Nononono you see life is easier if you just say BoTh SiDeS and move on. Sort of. You kind of have to repeat this mantra every time politics comes up for the rest of your life. But it sure beats thinking! That shit is hard!
And when you or your partner get sent to prison because you had a miscarriage, you can rest easy knowing that at least you didn't vote for the guy that wouldn't have sent you to prison for having a miscarriage
Man I guess this makes him worse than the guy that'll throw gay people in prison or something
Don't get me wrong, Fuck Joe Biden, but don't act like he's worse than the guys who promise to do awful things and then follow through on those promises
Also 7/6 of the way toward a [insert label] person who thinks the whole system is so corrupt that we all may as well give up on anything but spreading doom
life is easier if you just say BoTh SiDeS and move on
When they're both drawing money from the same basket of mega-donors, they're both pushing the same draconian border policies, they're both encouraging historic levels of new carbon emissions, they're both bankrolling an endless series of nightmare wars abroad, they're both advocating lower taxes and privatization of Medicare/SS, they're both deep in bed with Wall Street, they're both "pro-life", they're both religious sycophants, they even both call one another "communists" as a derogatory slur...
FFS, man. Where's the line?
But it sure beats thinking!
The more you think about it, the worse the situation looks. Its lose-lose. The only real question is whether we get Trump terrorizing the LGBT community at home or Biden flinging bombs at brown people living abroad.
Half the shit you said is flat out wrong, the rest is oversimplified thought-sloth. You're 100% in the camp of thought avoidance if you can write this comment.
Biden had a full Congress to work with when he took office in '21 and he rolled back virtually nothing advanced by Trump.
Actually, strike that. He let a bunch of the COVID-era good stuff lapse. No more monthly allocated child tax credits. No more suspended student debt payments. No more free testing and expanded Medicaid.
His immigration policy is worse. His foreign policy is worse. His fucking MONETARY POLICY IS WORSE. How do you pick the same Fed Chairman as Trump and get a worse monetary policy?!
thought avoidance
literally pointing at Biden's actual policies while actually in actual office
Objectively false as long as the perspective you have isn't that of a xenophobic bigot.
His foreign policy is worse
Explain. If you're referring to the stuff in Afghanistan then you're unfortunately misled as Trump ensured that would have to happen through actions he took at the end of 2020.
"Literally pointing at Biden's actual policies" by making shit up lmfao get the fuck outta here. Also, yeah, Dems had 2021-2023 to make stuff better. Unfortunately, yes, Sinema/Manchin have had disastrous effects in passing bills. Can you please point out a better bill from the current Congress or any Congress since Obama than the Inflation Reduction Act? Because I can't.
I hope that you're simply ignorant, the only other explanation is blatant malice.
If you’re referring to the stuff in Afghanistan then you’re unfortunately misled as Trump ensured that would have to happen through actions he took at the end of 2020.
I'm referring to the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the neighboring territories in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. I'm talking about our support for ethnic cleansing in Modi's India and Zewde's Ethiopia. I'm talking about our theft of $7B from the Afghani treasury on the departure of US troops, plunging the country into a famine. I'm talking about our continued military occupations in Haiti and Niger and Libya and Mali and Somalia. I'm talking about our tacit endorsement of the Polish blockade on Ukrainian harvest exports, because we've wedded ourselves to the US/EU agricultural deregulation efforts. And our support for Spainish, French, and German governments in the war on their own farmers who are in revolt over collapsing wholesale farm prices.
I'm talking about our $250B weapons export market in 2023, the highest in US history, which has contributed to escalating tensions from the Korean Peninsula to the Red Sea to the South Pacific.
Every year Biden has been in office has resulted in more war, more killing, more ethnic cleansing, in large part thanks to his international endorsement of some of the bloodiest wars since Vietnam.
“Literally pointing at Biden’s actual policies” by making shit up lmfao get the fuck outta here.
He has been a fucking disaster. In the midst of a labor shortage, he's ratcheted up interest rates to depress wages. In the midst of record global temperatures, he's overseen a new peak in US fossil fuel production and consumption. In the midst of record domestic energy consumption, his FTC and SEC have green-lit a new wave of bitcoin mining and energy hungry AI data harvesting.
More money than ever before for the FBI, the NSA, and the Pentagon. Some of the lowest salaries for educators, medical staff, and agricultural workers in 40 years. Biden's "Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act" has flooded the investment markets with cash while doing nothing to improve quality of life for lay workers or retirees.
This is all real shit. Its why he's fucked in the polls. America under Biden has gotten materially worse. You are not better of today than you were four years ago and that's saying something given where we fucking started.
I hope that you’re simply ignorant
You're cruising for the edge of a cliff screaming "Just stay the course", and I'm sure you'll be back here blaming the folks that called it once you crash land into November.
Not necessarily. There's also the accelerationists that want to burn the whole thing down and believe that they'll be around to rebuild their utopia in the ashes, without any regard for those who suffer and are murdered to try to achieve their selfish vision of society. All while ignoring the facts that accelerationism has never been demonstrated to actually work and that there's a pretty decent chance that they would be targeted for murder if an authoritarian government took over, prior to societal collapse.
Yep. This is what happens when you make terminator movies: Everyone thinks they're gonna be a hero freedom fighter against the cold, faceless oppressors.
Nobody ever considers the most likely scenario: you're probably one of the skulls that the robot steps on as the camera pans up.
accelerationists that want to burn the whole thing down and believe that they’ll be around to rebuild their utopia in the ashes
More that the system needs to be burned down because it is actively harming people. Whether Trump or Biden is in office, the DHS is responsible for the wrongful arrest and imprisonment of tens of thousands of people. The Pentagon and its affiliates are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands more. Our Treasury and Energy Departments continue to subsidize historic levels of pollution which cannibalize vast swaths of arable land for fictitious profits.
Burning the political system that's destroying your country isn't about utopian idealism any more than sabotaging the bulldozer headed towards your house is about building your dream home.
accelerationism has never been demonstrated to actually work
I'd point you to the US Civil War as a very classic historical counterpoint. The country had to pass through four years of hell and quite literally immolate a large portion of its interior in order to purge the accumulated sins of a century of chattel slavery.
This isn't something anyone wants to live through, but we're far better as a country for going through it than subjecting another century's worth of Americans to the inhuman conditions of plantation bondage.
I'd point you to the US Civil War as a very classic historical counterpoint. The country had to pass through four years of hell and quite literally immolate a large portion of its interior in order to purge the accumulated sins of a century of chattel slavery.
I'll start by saying that Sherman stopped too soon. But, I am curious as to how that provides evidence for accelerationism. The US Civil War was started by slavers that were mad about not being allowed to expand chattle slavery into new territories. Lincoln and the others still allowed allied slave states to exist and tried to prevent it by offering compromises.
This isn't something anyone wants to live through, but we're far better as a country for going through it than subjecting another century's worth of Americans to the inhuman conditions of plantation bondage.
Agreed. Though the result was a significant improvement, though Jackson reversed too much.
I’ll start by saying that Sherman stopped too soon.
Based.
But, I am curious as to how that provides evidence for accelerationism. The US Civil War was started by slavers that were mad about not being allowed to expand chattle slavery into new territories
It started much earlier than that. John Brown and the abolitionist insurrection in Kansas and then Harper's Ferry West Virginia gave secessionists urgency in a way that prior activists had not. The Underground Railroad was seen as a tool of northern politicians to steal southern slaves. Lincoln's nomination to the Republican ticket was received as a plan by the majority party to curb slavery's expansion which - at the moment when they were racing for new territory to expand into - would have crippled their already underdeveloped economy even further.
Fort Sumter was where the war began, but this was a country that had staring into the abyss of civil strife for the last decade.
Lincoln and the others still allowed allied slave states to exist and tried to prevent it by offering compromises.
Lincoln needed to keep the border states around the capital loyal, so he deferred emancipation until after Gettysburg by which time the southern military had lost its steam. But he was right in line with Thaddeus Stevens in ideology, even if he was more strategic in his governance.
Though the result was a significant improvement, though Jackson reversed too much.
I assume you mean... Andrew Johnson?
Yeah. One of the big what-ifs of the period is a President Benjamin Butler.
The thing is though, you might feel strongly about this and that's absolutely fine, but most people just haven't been pushed to breaking point yet. Like do I really want to engage in civil unrest and face state instigated violence against myself and probably my family, or do I just want to shuffle through the next 20 years with my head down hoping to have a few years peace before the grave.
Actually significantly below average even by the low bar of the Dem leadership. He was the most conservative democrat candidate in a field that included Amy Klobuchar and two billionaires, one of whom is a former republican.
He's barely to the left of Joe Manchin and neoliberals pretend that he's the most progressive president ever 🤦
And yes, of course he's still a much better choice than the Mango Mussolini, but talk about a low fucking bar!
He is undeniably awful on some issues, however if you look at everything that's happened under him, I think you'll be surprised how much, lets say his people, have started to pull the US out of a 40 year old Reagan shaped hole.
Sure, he's made some good cabinet appointments, but I guarantee that, for example, the excellent Lauren McFerran who's been doing a great job at NLRB wasn't his idea.
Party loyalists like the twitter troll Neera Tanden, unprincipled opportunists like Pete Buttigieg and conservatives like Merrick Garland are much more Biden's speed.
Ok exactly the fucking point. McFerran wasn't bidens idea, because he isnt obsessed with "oNLy tHe BEsT PeOpLE" who weirdly he has to be related to or owe money or who went on fucking infowars to praise him. There is ROOM for expertise and reasonable suggestions.
I would take any one of the people who are "bidens speed" over the muck eating, grifting, shitbird appoinents trump made.
Summarizing, you're right and still full of shit lol.
I would take any one of the people who are "bidens speed" over the muck eating, grifting, shitbird appoinents trump made.
Sure, but the bar is "good choices", not "better choices than Trump". Either of my two cats could clear the latter bar any day and, adorable as they are, my cats are NOT qualified for the position of POTUS.
Summarizing, you're right and still full of shit lol.
