The Pennsylvania Democrat recalled his time serving as a Hillary Clinton surrogate in 2016, even after he supported Bernie Sanders in the primary.
“Support Joe Biden” - Yes.
“Support particular policies of Joe Biden” - No.
Democrats are not a cult of personality. We can disagree with particular things the president does without wanting to see him defeated.
I think he’s talking about the people who would rather let Trump win than support anyone right of Bernie.
He specifically said “get behind the policies of Joe Biden”. If it’s just voting I’m with Fetterman, but you don’t need to recalibrate your policy supports because anything less than full agreement is treason.
We don’t vote on policies though, we vote on people (at the federal level)
Sure, and if it’s just voting and saying “voting for Biden is important”, then great, we’re good. Biden is obviously better than any Republican and Republicans not having power is important. But what that doesn’t mean is tabling advocacy for progressive stuff because it’s not what he’s doing or pretending bad policies just didn’t happen.
Sure, as long as it’s put in context. Too many young people are emphasizing the second part of what you said over the first part.
I like Fetterman, but I don’t think he’s the sharpest tool in the shed. Nuance is likely not his strong suit.
Those people don’t exist or are so fringe as to be irrelevant.
For the most part yes. However, I think the DNC has a real problem being disingenuous and acting like every single person to the left of trump owes them their vote. Give people a reason to vote for you. Not everyone who votes Democrat in one election identifies as a party member who is going to show up for you every election.
This whole talking to people like naughty school children if they don’t vote for you attitude isn’t helping anyone. Hilary ran her entire campaign on that message. It got us 4 years of orange man.
All the areas that went hard Blue after voting for Trump in 2016 seem to argue otherwise. Lots of people came out of the woodwork that either voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.
What areas did Trump carry in 16 that then went “hard blue” (I guess that’s dependent upon your definition of hard, but let’s say, breaking for Biden by 10+ points) in 20?
No doubt there were places that flipped, but I doubt too many flipped “hard”.
2020 was decided by three groups:
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Moderate Republicans repulsed by what they’d seen through 4 years of trump.
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Democrats and moderates who were put off specifically by having Clinton on the ballot in 16 and didn’t vote.
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Independents who underestimated how bad Trump would be and voted for him to “shake things up” over Clinton who was the picture of Establishment Politics.
In 2020 I think you also had the effect of complacency among some of Trump’s far right base. Many of them hadn’t voted for years, if ever, until 2016 and likely didn’t realize the perfect storm that had to happen for him to win.
Meanwhile in 20, defeating Trump basically required two things: don’t be Trump, and don’t be someone lots of people hate.
Nobody likes Biden, but nobody really hates him either. That’s how he won the primaries and it’s how he won the general.
And if 2020 is a rematch, it’s how I think he’ll win again. Biden’s biggest strength is what he’s not.
I’m thinking of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania who flipped back Blue for Biden, but have also flipped other seats that have been long held by Republicans. The PA house flipped, as well as a seat in the Senate in the US Congress. Democrats held on to the governorship of PA for the first time since 1963. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court also flipped for the first time in nearly two decades. I don’t know how many point they won by, but there is a clear direction the states are both going that extends beyond just Trump.
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Not sure they comment was meant for me, but I agree. People that still say they are independent either aren’t paying close attention or just don’t want to label themselves. Some just love to complain and not take any responsibility for the consequences of their own voting.
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I would say “Then why would they be considered progressive?” but then I remember Tankies exist.
We need ranked choice voting.
We need a voting system that eliminates the spoiler effect and allows for showing intensity of preference.
RCV does neither but STAR voting does both
I feel like this is the new boogie man for the DNC. My close circle of friends all don’t like Joe Biden, all voted for Bernie in the primary against Hilary. Still showed up to vote for both her and Biden.
There’s plenty of people who didn’t show up for Biden and Hilary that have similar views and I don’t think it’s as much malicious as it is apathetic. They don’t do enough to give them a reason to show up. They don’t “energize the base” well enough. The Democrats need to get people excited for their policies somehow.
The Democrats need to get people excited for their policies somehow.
Wouldn’t a good way to do that be to have compelling policies? Off the top of my head I’d think putting abortion protections/rights into explicit law would be a start. Frankly anything that is currently only legal on the basis of supreme court decisions also seems ripe for putting into legislative policy pushes to make into explicit legal protections, rather than relying on some decision that may be overturned by an arguably compromised court.
