These people sound like exact copies of the people saying voting in 2000 didn’t matter, and that turned out to be the most politically consequential of my lifetime. Gore was imperfect as they all are, but holy fuck did Dubya fuck up literally everything he touched.
Among many, many, many things, Dubya started forever wars killing untold hundreds of thousands of people. He accelerated oil and gas production, absolutely setting the Climate Change world on a pace for disaster. He seated Alito, unquestionably the biggest monster currently on the Supreme Court. And he passed a monster tax cut for the rich that set us on this path of unrestrained deficit spending.
And that’s just the headlines. Remember when he tried to put his personal lawyer on the Supreme Court? lol
Gen X already tried this 25 years ago and it fucked the world up so badly that we need to be saved by the future generations. Imagine not learning that lesson and doing it again.
I always wonder how Gore might have acted in response to 9/11.
Probably a similar initial response, but no Iraq War two years later. Which would make a… massive (and positive, in case that wasn’t clear) change in the direction and concerns of American foreign policy.
He wouldn’t have suspended civil rights, permitted torture and made a mockery of the rule of law.
We think that yes. I’m a gore fan.
But remember there were 100s of people driving towards those topics. Career defense and security types making their damnedest case that they needed those tools to avoid 9/11 2.0.
I hope gore, and the staff he surrounded himself with would have had the vision to avoid all that, despite the pressure.
Never forget. If you want an even crazier mindfuck, watch the original “Utopia”, the original 2013 British version. For real.
Based on after-the-fact reports, it may never have happened.
Maybe that’s just exposure to all the conspiracy theories, though, I dunno if he would have acted any differently than Bush did to the intelligence reports.
After 9/11, the U.S. Got Almost Everything Wrong
It would have been very different.
I meant before 9/11, sorry for not making that clear :)
They had intelligence that terrorists from Al-Queda were training and planning for an attack, hijacking commercial planes.
Bush et al did next to nothing with that intel, at best.
It’s questionable if it’d have even happened had gore been at the desk, y’know, because he’d have probably actually read the imminent attack report about the plot before it happened.
True dat. He wasn’t part of the cabal. That’s also why he wasn’t elected, in spite of winning. Just like Hillary.
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W was catastrophic. Honestly him and Reagan are the cause of most of our issues.
Nixon deserves a mention there too.
Nixon is inadvertently responsible for the creation of the right wing media circus which I would argue is fully responsible for W and trump.
If you’re going to mention Nixon, then you have to include Andrew Johnson.
Y’all are also forgetting Wilson.
Nixon had some redeeming qualities, like enacting the EPA and Clear Water/Air acts
True. I only forget about him because his damage got limited by him getting fired
Don’t forget in his first week or so he passed No Child Left Behind, which has irreparably damaged the education of children in this country.
https://www.epi.org/publication/what_went_wrong_with_no_child_left_behind/
Man, what I would do to have an unabashed giant nerd for president. I forget what people’s issue with Gore even was.
Al Gore won the popular vote, but there was some sketchiness down in Florida. During a recount, Roger Stone rallied the troops (Brooks Brothers riot) which caused the counting to be stopped, due to threats of violence. Setting up the supreme Court to decide Bush won Florida.
During a recount, Roger Stone rallied the troops (Brooks Brothers riot) which caused the counting to be stopped, due to threats of violence.
In other words, the 2000 coup succeeded.
It’s why they project so hard about Democrats cheating elections.
The Republicans have been for decades. And can’t stand sometimes enough people show up that they still lose.
LOL yep. Constantly the conservatives manage to take their own manufactured outrage turn it into violence and then turn out the results they want.
Apparently burning down the Reichstag still works if you have the power to seize the moment.
Damn that sounds really really familiar. Almost like it happened just a couple years ago.
I, personally sat out that election because I didn’t like Al’s wife, Tipper Gore. She led the charge in a bunch of manufactured outrage about obscenity in music. I was also a jaded, cynical gen-xer who’d been hearing the importance of voting as long as I could remember, but every election was just choosing between a douchbag and a turd sandwich.
Looking back on everything that happened after that election, it’s insane to imagine how different things would be now if Gore had been in office instead of the criminal enterprise that we ended up with.
Though the Bush presidency lead to Cheney’s wife taking up that mantle anyways.
Gore was the watershed moment of the white left deciding no progress is allowed to happen unless it’s by their hands and they get all the credit.
Nader fired up his campaign in swing states as an act of retaliation against Gore posing himself as the climate candidate.
That’s it.
The Greens had a meltdown that the thing that usually happens to third parties in this country, that is having their platforms become the mainstream if they make enough noise, was happening to them, and they decided we’re not allowed to make any progress on climate unless we do it through them so fuck Gore and fuck anyone who’d dare support that disgusting “mOdErAtE!”
You think you might be projecting just a little bit of internalized anger there?
He hates anyone to his left. And only his left.
What really gets my goat is how some people now act like George W Bush is this respectable elder statesman that only did his best and oh, how cute, he’s friends with Michelle Obama. Like, sure, next to Trump he looks like a political savant, but come on, he still was a total piece of shit that did lasting damage.
