Our primary isn’t until next month, it literally means nothing.
Democratic primaries have been meaningless since 2012.
Any state after super Tuesday has no voice. I won’t vote for Biden but at this point I don’t know if I’ll just cast no vote or if there will be another option?
Well you can vote for the one or two other candidates depending on your state that are on the ballot. Of course they both suck. So you know do with that what you will.
I mean, not just America, the entire world wishes you had gotten your shit together for this one, but land of the free/home of the brave really is just a bumper sticker slogan I guess.
I vote Republican (apparently I’m the only one on Lemmy) and I’m part of this percentage. I don’t care for either candidate, but both sides are going to vote for their candidate, because both sides have the “anyone but him” mentality.
I understand always voting for your party. So ignoring parties. Why do you want Trump over Biden?
I’m still not sure if I want Trump over Biden, I may even vote RFK…
You should go away.
Why? This place shouldn’t be an echo chamber.
Who says it shouldn’t if the alternative is filled with dickheads?
Given your attitude, I think you are demonstrating that reality not the alternative.
Social science is not absolute. There are not just 2 sides. The group you’ve chosen to identify with are not always correct.
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I’m a dickhead because I’m not a liberal or a Democrat? Wow…how very “Reddit” of you.
You’re a dickhead because you side with fascists.
Don’t be daft.
"Hey everyone, we should only have ONE party in control and ONE way of thinking, and ONE way of creating laws…"sincerely, Democrats.
But, I’m the fascist right? GTFO…
You should educate yourself on what fascism is.
Also, let’s not pretend anyone said anything about having only “one party in control”.
You’re just digging your hole deeper by saying increasingly stupid things.
Democracy is a religion that glorifies the lesser of two evils.
No shit but also why the fuck didn’t we primary him?
Democrats no long believe in primaries.
Well, I mean it’s a lot of effort rigging things so they don’t look completely janky. Debbie Whatsername-Smith was done worn out at the end of 2016 making sure it was Her Turn.
Watching the media lose its mind in 2020 when Bernie won Nevada, and candidates abandoning their campaigns like rats fleeing a sinking ship when he won California, really makes me think it was more than just DWS in 2016 fucking with things.
Also, whatever you do, don’t google “Shadow Inc Acronym Iowa Primary” or trust anything this news article says about the caucus process because its fine, everything is fine, democracy is actually very healthy and normal in this country, and anyone who says otherwise is a Russian bot.
All the way up till 2024 democrats were furiously protecting Biden. Shutting down any critism of him. Now it’s election time and all the discussions they refused to have for the last 3 years are at the forefront. Shame they waste their energy defending the presidential elect rather than vetting the better candidates. Like thats never blown up in their faces.
Except for the fact, of course, that the Democrat primaries have never been more democratic. But let’s not let the facts or history get in the way of the narrative!
So you are admitting they were previously less democratic and could be more democratic?
I don’t know if I would label it “admitting,” but rather just being aware of history. Parties didn’t start having votes until around WWII, and after all of the hand wringing after the 2008 and 2016 primaries, Democrats voted overwhelmingly to dilute their power even more.
Making 2020 the most democratic primary for Democrats ever.
Did you mean 2024 or are you saying the recent primaries were less democratic (e.g. incumbent advantage).
Didn’t really include them because they aren’t concluded yet, but the rules have not changed.
Because no primary challenger has ever beaten an incumbent for president. It would be a waste of time and money.
no primary challenger has ever beaten an incumbent for president
So, a bit of history.
https://time.com/5682760/incumbent-presidents-primary-challenges/
Before primary elections became the dominant way to pick a nominee, party leaders were more able to either shut down challengers or smoothly pass the nomination to someone else. Notably, four incumbents who were denied the nomination in the 19th century — John Tyler, Andrew Johnson and Chester A. Arthur — had been Vice Presidents who rose to the Presidency following the deaths of their predecessors, perhaps suggesting they’d never won their parties’ full support in the first place.