In that vein, expanding protections to the LGBT+ community would be another good piece to their policies. Also, on a larger note, more explicit and enthusiastic support of active unionization efforts that have been happening across different business sectors.
However, even beyond these, some that would apply more broadly might be policies to address housing and rent costs, as these affect basically everyone and anyone. Policies seeking to address housing/rent, education, and healthcare costs would altogether, I think, speak to a wider swath of the public than strictly focusing on the aforementioned concerns, but would also include them, e.g. combating redlining, undermining of public education, denial of medical services to pregnant women & trans people, etc.
I’ll admit, maybe they have been pushing for some different parts of these (I’m aware of the Biden administration sort of trying to address college debt and getting screwed by the courts), but by and large I don’t think I’ve seen a clear set of policies by the Democratic party of the United States to be excited for. Far more of it has appeared rather watered down and more along the lines of, “Well, we’re not the Republicans at least!” instead of enthusiastically standing for something more constructive.
I’m not against any of those policy points you listed. But none of them would get me nearly as excited as them actually following through on raising taxes on the wealthy. They haven’t even really attempted that in decades. It’s been all cuts by the Republicans with no action from the Democrats. Making priority one rolling back the tax bill passed under Trump which lowered taxes on the wealthy and raised them on the middle class would of made me excited to vote for Biden again.
To me, this is supposed to be the main difference between the two parties and how they run the country. Social issues are important, but I’m sick of the media and politicians ignoring fiscal/tax policy. Biden throws out a soundbite about taxing the rich and being pro labor every once and a while, but makes zero action that way.
Social issues are important, but I’m sick of the media and politicians ignoring fiscal/tax policy. Biden throws out a soundbite about taxing the rich and being pro labor every once and a while, but makes zero action that way.
Fwiw that’s why I included the parts regarding policies addressing various costs (housing/rent, education, healthcare).
Ideally taxing the rich would lead to actions addressing those, but if we’re realistic, the odds are just as likely for those tax revenues to go to subsidizing some other businesses, and the military, with a depressingly low amount allocated towards public domestic concerns like helping provide shelter, education, and healthcare. At least, the odds are likely they’ll go that way if not coupled with policies of using the tax revenues towards domestic efforts.
It has nothing to do with energizing the base when we can see they lure voters to the polls then never deliver. The issues the poor and middle class are facing now are the same issues we’ve been facing for decades, and they never get addressed.
Like James Baldwin said, ‘I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.’
They could energize the base, by actually doing something they want pretty easily. Legalize pot, raise taxes on the wealthy, codify abortion/roe vs Wade into law… like anything people actually care about.
Yeah who cares about infrastructure spending or lowering the price of prescription drugs
Things the Republicans might also do and isn’t a good thing to run on for 1,000 Pat. Didn’t Bush pass some decent prescription drug bill…
Username checks out
Because Biden could have way better positions on healthcare, remote work and student loan forgiveness.
It’s not that I don’t support him, it’s that I do not support anyone over the age of 65 being in any position of any power anywhere.
He’s got dozens of aides and advisors. No one man’s got all that power.
Yeah, but you’re still going to vote for him, just like I’m going to have to…
We don’t really have a choice.
But it’s not enough for moderates to count on progressives voting for them in the general, that’s not “supporting” to them anymore.
They want our unwavering support and complete refusal to criticize them before, during, and after assuming office.
They’ve been slowly creeping right for so long chasing conservative votes that they’ve got the same expectations of their voters that Republicans get.
I think more than a few of the party leadership truly wish Dem voters were more like Republican voters.
You have plenty of choices. First of all you can vote for someone that isn’t red or blue, second you can take action yourself and do politics on your own
Politics is almost by definition something you don’t do on your own.
First of all you can vote for someone that isn’t red or blue,
If I wanted to waste time I wouldn’t stand in line to vote…
In our political system any vote besides R or D means the same as not voting. Thats just reality, it sucks but it is.
You want to change it? Great, me too. But we do that by being more invested in the current system and electing people willing to improve it.