He literally lost the popular vote, how does “vote more” mean anything
Protest voters who supported Stein alone would have flipped every single rust belt state had they decided on the country over feeling validated in wanting to vote “for” someone, and Zoomers and Millenials simply matching their share of the population in turnout could have propelled Bernie to the front of the primaries and over the finish line.
Nevermind how not voting let trump happen, not voting let clinton happen.
True story. If Gen X didn’t vote they literally died. /s
Be boring somewhere else.
Sorry, just trying to add some levity.
There are legitimate criticisms to be had of Biden, but in every case, Trump is unambiguously worse. If Trump were pro-Palestine, I could maybe understand single-issue voters preferring him to Biden…but he’s not.
To be honest, I have little hope for 2024. Genuine fake news is rampant, and in pretty much every case it hurts Biden (misinformation about the economy, etc.). I’ll be voting a straight Dem ticket in my very red state, and hoping against all hope that uninformed voters somehow do the right thing.
no one is saying they’re going to vote for trump. they’re saying they won’t vote for biden
Lmao, that’s the epitome of something that sounds smart but is incredibly stupid when you think about it. Especially in response to this meme.
In FPTP not voting for the chosen democratic representative means one vote less is required for the conservative. It doesn’t matter if that’s because you added a vote for Democrats, or didn’t vote at all. Same for voting 3rd party, it just ensures you get the candidate you want the least.
I agree with this. Choosing a lesser evil in a FPTP, bicameral political system is not the answer. Pushing for ranked choice voting is the answer, and one step towards proportional representation like what we see in the EU.
And not voting is never the answer.
that the epitome of something that sounds smart but is incredibly stupid
I voted for Howie in 2020 and Biden won. you don’t seem to know how voting works.
You don’t seem to know what anecdotal evidence or statistical analysis works.
Biden barely won, and you didn’t get the candidate you wanted. In 2016, it’s people like you who gave trump the victory
people who voted for Trump gave him the victory. 50 years of people like Joe biden running the Democrat party gave Trump the victory. don’t blame me.
But they’ve been running the conservative party the same way for 50 years too. You’re literally admitting to hate Biden so much you let the conservatives win even if that meant making the US worse.
Literally what the meme is about. Tell us, what have you gained from it aside from more frustration and hate? Biden didnt learn anything from 2016. You can blame biden when you lose your democracy, but you’ll still have lost your democracy. I wouldn’t wait for Biden to fix that. The democratic party is more than one person making decisions, and handing the power to your enemy is not how you make changes within your own team.
The democratic party is more than one person making decisions, and handing the power to your enemy is not how you make changes within your own team.
the democrats aren’t my team.
You’re literally admitting to hate Biden so much you let the conservatives win even if that meant making the US worse.
no, i’m not
Same for voting 3rd party, it just ensures you get the candidate you want the least.
this claim is obviously false, since I have provided proof against it. if you want to weaken the claim, moving the goalposts, that’s fine, but don’t break a sweat.
Not sure if you’re just being intentionally thick or a troll.
Youre explaining yourself that despite you voting against him, Biden won, and you didn’t want Trump and the person you voted for didn’t win. So your actions gave you the least chance of having a candidate you were aligned with.
If anything, you are giving proof that it’s a dumb thing to do. But that would be anecdotal evidence, and there’s no need for that.
If you manually run the results and the effects of 3rd parties, it’s pretty clear that it makes no sense in First Past the Post.
It’s a thing known as The spoiler effect, or vote splitting and has always been a documented thing that dumb people don’t understand. Who do you think funds these 3rd parties in the first place…
Youre being played.
if i’m just too thick to understand, a big big dummy, then you better make sure the vote isn’t split: vote with me.
So your actions gave you the least chance of having a candidate you were aligned with.
i was aligned with the candidate for whom i voted, and i was not aligned with the candidates i voted against.
Are you 12
Yeah and we could find one person who voted for vermin supreme, Biden still won. What would their point be if they were here, I wonder? Speaking of points, what’s yours?
Oh man give me Vermin Supreme. I think he could make a real difference.
Speaking of points, what’s yours?
no one is saying they’re going to vote for trump. they’re saying they won’t vote for biden
Therefore Trump wins. Abstaining is still an action, and still has an effect as much as you want to be above it all on your moral high horse.
I expect to have more choices on my ballot
The end result is the same.
no, it’s not.
I mean it practically is. The happy pain supporters will still show up to dish out their warped idea of hateful justice.
If water was flooding into your house and you said you won’t bother to turn the water main off because the roof is failing you still end up with a flooded house.
The incident is happening whether or not you participate in it. The best you can do is push against it even if it’s tiring and doesn’t fix all things. And unless you are ending your own existence then you will be around to experience the fallout.
Self inflicted pain still hurts even if you think it’s deserved. I know it’s rough but the world keeps spinning without your input. Fate is for those that do not act.
“Sure, I made the ongoing genocide worse, but at least I didn’t vote for GENOCIDE JOE” - Useful idiots for the Israeli far-right
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Is PugJesus hired by the DNC? David Brock’s Correct The Record part deux?
