're driving at exactly, but keep in mind that these were private conversations that were made public. You're talking about public comments.
But the funny thing is that the reason they were mad about sanders is that it was clear Clinton was going to win, and he was publicly attacking her.
She did a pretty good job sabotaging herself by cleaving the party in two and then expecting everypne to just forget about the viturol thrown at the left the entire time
What the fuck is this shit? Motherfucker, I lived through these elections, and this is some boomer revisionist bull shit.
Al Gore lost because he couldn't differentiate himself from god-damned George W Bush. He was too centrist to encourage the left base to show up for him.
Kerry lost because he couldn't articulate his better vision for America, and was too centrist to encourage the left base to show up for him.
Hillary lost because she didn't even try to reach out to the left base. She was too centrist to beat Donald Fucking Trump.
Three ostensibly intelligent leaders who lost their elections to fucking morons because they thought that they didn't need to try very hard to reach out to progressive voters.
Any one of them would have been a better President than what we got, but the fact that they all lost means they did something wrong. It isn't the fault of the voters demanding better, it's the fault of the party failing to meet the demand.
Simultaneously stupid babies on the fringe who don't even warrant acknowledgement, AND the singular cause of every Democratic loss of the past 30 years - no adjustments to make, no lessons to learn, just blame the left and take 5 more steps right.
I mean... It's always Schrödinger's left. When we talk about "the left" it's always a constructed public. Whatever the speaker wants "the left" to encompass is in there. Like you talk to a conservative and "the left" encompasses a party like the Democrats, you talk to a democrat and Depending on the person they might consider themselves leftists or not depending. You talk to a Socialist and "the left" excludes the Democrats. The concept serves a purpose in each case. To create a body of condemnation, to create a nebulous scapegoat, to attempt to build (sometimes false) solidarity out of an incredibly fractured group, to establish an aspirational ingroup or out group... Or to self soothe that one's highly individualized take on politics is not alone.
It's a weakness in the flanks of the way we discuss these things. There's a holier than thou approach to claiming where on the political compass one sits and what is worthy of scorn. The Republican base doesn't seem to have that in the same measure which makes it more dangerous.
I don't think it's resolvable personally. Ditching the concept of claiming "the left" may be key to changing engagement styles to become less armchair criticism of a nebulous ill defined group... And more focused on actually tackling and pushing specific issues with more progressive non-partisan ship.
I mean, it’s true that the left base didn’t completely show up for him. Enough of them showed up that he won the popular vote and the electoral college, but if the vigorous activist left that was focused on WTO and GATT and other non electoral issues had been on the ground in the same way that Roger Stone’s machine was, they might have been able to stop Bush from stealing the election, and we might have had action on climate change back before it was too late, no global war on terror affecting hundreds of thousands of lives, no ISIS, no 2008 financial crash, and we might not have had all the failures to take US intelligence’s warnings seriously, that led to 9/11. Plus God knows what else actual forward progress.
Reframing “the US news media is so corrupted by propaganda that the average viewer can’t determine who is better between Gore and Bush, by a large enough margin to overcome a pretty blatant coup” as being all Gore’s fault somehow, is the most Lemmy-fake-leftist thing I’ve seen today, and I’ve seen someone praise the USSR’s justice system and someone else say that Biden shut down Trump’s insulin price cap.
“Too centrist”
Get the fuck out of here
You’re right about Hillary though, that part is true
That doesn't make sense for a couple different reasons, but thinking how to explain that it is wrong actually led to me to realize that Hotelling's Law is a not insignificant part of the incentives at work in a FPTP system which is yet another reason not to use them.
(Basically, in short, whatever point Gore staked out on the little spectrum, Nader can gather some votes by picking a different point. Doesn't mean a damn thing about how good the point either person picked was or the relation between them. But yes, mathematical pressure on both "main" candidates to move to the center and similar to each other is absolutely a real thing and I hadn't fully realized that before, although it seems totally obvious in retrospect and like I should have realized it before this.)
You're right, "too close to the center to win" doesn't make sense. But Nader did run to Gore's left, and took votes from Gore that might have caused a different outcome.
I know because I got yelled at for it on the Internet for eight years.
All the Democrats are too close to the center except for a handful of congress people. Honestly, I won't disagree with your earlier point there. But my point was that Gore out of all the Democratic candidates was pretty fuckin sensible in terms of seeing big problems and wanting to deal with them, instead of just having a big party for all the defense contractors and oil companies and Wall Street.