Don’t feed on the propaganda. There’s a shitty movie out every month or so who millions go to watch because they get blasted with ads. It really doesn’t take much to teach people to vote for someone that isn’t red and blue. Drop that mindset and tell everyone to vote for someone else
It really doesn’t take much to teach people to vote for someone that isn’t red and blue.
How do you think that’s going right now?
I think it’s going good, i may have illuminated someone in this thread plus everyone downvoting will soon realize how stupid and brainwashed they are being and switch their mindset in the future
“Illuminated”
My sides. I don’t think you could illuminate a broom closet with a flashlight in your hands.
plus everyone downvoting will soon realize how stupid and brainwashed they are being and switch their mindset in the future
Kanye logic…
I knew it was coming, have fun with that
What state do you live in, assuming it does not have FPTP voting?
Its more likely to matter in downticket races, where the total amount of votes is less than the margin for victory in most federal elections.
Sure, we’re not going to see a third party president any time soon, but its more than feasible in state and local elections. People just tend to ignore them because they’re not as in your face as federal elections. Even though they’re often as important as federal elections.
No third party in the US has a workable platform and they don’t even try to make one. They do literally nothing. We can argue back and forth about why they are at a disadvantage or why they have no chance blah blah blah, but it doesn’t take any of that.
Which has fuckall to do with the POTUS, which is what we’re discussing.
We don’t really have a choice.
This is the real problem. Not Biden’s age or his actual policy goals and achievements. It’s that we know what we’re getting and we know we won’t be enthusiastic about it.
But ya gotta do what ya gotta do, and unlike last time I’m in a swing state and can’t cheekily write in my favorite candidate without ending the world.
Enthusiasm for Obama died down once reality hit too.
There wasn’t ever enthusiasm for Biden, though.
Enthusiasm doesn’t lead to anything most of the time. Throughout history the greatest Presidents all had to make difficult decisions that either went against their ideals or were questionable if they had the right to do them. Anyone can run on grand ideas, but once you’re in the seat the unattended consequences are revealed to you, and unless your a monster who doesn’t care, they have to be dealt with.
An example that made me change my mind about some things under the Obama administration was watching documentary series on declassified CIA/FBI counterterrorism incidents. The number of plots they were stopping was overwhelming. And if those interviewed are to be believed those were only a small fraction of the situations they dealt with.
Those of us stuck in hell (the south) thank you for your sacrifice. 😞
Yes, we all want someone with little experience work the most important job in the world.
I want someone in touch with the modern world, understands technology and climate change, and who will be around to feel the effects of the policies they’re enacting. Being old doesn’t rule out most of those qualifiers but a 70+ year old won’t be around to feel the effects of many policies enacted today, so they may be more willing to enact policies with short term benefits but long term detriments.
If a 70 yr old wants to work on climate change regulation and tech regulation, they need to understand at least the basics of both, and the majority of legislators cannot use technology and refuse to begin to understand how computers or the internet in general work, despite the internet existing for 30 years and being everywhere for 20. And computers have in workplaces as commonplace for 40 years
Al Gore was in his 60s when he won the Nobel for his work on environmental climate change. John Kerry, the current US Climate Envoy and the guy who got us back into the Paris Accords, is almost 80. They both know more than most on the issue.
And there are/were younger, more energetic, and more knowledgeable options than both of them. The dinosaurs don’t have unique skills, they’re just names we’ve known for years. We have a country of 330M, there are plenty of talented and capable people to choose from.
They don’t give Nobels to your more knowledgeable people do they?
They give Nobels to people whose names are known. It wasn’t a recognition of brilliance, it was a recognition of impact. Put a younger, smarter, and more vibrant leader in place and they get it instead.
Correction. They don’t give Nobles to people who don’t do things. But, no skin off my nose. If you have a younger, smarter, and more vibrant leader put them up for election and quit screaming at the clouds about age.
Exceptions not the rule, the majority of baby boomers are actively working against climate change and technology
Perhaps in your imagination. We’ve passed the largest legislation for climate change ever, plus the CHIPS Act has brought high tech manufacturing and R&D back to the US.
That legislation is gonna accelerate climate change.
For sure…changing to a non carbon based society will accelerate climate change.,wait…
Brother, that’s what the 35 cutoff is for… A lot of people start losing facultiee 65+, so it is you who ends up supporting rule by toddlers in reality.