I think it would be fun if every person on Reddit and Lemmy accused of being a paid shill was actually a paid shill. Basically, Reddit and Lemmy would be huge job creators and wouldn’t hurt anyone because everyone was shilling at each other for money.
Looks to me like PugJesus just made a simple observation. No sorosbucks needed.
A critical refinement of this point: By all means, please do vote for whichever actual progressive candidate you favor in your state’s Democratic primary. This is not sarcasm; do it. But when the general election comes around Biden is inevitably the candidate anyway, do whatever it takes to keep Trump out of office.
If you’re in a red area, consider voting in the Republican primary in good faith. (Don’t try nominating the worse candidate. The backfire is terrible.) You’re still allowed to vote for whoever you want in the general. This election primaries will largely be about down ticket races, but that’s important too.
That would require them to actually give enough of a shit to turn out for primaries, and president Bernie can tell you that none of these fake allies actually care enough to wrench themselves from their two bit Jean-Paul Marat act for such a herculean labor.
See Bernie 2016. Won the DNC, but got snake in the grass Hillary instead, which led to understandable mass apathy amongst the Democratic voters. I’m still pissed! Kinda like what reportedly happened with McGovern '72
And why shouldn’t Biden do whatever it takes to stop Trump? If supporting a genocide loses votes, there’s an easy way to win those votes back.
How do we know supporting Israel isn’t getting him more votes then not supporting Israel?
Woah woah woah, you mean actually try to win votes through rational and humane policy and not merely the fact that he’s running against a human piece of shit and is technically better? You mean that we should have someone with actual principles on the democratic ticket instead of someone nodding along and sending weapons to a genocidal government? Outrageous wow why do you love Trump so much
You can tell they’re white because they phrased this like they’re lecturing the party’s manager at DNC Walmart
It’s not that simple. Changing positions will probably polarize people to vote against him as much as it will win over votes to him.
Especially because those who are likely to withhold votes over this will probably demand the most drastic of actions before Biden passes their purity test.
Geopolitically it’s a bad move on top of that as it ends the relationship with practicallythe only middle Eastern power we have as an ally.
The reproductions of that alone is certain to energize opposition to Biden in the far right.
While he may lose voters over his current inaction, taking action could easily lead to a net loss on election day.
Unfortunately what is best for a country geopolitically and what is morally right often don’t agree with each other.
Even from a moral choice Biden is the better option. You get someone pressuring for a Two-state solution keep aid flowing to Palestinians as well as to support in helping Ukraine who are being genocided by their definitions. While also supporting international efforts to re-open one of the busiest shipping channels so places like Africa & others experiencing hardships that will have trouble maintaining safety & stability if prices of common goods increases.
I just can’t wait for those of us in the queer community to either be thrown in camps or flee the company, all so that the people who didn’t vote can tell me it’s actually because of Biden.
As a trans person, it’s been so upsetting how quickly the people who claim to support you just ignore the looming danger. They don’t want to vote for Biden because he supports a genocide while ignoring the genocide that’s about to happen in our own country.
I have a queer daughter and these people who say you shouldn’t vote for Biden (but they’re not saying Trump should win!) scare me.
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You’re right but a bunch of people just don’t care anymore and I can’t totally blame them. I’ll be voting biden because I always vote, but this is on democrats 100% if they can’t motivate their base.
I think the issue is more rooted in people like you. Spewing voter suppression rhetoric from somewhere but it’s rooted in propaganda. Rather than rallying people to help and pointing out the good, which is what gets people motivated, you instead choose to blame the people trying not to turn America into a neo-nazi fascist theocracy. Which is the root at which the meme is getting at lol.
Unless it’s simple cat and dog pics (even then sometimes) people on the internet just love to pretend they’re above the people who watch reality TV, when it’s just a different flavor of the same thing.
If you’re interested in convincing people to vote for Biden (which I think is the best option we’ll have this election) then I would urge you to talk about the contributions he’s made, and to stop telling people who don’t want to vote for him that they’re the reason the fascists might win. Even if it were true, telling them that will not convince anyone to vote for Biden.
It’s also misguided to blame voters for not voting the way you want. If you want a vote, you have to convince the voter! Oh, is the voter too stupid or evil to understand that the candidate is the best? That’s a candidate problem. It’s literally how democracy works.
But if they don’t vote for him, fascists WILL win. This is not an opinion. It’s a hard truth. And that should be motivation enough for one to hold their nose and vote- THEN make the decision to pay attention more than once every four years.
That same line gets thrown at leftists every election despite no concessions from liberals. Leftists are absolutely trying to make grassroots movement, but overcoming the liberal status quo and making positive change is tremendously difficult. Yes, leftists should vote for Biden, but the DNC should not be surprised that Leftists get desperate and can vote third party if the DNC continues to be a center-right Neoliberal mess.
If it’s not motivating people whose fault is that?
I voted for Biden before and I’ll do it again. I do think Trump is a threat to democracy. But if a restaurant goes out of business, is it reasonable or productive to say, “it’s the person who didn’t patronize our restaurant who did this”? “If it weren’t for the naysayers and people going to our competitors we would have stayed open!”