It happens by progressively showing strength of the party platform that a continued shift away from conservative bs is electable. The last few years has been powerful in continuing that trend after Biden was elected. Overturning women’s rights has blown up in republicans faces. Their hyped red wave a couple years ago turned out to be bs. A large number, not enough, but still a large number of gerrymandered maps have been overturned in courts after years of lawsuits, with additional ones still actively being fought in courts around the US. There are real progressive democrats dedicating their lives to fighting this stuff. If the trend continues to show that progressives will start taking control of the elections and safeguard democracy the progressive shift will show that a platform foundation exists for representatives to support those platforms. Without it they are stuck relying on independent voters filling the gaps and trying to bridge the gap between liberal and conservative enough that they secure as many independents as possible and come out ahead. Their isn’t enough strict support on the Democratic side to get elected as an ideal candidate and it’s not going to get there in a single cycle but we are four years into wins year over year and my personal opinion is if Biden wins handily and the house and senate make major strides this year it will not only enable more effective changes in policy, even though I feel Biden has far exceeded expectations, it will largely be due to disadvantage and youth voters and start to show that portion of the population as a more reliable vote to run a platform on which could be the beginning of a radical shift in how this country is run, in a good way. The liberal voter base needs a reliable foundation in order to support policies that folks like to bitch about otherwise your going to get politicians that have to try catering to the independent voter base and republicans as the only ones holding office.
At the point that the demand doesn't elect the greater evil?
Go ahead and don't vote, boy that will sure show the establishement... Nothing. Or vote against your interests to teach them a lesson! Oh wait, that's like punching yourself in the face.
Well there's the time he lobbied Congress to take away the rights of striking railway workers.
And then there's the fact that he circumvented normal procedures to expedite weapons sales to Israel twice in December alone.
That's just two of many examples of him being on the side of the rich and powerful and against regular people every time there's conflict between the two groups.
I guess you'd prefer a reality where he takes the fall for the consequences of the strike, Republicans win, and Israel is thrown under the bus, providing an example to our other allies that we will do the same to them as soon as it's politically convenient. Brilliant politics.
You said he got the unions "everything they wanted". They wanted 15 sick days so I'll wait for you to post a source saying every rail worker in all 12 unions now has 15 sick days. Or you can admit saying he got them "everything they wanted" is a lie.
He did no such thing. That was just his bullshit excuse. The crisis from the next major derailment, one that could happen anywhere, including in major metropolitan areas, will likely be much worse than anything caused by upholding the rights of striking workers.
stand by our international allies in a crisis
Yeah, when those allies are operating an apartheid regime committing genocide, it's not a good thing to pretend that automatically taking their side is the principled thing to do. The crisis is of their own making and US support in the form of weapons and funding is making it worse, not better.
Republicans win, and Israel is thrown under the bus
Bullshit. Republicans are MORE staunchly in favor of the Israeli government, being fellow fascists.
we will do the same to them as soon as it's politically convenient
Yeah, because not enabling genocide by an apartheid regime is all about convenience! Gtfo with that bullshit!
You seem to be under the impression that the strike was about safety, it was not. It was about sick days.
Israel is neither genocidal nor an apartheid state, this is total hyperbole, and I'm very glad the Biden administration does not share your warped redefinitions of these terms. Biden is now putting sanctions on those who go too far in Israel, which I appreciate. I hope he goes after their right wing politicians next.
The comment I was responding to wanted Biden to throw Israel under the bus, not the Republicans that would replace him due to the financial consequences of a national rail strike.
Sick days (and other PTO) is a safety issue. Forcing employees to come in while sick or working them to the bone with no breaks makes for an unsafe working environment. When workers are tired or sick, they're more prone to mistakes.
Those aren't my definitions. They are those of the Genocide Convention and South African Apartheid survivors.
Biden is now putting sanctions on those who go too far in Israel
Nope. He's frozen assets of a handful of civilian murderers from the West Bank, but is still supporting the Israeli government genocide with weapons, funding and lying about the extent of their atrocities.
The comment I was responding to wanted Biden to throw Israel under the bus
Israel IS the bus and he's throwing his own re-election prospects under it. He's already alienated significant portions of crucial battleground states like Michigan and he's hemorrhaging support from every voter who doesn't consider massacring civilians the cost of doing business.
the Republicans that would replace him due to the financial consequences of a national rail strike.
Again, a purely fictional hypothetical invented to excuse the ongoing gross violations of labor rights by some of his favorite owner donors.
I swear you Biden stans are just as blind to the many faults of your Dear Leader as the Trump cult sometimes 🤦
Israel has not been found guilty of violating either statute, keep repeating it like a mantra but it doesn't make it any more true. 21% of Israel's population is Arab/Palestinian and they have full legal citizenship rights. Pretty odd for an, "apartheid state." Israel is not attempting to destroy Palestinians in whole or in part, they are responding to an attack by a belligerent nation and going to great lengths to select legal targets in response even if they have significant collateral damage. It's clear this is about self-defense and not racial based punishment, despite your uncharitable portrayal.
I swear you Biden stans are just as blind to the many faults of your Dear Leader as the Trump cult sometimes 🤦
Biden is the best president we've had in a long time and I'm tired of Hamas stans criticizing him for supporting our allies against unprovoked terrorist attacks. Supporting our allies in a time of crisis is the right thing to do.
Those striking railway workers eventually got their demands for sick leave met in their contracts with continued support from the Biden Administration AND our national economy didn't grind to a halt
"We’re thankful that the Biden administration played the long game on sick days and stuck with us for months after Congress imposed our updated national agreement,” Russo said. “Without making a big show of it, Joe Biden and members of his administration in the Transportation and Labor departments have been working continuously to get guaranteed paid sick days for all railroad workers.
Yeah, I'm not really sure that's the point. The fact that the only changes that are allowed to get through are what the president allows is disheartening. The fact is, these workers should have been able to strike on their own terms without being shut down. What happens with a more hostile leader? What Biden did was defang the Union in that instance. Threw them a bone afterward, sure, but he defanged them.
That's how Biden works! The corporate media is against Biden and it shows to those who can see. It's tough getting the real news and that's a massive problem for this country.
They got a fraction of what they were asking for and they weren't even asking for much. Their working conditions are still so awful that it's only a question of time before the next major derailment disaster like the one in Ohio happens.
Next time, it might happen in a major metropolitan area, in which case many will die and the economy will suffer a lot worse than not trampling on their rights would have.
And even the tiny concessions they DID get in spite of Biden convincing congress to make them fight oligarchic railway companies without their best weapon, strike actions, was due to NLRB efforts with no help from Corporate Joe.
The strike threat was about paid sick leave, it wasn't about railroad safety. Safety is an important issue too, but every single source from the time, even directly from the unions, explicitly discussed only paid sick leave. In that sense they got their demand met completely
It was about sick leave and improving the working conditions that are so awful that they're literally making workers sick and trains less safe.
every single source from the time, even directly from the unions, explicitly discussed only paid sick leave
That's simply not true. That's the MSM and party narrative, but it isn't the truth. Outlets less intertwined with the political establishment such as The Intercept and The Nation could have informed you better, had you bothered to look beyond the bubble.
in that sense they got their demand met completely
You mean in that entirely fictional sense? To quote the Nation piece:
this was never just a conflict over the number of paid sick days. About 115,000 workers represented by 13 separate craft unions, who keep 40 percent of the nation’s freight moving, got screwed. The coalition of interests that did the screwing includes: the executive boards of the seven class-1 carriers, most of Congress, and the president.
I love that railroad Striker story because it just makes identifying people online so easy. Because whenever people online complain about it it's either one or two things, it's either they're completely ignorant of this actual scenario and what actually happened or they're just being intellectually dishonest on purpose.
I would rephrase the title to say "Also" and not "Instead". Biden did reform immigration detention. He also moved to more private detention centers. There are no longer children in cages, families being separated, or families being detained at all.
He's still against universal healthcare. I am tired of folks beating people for wanting candidates that are more electable than Biden running instead of him. Universal healthcare polls well on the right and left.
That one issue tells you everything you need to know about him, he sides with corporate lobbyists before material needs of the people.
Remember how much political capital Obama had to spend just to get the ACA passed, and even then just barely? I would love universal healthcare but this probably isn't the best time to push for it, at least not until fascism is defeated and Democrats have the numbers. The president isn't a genie who can just make things like this happen unilaterally. The public may support it but Republicans do not.
Pushing for legislation that is a non-starter when we are barely able to pass a budget to keep the government running isn't a great strategy. Political capital needs to be spent where it is most effective, even if that means putting good legislation that isn't viable on the back burner from time to time.
I hope we get universal healthcare sooner rather than later, but our problems are a little more existential right now. They might elect the guy who wants to end democracy. Sometimes we must compromise and do what is viable rather than what is desired. The good should not be sacrificed in pursuit of the perfect.
Every poll I can find has the large majority of Republicans opposing single payer health care. Some are in favor of "universal health care" but that being a mix of public and private similar to what the afordable* care act with the individual mandate did.
Isn't hard to find, because it never is in contention. Republicans in power, Democrats in power, want the status quo because of the lobby of pharma, healthcare insurance, and corporate control over our bodies. Those in the public on the right and left support government paid healthcare. https://news.gallup.com/poll/468401/majority-say-gov-ensure-healthcare.aspx
Thanks, I'm in my 50s. I remember. I also remember the electability politics used in that election on the democratic side by corporate media to force a right of center candidate. He also didn't beat any one in primaries in this election, which is a different election.
Sounds like you read the newspapers but that's not where the real news is at. Corporations own the news. Dig deeper, a lot deeper. Biden isn't as bad as the MSM wants you to believe.
You're seriously saying that the MSM, most of which enjoys a symbiotic relationship with the DNC are portraying Biden as WORSE than he really is??
It's because I consume media from OUTSIDE of the MSM bubble that I know he's not anywhere near as great as the likes of Politico and NYT keep pretending.
As a Biden supporter, I have to assume that all the lies and bullshit about him that have infected the (almost exclusively) young Democrats today is coming from Tiktok or Instagram or some other social media apo I don't have.
It’s because I consume media from OUTSIDE of the MSM bubble that I know he’s not anywhere near as great as the likes of Politico and NYT keep pretending.