Not to say Joe Biden would be worse than Trump by any means. Pointing out one flaw in a candidate is in no way an endorsement of their opponent.
That’s what the Vice President is for.
A lot of people, but not all people. There has been age differences in candidates before. In election terms, it doesn’t matter.
Why do you support someone that is corrupted, a liar and has his hands drenched in blood?
Because it’s multiple choice, and he’s less corrupt, more honest, and less blood-drenched than the alternative.
So if Hitler and Osama bin laden gets resurrected and run for elections you would vote for one of the two according to who killed less people?
If those were the only two candidates, then Allahu Akbar my brothers, we’re going Nazi hunting.
Mate, yeah, I fucking have to, because we as Americans have a deeply imperfect electoral system at the federal level. Sorry, but one of those fuckers is gonna be the president and then I have to call my Senator and beg them to go for impeachment.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Sen. John Fetterman has a message for the progressive wing of the Democratic Party: get in line behind President Joe Biden.
He continues to recover from an auditory processing disorder caused by a stroke that happened during the 2022 campaign.
Both Sanders and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York have also endorsed the incumbent president, despite their occasional criticisms from the left.
“At the end of the day, like, do you think Donald Trump is going to be talking about issues and, you know, his white papers?”
Fetterman also recalled a conversation with Independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema in which he said he would remain “neutral on all of that,” despite his previous suggestion that he would support Gallego, along with the fact that his top political strategist is now working for the Arizona congressman.
Last week, during a similar briefing with reporters, Fetterman referred to the potential impeachment of President Biden as a “big circlejerk on the fringe right.”
The original article contains 434 words, the summary contains 159 words. Saved 63%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
The fact that we can’t endorse him without comparing him to the dumpster fire on the opposite side is why we don’t like him. If “better than Trump” is all you’ve got going for you, we might as well vote for a pile of wet socks.
He promised not to upset the capitalist apple cart, and he hasn’t. He’s not a progressive.
Is there a single Republican candidate that progressives would support over Biden?
I look at it as Biden will pass any progressive legislation given to him; he isn’t the problem. Instead, I would look at the tons of legislator positions and ask them what they are doing to be progressive at the state and local levels. Lock those people in so on the next election, Democratic presidential candidates will need progressive support.
And prep the House and Senate so progressive legislation can get passed. Biden has only vetoed 6 bills in office; I don’t see him being the logjam for progressive legislation.
I look at it as Biden will pass any progressive legislation given to him
Biden in the primary:
I’m the only one that can get republicans to vote for the (progressive) Dem party platform!
Biden defenders after Biden can’t even get Democratic Senators to support the platform:
What kind of idiot though Biden could change anyone’s mind! Of course a US president can never accomplish anything… except when something good happens then we’re going to say Biden did it single handidly
Lol no one wants to answer your first question.
This is essentially the whole crux of it. Everyone is in here arguing positions that don’t exist with hypothetical people that also don’t actually exist. It’s just fringe shit being magnified by media.
Biden doesn’t want to pass progressive legislation, if he had any inclination towards progressive he wouldn’t have stood against union railroad workers.
He’s a right leaning centrist through and through, it’s just that in America that looks “progressive” when we’re used our right wing party being progressively more fascist over the last few decades
The bill he passed went through with a veto proof majority in the Senate and there is no indication he wouldn’t have passed the bill to enforce union demands if it got to his desk.
Why not challenge the Democrats in Congress who voted to end the strike?
Strong disagree. I’ve found Biden to far, far exceed my expectations for him. I’ve been very happy with his presidency, above and beyond the fact that he’s not Trump.
That said, I’m curious which specific policies of his you disagree with. I have several, but I’d like to see yours.
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Experience Experience Experience. We needed an adult. We needed someone to come in, clean up a bunch of messes by making some tough calls and not just waiting around for perfect. He’s greatly exceeded that imo.
Progressives don’t like anyone who is older than 26.
The type of terminally online children you see on Lemmy, sure
They’re easy to understand: they are privileged and insulated enough from potential Republican fuckery that if Democrats lose elections, they are mostly going to be ok. They’re mostly middle class or higher with secure employment or other economic support (parents, spouse), straight (or closeted), their religious status isn’t contentious, mostly they’re male.