Maybe the restaurant should have changed the menu. Maybe it should have offered better prices. Maybe they should have made it more welcoming and marketed better.
For people who don’t want to eat shit, either don’t offer them shit, explain how it’s not shit, or make a pretty empathetic and convincing case why they’ve got to. My original point was that attempting to shame people and point the finger is not that winning case.
Except it isn’t a restaurant, it’s control of government, and a basic understanding of the rules of voting in the country shows that there are only two choices that have a reasonable chance of winning.
And? If you want people to vote for the candidate you support, you have to convince them to do it!
Yeah which takes ads, which require donations, and that is why politicians basically have to sell out in order to get votes.
It’s entirely reasonable to blame review bombers for reducing business
It’s a convenient excuse to blame bad reviews for a restaurant closing. If the fundamentals of the business are good then bad reviews might hurt but aren’t a fatal blow. We can push any analogy until it breaks, but your example is a good case where blaming bad reviews is a convenient way for a restaurant owner to absolve themselves of responsibility or having to think introspectively about why they’re not doing well, similar to what Democratic leadership often does.
How about NO analogies.
Staying home instead of voting because one is too busy pouring over a single issue ideology easily the most of tent and foolish thing one can do. The majority of these kids suffering people do this, and/or stating that they themselves are doing this- maybe should place been paying attention the over the last 8-10 years and being active about making change instead of whining o line ever four years.
There. No analogies.
We’re past motivation. It’s fight for the existence of destruction of democracy. Vote now and worry about who’s to blame later.
If it’s as serious as you say, you might consider trying to sway people who don’t already agree with you instead of telling them they’re the reason the country is in trouble.
It’s amusing that you think I haven’t tried this already. I tried it in 2016 with the Bernie Bros, and again in 2020. This year, I say fuck them. I will be voting to save democracy, but I’m done trying to reason with unreasonable children and I’m not about to kiss their smug asses to get them to see part their own ignorance.
Biden supports Two-State no other candidate does. Biden has increased aid into Gaza & advocated heavily to reduce the severity of fighting. Trump wants to deport any immigrant not supporting Israel & wants to get back into office to cut $200 million of funding to UNRWA that goes to Palestine. Biden works hard to stop Russia trying to genocide Ukraine. He is working to limit Iranian arms that are being used to kill Israelis, Arabs, Palestinians, and other in the region. He is working with peers to get trade flowing through one of the busiest shipping channels. That issue is further risking harm in Africa that has been experiencing massive turmoil & escalation of conflicts rising cost of food & resources would further expand that.
But please tell us your candidate, campaign, and actions that will improve or do anything for Palestinians let alone American fighting against wannabe theocrats & opposition that want to lower the quality of life for everyone but the ultra-rich.
I like your first paragraph. I think your second is counterproductive. See my reply right next to this one. https://lemmy.world/comment/7000833
I’ll be voting biden
I think the issue is more rooted in people like you.
had me goin for a second.
Let me put it another way: The original comment has “I’m not racist, but…” energy.
let me put it another way: biden is terrible, and the issue is rooted in people voting for him.
Meh
I can, some of us live this shit enough that being able to not care is a fucking privilege we don’t have.
I blame those backstabbing privileged twats all the way to my grave and then haunt their asses for being able to and choosing to not care.
Fuck your apathy, I want to live, and you shitbags owe it to me and those like me to do the literal minimum that helps achieve that if you want all the glitz and glam of marching alongside us at pride as if you are our allies.
Listen bro, im voting biden but im going to complain the whole damn time, you can take it or leave it.
Reading these comments, it feels people are having a giant trolley problem moment. Do I vote for Biden and throw the switch so fewer people die, or do I not do it and let more people die, but at least I’m not complicit then?
Did people forget that Trump was up Netanyahu’s ass during his presidency?
Don’t forget the Deportation Force that’s going to round up 11 million people and deport them. I wish I was joking.
And by deport they probably mean throw in concentration camps and then murder en masse.
If that happens, I wonder what the Mexican government and the cartels would say.
The Mexican government would be quite vocally mad and file lawsuits but nothing would really come of it.
The cartels wouldn’t care as long as the flow of guns and money from the north didn’t stop.
That is dark as fuck.
You guys wouldn’t have this clusterfuck if you just had a parliamentary system. Don’t like the non-reactionary liberal candidate? Great, just vote for whoever else you like, and even if they don’t win, they can still join efforts with the lesser evil to make sure the far right doesn’t return to power. It also has the added benefit that it doesn’t force the whole right wing of the country to cater to the rabid reactionaries on the rise, because those just make a different party that has to balance the distribution of their power with their less mad allies.
This should be a lovely comment section… I’ll have to return with some nice warm dinner and a drink later.
Don’t forget some popcorn.
It’s still pretty wild in here
I feel like posts like these always fail to realize how fucked of a situation US ‘democracy’ is in where you must vote for one shitty candidate because the other is literally a fascist.