But yes, Nader was a factor, sure. Also: I actually know somebody that worked in politics for quite a while, and her take on the whole Florida debacle was very interesting to me -- basically that it was a failure of on-the-ground organizing by the Democrats; that they should have been able to pick up right away that people were at risk of getting confused by the ballots, and have someone at every polling station that could be able to give a little spiel (or cause the election workers to give a spiel) about how to mark your vote correctly. Like, it was rigged (on many different levels, including in my opinion deliberately making the ballot confusing in a way that would confuse a certain percent of Gore voters), but also every election is "rigged" somewhat, to whatever extent each side can get away with, and part of your job as a political organization is to watch close and be sharp and not let the other side get away with stuff.
IDK if I agree with her, but that was her take on it and she has a lot more firsthand experience than me.
But my point was that Gore out of all the Democratic candidates was pretty fuckin sensible in terms of seeing big problems and wanting to deal with them, instead of just having a big party for all the defense contractors and oil companies and Wall Street.
Totally agree. He got lampooned for the "lockbox" but it was actually a decent idea. Regarding the ballots: There's a (paywalled) study from Stanford that claims to show that people accidentally voting for Pat Buchanan were a significant reason the election went the way it did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000_United_States_presidential_election_recount_in_Florida#/media/File:Butterfly_Ballot,_Florida_2000_(large).jpg
All this analysis would be fun if it weren't (a) so consequential and (b) continually showing our only hope dropping the ball.
"So like 50 assholes just worked hard on getting the guy they wanted, did some fairly basic shenanigans including showing up at an election office and throwing a fit?"
"Yeah. Is bullshit. And they changed the result, and looking back, it changed the whole world."
Press A: "Wow. I'm never getting involved in politics, that's corrupt as fuck."
Press B: "Holy shit. Can we make a bunch of people to go somewhere and throw a fit? Like, what did they do? And it worked, and it made a difference?" "Yeah like a huge one." "Holy shit..."
You young ones won't know this, but Gore had a very different persona as Congressman and VP. Note that the only reason Clinton, a notorious draft-dodger, picked Gore as his running-mate was because of Gore's reputation as the top Pentagon-hawk. As well, Gore led centrist wing of the party that wanted to eliminate welfare and implement austerity measures.
People who say Gore would have kept us out of Iraq, or not done all the other dumb shit Bush did, don't seem to recall that politician Gore was complete polar opposite of post-political Gore we know today.
Dude I don't really wanna play the game of "let's pull on this thread and see if a bunch of conservative-propaganda-worldview stuff pops out" again, I've done it like twice in the last 2 days and it sometimes takes a while
But (a) it's like a cat with a laser pointer (b) tbh it doesn't look like this particular thread is all that long
I mean everyone knows we all look down on people who didn't fight in the Vietnam War, and in general who don't do what the federal government wants them to do. Fuckin cowards, what was wrong with them! What do you think? Clinton should have gone over and shot a bunch of Vietnamese people, amirite fellow anti Iraq War person?
Yeah, completely fair. I see what you mean. I think I am impatient and short tempered after talking with a series of not very nice people yesterday and today.
Regardless of that I still think your main point is made up, though. Here and here are some contemporary stories about the pick -- he voted for the Iraq War 1, but that was seen as sort of a surprise given his father's antiwar reputation. His reputation at the time was as an environmentalist and technocrat. It's important to remember that the tolerance for austerity at home and war abroad was a lot greater in 1992 than it is today; it was a much different political landscape. Gore wasn't seen at the time as any kind of hawk in either respect that I'm aware of and rereading the stories from the time I don't see any kind of inkling that Clinton had him on to pander to pro-war people or anything.
Gore voting for Iraq I was hardly a surprise, as he championed it regularly on TV. He then chastised Bush I for ending the war too early.
In the Clinton Administration, he was among the staunchest hawks. He would give speeches calling for removing of Saddam ("finish the job"). You can probably find some of those speeches with Google...cover the name over and you'd think you were seeing something from Rumsfeld or Cheney.
Contrary to myth, Iraq II was not invented by a small group of neocons. It had full bipartisan backing in Congress, and there are some who were close to Gore who believe he would have also been in support.
Here’s a speech Gore gave about Iraq War 2. You don’t need to believe whether or not he would have been in support; you can go back to contemporary speeches and find out whether he would have been in support, and he wasn’t. As you pointed out, it had pretty freaking broad support, so that made him an outlier.
Idk what you mean about “among the staunchest hawks” in the Clinton administration. It’s not the VP’s job to do policy decisions and take part in the debate about what the president’s policy should be (at least not in public). If he was making pro war statements from 1992-2000 that’s a statement of what the Clinton administration’s policy was, not what Al Gore’s policy preferences were.