The other group I’d expect would be extremely low information voters who believe all politicians are the same and it’s a Coke or Pepsi kind of thing. That’s not going to be super common with anyone identifying as “progressive” due to the very politicized nature of that term, though.
I already lost Roe v Wade cause “progressives” cutting off their nose in spite.
Even if Hilary lost, that was no excuse to let Republicans take over the senate or elsewhere. Which they did.
Even back in my more “libertarian” days I still voted for Hilary cause what I knew could happen. And it did happen.
Edit: Turns out Bernie/Progressive voters really did come out a lot for Hilary, which lead to the popular vote wins. I was wrong. Sorry.
Yeah, except Bernie’s supporters voted for Hillary at higher rates than Hillary folks voted for Obama, so maybe Hillary, her dumb fucking insecure email server, her lack of personality, and the DNC who helped her cheat her way through primary debates are the real ones to blame, not the progressives. She was a terrible candidate who the right hated and independents didn’t like much better and she proved she was a terrible candidate by losing to the worst Republican candidate in the last hundred years. She had all the help she should’ve needed from progressives.
Looking into it more, it appears you are likely right. Was probably the echo chamber I was in while I was younger telling me otherwise. Seeing a lot of “Bernie Bros” and the like saying they wouldn’t.
I apologize.
End of Blame Game: Sanders (and His Supporters) Helped Hillary Win Popular Vote in 2016
I’m a trans woman in Iowa.
I’m voting for Cornel West.
😘
Then you’re either an idiot or extremely shortsighted.
I just have a perspective beyond myself, rather than your liberal myopia.
Socialism or barbarism. Either the American empire is stopped or civilization will come to an end, either by climate change or world war. The point of Cornell West’s campaign isn’t to take the presidency, Sanders already proved that is impossible (never forget what they did to the Iowa caucus). It would be amazing if he won, but the real goal of my support is to build support for socialism more broadly within America so we can stop this empire from killing everyone everywhere forever.
the real goal of my support is to build support for socialism more broadly within America
And you plan to accomplish this by enabling fascists? Not a fan of accelerationism myself but you do you. Have fun in the camps I guess.
cornel west isn’t a fascist.
Im in rural mississippi
Then he’s not listening
Vote greens.
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What’s True
The 2008 photograph shows Biden with Robert Byrd, a West Virginia senator who was during the 1940s a member and organizer for the Ku Klux Klan.
What’s False
However, Byrd was never “Grand Wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan, and he later renounced his past white supremacist views and said his membership of the KKK was the “biggest mistake” he had ever made, years before he was photographed campaigning with Biden.
I make this comment not for you, because if you don’t fact check the things you post then you’re prob not going to react positively to any fact checking, but for others curious about the context of this pic
We all make mistakes like joining the KKK and the Nazi Party. It’s unfair to cancel people!
Out of interest, what’s your thoughts on Daryl Davis? He’s a black man who made it a goal to befriend KKK members in order to lead them out of their racist ideology, back to normality.
Those people made objectively shitty, horrible decisions and were living bad lives. Yet, they were able to find a path to redemption. I’m not making excuses for this Byrd dude, I’m not American so I’ll never be faced with votiing for a KKK member (closest we’ve got here is Britain First, though not an exact match as they have ethnic minority members). But something I think about often is (and I hope you’ll do me the service of actually reading what I’ve written and think about it)…
Imagine you are born into a racist family in some majority-white racist town in American (can’t remember the name of it but there’s definitely at least one of those). You are surrounded by hard-right rhetoric from birth, your parents are racist, your friends at school are racist, your teachers are homophobic, you go to a church with anti-woke sermons, your media consumption is hard-right radio, hard-right TV, hard-right newspapers; you’d have to be an exceptionally-gifted logical thinker to escape the pull of that way of thinking. I sometimes wonder, how much agency does a person like that have in the views they acquire?
My opinion is that I’m glad they grew into better people, but also they should never be in charge of anything ever. They were supported and uplifted in their ignorance. If they’re truly changed people, they would devote their lives to returning their undeserved blessings.
Fair response.
Did you save all the old Trump stuff?