Like no actually some people have decided that the entire system is untenable - they no there’s a lesser of two evils, but they refuse to partake of an illegitimate system.
I try to think that hopefully Trump would get stonewalled enough that he wouldn’t be able to get any of this done.
Then I realize that he seriously does not care. He doesn’t give a shit about Congress, or checks and balances. He and his party have clearly demonstrated that they have no interest in the system of “law and order” that they cling so close to.
Who’s gonna stop him? His courts? An impeachment? Antifa gonna go out and storm Pennsylvania Ave and live up to their damn name, which somehow became an insult?
The fact that this man is on a ballot in any state is shameful. The GOP of just a dozen fucking years ago would have tossed him out on his ass in a second. Somehow since then, Romney, McCain, and Liz Cheney have become the sole voices of reason within the party. One got blackballed, one got censured, and the other one died.
I try to think that hopefully Trump would get stonewalled enough that he wouldn’t be able to get any of this done.
Then I realize that he seriously does not care. He doesn’t give a shit about Congress, or checks and balances. He and his party have clearly demonstrated that they have no interest in the system of “law and order” that they cling so close to.
This cannot be understated enough. He will be a day one dictator. Then he’ll be a day two dictator, and day three and four. He won’t stop because he knows no one will stop him.
I think the most dissappointing is the current state of the Republican Party.
Seems like back in 2008, the Republican Party was a bit stubborn and stuck in the old days, but they were mostly harmless, like a grandpa who rattles his cane at “kids these days”. Endearing, but not crazy.
Then everything changed. They’ve gone full tilt crazy. They’ve actually managed to redeem 43 and make him look tame and competent (by comparison).
The nutter in me (what’s left of it, after /r/conspiracy got a cheeto mustache) is seriously starting to think that Reddits admiration of Ron Paul (that I very much got caught up in) was a practice run for some psyop astroturf shit that evolved into Trumps presidency.
I think they only get seen as harmless because they only had to perform small acts of violence to get their desired outcomes. They invaded a hotel to spy on their opponents, allied with people that murdered journalists and even in 2000 organized riots outside vote counting centers that gave fear of violence against arbiters of democracy. We cared a lot about the little things so they didn’t have to do as much.
But the world is more chaotic now and the big violent movements get way more sway and leaves even more room for bigger grabs of power. It’s just a progressing issue that came from us tolerating anything to keep status quo and let people make even more money regardless of how.
Did you hear of the robocalls in NH? Using a deepfaked Biden voice and the spoofed caller ID if someone from the state DNC, telling Democrats to “save their vote for November”?
Disgusting. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it played a hand in Haley’s surprisingly small loss in NH as undeclared voters are able to request either ballot.
Woah what the hell? No! I didn’t know about that!
What a weird concept. I’m not even entirely sure the desired outcome other than to see if it works and if they (the people doing this) could get away with it. I feel that it definitely sets dangerous precedent and makes it even muddier to have a well informed voter base.
You are thinking that people that would have voted for Biden then used their primary vote to go for Nikki Haley though?
No sense voting for Biden. He’s pretty much locked as the DNC candidate, the primary is really a formality (as often as it seems to be now).
No, NH has an open primary. Any undeclared voter can register for one party for the day to cast a primary ballot.
A lot of independents are undecided in these situations, since they can vote in either primary. Their vote is actually kind of especially powerful, since in this case they can use it to vote against someone in particular.
I live in MA which does the same. I am very left leaning but emphatically selected a republican ballot for the primaries.
Edit to add: this is also why Trumpists are lashing out against her, specifically in NH…they can’t fathom that voters can be independent. You’re either a modern republican or a librul.
What was it they used to say? Country before party? Facts not feelings? Law and order? Literally all of this shit is practically Orwellian. Ironically they really latch onto the “Ignorance is Strength” part.
So maybe we need a third option. I don’t know, maybe a candidate that isn’t an evil geriatric white man that can barely finish a sentence?
I’d love to make a glib analogy like ‘my toast got burnt so I burned my house down and most of the neighbourhood’ but the literal fact that so many people are suffering makes that sort of thing rather tasteless.
I don’t think Biden is “Genocide Joe”. That’s ridiculous hyperbole which doesn’t help. We (the public) don’t know what kind of pressure is being levered in the background to end all the horrors of this situation.
People not voting Dem merely because of difficult historical relationships with Israel are dangerously deluded.
I will hold my nose and vote against a dictatorship but I do understand why people are so FUCKING ANGRY with the DNC for not even trying to find someone who is representative of the Democratic voters. They haven’t done so for the last decades and it is getting to point where something serious needs to be done about it. As in, make it clear to those ‘in power’ that we will make their lives a living hell if they continue to ignore the people.
It’s more than insulting. It’s disgusting behavior by people who know they can do whatever the fuck they want and no one can say or do anything about it because TRUUUMP!! It’s a fucking joke. It’s a disgrace to democracy and I will never again vote for Democrats.
This country is in fucking shambles.
I will hold my nose and vote against a dictatorship but
nd I will never again vote for Democrats.
so which is it?