This supports that theory.
Do you idiots not see the parallels between you and MAGA? It's the same exact playbook! "Don't trust the MSM", "do your research", "get angry about xyz"
I have to assume that all the lies and bullshit about him that have infected the (almost exclusively) young Democrats today is coming from Tiktok or Instagram or some other social media apo I don't have.
I'm 41 and don't use any social media, unless Lemmy counts.
This supports that theory.
Nope. I was referring to sources such as The Intercept, The Nation and (for news about the Gaza genocide) Haaretz.
Not MSM ≠ not reliable news
Do you idiots not see the parallels between you and MAGA? It's the same exact playbook!
Says the guy convinced that there's no good reason not to worship the president formerly known as The Senator From MBNA 🙄
Don't trust the MSM", "do your research", "get angry about xyz"
Not trusting the MSM because they're a billionaire-owned tool of the oppressive establishment that often lies to further such narratives as "the more cops the less crime" and "Israel’s just defending itself" ≠ not trusting them because they don't lie ENOUGH like the MAGA cult.
My research relies on trusting the expertise of those who have proven themselves reliable. The maga "research" starts with doing everything but that.
I get angry about things that are wrong, such as everything the maga cult stands for and the lies of both them and the corrupt neoliberal elite that you're simping for. They get angry at whichever imagined issue their handlers tell them to be angry about.
TL;DR: Horse shoe theory is bullshit made up by ideologically challenged liberals to falsely smear diametrically opposed opponents as identical.
Fish hook theory is much closer to reality, especially when it comes to propaganda.
See this is the shit that supports horseshoe theory. Far-left and far-right, you're all about idolarity and worship and dictatorships and changing the world by force. Moderates don't believe in that shit. We don't worship anyone. You're just mad because your far right counterparts have a strongman to rally around and you currently don't. But you do crave one.
Not trusting the MSM because they’re a billionaire-owned tool of the oppressive establishment that often lies to further such narratives as “the more cops the less crime” and “Israel’s just defending itself” ≠ not trusting them because they don’t lie ENOUGH like the MAGA cult.
It's not about the "why", it's about the end result. You've been manipulated to be paranoid and angry, just like them. Of course, the methods of manipulation were a little different but you ended up in the same place.
(and let me give a disclaimer here: "both sides" arguments is just as terrible as your current left-wing MAGA shit. The far left like you are a sliver of the Democrats, but what I call the far right are actually in control of the Republicans. You spout absurd shit and it's frustrating but at the end of the day largely irrelevant. MAGA spouts absurd shit and it's frightening, because they have the power to turn it into absurd actions. Just because I equate the far right and far left in terms of stupidity and susceptibility to propaganda, does not mean I equate them in terms of dangerousness. Even worst case scenario, the average tankie's utopia is better than the average MAGA utopia.)
Some tropes are based in truth and the one about the MSM consisting of billionaire-owned outlets that unquestioningly support either neoliberalism (Politico, MSDNC, NYT etc) or fascism (Faux News, Breitbart, WSJ editorials etc) is one of them.
How do you propose Biden stop shale drillers on private property in Texas and New Mexico? Well he signed a massive investment in green energy and infrastructure that can help renewable technologies compete more effectively with fossil fuels. Should more immediate and drastic action happen? I believe so, but Biden can't do that without a Congress that agrees. Elect more Democrats to Congress
Weird how when there's a Conservative in charge they have unlimited power to ruin the country, but the dems hands are so tied, he couldn't possibly have done anything to stop the big bad oil companies.
He really can't. Breaking the fossil fuel industry would require building a regulatory framework to do so, which would require congressional action. On the other hand, directing federal agencies to stop enforcing existing regulations and making internal decisions to undermine federal oversight of industry (aka breaking the regulatory framework) is much easier.
The EPA was stripped of its power to regulate carbon emissions in 2022. Congress would need to pass another Clean Air Act for them to do anything. Even then with the Chevron precedent about to be overturned in the coming weeks, the EPA will have the authority to do...not a god damned thing.
How? Hawaii has a state constitution backing their decision. What can the EPA do? Say they Regulate climate emissions and ban oil extraction tomorrow. What happens? Texas and the other red oil producing states just fall in line? They say "gosh, I guess they can tell us what to do even though my boys on the cout said they can't, oh well, we lose"
Of course not. Blue states tend to not need to be told what to do and are often the ones making the standards that are later imposed by the EPA nationally (see CARB standards still regulating MPG for example). So the EPA will be telling red states what to do, with no authority to do so and you seriously think they will just...do it? In what universe do you live, because I'd sure like to be there.
Which is a non-binding agreement that the US is STILL not abiding by, so bfd.
Rejoining the World Health Organization
While continuing to downplay Covid-19, lifting the emergency status and forcing everyone back to work long before it was safe. Likely at the behest of donors.
Revoking permits for the Keystone XL pipeline
Which was a good thing more than made up for by mandating that any new renewable energy projects would be contingent on first increasing the amount of federal land leased for fossil fuel extraction many times over.
Ending support for Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen
Nope. The US is still very much supporting that genocide as well as the one in Gaza.
Withdrawing from Afghanistan
Which was a good idea horribly executed. Worst bungled end to a US war since Vietnam.
Juneteenth National Independence Day Act
Purely symbolic
American Rescue Plan
Insufficient but ok, I'm gonna be charitable and give him that one.
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act
Mostly a giant giveaway to corporations, it privatized a lot more infrastructure than it paid to fix.
CHIPS and Science Act
Another corporate giveaway.
Inflation Reduction Act
Failed to live up to its name
Honoring our PACT Act
Ok, this was a good on.
Eliminating the Schedule F class of federal workers Trump created that stripped federal workers of job protections
While taking rights away from other workers.
Restoring collective bargaining rights to federal workers
Unless they bother some of his favorite donors like the railway workers did
You know Biden & Manchin were in the same Senate together, right? So it's in fact quite easy to look up & see that this is completely false.
He was the most conservative Democrat candidate
That's not what voters thought during the primaries. This Business Insider ranking has him middle of the pack. And this Pew poll shows him having more liberal support than Bloomberg.
If you can show me a ranking of the candidates ideologies that shows Biden as the most conservative (actual data that supports your opinion, not just feelz), go ahead. I'll wait.
Hitler only lived to age 56. If trump had only lived to 56, he would've died in 2002, before The Apprentice had even aired. That's the better timeline for sure.
Ok great, we worked out what to do on election day. Now, what are we going to do the rest of the time? We must organize and build political structures outside the two parties, must force action to change the way the fundamental government of the United States operates so that it is a democratic body void of money, gerrymandering, the senate, and the nature of the Supreme Court. Congresspeople must represent a realistic and small number of people.
This is the idea behind /c/[email protected]. The idea is, instead of using this platform to gripe at each other about "yes it is" "no it isn't" "yes it is", we can start to organize and make things better.
I propose that any time one of those awful "no one vote it definitely won't matter trust me" posts comes up, we make a thread underneath it with some links to productive positive things we're doing in addition to, obviously, voting for the guy who's not going to blow up the country and piss on the ashes. Turn the shilling into a reminder to get out and do something concrete.
Right after I get done typing this I'm going to go back to trying to figure out a way I can volunteer some time to the Biden campaign. I'm going to be honest, I feel a little corny even typing that out, but I think trying to make sure Trump doesn't win is for real the most effective thing that'll set us up for more positive change and less end-of-the-world disaster in the near future.
Post your recommended way to reform then. 100% unironically serious about that. All my previous posts were about "outside the establishment" venues, today's was the first that was within the establishment.
My family fought in both world wars. My grampa was part of the North African campaign, a cousin went down on the HMS Hood after being sunk by the Bismarck during the Battle of the Denmark Strait...
Living in Canada and watching our neighbours to the south gleefully embrace the fascism we ALL fought against is both disgusting and terrifying.
This is the conversation created by the system. There were many other candidates than biden in 2020, but the party colluded to make biden the presidential nominee. Nothing stopped democrats from running a different candidate this year either except some superstition about the "incumbent advantage". Remember when that incumbent advantage worked in trump's favor in 2020...? Oh wait, it's all bullshit when your favorability rating is so damn low like it is for biden right now. It's okay, if we close our eyes and ears and scream "BUT THE OTHER GUY" loud enough, I'm sure it'll all work out. We should be asking why the machine only has two buttons, starting from a low bar and only going lower.
… some superstition about the “incumbent advantage.”
We probably agree overall but I gotta point out: in political science, it’s definitely not considered superstition. If it were just throwing salt over the shoulder, we wouldn’t be able to consistently verify the hypothesis. It remains one of the stronger electoral advantages for outcome prediction.
That tangarine palpatine lost in spite of this advantage is more a testament to his lack of popularity among the general electorate. And btw one of the strongest known DISadvantages is having lost an election previously. The quants will have a field day with this one either way.
We should be asking why the machine only has two buttons, starting from a low bar and only going lower.
A result of FPTP-voting and the way campaigns are financed. What you get is exactly what the old roman aristocrats intended, when they designed this system over 2 millenia ago to maintain influence: keeping money where the power is and vice versa.
Billions upon billions of dollars are spent on advertising and media and you think that this has no influence in a party-controlled process where the party can decide to tell others to drop and support a single candidate.
Name two states in the primary where Biden and someone under the age of retirement were running (and not dropped out and endorced Biden) that Biden won. SC and ???
The problem is that the democrats / social democrats around the world have really become corporatism and are now exploiting the far right - they don't have to enact left wing policies and can move further to the right or just do nothing. And then you're called to prevent "literal hitler". Yeah you have to, but it's a catch 22.
A "green new deal" or universal healthcare isn't even talked about anymore. People are just so sick of this shitocracy. And it's spreading everywhere.
Maybe this is the optimal timeline and it just doesn't look that way because we're still in the middle of it and not at the end.
Yes, the US nuking Japan was horrific - but maybe we'd have had a much more brutal WW2 with half a billion lives lost if not for mutually assured destruction keeping it in everyone's pants.
Yes, Hitler was horrific, but maybe the world needed a wake up call for the importance of at least some form of diplomatic structure like the UN and things like human rights observers.