Then
In the 1952 Democratic Party presidential primaries, President Harry S. Truman was challenged by Senator Estes Kefauver. Truman lost the New Hampshire primary to Kefauver and dropped out of the race shortly after.
Also
TIME reported that McCarthy’s surprisingly strong showing in the New Hampshire primary was a statement that was “as much anti-Johnson as antiwar,” citing a NBC poll that found more than half of Democrats didn’t even know McCarthy’s position on Vietnam. Less than a week after New Hampshire, Attorney General Robert Kennedy jumped into the race. Then, on March 31, Johnson announced he wasn’t going to run for re-election.
As TIME reported in the April 12, 1968, article on Johnson dropping out, “So low had Johnson’s popularity sunk, said one Democratic official, that last-minute surveys before the Wisconsin primary gave him a humiliating 12% of the vote there.”
It should be noted that Ford nearly lost to Reagan in 1976
He racked up 1,187 delegates compared to Ronald Reagan’s 1,070, which was barely more than the 1,130 he needed to secure the nomination.
And Kennedy nearly beat Carter four years later
Carter won 36 primaries that year, but Kennedy’s 12 victories included important ones in New York and California, and he didn’t concede until Aug. 11, 1980, at the Democratic National Convention at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
In another historic race, William Taft was nearly edged out by Theodore Roosevelt, who went on to place second behind Woodrow Wilson in 1912. That gave Taft the dubious distinction of being the only incumbent to come in at third place in a general election.
62% of the voters seem to think it’s a worthwhile endeavor. You’re probably right in the sense that democrats couldnt find a progressive candidate if they came up and kicked them in the ass.
According to a Pew Research Poll. Whatever the fuck that means.
Right, I do all my own polling personally.
Heh… well I’m just saying polls are unreliable. I wouldn’t bet the farm on them.
I think these polls and the climate is very telling.
The last time the Democrats did that was Ted Kennedy challenging Carter. Even with a historically unpopular president and a well-known challenger he still lost.
I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but our government is dysfunctional and incumbents are not successfully primaried.
What was lost if Biden can’t get it over the goal line?
Lots of things. That’s what we get for having a dysfunctional government. Stop thinking it’s going to work effectively: It won’t.
… you’re saying things won’t work effectively but then claiming to understand exactly how it works. I sense a contradiction.
Your initial question didn’t make sense at all because the verb tenses don’t agree. I’m just doing my best to attempt to communicate with you.
Because the unwritten rule is not to run against the incumbent.
That’s just not good enough anymore
Because causing division/voter apathy when facing a threat to democracy is a terrible idea
Lol, it’s here now.
So you can imagine how much worse 2 years of it would be
Democracy is perfectly fine until my candidate loses, at which point democracy is dead until late September when mid-terms start ramping up, and then suddenly democracy works again and we need to get ready to vote in 2026.
Democracy is perfectly fine until the candidate that loses refuses to accept the results, tries to retain power by force, then continues to try undermine faith in democracy for 4 years and is somehow still the frontrunner for his party.
Democracy is perfectly fine until the candidate that loses refuses to accept the results
Sore Lieberman '00
Gore’s VP (Joe)? I don’t remember all of the details, but that was legitimately a contested election by the numbers, not by a sore loser. Won the popular by a decent margin but lost the electoral. It was by a slim enough margin to trigger a recount. As far as contested elections go I thought that could have gone a whole lot worse.
I’m not sure I get the comparison here.
that was legitimately a contested election by the numbers
Not according to the incoming Republican administration. There are still conservatives who flog that election to prove how little Democrats care about democracy.
I’m not sure I get the comparison here.
If Gore had squeaked out a win even in the face of abundant ratfvckery in Florida and Ohio, Republicans would have insisted the election was a fraud in the same way they insisted Clinton stole the election in 1992 and Carter in 1976 and Kennedy stole it in 1960.