It’s really not that hard to understand. I will vote this time, to prevent trump. Then I will ensure that there is another choice the next time. In any way I can.
well it’s grammatically confusing; if you’d stated ‘and going forward, I will never again’ - sorry it’s easy to get confused when the statements contradict each other. I wish you the best of luck, I despise the DNC and think, short of trump / gop, there are few orgs I dislike more, but I will always give them the carveout: well yeah if it’s hitler/trump/etc, I’ll have to. there are people in so many threads that can’t grok there’s a good reason for that carveout, and want to play fuck-around-and-find-out with trump-2.0 rebuilding our democracy into a fascistopia.
Fair point. It was somewhat confusing I suppose.
Careful about confusing them, theyre reporting comments and getting them removed by automod lmao. It’s almost worse than reddit. Fuck this place
You sound whiney
yeah I get comments pulled for hurting feelings all over. people can dish out insults but they really don’t like retorts that come with facts linked, especially the facts that refute their ideals. I was hoping lemmy would be a bit more clinical.
Yeah I know. I really do. Not excusing it all but progressive policy is hamstrung by all the insane compromise that has to be made. Most of it due to the machinations of both external meddling by countries like Russia, and a (metaphorical) handful of rich people polluting the public discourse with utter nonsense.
They have the media sewn up to spew garbage, and are destroying the education systems to weaken any intellectual resistance.
We have more power to select our democratic candidate than you might think. The primaries in 2020 were our opportunity to select our democratic candidate. Far less people vote in primaries than they do in the general election. Biden won the primaries, so he got the Democratic nomination. If more people voted for primaries we could have a more progressive president. It just turns out that a smaller subset of our population gets to pick the Democratic nominee
You say that as though the entirety of the DNC leadership didn’t unite against Bernie Sanders when he was the clear front runner over Hillary. And again, in 2020. I agree, more people need to vote in the primaries. But there is clearly meddling and coercion happening behind the scenes to ensure an appropriately corporate candidate is selected.
Well, for me I actually quite like Biden. His Israel stance and protectionist economic policies are largely the only real policy positions he has that I disagree with him on, and he has done an exceptional job of accomplishing his stated policy goals within an extremely difficult and toxic political environment.
Here’s some food for thought: The last time the democrats had a solid hold on the federal govt with a filibuster proof majority in congress, we got the affordable care act. Ever since that term, the dems have been hamstrung by the GOP and rogue DINOs like Manchin and Sinema.
I don’t think there’s any “controlled opposition” conspiracy. If there’s a group to blame here the most, it’s the American media for pretending that the reason dems don’t get anything done is anything other than obstructionism and “both sides are bad hurr durr” rhetoric.
I’m not claiming there is a secret cabal of evil doers conspiring to ruin everything. But the interests of the rich all align and so they are all largely working towards the same thing. Having money in politics corrupts every single person in it, though to varying degrees. Both sides are very clearly bad. But also very clearly not to the same degree. I agree that Biden has done a lot that is good. But his whole platform is attempting to maintain status quo and while I haven’t mentioned this before, my main concern is climate change.
Climate change is going to FUCK everyone. It is already and there is virtually no time to daudle about with half measures and false promises. There have been policies that claim to help and may even attempt to in good faith but they are consistently coopted or corrupted by lobbiests before being implemented or circumvented after. There needs to be strong, decisive action taken to reign in carbon emissions and not just do carbon offsets because carbon offsets are never going to solve this problem. All they do is delay actual action. The main reason I am so fucking angry with Biden is because he’s fucking ancient and simply doesn’t feel the same urgency as someone who will actually live with the consequences of the recklessness and stupidity of fossil fuels companies.
Everything he has tried to do with regards to this only ends up enriching companies further or passing the blame off to the poor of the country who have no other options than to use fossile fuels. I want someone who will take these oil oligarchs (Oiligarchs is something I saw once and it made me chuckle) to task and actually reign in their insane greed and violence against the natural world. He would and could never even dream of actually doing so. No one the DNC would ever allow to be the candidate would.
There is literally no time left to enact action but here we are twiddling our thumbs while Republicans debate whether Texas should secede for some insane reason. It’s all distraction. I’m pissed the fuck off at it all and the ineffectiveness of liberal policy. They are all meek cowards who only exist to lose against the Republicans and then shrug and claim "well at least we tried. :( "
What could Biden have feasibly done other than what he’s already done in regards to climate change?
The free market already knows that the fossil fuel industry is rapidly dying, as evidenced by the fact that renewable energy is now the cheapest option for building out new power gen and oil companies have been diversifying away from oil for years now. Don’t be surprised if you see Shell building offshore wind farms instead of oil drilling platforms soon.
He’s included absolutely massive amounts of funding for renewable projects in the infrastructure bills that have been passed. Enough so that I expect the entire energy landscape of the US to look totally different within the decade. It can’t be overstated how big of deal this is, and realistically, this is the most effective climate action he could have taken that wouldn’t get stonewalled by republican obstructionism.