Yeah, Trump is scary as shit in what it might mean for Western democracy. But maybe this period we're in right now serves to push us forward to more modern democratic principles and protections suited to the modern age and not 1776.
Sure, AI misinformation and deepfakes are concerning - but maybe the proliferation of BS to an ad nauseum degree ends up undermining existing misinformation ops around things like vaccine denial or conspiratorial thinking where people currently gravitating to "doing their own research" online become better inoculated to BS by sheer volume of exposure to things they increasingly find they can't trust.
We only see the means, not the ends or their possible variations.
So even if there are time travelers, perhaps they are quite committed to what seems a mediocre timeline because the odds just happened to play out in such a way that our misery paved the way to their paradise.
Jesus christ this has gotta be one of the most annoying conversations people have every four years. uhhh we gotta vote because the other candidate is literally hitler guys he's literally hitler. uhhhh noooo I don't wanna vote at all because I'm cranky and my candidate has dementia and sucks waaaaah.
I feel like I'm stuck in a fucking time loop. I would much rather see people being like, oh you hate our options, like a sane person, but will probably vote anyways because it takes like an afternoon at most, if you really feel like it and hopefully don't have anything more important to do? Instead of this meme, I'd rather see like, oh, here's some shit you can do, here's some organization you can join, here's some place you can donate money, something like that. Here's what building you should throw a brick through the window of, you know? I'd rather see that, than these dumb ragebait memes.
The problem is that the true left is excluded from the game. The center (democrat) talk like they will do something, but they rarely do so, even when they have full power to do it. Then when elections come, they put the responsibility on the leftists to stop the fascists.
It is hypocrite and toxic. It fuels fascism. It is not a solution. It's building a dig to protect from a hurricane. It's at best buying some time for the center to keep the status quo and let the problems rot.
This is the sort of post you make to get those that are really Russian shills or have absolutely no criteria to reveal themselves. There's not any sort of comparison, and there's going to be a lot of people who are going to try to equate them as the same to disenfranchise people from voting.
I'm not American, so I don't have much skin in the game.
Instead of complaining about something you can't control, perhaps you should look forward to the next four years and think about what kind of candidate you want to run, how viable a candidate they'll be, and how to best promote them for a presidential campaign.
Ultimately, you always get the politicians you deserve. If your choice is always a bit shit, perhaps you need to look at yourselves instead of complaining about who is assumed to be the best choice.
You're having this conversation because those in charge (E: the obscenely and well established rich, not to be confused with the politicians they buy) want you to, so you're busy fighting each other about the illusion of choice they've given you, instead of fighting them over the oppressive system they impose for their own benefit. The fact that you even have to ask just proves how well it's working.
You're having this conversation because those in charge want you to
This is as deranged as a damn qanoner. It's literally the exact same line of thinking. Yeah, you got this overly complicated world all figured out while no one else understands; believing there is a mysterious group in control is the most baseline conspiracy theory there is, it provides an understandable reason and solution to an infinitely complex reality that we cannot comprehend.
Above average Democrat? Please, the guy has dementia.
And no, I'm not a right winger, and I obviously think Trump is a worse option.
But Biden isn't above average anything at this point. He's barely awake.
People who make these arguments are the same people who argue 3rd party voting is impossible and infeasible and get mad when I criticize senile Biden, even after voting for senile Biden.
Some on the left were still lukewarm towards Hindenburg; the Communists exploited this by running Thälmann and promoting him as "the only left candidate". Hindenburg failed to receive the requisite majority of votes in the first round, but was able to win reelection in the runoff.
Hindenburg's reelection failed to prevent the NSDAP from assuming power. Two successive federal elections later that year left it as the largest party in the Reichstag, and anti-republic parties in general holding the majority of seats.
Hindenburg wasn't left enough for many of the Communists, and they thought that getting a candidate they'd feel better about supporting was more important than stopping Hitler.
It was the last election many of them ever saw, although of course they didn't know it at the time.
That's not that point, Hindenburg was still elected as the lesser evil and Hitler was made fucking chancellor. Electing a lesser evil changes very little if they are still evil. Hindenburg was even supported by a large portion of the SPD (unfortunately). This is often seen as social democrats turning on the left as usual. Hindenburg wasn't even left, of course communist didn't support him.
Hindenburg being elected did not stop the NSDAP from seizing power is the entire point of my argument. It only delayed it slightly. Having communist support would never have changed this. Having a communist government might have (but obviously that is pure fantasy given the political situation at the time).
I'm actually realizing after my rambling that I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make? Are you suggesting is the fault of communist that Hindenburg's election was insufficient in preventing Nazi control? /Gen
Edit: I think what you're saying is that communists almost put hitler in power sooner but introducing a third party candidate that took votes from Hindenburg?
In this case I see what you mean and understand why you would see it that way. However this is the fault of the political system in place forcing that sort of situation which is why I advocate for the dismantling of that system. I do not agree with thälmann and the KPD's belief that a government and it's society can be reformed through electoralism. Materially I understand how placing a third candidate into that election was incredibly risky I just think that shouldn't be a problem. We shouldn't have to worry that pushing for progressive change within the system will cause the opposite.
I'm with you when you say Biden is better than trump but I'm not with you when you attempt to work within a system that is designed specifically to benefit the bourgeoisie in order to improve conditions for the proletariat. In my eyes it's absurd to believe that its even possible to do so.
Damage control does not lead to positive change, it just delays the inevitable harm
If you're interested I recommend reading reform or revolution by Rosa Luxembourg. I don't expect you to radically change your views on this but I think you deserve to understand where I'm coming from. I get it if you think communist desire for revolution is pure fantasy, living within the imperial core will do that to you but please give it a shot. Try to understand. It's worth it, I was like you once. Most of us were.
You sent me that already. I'll check it out at some point.
I just don't see them as mutually exclusive. You can vote for the candidate who's not going to immediately destroy the country and replace it with a nightmare Republican dictatorship, while also working for positive change in other ways. Those both seem like no-brainer good ideas to me.
Personally, I think "overthrow of the system" has to be done while preserving the good parts. There are a lot of countries which have overthrown a bad system only to replace it with a much, much worse system. If you don't like voting, then you're basically abdicating control of your country to whoever has enough money and power to take it over outside of democratic norms which currently keep it nominally in some kind of grey area semi-fascist state, thus enabling its catapult into full fascism. I fail to see how helping Trump get elected is going to do anything for any activists or anybody who's trying to do anything worthwhile society-change-wise, because the first thing he'll do is order the National Guard, or whatever modern-day SS equivalent the Florida State Guard and CBP evolve into, to just shoot anyone that causes any trouble.
Hindenburg is, in fact, an excellent analogy. The NSDAP was left with a plurality in parliament after a disappointing stalemated election, the Communists failed to support the Bidens and Nancy Pelosis of their day, for reasons which probably seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, so that with their mandates undermined they fell one by one. Hitler had a strong mandate from the crazy people, and was better able to use new technology and organizational techniques, so that as the establishment crumbled he was able to progressively strengthen his position. And, in the immediate aftermath of Hindenburg's death and Hitler's ascendance, the Communists of course suffered the worst of his vengeance, followed by a whole lot more than 27,000 people elsewhere in the world (if the massacre in Gaza is what's making you not want to vote against Trump in this election).
I'll admit you seem to know a lot more about Nazi history than I do so I'll concede that analogy. I also don't really pay attention to usernames my bad for sending that book twice but I suppose it's no real harm.
I'm also with you when you say that revolutions have ended very poorly in the past but this does not mean that revolution itself is a bad idea. It's just been poorly executed due to lack of leftist organization and class consciousness. This is why leftist argue so much on the internet, we desperately want to spread class consciousness so that we don't end up with a reactionary, fascist overthrow instead of a leftist revolution because eventually it will come to that. Granted, the imperial core is not at all at the point where revolution is even close to viable.
My main reason for not voting for Biden is in fact the genocide but it's also the neoliberalism and the institutions he represents as well as not believing he is fit to run a country, not that trump is better in that regard. I will probably vote for Biden begrudgingly because materially I know I basically have no other option but I'm gonna removed and moan about it because morally it hurts. It feels wrong to give someone like that my political support. I desperately want to be principled and not vote for him because I know that voting for him only encourages both parties to move further right as there is no real political motive to move left unless they are losing votes but I'm terrified of what might happen if Trump wins. Which is unfortunately exactly what our political and economic elites want.
I hate knowing that I have to support real genocide to maybe prevent a hypothetical worse genocide.
I also want to stress that because of this I do not blame leftists who abstain from voting or vote third party, I will never hold it against them as long as they are actively finding other ways to effect the political system.
I will probably vote for Biden begrudgingly because materially I know I basically have no other option but I’m gonna removed and moan about it because morally it hurts. It feels wrong to give someone like that my political support.
Yeah, I feel this, absolutely. I was registered as third party for the first few elections I voted in because of this depressing reality. I still remember wild applause from the audience when Ron Paul started talking about stuff that made sense, that was like this surprising alien voodoo-man talk from the perspective of the depressing robots he was running against. But I also don't want Trump to make things 10 times worse.
I desperately want to be principled and not vote for him because I know that voting for him only encourages both parties to move further right as there is no real political motive to move left unless they are losing votes
The thing is, there are a ton of ways to influence politics other than just voting or not voting. The whole thing of not voting to "send a message" to try to influence them to move further left, or waiting until somehow some better candidates emerge by magic, just doesn't make sense to me. I'm not trying to be some rah-rah after school special about it, but vote in the primaries, talk to congresspeople, give money, run for some small local office yourself, basically anything other than just waiting at home and posting on the internet until it gets better on its own, sounds like a better idea.
The miners who fought and died for basic rights would laugh in your or my face at how easy it is now. It's definitely not completely fair or easy, no, the system is rigged. But compared with a lot of places where people made real progress, it's less rigged here and now, if that makes you feel better.
If running for dogcatcher is easy to dismiss because it won't really make a difference... well, sitting at home and not voting to send a message will make less of a difference than running for dogcatcher will. Up to you.