He was okay with war, in general, in ways that would make him an anomaly for a progressive Democrat today, but not at all at the time. (At the time, we were still doing our own Israel-in-Gaza slaughter and torture operations all over Central and South America with, as you pointed out, broad bipartisan support with 0 of this modern level of protest or debate about whether we should be doing it.) And like I said, he definitely wasn’t brought into the Clinton administration because he was some pro war guy. I honestly have no idea what you’re even talking about with that. Anyway, I showed you the contemporary articles about why people were saying he was brought in; you’re welcome to read them, or alternatively to think what you like about it if you’re committed to your way.
Man, I lived through it. Don't piss on my leg and call it rain. I followed Gore's campaign. I watched his debates. The man had splinters in his ass from riding fences. He picked Joe Lieberman as his running mate to prove how centrist he was.
Compared to modern Democrats, he's basically a communist, but 2000 was a heady time for progressives. We thought Bill Clinton was just the beginning, a transitional precursor to a new era of balanced budgets and human rights for all. But it was not to be.
We thought Bill Clinton was just the beginning, a transitional precursor to a new era
This literally made me laugh out loud. Well done. I was there, too.
Yeah, Clinton was a new era. That part is definitely right. He was the death of JFK/LBJ/Carter, and the start of "welfare to work" and the WTO. All the progressives at the time were thrilled about that budget surplus. They were super psyched about that part, let me tell you.
Get the fuck outta here. Here's the prison population per 100,000 population:
Yeah we were all talking about how happy we were about that budget surplus, and how unhappy we were about how Gore talked about war all the time. Man. I was there with you, I remember all that stuff so so clear.
(I'm not planning to continue the back and forth; like I say you can think or say what you like about it)
I think this election is a little different in that we have a known threat that is significantly worse than the alternative. It's not an exaggeration to say that Trump is a threat to democracy and to anyone that doesn't want to live under religious law as interpreted by the Republicans.
The other candidate is harm reduction presidentially personified. That is the best choice we actually have, and the consequences for disincentivizing left leaning or undecided voters is much worse than Bush, and that's saying something.
Vote against Christ flavored dictatorship, and encourage others to do the same. And not some impossible 3rd party bullshit.
If either third party gets even 5% this election, they qualify for federal funding and could have a greater influence in the future. Third party votes are ESSENTIAL when the establishment wins any other way.
I would agree with you if the stakes were not as dire as they are now. If any of those 5% of votes are taken from traditionally Democrat voters, you might get that 3rd party its federal funding, and you might just see them in the next presidential election, but you may not have the right to vote.
Republicans have stepped up their campaign against voting freedom, and they have a whole plan on how to seize control of our government and give dictator authority to their president. Project 2025 is going to irreparably harm us if it comes to fruition.
Try this when we are not so disastrously close to religious extremists seizing control.
The Bush's were tame compared to this shit, and Jr even thought God talked to him. McCain turned out to be a relatively decent human being, and it got him Republicancelled.
You could be right that we will never see a moderate Republican again in our lifetime, but I fail to see why doing ANYTHING that would help their campaigns is a good thing.
If they couldn't get 5% in 2016, they aren't getting 5%.
Note also that Perot got >5% in 1996, but that did nothing for third party politics. The Reform party doesn't even have name recognition.
You want third parties to be viable? They need to start local and build a base from the ground up. They need to start having significant presence in state politics and legislatures, and we need to see them have a modest bloc of senators and representatives in Congress. Even if a third party did win the presidency, they'd be a complete lame duck with no Congressional support.
You should be asking yourself why third parties aren't doing this, and instead wasting money on presidential elections and conventions. The sad truth is that we don't have a third party because we have no serious third party contenders. None of them want to play the long game to actually win. They'd rather just grift donations.
It's not that revisionist. I definitely remember "have a beer with him" being said.
In retrospect it was probably a phrase coined by the media to lure the lowest common denominator to GW. But it worked and it stuck.
Lin Manuel made a reference to this in "The election of 1800" in Hamilton:
Talk less! (Burr!)
Smile more! (Burr!)
Don't let them know what you're against or what you're for! (Burr!)
Shake hands with him! (Burr!)
Charm her! (Burr!)
It's 1800; ladies, tell your husbands, vote for Burr! (Burr!)
I don't like Adams!
Well, he's gonna lose, that's just defeatist
And Jefferson?
In love with France!
Yeah, he's so elitist!
I like that Aaron Burr!
I can't believe we're here with him!
He seems approachable?
Like you could grab a beer with him
Well ranted, and I don’t disagree but it’s simply the case that voters not showing up gave us the shitshow we now have. It would have been very different, and you can blame the candidates but the fact is none of them are Jesus or Batman or whothefuckever is going to be all things to everyone.