Not sure what you mean by this, I wasn’t the one who posted the picture so maybe you meant to reply to someone else
Look, I get the Dems are our only vehicle for Progressive policies becoming reality because I know we’re never going to move away from FPTP voting any time soon. I just don’t like having to go along with the same corporate greed. It feels very two steps forward, one step back.
It feels very two steps forward, one step back.
And it is. But that still equates to a step forward. Voting red is a legit step (or three) backwards.
Voting red is getting your legs broken so you can never step again. The fact that they tried a fucking coup thst every one of those motherfuckers would have gone with if successful should not be forgotten.
In the primaries, I supported progressive candidates like Sanders and Warren because I think their policy prescriptions would make for a better America. In the general, I voted for Biden. That was a harm-reduction vote.
What I don’t like to hear, in the primary, is the ‘you have to vote for the candidate who can win’ line of argument, which begs the question it pretends to answer- if everyone who says “I’d vote for x but x can’t possibly win” just voted for x, x would actually win. This gives whoever tells you that “x can’t possibly win” the power to get you to give up on voting for what you want, which seems to wag the dog.
In the general, between dem and gop control, it’s not a close contest for me; it’s between a party afraid to do progressive things the voters want and a party that will do whatever the fuck it wants no matter that nobody wants that.
Yes, our electoral system of first-past-the-post demands that we hedge our bets and compromise in order to avoid the calamity of electing a fascist in this election cycle, but it’s hard to support with evidence the idea that what makes a progressive candidate “risky” isn’t just a self-fulfilling misperception that causes the party to spend (or not-spend) money to prevent progressives from becoming party nominees. After all, research consistently shows that politicians of both parties routinely overestimate the conservatism of the voters.
I’m glad to see the Biden admin embracing the progressive changes it has been able to get to, but I’m also sooo tired of being told ‘we can’t nominate a progressive, they’ll be called a communist’ when no matter who we nominate they’ll be called a communist and decades of voting a harm-reduction ticket has rolled back much of the New Deal
I don’t like Joe Biden, but this isn’t a presidential approval poll, it’s an election, and he’s clearly better than any of the alternatives. And when it comes down to it, he’s been better than I expected. We could have just had an exclusively centrist presidency, and while there’s been plenty of centrism, he has been persuadable to progressive action.
And frankly even if you can’t bring yourself to express support Biden for some reason, it should be pretty easy to want anyone who willingly associates with Republicans to lose and lose badly, because they’re way beyond stealth-mode fascism now. Even the most jaded “they’re all neolibs” voter from earlier elections can’t possibly ignore that the Republicans are just fash now. There’s a real danger if they win that cities end up with federally tasked jackboots kidnapping protesters like Portland.
Nope. Voting for Cornel West. I think Marianne Williamson is also a significantly better candidate.
Splitting the vote between Democrats and more progressive candidates is only viable as a protest if the Republicans get equally split with a libertarian candidate or a Trump/DeSantis split. Otherwise that split vote pushes us from a ho-hum boring centerist to a Republican which I would guess is far from what you want.
which I would guess is far from what you want.
Bold assumption that he’s not a right wing plant, like Marianne Williamson
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He’s clearly not, first because he fell for the
People’sGrifter’s Party and second because he’s not even trying to win. Jumping into a presidential race as a third party is just an exercise in self-promotion and maybe a little political grifting along the way. He sure as shit isn’t trying to engage with the political system to induce positive political change because no outcome of his candidacy believably accomplishes that.You do understand that the parties we have today started as third parties 100+ years ago?
I would say, one of the most American things to do is to found another party when the original party loses their way.
We are already in the third presidential election where anyone to the left of corporate-neoliberalism are being pushed to ignore their own principles to keep the party at the status quo.
As bad as the Republican Party has been recently, slavery would still be around if people in the 1850’s kept voting Whig to keep the slave-loving Democrats in check. The main problem with voting has been voter suppression and how somebody who has to work multiple jobs or extended hours can even find a place to vote.
Make every state run the Colorado mail-in election process and you will find that we might be able to actually vote away a lot of garbage and have fair elections with large enough voting numbers to possibly spit both parties.
I always say that personally, voting for the lesser of two evils still has people voting for evil. I still vote, but propping up the two-party system shouldn’t be the only reason to keep the status quo.
I think Marianne Williamson is an excellent candidate. But voting is literally a rigged game and there’s only one answer where we don’t all lose our democracy.