And like I said I'm not at all trying to discount the vital necessity of also organizing outside the system. Only voting seems like a road to more neoliberal misery regardless of whether Trump gets to end the whole experiment this year or not.
but I’m terrified of what might happen if Trump wins. Which is unfortunately exactly what our political and economic elites want.
I don't think they planned on Trump. I think they created the conditions that led to him, but they desperately want him gone because of what he might turn loose.
Yeah. Elections are tools for the powerful. True democratic power comes from organizing.
If you can't bring the Dems to stop condoning a genocide, but you have to vote for them nontheless, because orange man bad: what use is this democracy?
Invite me to a Gaza protest and if I'm in the area you'll see me there.
You're obviously doing some organizing, since you feel it's important enough that voting even to choose between two so dramatically different candidates would be, by comparison, not worth it.
Not what I'm trying to do. I want people to focus on what in reality would improve their lives instead of focusing on shitty real-life Game of Thrones.
So you agree: Dems tell people to shut up and don't make demands to their politicians, because representative democracy doesn't work and it's just a game of team A vs team B.
So, Biden has supposedly the best chance and primaries are were you make demands. Therefore: don't bother making demands to Biden. That's just your own points brought to a conclusion.
I live in West Virginia. I've never had a primary where the winner wasn't already decided. Everyone has dropped out before it gets to me, so does my vote not matter?
Dude, look at the comment that I commented under. The context of it was that he said that the primaries were for picking better candidates, and I said the primaries don't matter, in my case.
I'm simply saying the answer to finding and fielding better candidates is not the primary, because it is inherently undemocratic process.
You don't have any idea what you're talking about, do you?
If Democrats had won in 2016, women wouldn't be getting arrested for having miscarriages in the 2020s. It really isn't hard. The election worked against the people because motherfuckers like you convinced people not to vote.
If Democrats had won in 2016, women wouldn't be getting arrested for having miscarriages in the 2020s.
You're not refuting my point by listing examples of regressive policies that are perfectly legal in the "democratic system" they are enacted in. My point is: Voting (in the real world, not in the hypothetical world, were Trump didn't become president) doesn't help improving conditions for the vast majority of the population (read: people who aren't rich).
If Trump didn't win, the so-called US would still have a deranged far-right party. Tucker Carlson, the heritage foundatio, the Koch brothers, PragerU, Matt Walsh, etc. weren't elected. Remember?
The election worked against the people because motherfuckers like you convinced people not to vote.
I didn't tell people "not to vote". I don't like telling strangers what to do. I said "voting doesn't work" (or: voting doesn't matter). There's a difference.
Trump lost the popular vote. So, technically: He got president because of the weird electoral college system (which Biden voted to uphold in congress, I think).
Also: the Democrats disenfranchised the poor population by calling white poor population racist rednecks who need to get woke, instead of helping them in their socio-economic situation. Because in the end: both democrats and republicans serve the rich.
Democrats don't need to make life actively better than it currently is to be a better option than Republicans, who actively make life worse. That doesn't make them good, it just makes them not as bad.
You know, I'm tired and bored enough to pull a typical American take and say: why am I arguing with a German? Don't you have a wind turbine to break down for a coal mine somewhere? You should probably get back to vork
So you've been incessantly writing in to your congresspeople to make demands, make sure they know where you stand on important issues, right?
Not just shitposting and encouraging people to do even less to exert control over their systems of government than the fairly minimal input-lever which is voting, right?
Link me to your protest group, I am interested to support it.
I am dead serious, I've been feeling guilty that I haven't been doing enough to get personally involved in activism and I recently signed up with CCL and I'm looking today at what else I can do.
Yes and no. There have been mass mobilization aoainst the far right after news broke that they've conducted a secret meeting discussing how to forcibly remove unwanted people from Germany (no matter if they have citizenship). That lead to a looot of protests against the far right.
But those protests were partially conducted by the parties in power, who conduct their own racist (but less obviously so) policies.
Am also agreeink with elections not work. Many people say no to elections. A vote is wasted. Look at a great leader like Putin - he needs not the many votes to stay in power.
Get fucked. Biden and the majority of Democrats in Congress are actively seeking to fund the genocide of the Palestinians. Trump is 1000% worse, but I will not vote for any of them, fuck em all.🖕
This country gets what it fucking deserves and I'm not going to be complicit in any of it any more. I'll tend to myself, my loved ones, and my chosen community, thanks.
Comon, don't you remember? We sure taught them a lesson in 2016 by abstaining from the vote. America is paradise now that we showed our collective non-voting might! /S
I mean she basically flaunted the fact that she "won" the primary election in the face of people she needed to win the general. If you're gonna mock the criticisms of her at least have the decency to pick one near the top of the list.
Oh I remember, Hillary was a completely awful tone deaf nomination, and enough people turned out to vote for her Iraq war supporting ass anyway that she still won the popular vote and it was just our electoral college bullshit that let us all down
I really hope people do vote because at the end of the day that is the logically correct thing to do in our situation, but I totally understand being so frustrated with the bullshit you're seeing that you just want to say fuck it
I mean, people still proudly announce that they voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries. They brought this on themselves. If you're passing out some blame how about throwing some that direction huh?
See Russia for an example as to why voter apathy won't result in the society you want. Propaganda that influences you to not vote at all is probably the most effective with respect to destroying any semblance of representative government.
It's reasonable to be upset at the state of things, but you're abdicating your civic duty for nothing. Do you really believe that will void you of any responsibility for what happens next? It certainly won't help you avoid the consequences.
There are a lot more things society could be and should be doing to better itself. It's like what I said before with people relying on karma and invisible deities to come and save them. Do they really think the power of the vote really has that much power? I mean look, we have a system in place where regardless of the popular vote (i.e where millions in number vote) can mean moot because of the points-based system that is the electoral college. We've seen this demonstrated time and time again.
If voting really mattered, we'd gone away with the electoral college a long time ago.
The fact that people hinge so much on voting as their way of thinking it's what gives them power, is truly a fool's game and it's a game we've played for years now.
My civic duty would require more than just wasting my time and effort to stick a little piece of paper down a little machine after deluding myself into thinking that the options we have right now, are the best options we've got. When I will be thinking that we should and could be doing more things than that. It's just nobody wants to and I don't see you having that kind of a vision.
You're complaining without presenting any alternatives, which is categorically unhelpful.
You're advocating for voter apathy which is supremely regressive.
If voting didn't matter, there wouldn't be such a concerted effort to disenfranchise voters, via the electoral college and otherwise.
You're not convincing me or anyone else here that you've got a sober view on this; it seems like you're hoping that accelerationism towards collapse will net a positive result. Complain all you want about voting and how imperfect it is, your vision of apathy and hopelessness is actively hateful towards anyone who wants a better world.
Here's the part I don't get about you people being like "zomgz vooooote!" Where was this panic when you saw Biden winning the 2020 primaries? Did you think those of us who didn't vote for HRC were going to give Biden a free pass? I mean I assume some of you knew there would be problems because that's where all the "we can push Biden to the left" lies must have been coming from. And now that we know Biden is only interested in moving right here we are.
So again, where was all this panic, ire and shame during the primaries? You shoulda been screaming at Biden voters that they were fucking shit up. You should've been screaming at the DNC not to let the primary winner be decided in a state that went to Trump. You should've been screaming at Obama not to back Biden. There were so many ways you could've tried to influence the outcome to someone better but none of you said a fucking word.
It's cute you think I wasn't engaging in that, but go off.
To your point regarding the 2020 primaries, take a look at how they went in States that have the highest levels of voter engagement. It might shock you to learn that when more people vote, we see better outcomes.
Keep poo-pooing the vote. If you won't do the bare fucking minimum, you don't deserve a government that represents you. End of story.
I'm not trying to convince you to vote for or against anyone. I don't care if you vote third party, I sometimes do that too. At least they help elevate calls for reforming our voting system.
You have constructed an idea of a person that does not fit what I represent. You are assigning attributes to me that aren't accurate or based on what I've stated.
You are speaking in defense of someone who speaks in support of voter apathy. That's the only thing you've done that merits a response.
Tell that to Kentucky, who has allowed McConnell to go on decades long destruction of his own including rushing votes. Guarantee you he will win another term and it will be his like 30th?
There sure are, but McConnell doesn't get to stack the supreme court. That's on the president. Vote. I guarantee you if every leftist in Kentucky stopped being a whiny apathetic bitch and just got up and voted, they'd outnumber the conservatives who bother to do it.
Out of all the ones we've had between center-right bland white men who disagree on small quibbles of how to divvy up the work product of the working class between themselves, all of a sudden this one where there's a for real democracy ending fascist in it with a good chance of winning, that's the one where you say "naw I'll sit this one out"?
3 steps toward fascism with the guy who bypassed congress to back genocide or 5 steps towards fascism with the guy who wants to sidestep congress to back genocide.
Things can get significantly worse. Stephen Miller is talking about red state militias being sent into blue states to deport immigrants who go to pro Palestine protests.
And you think democrats are going to do anything to stop them? The only true crime to dems is hurting Republican feelings. Texas told the feds to eat a dick, a bunch of other states committed to backing Texas against the feds, and all dems have done is wag a finger at them.
Guys, I can't decide whether to elect Jim as the new mayor, or Charles Manson. If Charles Manson comes into my house to stab my family like he says he's going to, can I really count on Jim to stop him?
"Guys, I can't decide whether to elect Jim as the new mayor, or Charles Manson. Charles Manson is going to stab a bunch a bunch of people that may include me, luckily if we vote for Jim he'll still stab a bunch of people but it probably won't include me.
What? Elect somebody who doesn't stab anybody? Get the fuck out of here with that leftist extremism, that's just not how the world works! This is America, freedom dies if people stop getting stabbed, it's the American way!"
Jim's family's friend who is stabbing has been stabbing since the 1960s
You could hold Jim responsible for not putting a stop to his friend, yes, but his whole family has been okay with it for some reason, and kept giving the guy more knives since long before Jim came along, so putting the entire onus only on Jim is a little unfair. Yes, Jim should try to put a stop to it, I agree.