Because this is a partisan issue, there’s no real clean line between legitimate victory and election theft from the perspective of the partisans themselves. And because both sides routinely fight dirty (Nixon was as aggressive fucking democrats in southern Illinois as Kennedy was in fucking Republicans in Chicago), it is often difficult to talk about a clean race when the reality is more often that one person or the other lost in a dirty knife fight.
Democracy would be cool with primarying an incumbent president. I checked.
It’s not though. Even though we’d prefer a different candidate, everyone who isn’t a complete moron has at least agreed that we’re gonna stick with Biden because he’s better than the alternative and it’s not even close.
People tried. They didn’t even come close.
Seems like they’d have done better with 62% of the voting public behind them.
Trump faced an entire gaggle of conservative opponents and rarely failed to clear the 50% mark by state.
Biden’s biggest defeat was to the 20% of voters who cast spoiled ballots in Michigan. Marianna Williamson and Dean Phillips were barely acknowledged.
Even RFK Jr isn’t polling at better than 10%.
Who do these people actually want for the position?
RFK is a prop to give the illusion that Biden is more moderate than he really is.
The RFK brand name carries a lot of weight among boomer voters. This looks less like coordination by either party and more like a dimwit failson cashing in on his name brand before it expires. He’s raised over $72M in his Presidential bid and has numerous friends and family on his campaign payroll.
My man is an absolute money fountain for the consultancy class. Not as lucrative as the comically overpriced Bloomberg primary bid, but definitely worth the grift on his face.
Bloomberg was the same candidate, a tool to make Biden appear more moderate than he actually is.
Bloomberg was a NYC Republican who thought he could Moneyball the Democratic Primary by focusing all his efforts in a few big states. Biden wasn’t running as a moderate candidate in 2020. He was running as a conservative democrat. The moderates - Warren and Klobacher and Buttigieg and Harris - never managed to triangulate a winning position between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders.
Ask the DNC.
The Hill. lol
“If they could”
They could, it’s called the primaries
This is one of many problems with primary voting, but it still works. The DNC elites clearly wanted Hillary to win in 2008, and they wanted Bernie to get far fewer votes in 2016 and 2020. But the reality is there’s not a lot of situations where they’d actually reverse a primary vote, if nothing else because the backlash would be so extreme they’d be guaranteeing an election loss anyway.
There’s not a lot of situations where they’d actually reverse a primary vote
“the Clinton camp won six out of six coin tosses”
0.5^6=1.5% chance of occurring.
raises hand
Their hairstyles are displaying convergent evolution.
John Stewart for POTUS.
I don’t care if he doesn’t want it; that just makes him more suitable.
Washington didn’t want it either. Can we force someone to be president?
100 percent of return2ozma political posts are attacking Biden.
If they’re not a voter suppressionist trying to get Trump elected they’re doing a great pretending to be one.
Is the Hill trying to get Trump elected too because they published it? And these 62% of democrat voters - paid shills? Russian bots?
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No pro-genocide centrist cares.
Replace everyone in the house and senate if youre serious about changing anything
yea companies do this type of shit all the time
They dont do it often enough else these fuckheads that have latched onto the taxmans tit for 30/40 years wouldnt still be there.
This seems like a good opportunity to push for voting third party.
Excellent. Which 3rd party candidate do you expect will appeal to about 50% of voters in enough states to get 270 electoral college votes?
Maybe none this year, but a big enough percentage of voters going third party would show the big two that we’re sick of their shit. It would also help get this false dichotomy mindset out of the majority.
Okay, how many election cycles of Republican majorities in the house and senate along with a Republican president will it take before the major parties change their platform to suit your needs? Or how long until a 3rd party candidate can garner enough votes to get elected?
What percentage will be needed? Do all of us that are involved with your scheme have to vote for the same 3rd party candidate, or can we each vote for the one we like best?
I’d love to break the two party dichotomy, so let’s figure out how all of voting party will actually make that happen.