If you believe that propaganda then you already lost
Nah voting against Dems has worked on a smaller scale. But in the presidency frankly you’re an ass to vote against Biden on this one. Your loser candidate loses, trump wins, bye bye to many of our rights and freedoms. Neato.
So you like Trump for 2024, then? Noted.
Depends on where they are. If they’re in a liberal stronghold like California, it’s probably fine. If they’re deep in the red like Florida, also fine.
But voting third party in a swing state is definitely not pragmatic.
which, if yall voting third party in some “safe state” and the candidate doesn’t even support some kind of electoral reform, what are yall doing. this whole “swing state” thing is 100% bullshit and virtually any of 10,000 plans to fix it will work, at least send a message.
Well, the problem with politics is that it basically renders a ton of wants into like 5 choices at most, and only 2 if you really want to win.
Perfect summary of how fucked the two party system and partisan identity in the US is. “Oh you don’t want to get behind a party that supports the Palestinian genocide? Trump lover!” You basically have a moderate rainbow capitalist center right party, and a fashy culture war right party, they have the same donors and corrupt capital directing their policies though. The vote is like picking the aesthetic you want to see things degrade under.
Biden taking the L for pulling out of Afghanistan was the best thing he’s done. Obama and Trump didn’t want it and he finally went though with it.
It helps to think of it in pragmatic terms of what your vote does, versus whether or not you fully support X or Y. It is undeniable that given the stupid electoral system we were born into, that voting third party effectively supports whichever mainstream candidate you don’t want to win.
All the rest of the time, whether in primaries or public forums like this, you argue and vote for what/who you really want.
But once you hit the general election, it is essentially cast in stone that either the R or D candidate will win.
We need ranked choice voting so that candidates care about what the people really want, versus just getting more votes than one specific other person.
voting third party effectively supports whichever mainstream candidate you don’t want to win.
What if you don’t want either to win and see the trend of both parties turning more to the right since Reagan and locked in a death spiral. Corporate tax rates are as low as ever, both parties support the military industrial complex and police state, both support the Palestinian genocide, neither party wants to get rid of Citizens United and Super PACs (regulated less than charities) now control and appropriate political action for corporate interests, neither party supports public healthcare. Like yeah the degradation may happen slower under Democrat but they haven’t shown signs of turning their backs against the corporate interests ruining the country/world.
If you don’t want either one to win, there is no way for you to legally make that happen.
So if you accept that is true, and you have a preference among the two parties, that is where pragmatism suggests voting against the greater evil.
But if you honestly have little to no preference, then you won’t care about the so-called consequences of voting third party, and can do whatever.
I mean obviously you can always do whatever you want. This is just the game theory you’re thinking that means we need to change our voting system before the two-party lock-in would even start to loosen.
These two things can be true at the same time:
- The two-party system is structurally bad for the country. We really, really need ranked-choice or approval voting, and have needed them for a long time.
- If you are a voter in a contested (“purple”) state and don’t vote for Biden, you will be thereby supporting the election of a fascist candidate, which will make you a material supporter of fascism.
Feel free to vote for West if you live in, say, California. But in a contested state, a vote for West is a vote for Trump (or his replacement as Führer).
There is an actual, material difference between the center-right big-business party (the Democrats) and the fascist party. If you don’t believe me, go ask a gay schoolteacher from Florida.
You can’t blame 3rd party / nonvoters for the faults of republican voters. Mentality like that is why we are stuck with point number 1.
Do you want to Make America Florida?
Who you or I vote for is not going to stop a second January 6th, it isn’t going to change the plans in project 2025, the question is no longer about duely elected politicians, there is a high chance that Trump could be barred from running due to his actions on Jan 6th, but that doesn’t change angry confused people’s minds.
If you don’t want to make america Florida convince a Trumper he’s bad don’t attack people who already know it.
Sure I can. Every eligible voter who did not vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016 shares partial blame for Trump winning. Less than people who voted for Trump, but more then none at all.
Personally I would put more blame on the democrats for not fielding a better candidate that could have beaten trump not the people who didn’t vote for a shit candidate
You basically have a moderate rainbow capitalist center right party, and a fashy culture war right party, they have the same donors and corrupt capital directing their policies though.