Manson is going to stab a hell of a lot more people than Jim's family's friend, and actually has some personal friends who are way worse than Jim's family's friend, and he talks about how great they are and how he'd like to do some stabbing like they do. And already has his knives picked out and people he'd like to stab, which yes, includes you and me and both of our families, but that's not fully the point here.
I feel a little silly even spelling it out, but yes, if there's an election and Manson is in it and seems like he might win, you should vote against Manson. I would think that'd be a pretty universal take but apparently to a lot of people here, it isn't.
Now you're just outright lying. I'm going to pass on debating this disengenuous bullshit.
Just because you agree with who Jim is stabbing getting stabbed does NOT mean Jim is stabbing. I'm so over this neolib bullshit of "We're fascist but it's OK cause we have a pride flag"
you agree with who Jim is stabbing getting stabbed
Is today opposite day or something and no one told me?
Jim is Biden, and stabbing is genocide (specifically in Gaza with Likud as Jim's friend), right? Or are we talking two different analogies somehow? Help me out here, because it seems like what you're saying makes no sense at all.
Nononono you see life is easier if you just say BoTh SiDeS and move on. Sort of. You kind of have to repeat this mantra every time politics comes up for the rest of your life. But it sure beats thinking! That shit is hard!
If you keep saying "in a socialist utopia this wouldn't happen" and do nothing long enough, a revolution will just happen and solve all the problems!
That's what I'm saying!! Communism is the only way bro
Any day now!
If I put a picture of Karl Marx in my profile, does that make communism happen? I'll do anything to have an excuse for not voting!
Nah you also gotta make sure to tell everyone on the Internet that both sides are the same so third party is the only real way
And when you or your partner get sent to prison because you had a miscarriage, you can rest easy knowing that at least you didn't vote for the guy that wouldn't have sent you to prison for having a miscarriage
Just a friendly reminder....
The first thing I'll do as President is sign the Freedom of Choice Act https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BdrOrwmk78Y
Im pro choice https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nmzdkAbu8dY
Not my highest priority https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RxiDZejZFjg
parody... No https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1z4uhxpOnN0
Man I guess this makes him worse than the guy that'll throw gay people in prison or something
Don't get me wrong, Fuck Joe Biden, but don't act like he's worse than the guys who promise to do awful things and then follow through on those promises
"Thinking is hard" is 5/4 of the way to right wing ideology.
Also 7/6 of the way toward a [insert label] person who thinks the whole system is so corrupt that we all may as well give up on anything but spreading doom
I think the best course of action is to just not vote! That way, I can be blamed when the United States becomes a facist religious country!
/s
Bro you just changed my life with this revelation!
When they're both drawing money from the same basket of mega-donors, they're both pushing the same draconian border policies, they're both encouraging historic levels of new carbon emissions, they're both bankrolling an endless series of nightmare wars abroad, they're both advocating lower taxes and privatization of Medicare/SS, they're both deep in bed with Wall Street, they're both "pro-life", they're both religious sycophants, they even both call one another "communists" as a derogatory slur...
FFS, man. Where's the line?
The more you think about it, the worse the situation looks. Its lose-lose. The only real question is whether we get Trump terrorizing the LGBT community at home or Biden flinging bombs at brown people living abroad.
Half the shit you said is flat out wrong, the rest is oversimplified thought-sloth. You're 100% in the camp of thought avoidance if you can write this comment.
Biden had a full Congress to work with when he took office in '21 and he rolled back virtually nothing advanced by Trump.
Actually, strike that. He let a bunch of the COVID-era good stuff lapse. No more monthly allocated child tax credits. No more suspended student debt payments. No more free testing and expanded Medicaid.
His immigration policy is worse. His foreign policy is worse. His fucking MONETARY POLICY IS WORSE. How do you pick the same Fed Chairman as Trump and get a worse monetary policy?!
literally pointing at Biden's actual policies while actually in actual office
These suck. Avoid that at your own peril.
Why are you lying about literally all of this? Satire or Putin puppet?
Have we moved from "Thought Avoidance" to "Insidious hand of the evil foreigner" this quickly?
People who allow themselves to think wonder "why". Try it sometime.
Gibberish
Yeah you have literally no idea what the fuck you're talking about, like at all. That's okay, not everyone needs to know everything about everything.
Check out Biden's first 100 days of executive orders.
Objectively false as long as the perspective you have isn't that of a xenophobic bigot.
Explain. If you're referring to the stuff in Afghanistan then you're unfortunately misled as Trump ensured that would have to happen through actions he took at the end of 2020.
"Literally pointing at Biden's actual policies" by making shit up lmfao get the fuck outta here. Also, yeah, Dems had 2021-2023 to make stuff better. Unfortunately, yes, Sinema/Manchin have had disastrous effects in passing bills. Can you please point out a better bill from the current Congress or any Congress since Obama than the Inflation Reduction Act? Because I can't.
I hope that you're simply ignorant, the only other explanation is blatant malice.
The Biden administration Tuesday announced its most restrictive border control measures to date, issuing plans for a temporary rule that will penalize asylum-seekers who cross the border illegally or fail to apply for protection in other nations they transit on their way to the United States.
This, combined with the Texas state practice of police forcing migrants onto private property and then arresting them for trespassing has created an impossible situation for anyone seeking legal refugee status.
I'm referring to the ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the neighboring territories in Egypt, Jordan, and Lebanon. I'm talking about our support for ethnic cleansing in Modi's India and Zewde's Ethiopia. I'm talking about our theft of $7B from the Afghani treasury on the departure of US troops, plunging the country into a famine. I'm talking about our continued military occupations in Haiti and Niger and Libya and Mali and Somalia. I'm talking about our tacit endorsement of the Polish blockade on Ukrainian harvest exports, because we've wedded ourselves to the US/EU agricultural deregulation efforts. And our support for Spainish, French, and German governments in the war on their own farmers who are in revolt over collapsing wholesale farm prices.
I'm talking about our $250B weapons export market in 2023, the highest in US history, which has contributed to escalating tensions from the Korean Peninsula to the Red Sea to the South Pacific.
Every year Biden has been in office has resulted in more war, more killing, more ethnic cleansing, in large part thanks to his international endorsement of some of the bloodiest wars since Vietnam.
He has been a fucking disaster. In the midst of a labor shortage, he's ratcheted up interest rates to depress wages. In the midst of record global temperatures, he's overseen a new peak in US fossil fuel production and consumption. In the midst of record domestic energy consumption, his FTC and SEC have green-lit a new wave of bitcoin mining and energy hungry AI data harvesting.
More money than ever before for the FBI, the NSA, and the Pentagon. Some of the lowest salaries for educators, medical staff, and agricultural workers in 40 years. Biden's "Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act" has flooded the investment markets with cash while doing nothing to improve quality of life for lay workers or retirees.
This is all real shit. Its why he's fucked in the polls. America under Biden has gotten materially worse. You are not better of today than you were four years ago and that's saying something given where we fucking started.
You're cruising for the edge of a cliff screaming "Just stay the course", and I'm sure you'll be back here blaming the folks that called it once you crash land into November.
ITT: the same right wing trolls pretending to be leftists. Don't even bother.
Not necessarily. There's also the accelerationists that want to burn the whole thing down and believe that they'll be around to rebuild their utopia in the ashes, without any regard for those who suffer and are murdered to try to achieve their selfish vision of society. All while ignoring the facts that accelerationism has never been demonstrated to actually work and that there's a pretty decent chance that they would be targeted for murder if an authoritarian government took over, prior to societal collapse.
Yep. This is what happens when you make terminator movies: Everyone thinks they're gonna be a hero freedom fighter against the cold, faceless oppressors.
Nobody ever considers the most likely scenario: you're probably one of the skulls that the robot steps on as the camera pans up.
Jokes on you, I'm into that shit
More that the system needs to be burned down because it is actively harming people. Whether Trump or Biden is in office, the DHS is responsible for the wrongful arrest and imprisonment of tens of thousands of people. The Pentagon and its affiliates are responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands more. Our Treasury and Energy Departments continue to subsidize historic levels of pollution which cannibalize vast swaths of arable land for fictitious profits.
Burning the political system that's destroying your country isn't about utopian idealism any more than sabotaging the bulldozer headed towards your house is about building your dream home.
I'd point you to the US Civil War as a very classic historical counterpoint. The country had to pass through four years of hell and quite literally immolate a large portion of its interior in order to purge the accumulated sins of a century of chattel slavery.
This isn't something anyone wants to live through, but we're far better as a country for going through it than subjecting another century's worth of Americans to the inhuman conditions of plantation bondage.
I'll start by saying that Sherman stopped too soon. But, I am curious as to how that provides evidence for accelerationism. The US Civil War was started by slavers that were mad about not being allowed to expand chattle slavery into new territories. Lincoln and the others still allowed allied slave states to exist and tried to prevent it by offering compromises.
Agreed. Though the result was a significant improvement, though Jackson reversed too much.
Based.
It started much earlier than that. John Brown and the abolitionist insurrection in Kansas and then Harper's Ferry West Virginia gave secessionists urgency in a way that prior activists had not. The Underground Railroad was seen as a tool of northern politicians to steal southern slaves. Lincoln's nomination to the Republican ticket was received as a plan by the majority party to curb slavery's expansion which - at the moment when they were racing for new territory to expand into - would have crippled their already underdeveloped economy even further.
Fort Sumter was where the war began, but this was a country that had staring into the abyss of civil strife for the last decade.
Lincoln needed to keep the border states around the capital loyal, so he deferred emancipation until after Gettysburg by which time the southern military had lost its steam. But he was right in line with Thaddeus Stevens in ideology, even if he was more strategic in his governance.
I assume you mean... Andrew Johnson?
Yeah. One of the big what-ifs of the period is a President Benjamin Butler.
The thing is though, you might feel strongly about this and that's absolutely fine, but most people just haven't been pushed to breaking point yet. Like do I really want to engage in civil unrest and face state instigated violence against myself and probably my family, or do I just want to shuffle through the next 20 years with my head down hoping to have a few years peace before the grave.
Found one
...screamed the stableboy.
Actually significantly below average even by the low bar of the Dem leadership. He was the most conservative democrat candidate in a field that included Amy Klobuchar and two billionaires, one of whom is a former republican.