And, at this point, after 2016, i do not give a single fuck about it. Get to the polls vote Biden and bitch after we’ve saved this country. Everyone gets a full three-and-a-half years to promote whatever their answer is, and if they don’t get it done by then, or have any other useful purpose, time to shut up and get to saving us from Idiot Handmaid’s Dream Reich.
This tweet or whatever - It’s not an academic treatise. It’s making the point that we can’t sit back again and let cheating fascist billionaire sycophants run away with it again. LIKE WE DID. Didn’t like Al Gore? Don’t care. Kerry too “stiff” for you? Shut the fuck up, we’re fighting goddamned war criminals. Hilary too - whatever - for you? Well no shit, me too but i’m voting for her anyway.
While you should vote for the best possible option, I feel like these kinds of posts are constantly shifting responsibility away from Democrats for their own short-comings.
A couple of weeks ago I voted in the European Parliament elections for the option that had, in my view, the best possible agenda: socially progressive, ecologist, economically left-leaning, decent foreign policy and coherent voting records. But the campaign they ran was absolutely terrible, starting by the candidate. Even though she is admittedly an accomplished woman who has had a very solid career, she doesn't know about the concept of charisma. She wasn't selected because she was the person who would perform the best in debates or in speeches (and she definitely wasn't), but rather, because she was an option that would provoke little conflict among the different factions of the coalition. That was the sign that the internal dynamics of the coalition had degenerated and were acting out of their own inertia, rather than seeking the best possible outcome.
Expectedly, we got about half the seats we were aiming for.
The very next day, the leader of the coalition resigned from that position. Even though she's a great minister (making policy), she's proven she isn't good at keeping the aparatus under control in order to achieve good results (doing politics). It's a painful process, but a necessary one where mistakes and short-comings must be admitted in order to grow into something more virtuous.
Having read US liberals for years, I grow more and more convinced that they're instinctively hostile to constructive criticism of their party's aparatus. And, when your country's voters declare themselves to agree far more with your party's policies than those of their direct opponent, and yet they can't bury their opponent into irrelevance, you have to admit that your party is doing electoralism wrong, and must question why.
TIL Dems are responsible for the EC, FPTP instead of proportional representation for Congress, the cap on number of representatives, gerrymandering, the decades of propaganda, Southern Strategy and so on. Thank you for informing me.
Yeah I ultimately do not like their choices. They have to run candidates who will win the swing states because a cult of rabid idiots who have more voting power per person than the rest of us consistently and reliably show up and vote entirely Repub from top to bottom of the ballot.
I mean, sure, fire the heads of the party and put new people in. Fuck 'em. But they aren't going to be able to win just by running candidates who appeal to the majority of the country, because the majority of the country's votes are diluted since they reside in densely populated cities. That's a sickening reality we all have to deal with.
Democrats always try to straddle the fence of keeping the status qou and slowly advancing civil rights and worker protection, all the while always protecting corporate interest.
Republicans give ZERO shits about civil rights or worker rights and are balls deep in corporate money, but they keep selling themselves by pushing culture wars and pretending to be "for the people" because "tax cuts"
The average voter is dumb as shit and swallows the Republican bullshit readily because it absolves them of any blame. It's always someone else's fault, the gays, the blacks the immigrants... There is always someone to blame.
So yea... We have two parties, one center right and one batshit crazy right.
Idiots seem to not understand that if you want politics to move more left you have to defeat the far right nut jobs, you aren't going to go left by refusing to vote democrat because they are not left enough for you. You need to put pressure on the Republicans so they have to move back towards the center, then Democrats will be forced to move more left.
But this is already too much text and nuance for the average voter so they'll keep screaming about both sides and "I'd like to have a beer with x..."
Literally more people voted for Gore than Bush. Not sure what you expect the voters to do when they vote and the court just chooses the other guy
Maybe their positions were ok and the massive proven amounts of dark money had an effect? Maybe the obvious and admitted attempt at interference was successful, as they’ve been crowing for years? Nah…must be bad messaging from the dems
An attack on the capitol in 2000 would have been legitimate and justified defense of the nation after watching a Repub SCOTUS decide an election for the Repubs.
Somehow, despite having a majority for only several months out of the last several decades, that is all the Dems' fault for not trying hard enough or whatever.
Therefore I (definitely not an accelerationist cosplaying as caring about leftism) could not possibly support anyone other than candidates certain to lose the election.
Change the Senate to population proportional seats and eliminate the electrical college. This country would change in a big way in a few years or less. Easier said than done though.