Going by the numbers in the article, ~48% of all voters don’t like either candidate. That puts the ratio of people who like their candidate to the people who don’t like either at about the same as the Republican/Democrat split. If everyone voted for a candidate they actually like right now (assuming they find a third party they like), there’s a chance it could happen this year. Even if it doesn’t, 48% of people voting for a third party would show everyone else that it’s a viable option.
I think that’s a pretty big assumption, but okay.
I’m not sure how 48% of voters voting for n number of different 3rd party candidates shows that 3rd party candidates are a viable option. That’s kind of what we have now. Two main party candidates getting enough voter share to win the election, followed by a lot of 3rd party candidates getting an insignificant number of votes.
Maybe voting for 3rd party candidates will encourage main party candidates to adopt watered down versions of the 3rd party platforms in an attempt to lure their voters. They probably couldn’t adopt their full platforms because it would alienate other voters that don’t share the 3rd parties extreme views.
Maybe none this year, but a big enough percentage of voters going third party would show the big two that we’re sick of their shit.
Republicans don’t care. You’re just giving them more opportunities to prevent you from voting again in the future.
The time to push for 3rd party is not when someone who admits to wanting to be a dictator has a legitimate chance of winning.
……crickets
Better than voting for either turd we get to choose from
Nope, voting for your favorite turd is the only adult action in a general election for president. It sucks but it’s what FPTP forces on us.
Spoken like someone who has a favorite turd.
Most people don’t like turds at all.
It’d be pretty fucking amazing if I didn’t have a preference between the two but regardless of my preference I’d prefer if you voted for your favorite turd regardless if it’s the same as mine. Unfortunately the final stage of our executive office election that will happen in November uses a completely fucking broken system.
I believe in a democracy and not that my opinion must be held by everyone else - if you vote third party in our broken ass system you’re effectively removing yourself from the voting base.
I absolutely didn’t vote for either turd in the primary though, because they’re both fucking awful.
It’d be pretty fucking amazing if I didn’t have a preference between the two but regardless of my preference I’d prefer if you voted for your favorite turd regardless if it’s the same as mine.
I don’t have a favorite turd. I resent having to vote for a turd.
I believe in a democracy and not that my opinion must be held by everyone else
You believe in your favorite turd.
I’ve been on this train for a long time, but this election is really making me question that position. Personally, I think both the major party’s candidates are dismal at best so it feels terrible to consider voting for either - I don’t want to tell either party, “hey, I like your guy and your platform.” For literally decades, I’ve been of the option that is a party wants my vote then they need to present me with a platform and candidate that I agree with - regardless of what party that actually is.
The problem is, if I vote 3rd party this time around then my greatest hope would be to contribute towards some party finally reaching 5% of the vote in order to receive federal funding for the next presidential election - in 4 years. There’s zero hope that my 3rd-party vote is going to somehow result in a shocking 3rd party presidential election victory though, which means the winner is still going to be one of the two major party’s candidates. I don’t care about voting for the “winning team” or whatever, but I do get the distinct impression that one of the two major party’s candidates has a much higher disregard towards our form of government and could pose a more significant threat to our daily lives as a nation. Thus, for the first time ever I feel myself gravitating towards voting for the “lesser of two evils.” Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s a lot of things the Democrats get right on various party positions (and I think there might be a couple Republicans do, too?) so the “lesser of two evils” phrase isn’t meant to suggest both options are depraved - just that I don’t personally particularly align with either. I am definitely feeling like I have to choose a side though, lest a “greater evil” pull off a win and jeopardize our entire democracy.
Maybe nobody should be president and we work on ourselves for a while. Really self-actualize
Not me. Fuck Trump. Biden is a good guy and I would vote for him no matter what but I think the idea of Harris getting to be president because Biden is too old and dies is a win win. So the Biden - Harris ticket is fuck yeah from me.
I think the idea of Harris getting to be president because Biden is too old and dies is a win win
Fuck Harris
Fuck trump
Absolutely, and if I could vote in your election, I would be voting Biden, I would just be unhappy about it.
Primaries are a different story; dissent is what primaries are for.
Fuck Harris though