He's barely to the left of Joe Manchin and neoliberals pretend that he's the most progressive president ever 🤦
And yes, of course he's still a much better choice than the Mango Mussolini, but talk about a low fucking bar!
He is undeniably awful on some issues, however if you look at everything that's happened under him, I think you'll be surprised how much, lets say his people, have started to pull the US out of a 40 year old Reagan shaped hole.
Sure, he's made some good cabinet appointments, but I guarantee that, for example, the excellent Lauren McFerran who's been doing a great job at NLRB wasn't his idea.
Party loyalists like the twitter troll Neera Tanden, unprincipled opportunists like Pete Buttigieg and conservatives like Merrick Garland are much more Biden's speed.
Ok exactly the fucking point. McFerran wasn't bidens idea, because he isnt obsessed with "oNLy tHe BEsT PeOpLE" who weirdly he has to be related to or owe money or who went on fucking infowars to praise him. There is ROOM for expertise and reasonable suggestions.
I would take any one of the people who are "bidens speed" over the muck eating, grifting, shitbird appoinents trump made.
Summarizing, you're right and still full of shit lol.
Sure, but the bar is "good choices", not "better choices than Trump". Either of my two cats could clear the latter bar any day and, adorable as they are, my cats are NOT qualified for the position of POTUS.
Right back at you.
I mean ok fair enough. We can both vote for the least worst and hope for better
True, but at which point do we stop meekly agreeing to support the lesser evil and start demanding to have options that aren't evil?
It happens by progressively showing strength of the party platform that a continued shift away from conservative bs is electable. The last few years has been powerful in continuing that trend after Biden was elected. Overturning women’s rights has blown up in republicans faces. Their hyped red wave a couple years ago turned out to be bs. A large number, not enough, but still a large number of gerrymandered maps have been overturned in courts after years of lawsuits, with additional ones still actively being fought in courts around the US. There are real progressive democrats dedicating their lives to fighting this stuff. If the trend continues to show that progressives will start taking control of the elections and safeguard democracy the progressive shift will show that a platform foundation exists for representatives to support those platforms. Without it they are stuck relying on independent voters filling the gaps and trying to bridge the gap between liberal and conservative enough that they secure as many independents as possible and come out ahead. Their isn’t enough strict support on the Democratic side to get elected as an ideal candidate and it’s not going to get there in a single cycle but we are four years into wins year over year and my personal opinion is if Biden wins handily and the house and senate make major strides this year it will not only enable more effective changes in policy, even though I feel Biden has far exceeded expectations, it will largely be due to disadvantage and youth voters and start to show that portion of the population as a more reliable vote to run a platform on which could be the beginning of a radical shift in how this country is run, in a good way. The liberal voter base needs a reliable foundation in order to support policies that folks like to bitch about otherwise your going to get politicians that have to try catering to the independent voter base and republicans as the only ones holding office.
At the point that the demand doesn't elect the greater evil?
Go ahead and don't vote, boy that will sure show the establishement... Nothing. Or vote against your interests to teach them a lesson! Oh wait, that's like punching yourself in the face.
Can you list out some of the legislation he's helped pass and some of his executive orders?
Edit: Instead of everyone continuing with the "here's one thing I didn't like" game, here's a non-exhaustive list for you:
Well there's the time he lobbied Congress to take away the rights of striking railway workers.
And then there's the fact that he circumvented normal procedures to expedite weapons sales to Israel twice in December alone.
That's just two of many examples of him being on the side of the rich and powerful and against regular people every time there's conflict between the two groups.
How dare he… checks notes… prevent a national financial crisis but still worked to get the unions everything they wanted, and stand by our international allies in a crisis even when Congress won't.
I guess you'd prefer a reality where he takes the fall for the consequences of the strike, Republicans win, and Israel is thrown under the bus, providing an example to our other allies that we will do the same to them as soon as it's politically convenient. Brilliant politics.
undermining the autonomy of workers to choose to strike is bad.
What are you, some kinda big mouth Co- . . . oh . . . . sorry. Carry on.
You said he got the unions "everything they wanted". They wanted 15 sick days so I'll wait for you to post a source saying every rail worker in all 12 unions now has 15 sick days. Or you can admit saying he got them "everything they wanted" is a lie.
He did no such thing. That was just his bullshit excuse. The crisis from the next major derailment, one that could happen anywhere, including in major metropolitan areas, will likely be much worse than anything caused by upholding the rights of striking workers.
Yeah, when those allies are operating an apartheid regime committing genocide, it's not a good thing to pretend that automatically taking their side is the principled thing to do. The crisis is of their own making and US support in the form of weapons and funding is making it worse, not better.
Bullshit. Republicans are MORE staunchly in favor of the Israeli government, being fellow fascists.
Yeah, because not enabling genocide by an apartheid regime is all about convenience! Gtfo with that bullshit!
Sick days (and other PTO) is a safety issue. Forcing employees to come in while sick or working them to the bone with no breaks makes for an unsafe working environment. When workers are tired or sick, they're more prone to mistakes.
It was about both. You can repeat your narrative as many times as you want, doesn't change the fact that you're lying.
False. It's by definition a case of both.
Wrong again.
Those aren't my definitions. They are those of the Genocide Convention and South African Apartheid survivors.
Nope. He's frozen assets of a handful of civilian murderers from the West Bank, but is still supporting the Israeli government genocide with weapons, funding and lying about the extent of their atrocities.
Israel IS the bus and he's throwing his own re-election prospects under it. He's already alienated significant portions of crucial battleground states like Michigan and he's hemorrhaging support from every voter who doesn't consider massacring civilians the cost of doing business.
Again, a purely fictional hypothetical invented to excuse the ongoing gross violations of labor rights by some of his favorite owner donors.
I swear you Biden stans are just as blind to the many faults of your Dear Leader as the Trump cult sometimes 🤦
Israel has not been found guilty of violating either statute, keep repeating it like a mantra but it doesn't make it any more true. 21% of Israel's population is Arab/Palestinian and they have full legal citizenship rights. Pretty odd for an, "apartheid state." Israel is not attempting to destroy Palestinians in whole or in part, they are responding to an attack by a belligerent nation and going to great lengths to select legal targets in response even if they have significant collateral damage. It's clear this is about self-defense and not racial based punishment, despite your uncharitable portrayal.
Biden is the best president we've had in a long time and I'm tired of Hamas stans criticizing him for supporting our allies against unprovoked terrorist attacks. Supporting our allies in a time of crisis is the right thing to do.
Oh no. The guy youre responding too is an idiot... But now it looks like you might actually be idiot-er :/
Those striking railway workers eventually got their demands for sick leave met in their contracts with continued support from the Biden Administration AND our national economy didn't grind to a halt
Source: https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
Yeah, I'm not really sure that's the point. The fact that the only changes that are allowed to get through are what the president allows is disheartening. The fact is, these workers should have been able to strike on their own terms without being shut down. What happens with a more hostile leader? What Biden did was defang the Union in that instance. Threw them a bone afterward, sure, but he defanged them.
That's how Biden works! The corporate media is against Biden and it shows to those who can see. It's tough getting the real news and that's a massive problem for this country.
They got a fraction of what they were asking for and they weren't even asking for much. Their working conditions are still so awful that it's only a question of time before the next major derailment disaster like the one in Ohio happens.
Next time, it might happen in a major metropolitan area, in which case many will die and the economy will suffer a lot worse than not trampling on their rights would have.
And even the tiny concessions they DID get in spite of Biden convincing congress to make them fight oligarchic railway companies without their best weapon, strike actions, was due to NLRB efforts with no help from Corporate Joe.
The strike threat was about paid sick leave, it wasn't about railroad safety. Safety is an important issue too, but every single source from the time, even directly from the unions, explicitly discussed only paid sick leave. In that sense they got their demand met completely
It was about sick leave and improving the working conditions that are so awful that they're literally making workers sick and trains less safe.
That's simply not true. That's the MSM and party narrative, but it isn't the truth. Outlets less intertwined with the political establishment such as The Intercept and The Nation could have informed you better, had you bothered to look beyond the bubble.
You mean in that entirely fictional sense? To quote the Nation piece:
I love that railroad Striker story because it just makes identifying people online so easy. Because whenever people online complain about it it's either one or two things, it's either they're completely ignorant of this actual scenario and what actually happened or they're just being intellectually dishonest on purpose.
false dichotomy: i support the freedom to strike and anyone who challenges it is a class enemy
Right so the second one then, good to know. It's always one or the other.
calling my dishonest doesn't change that biden is a class enemy
I've seen it used by both sides for good and bad framing, depending on the level of detail they go into lol.
You love a story about blocking workers from striking? Cool bruh.
No, it just shows clearly who is actively informed on what happened and who is parroting nonsense information -either intentionally or not
Those child detention centers at the border: still open on his term.
That's literally the opposite of what Biden's administration is doing
God it's so frustrating fighting against the tidal wave of misinformation. How did Republicans win at social media??
Because morons who fancy themselves revolutionaries are more than happy to join hands with fascists. "After Trump, us!"
Biden vowed to reform immigration detention. Instead, private prisons benefited
Thoughts?
I would rephrase the title to say "Also" and not "Instead". Biden did reform immigration detention. He also moved to more private detention centers. There are no longer children in cages, families being separated, or families being detained at all.
He's still against universal healthcare. I am tired of folks beating people for wanting candidates that are more electable than Biden running instead of him. Universal healthcare polls well on the right and left.
That one issue tells you everything you need to know about him, he sides with corporate lobbyists before material needs of the people.
Remember how much political capital Obama had to spend just to get the ACA passed, and even then just barely? I would love universal healthcare but this probably isn't the best time to push for it, at least not until fascism is defeated and Democrats have the numbers. The president isn't a genie who can just make things like this happen unilaterally. The public may support it but Republicans do not.
This is a bleak perspective and I refuse to believe that it isn't a good time. When will it ever. That view will never produce change.
Pushing for legislation that is a non-starter when we are barely able to pass a budget to keep the government running isn't a great strategy. Political capital needs to be spent where it is most effective, even if that means putting good legislation that isn't viable on the back burner from time to time.