Holy fuck is this insane. While it was still dumb, complaining about lack of differentiation between neoliberalism with social conservative tendencies and neoliberalism with socially liberal tendencies could at least masquerade as a cogent argument, but “fashy culture war” isn’t just another stylistic draping on neoliberalism, it’s storming school boards, skinheads marching through cities, and federally directed jackboots kidnapping protesters.
That’s all happening now while Biden is in office though, and the police work for the state. Weapons are also being sold to fascists and extremists who repress moderates all over the world. The difference is under neoliberalism domestically, as long as people are equally represented, and the visible oppression is externalized, the structure is strengthened and remains. The Republican model says some deserve to be worse off based on their identity, which is in practice an opportunity for exploitation of all, it’s a way to blame systemic stresses on an internalized other. The stresses remain in either case and the system continues to degrade.
Neoliberalism has already had its crisis and essentially died, in the sense that it’s not believed in anymore but still guides institutions.
Where are the DHS (or other federal agents) kidnapping protesters? They didn’t just randomly decide to show up in Portland and they weren’t just randomly chosen from among available federal forces. They were sent there by Trump because they were a young organization with the least inertia to resist the fascist turn.
As to the other two, I suppose it’s true it’s still happening, no one solved the problem of evil, but they aren’t being called “fine people” and sheltered by the head of the executive branch. Zero chance the Proud Boys go to prison under a fascist president and more than likely they will be pardoned (and given a green light) if that happens. The idea that a fascist president doesn’t make fascism markedly worse is insanity.
All the flowery words about international relations are just avoiding answering the question of actual fascism, while also basically ignoring that fascist leaders were rising at the same time and supporting each other. What bullshit fake leftism to just hand wave away the rise of fascism, both at home and abroad.
Feds are notorious for harassing and threatening effective protestors, and the police and military in the US are full of organized fascists already, that’s just getting worse in any partisan scenario. International relations is actual fascism, because it’s all about protecting the interests of private US companies who do business in countries with less regulations and labor standards, and forcing those countries to remain friendly to US interests in this manner. So the oppression resulting from this system is externalized and hidden from the American collective conscious which is more involved with a culture war that doesn’t really change the status quo system but gives it moral justification and context. Results are incidents like Coca Cola hiring death squads in Columbia to harass and murder labor organizers, or just exploiting entire workforces. The military industrial complex side of this is basically death for any political organizations left of center in any country the US has interests in, the story of the last half century. Pertinent example, Biden pulling out of Afghanistan ended decades of involvement that basically started with providing insane amounts of weapons to Mujahideen Islam extremists and warlords which culminated in 9/11. Iran is the exception but the US is materially very friendly to repressive Islamic states for these economic reasons, those states aren’t inclusive by any stretch of the imagination and actually murder so-called sexual deviants. As long as it’s not happening in the US neoliberal Democrat supporters can feel like their hands are clean of fascism the system they support inflicts. So I would flip around that last paragraph and say this is a material reality entirely avoided by US Democrat progressives.
You like Trump for 2024. I’ve noted it. It’s in my notes! You’re in trouble now!
Marianne Williamson is a nutjob. Trump would destroy her in an election.
Why
When the vote is between someone (and a party) who says “climate change is more worrying than nuclear war” and “climate change is a hoax” the choice should be clear for any reasonable person. All the treason stuff aside (though very important, everyone should already be decided on that), climate change is the biggest issue for everyone I know. Probably for any average person under 50 if I had to guess.
I’ve seen people saying Hexbear users have been brigading politics communities of other instances. Not sure if it’s true, but it would explain the massive influx of idiotic far right morons with a 6th grade writing level making bad faith arguments.
Hexbear is leftist and lemmy.world defederated from the instance so you’re speaking of phantoms
Hexbear is communist, that’s you guys. That’s modern day liberals in the US. You are so fucking confused it’s comical.
Don’t fucking tell me what I am or who “my guys” are. Tankies are almost just as bad as conservatives.
Oh you’re easy to peg but I’m sure that’s how you prefer it anyways.
I see Reddit’s r/Politics hard liberal cast has migrated wholesale and now drowns out lemmy’s leftists.
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They are prioritizing principles over practicality. Which is a great way to hand power to the greater evil.
