All the influx of shilling on Lemmy positing memes which are "short, quippy, and wrong" in IS's terminology, leading ultimately to the conclusion "please don't vote, it's not worth it, it won't make a difference, and Biden's very very bad anyway" -- it's all for one simple reason: Voting works. It is one of the rare opportunities the normal-person population has to influence the people in charge, by some small degree. It's not enough, but it's also not to be wasted.
The whole reason there's all this investment of time and energy into manipulating people's opinions is the same reason there's so much energy towards manipulating their ability to vote in the first place: It's worth the investment of energy and money that it takes to do that. Because voting has power.
I think it's clear that an honest accounting of how Biden has been doing puts him well above average for establishment Democrats. Is that good enough? Fuck no. I am about to vote in the primary in my state and I would love if someone would give me a realistic way to support someone younger than Biden, or to move the Democrats effectively towards the actual left.
Also, all this blaming of Gaza specifically on Biden as if he was the one making the decisions about what the IDF should do on the ground, and talk about the election as if that one bad thing happening in the world undoes anything good he's done or anything 10 times more genocidal that Trump might do -- I actually really hope that that does succeed in breaking the US's unconditional and war-criminal support for Israel that's been going for 50+ years. Or at least moving it in the right direction. Let's see.
But again, take this kind of thing as the reminder that it should be: They are trying so hard to influence how you look at the election, because what you decide to do in the election matters, and they know that.
If it really was just "a" meme, I wouldn't feel the need to say anything. The first 10 or 15 of them that I saw, I just kind of ignored without comment.
I've said it plenty of times here but I'll say it again. I hate Biden. I hate Trump. The party that aligns closest to me is the Dems. I'll continue to bash them and hold their feet to the fire because politicians are not our friends. I'm far left. The Dems are closer to Trump than I am.
"Voting works, that's why Trump fairly won in 2016 despite getting less of them than his competition. Please just trust the system that oppresses you and we promise it will all work out once we get rid of SnowballGoldstein Trump."
If someone has to mischaracterize you this hard in order to make their argument, it usually means they want to disagree but can't find an aboveboard way to argue against anything you said.
And so, behold: "Voting is better than not" becomes "voting is all you need to do and things are fine," and is presented all sarcastic and mean. It's not a real convincing way to argue, but what else can you do if you're trying to say people on the left not voting is gonna be a winning strategy for the left?
What am I mischaracterizing? The only person who's mischaracterizing is you. "Voting is better than not," isn't what they said. Voting in America doesn't work. Every American could abstain from voting and the outcome would be the same thanks to the Electoral College.
I think you meant to leave this comment under some different post. This was the one where OP posted one of a nonstop tide of multiple stories and memes against Biden and against the idea of leftists voting in the election at all, as he does several times a day every single day, and I honestly didn't say much to him about it, just made a point to everyone else about voting.
Then someone came in and made this absolutely bonkers recharacterization of what I said into something that was easier to argue against, and I pointed it out.
Then you claimed out of nowhere
Oooh. Hang on
Quick questions before I continue
What's three plus five? Who was president in the year 2002?
If you really do want to talk about the genuine issues surrounding Biden, I've been doing that in some other forums. It sounds great. If you want specific answers then yes, I think Biden's complicit to a certain extent in the genocide going on in Gaza. In the same way, I think someone who buys an iPhone is complicit to a certain extent in effectively slavery in China that they're funding when they do that. Is he killing Gazans or architecting the massacre? No. Is he enabling it more than he should? Yes. I lay out some more of my thinking on it, including blame for Biden where it's due and credit where it's due, in this thread. Because that OP's message, while one I disagree with, was honestly presented i.e. not simple emotional propaganda, I gave it a detailed response without accusing anyone of being a bot or anything (the type of factual "we need to talk about it" response that you claim to be lookng for). Also, no one told me that I clearly believed X when I'd literally just got done saying Y, and no one was posting a drumbeat of short/quippy/wrong memes for suspicious-to-me-reasons. It makes it easy to have the kind of reasoned exchange of opinions that you claim to be looking for.
To answer your other specific question, no I don't think Biden is at all complicit in producing harmful myths about the border crisis. He says things that feed into them sometimes, but I think that's because he's in a tough spot needing desperately to produce aid for Ukraine and the Republicans have put him in a position where he can either go along with their mythology a little bit or put himself in a weaker position when he's already in an uphill battle to produce a desperately needed outcome. Trying to put him in an even weaker position, to me, is not a good solution to that problem.
Now, what's the answer to the math problems? I'm relatively sure you're not a bot at this point but it'd still make me feel better. You have to admit that it's fair to get suspicious if I start getting messages that could literally be applied to any message at all on this topic, and have really nothing at all to do with what I actually said.
Hey all, just a reminder this meme is about the primary, the place every Biden supporter says if you don’t like him don’t vote for him in but support him at the general.
Which is it? Or do you lot just not want people to express disapproval with him ever?
Or do you lot just not want people to express disapproval with him ever?
Sounds like you've already decided what "you lot" think and say, and you've saved yourself the time it would have taken to read my message by just creating a message in your mind that's what "you lot" say, in your imagination. You're responding to what you heard in your head, not what I wrote. Here's part of what I actually said:
"Is [Biden] good enough? Fuck no. I am about to vote in the primary in my state and I would love if someone would give me a realistic way to support someone younger than Biden"
You should read the whole thing, I'd love to talk if you have something with which to respond to what I actually said.
You can be against US support for Israel while realizing Biden doesn't call the shots for another goddamn nation and isn't responsible for Israeli actions.
Man the quality of this anti-Biden shit is getting low here.
You can recognise Biden isn’t in charge of Israel but also realise he directly arms them, aids them, and shields them from the UN.
Retracting US support is all it would take for the world to step in and hold Israel accountable, he refuses to do that, therefore he is also responsible for the genocide being committed.
All Biden has to do is less than he is, but instead he goes out of his way to support Israel.
As long as Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, etc., continue to suggest that Israel should be wiped off the map (not to mention act accordingly) then America will continue supplying Israel with the necessary tools to defend themselves against militant threats. Hamas and Hezbollah have fired missiles nonstop at heavily populated Isreali cities, and the only thing stopping massive destruction and loss of life to our Isreali allies are iron dome missile defense systems that the US has spent >$3,000,000,000 funding. If not for the US, we would be counting bodies in the hundreds of thousands across both Israel and Palestine.
On top of that, all of this ignores the fact that there was YET ANOTHER viable ceasefire agreement that was rejected by Hamas today. At what point do we stop blaming the US for all of the world's problems? The only people with the agency to stop the current fighting in Gaza are Hamas and Netenyahu's government, and you all damn well know that.
You just have to deny the Genocide hard enough then Biden can still win.
Now join us in our Genocide Death cult where we pretend that ignoring Biden being complicit in Genocide is going land him victory
Don't make biden fix it that would be very bad for his re- election chances. Never address the issue. Pretend the issue is very minor and whenever somebody says Genocide is bad be sure to use the magical line