Re. fossil fuels and poor people, he’s done a good job of both not handing more power to the fossil fuel corps while also not hamstringing the industry and subsequently jacking up the price of energy and transportation across the board. As much as I’d like to ditch fossil fuels, enacting policy that would jack gas prices into the double digits before we’re ready to switch by gutting the fossil fuels industry would be political suicide.
Sure, a lot of the legislation he’s passing hands money to wealthy corporations. Somebody has to build the infrastructure to get us off fossil fuels after all. That doesn’t mean it isn’t also improving the world around us at a pace faster than any president in recent history, and being in a position that Biden is bringing us to is a much more stable platform to build real social and economic change off of. There will be no need for a messy revolution if we can incrementally design and build systems that handle the issues we face in a level headed, evidence based fasion.
The last time the democrats had a solid hold on the federal govt with a filibuster proof majority in congress, we got the affordable care act.
A giveaway to corporate America and they arrogantly decided not to codify Roe v. Wade. And don’t forget, this was right after the financial crash and not one person from Wall Street went to jail over any of that shit.
It’s a hell of a lot more than anything the republicans have done for me in my lifetime. I certainly wouldn’t call it a giveaway to corporate america, they fought tooth and nail to try and keep anything even close to the ACA from passing. Is it an ideal system? No, but at least I can get a reasonable insurance package while un or self employed now, and that’s a huge deal for the economic mobility of the masses.
Diverting any of the efforts that went into passing the ACA to stuff like codifying roe v wade or staging a big crackdown on wallstreet most likely would have ended up with the ACA getting axed. That’s why we need to get the dems to have a secure position as the controlling party so they can focus on longer term goals and hammer the right wingers into irrelevancy. If we can get there, I’d hope to see the dems split into a liberal and leftist party so that way we can argue about which way we want to make progress happen instead of desperately trying to make any progress happen at all.
Buddy, I’m not content with “better than Republicans”. The Republicans are getting worse every year and Democrats are happy to follow closely behind.
Diverting any of the efforts that went into passing the ACA to stuff like codifying roe v wade or staging a big crackdown on wallstreet most likely would have ended up with the ACA getting axed.
You’re free to believe that. I believe they intentionally dragged it out specifically so they wouldn’t have to deliver anything else. Because most Democrat politicians are pro-corporate trash who are enabling the drift into fascism if not outright facilitating it.
You shouldn’t be content with just “better than Republicans” that’s how we get progress. That said, I still think you’re overstating how bad the democrats are. Yes, on some issues, they fold to corporate pressures and I’m not happy about that. In many other areas they are hamstrung by obstructionism and having to appeal to a big tent voter base; this is unavoidable until the republican party becomes irrelevant and the dems can split. There are plenty of areas however where they’re making incredible progress, here’s a list of stuff that the Biden admin has done just in 2023: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhatBidenHasDone/comments/11lohnc/what_biden_has_done_year_three_year_one_two_are/
44 Democrat senators politicians and Joe Biden acted with lightning speed to block the rail strike. Meanwhile Biden has enlisted Yellen and Powell to go to war with American Workers. Fuck Joe Biden.
still think you’re overstating how bad the democrats are
Respectfully, go fuck yourself. If you genuinely don’t think this is bad then you and I are not on the same side. Good luck in 2024 Elect your procorporate trash candidate all on your own.
Biden won the primary by millions and millions of votes, will easily do so again this year, and his policies are (and always have been) square in the middle of the Democratic mainstream. Say what you want about him but he’s clearly representative of Democratic voters.
That “square in the middle” skews white and middle class.
I also think you underestimate the number of people who voted for him purely because he isn’t Trump in 2020.
and now the logic is well he wasn’t trump in 2020 so let’s actually try trump who’s literally planning a dictatorship?
make it make sense
What does this snark have to do with the comment you responded to? Is the Democratic establishment supposed to be beyond even mild criticism? Yeah, they have voters stuck in a corner. We get it.
Now here is something for you to get. The people posting this shit are far more likely to harden people’s resolve to punish the Democrats for their abuse of the situation. You are the flip side of the same coin, choosing virtue signaling instead of trying to heal the breech the Democratic establishment created. It’s fucking tribalism, just like the Republicans.
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As a member of the Numpty tribe, you are a poopy head. Did I just persuade you to work with me?
What are you talking about? DNC primary is not a democratic election.
What are you talking about? It’s both a big- and small-D Democratic election. Biden got nearly 20 million votes, a majority of the total and almost double what Sanders got.
You’re completely missing the point that leftists are making if you compare voting for yet another liberal Capitalist as “burnt toast,” it’s closer to your house being on fire under Biden or your neighborhood under Trump. Neither is good, both are bad, Biden isn’t just an inconvenience unless you’re privledged enough that you’re fine with the Neoliberal status quo.
Will I be voting for Biden? Absolutely. Should I be told to stop whining about how he is a generic, lukewarm Capitalist perpetuating genocide? No.
Look I get the anger. As someone who who would love to see a radically more progressive US government I’m bummed that it’s not.
Please remember who the real enemy is in the situation; the hidden money and influence behind the regressive forces in US politics, currently exhibiting as ‘MAGA’ and other symptoms.
I would go so far as to say that those influences could be labelled as terrorists. Financial-Political terrorists causing chaos in the system.
If they were exerting pressure then Netanyahu would have complained to Congress, like he did with Bush and Obama. Cutting off arms shipments is exerting pressure. Removing the UN block is exerting pressure.
Writing mean words in secret is nothing.
The pen will pen-etrate you if don’t watch out.
It’s a really really tricky situation for any US President, or Congress.
No analogy really does the situation justice. It’s all a horrible mess and that creep Netanyahu doesn’t help in any way.
How come we don’t talk about “Genocide Trump” more, this close to the election? I think the words “Genocide Trump” should be at least as important to hear online this close to the election. What about “Genocide Trump”, what do you think, do you think “Genocide Trump” should be at least or at least not less popular than your alternative?
Hell yes. But it’s not an alliteration so doesn’t roll off the tongue so easily.
Besides, his base and the caravan of dispicables don’t care. They probably think ‘Genocide’ is some sort of mouthwash.
He went around Congress to give them weapons. That’s pretty much all I have to know. Without threatening actual leverage, and that’s basically the only leverage they have, his words mean nothing. Batman Begins has a good lesson about that. I just wish there was a non-genocide *choice. What a cool democracy for a cool country.
“All I have to know is what I learned from a batman movie”.
Way to go, sport!
Could focus on working on congressional campaign advocacy disallowing the President from near unlimited War Reserve Stockpile Allies – Israel (WRSA-I). Republicans are on pretending to be Anti-War doves yet all these protest are alienating them with their disgusting support for Hamass & antisemitic Houthis as well as being a nuisance to the public. Pretty sure there are a lot of people that would agree with this if they weren’t being interrupted in traffic picking up their family or trying to get to work on time.
The post has a point. Trump cut funding to UNRWA opposes Two-State unlike Biden and Trump has mentioned deporting any immigrant that doesn’t support Israel. Not to mention Democrats provided a slew of “young” candidates in 2020 yet most of the “left” went for an older candidate Bernie Sanders that now agrees with President Biden & that recognizes Ceasefires not offered by Hamas are a joke. So nobody to blame but themselves for the consolidation of one of the most Progressives Presidents in the modern era.
Don’t get mad when your fellow advocates refuse or reject to participate in Democracy. Israel & Palestine is a complex issue that many of you were asleep at the wheel on. I tried to bring up the matter up for a vote for amending our party platform at our State Democrat convention this summer because polling showed Democrats supported Palestinians more than Israel but it was the “Leftist” members that voted down claiming it wasn’t time to discuss it.
You were are missing in action with Ukraine as Russia tries to genocide them again. Hard to take you all serious especially when its fickle. President Biden is fighting to aid to Gaza as well as reduce the severity of fighting & working to release hostages that is great while wanting to support helping Ukraine. We are also trying to keep Africa safe & access to shipping food to them while antisemitic Houthis attack ships indiscriminately.
Wtf are you talking about? I argue to defend Ukraine all the time and donated money to them. You don’t know me.
That doesn’t mean Israel is not doing a genocide. In fact, if you think Russia is then there’s no way you don’t realize Israel is, or you’re being a hypocrite. The difference is the US was helping Ukraine in this scenario so I don’t need to advocate for them as much as the Palestinians, who currently desperately need our help.
And just because Trump is bad, doesn’t eliminate my point. In fact, it emphasizes it: I can’t choose a President who doesn’t like genocide right now. That sucks.
I do like the idea of disallowing the President from near unlimited War Reserve Stock Piles, though. That is a good point.
Right now its your definition of genocide that should be weighed in context. We may have a international determination on it coming up, so I’m going to wait for that process. War is awful and this one has some particular aspects that are awful but there are realities to contend with too. How in this world does Israel have bomb shelters all over the place yet Gaza had none yet had insane amount of tunnels that are even reinforced. Ukraine is important & the conflict matters to them too because they are losing out on artillery supplies as the US is stockpiling in Israel to prepare for increased hostilities in the region. Iranian weapons need to be stopped more so than US supplies IMO.
The aspect of no candidate available, please consider finding one. Its a shame that the organizations that get pro-Palestinian label don’t hold forums or solicit candidates questions on their support. Quite frankly its embarrassing because the GOP has done this for well over half a century from races to the highest office to local elections. That is something that would really help in advocacy & fundraising to build up a slate of options. Waiting to start in a reactive manner & not until a large election does give people reservation about the sincerity. Its not like this is really a conflict. Gazans were in a huge protest during the Trump admin against Israel & Hamas during the Trump administration after he recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capitol(Dems have always wanted this but refused to pull the trigger).
Democrats have always been at the table for both parties here & have a long history of advancing Palestinian rights when its not popular but we expect both sides to take responsibility. Biden has done a lot and continues despite the critique.
Here is pretty interesting article on the stockpile if it helps. https://www.justsecurity.org/91213/the-war-reserve-stockpile-allies-israel-explained-why-congress-should-not-expand-it/
Man get off your own headspace… Seriously