I hope we get universal healthcare sooner rather than later, but our problems are a little more existential right now. They might elect the guy who wants to end democracy. Sometimes we must compromise and do what is viable rather than what is desired. The good should not be sacrificed in pursuit of the perfect.
democrats are fascists, so voting for them won't stop it.
What polls are you looking at that have universal health care polling well on both sides?
Anyone that asks the question.
Every poll I can find has the large majority of Republicans opposing single payer health care. Some are in favor of "universal health care" but that being a mix of public and private similar to what the afordable* care act with the individual mandate did.
Isn't hard to find, because it never is in contention. Republicans in power, Democrats in power, want the status quo because of the lobby of pharma, healthcare insurance, and corporate control over our bodies. Those in the public on the right and left support government paid healthcare. https://news.gallup.com/poll/468401/majority-say-gov-ensure-healthcare.aspx
Your source seems to disagree.
Beat = Got Obama to convince many of them to drop out and endorse him in the same night
Yes, that was part of it
Thanks, I'm in my 50s. I remember. I also remember the electability politics used in that election on the democratic side by corporate media to force a right of center candidate. He also didn't beat any one in primaries in this election, which is a different election.
That's a lot of words for "my politics are not as popular as I wish they were".
Sounds like you read the newspapers but that's not where the real news is at. Corporations own the news. Dig deeper, a lot deeper. Biden isn't as bad as the MSM wants you to believe.
You're seriously saying that the MSM, most of which enjoys a symbiotic relationship with the DNC are portraying Biden as WORSE than he really is??
It's because I consume media from OUTSIDE of the MSM bubble that I know he's not anywhere near as great as the likes of Politico and NYT keep pretending.
As a Biden supporter, I have to assume that all the lies and bullshit about him that have infected the (almost exclusively) young Democrats today is coming from Tiktok or Instagram or some other social media apo I don't have.
This supports that theory.
Do you idiots not see the parallels between you and MAGA? It's the same exact playbook! "Don't trust the MSM", "do your research", "get angry about xyz"
I'm 41 and don't use any social media, unless Lemmy counts.
Nope. I was referring to sources such as The Intercept, The Nation and (for news about the Gaza genocide) Haaretz.
Not MSM ≠ not reliable news
Says the guy convinced that there's no good reason not to worship the president formerly known as The Senator From MBNA 🙄
Not trusting the MSM because they're a billionaire-owned tool of the oppressive establishment that often lies to further such narratives as "the more cops the less crime" and "Israel’s just defending itself" ≠ not trusting them because they don't lie ENOUGH like the MAGA cult.
My research relies on trusting the expertise of those who have proven themselves reliable. The maga "research" starts with doing everything but that.
I get angry about things that are wrong, such as everything the maga cult stands for and the lies of both them and the corrupt neoliberal elite that you're simping for. They get angry at whichever imagined issue their handlers tell them to be angry about.
TL;DR: Horse shoe theory is bullshit made up by ideologically challenged liberals to falsely smear diametrically opposed opponents as identical.
Fish hook theory is much closer to reality, especially when it comes to propaganda.
I like your takes. I see you down here in the dregs of the comments a lot, keep up the good fight ✊.
git em
See this is the shit that supports horseshoe theory. Far-left and far-right, you're all about idolarity and worship and dictatorships and changing the world by force. Moderates don't believe in that shit. We don't worship anyone. You're just mad because your far right counterparts have a strongman to rally around and you currently don't. But you do crave one.
It's not about the "why", it's about the end result. You've been manipulated to be paranoid and angry, just like them. Of course, the methods of manipulation were a little different but you ended up in the same place.
(and let me give a disclaimer here: "both sides" arguments is just as terrible as your current left-wing MAGA shit. The far left like you are a sliver of the Democrats, but what I call the far right are actually in control of the Republicans. You spout absurd shit and it's frustrating but at the end of the day largely irrelevant. MAGA spouts absurd shit and it's frightening, because they have the power to turn it into absurd actions. Just because I equate the far right and far left in terms of stupidity and susceptibility to propaganda, does not mean I equate them in terms of dangerousness. Even worst case scenario, the average tankie's utopia is better than the average MAGA utopia.)
how old someone is has no bearing on whether what they say is true
I only mentioned it because it has bearing on what media you consume. Younger people consume media from apps like tiktok and instagram.
I'm 32 and don't use social media.
So you're going with the whole "liberal media" trope, eh? Figures.
Some tropes are based in truth and the one about the MSM consisting of billionaire-owned outlets that unquestioningly support either neoliberalism (Politico, MSDNC, NYT etc) or fascism (Faux News, Breitbart, WSJ editorials etc) is one of them.
MSM slobs his knob, what are you on about?
The United States is producing more oil than any country in history
Yeah he should really pull back on that giant "produce oil" lever he's got on the Resolute desk with the presidential seal on the handle.
Or, you know, treat the climate apocalypse seriously.
How do you propose Biden stop shale drillers on private property in Texas and New Mexico? Well he signed a massive investment in green energy and infrastructure that can help renewable technologies compete more effectively with fossil fuels. Should more immediate and drastic action happen? I believe so, but Biden can't do that without a Congress that agrees. Elect more Democrats to Congress
Weird how when there's a Conservative in charge they have unlimited power to ruin the country, but the dems hands are so tied, he couldn't possibly have done anything to stop the big bad oil companies.
Weird how it's easier to break something than to build something
Could he not break the fossil fuel industry then?
He really can't. Breaking the fossil fuel industry would require building a regulatory framework to do so, which would require congressional action. On the other hand, directing federal agencies to stop enforcing existing regulations and making internal decisions to undermine federal oversight of industry (aka breaking the regulatory framework) is much easier.
Also, when gas prices go up people get angry
thank you
he has the EPA.
The EPA was stripped of its power to regulate carbon emissions in 2022. Congress would need to pass another Clean Air Act for them to do anything. Even then with the Chevron precedent about to be overturned in the coming weeks, the EPA will have the authority to do...not a god damned thing.
https://www.npr.org/2022/06/30/1103595898/supreme-court-epa-climate-change
the same supreme Court which just got undermined in Hawaii?
make em do it again.
How? Hawaii has a state constitution backing their decision. What can the EPA do? Say they Regulate climate emissions and ban oil extraction tomorrow. What happens? Texas and the other red oil producing states just fall in line? They say "gosh, I guess they can tell us what to do even though my boys on the cout said they can't, oh well, we lose"
Of course not. Blue states tend to not need to be told what to do and are often the ones making the standards that are later imposed by the EPA nationally (see CARB standards still regulating MPG for example). So the EPA will be telling red states what to do, with no authority to do so and you seriously think they will just...do it? In what universe do you live, because I'd sure like to be there.
Which has the power to do what in this case?
You would think, based on the name, protect the environment.
If you're judging agencies by their names rather than the powers given to them through enacted legislation, I guess I don't know what to tell you
Which is a non-binding agreement that the US is STILL not abiding by, so bfd.
While continuing to downplay Covid-19, lifting the emergency status and forcing everyone back to work long before it was safe. Likely at the behest of donors.
Which was a good thing more than made up for by mandating that any new renewable energy projects would be contingent on first increasing the amount of federal land leased for fossil fuel extraction many times over.
Nope. The US is still very much supporting that genocide as well as the one in Gaza.
Which was a good idea horribly executed. Worst bungled end to a US war since Vietnam.
Purely symbolic
Insufficient but ok, I'm gonna be charitable and give him that one.
Mostly a giant giveaway to corporations, it privatized a lot more infrastructure than it paid to fix.
Another corporate giveaway.
Failed to live up to its name
Ok, this was a good on.
While taking rights away from other workers.
Unless they bother some of his favorite donors like the railway workers did
Basically undoing everything Trump did. It's not impressive enough. He needs to do newer and better things.
You know Biden & Manchin were in the same Senate together, right? So it's in fact quite easy to look up & see that this is completely false.
That's not what voters thought during the primaries. This Business Insider ranking has him middle of the pack. And this Pew poll shows him having more liberal support than Bloomberg.
If you can show me a ranking of the candidates ideologies that shows Biden as the most conservative (actual data that supports your opinion, not just feelz), go ahead. I'll wait.
Hey! Be nice to me!
Sorry! Tangerine terror?
Dorito Mussolini, i think.
Personally, I like alliteration.. The Festering Fascist? Dumber Duterte? Putin Puppet?
Ooh! I like these! Must try and remember them.
I got,
Atomic Orange
Nuclear Cheetoh
Dr. Fascismo
Señor Racismo
Donnie Two Scoops
Diaper Don
I don’t thing “above average” was a reference to how liberal he is.
Hitler only lived to age 56. If trump had only lived to 56, he would've died in 2002, before The Apprentice had even aired. That's the better timeline for sure.
Trump had his moment hiding in the basement while it all crumbled around him, but he missed his chance to do the world the same courtesy.
oh shit!
Ok great, we worked out what to do on election day. Now, what are we going to do the rest of the time? We must organize and build political structures outside the two parties, must force action to change the way the fundamental government of the United States operates so that it is a democratic body void of money, gerrymandering, the senate, and the nature of the Supreme Court. Congresspeople must represent a realistic and small number of people.
This is the idea behind /c/[email protected]. The idea is, instead of using this platform to gripe at each other about "yes it is" "no it isn't" "yes it is", we can start to organize and make things better.
I propose that any time one of those awful "no one vote it definitely won't matter trust me" posts comes up, we make a thread underneath it with some links to productive positive things we're doing in addition to, obviously, voting for the guy who's not going to blow up the country and piss on the ashes. Turn the shilling into a reminder to get out and do something concrete.
Right after I get done typing this I'm going to go back to trying to figure out a way I can volunteer some time to the Biden campaign. I'm going to be honest, I feel a little corny even typing that out, but I think trying to make sure Trump doesn't win is for real the most effective thing that'll set us up for more positive change and less end-of-the-world disaster in the near future.
No, volunteering for Joe Biden certainly is not the way to reform.
Post your recommended way to reform then. 100% unironically serious about that. All my previous posts were about "outside the establishment" venues, today's was the first that was within the establishment.
here it isn't a long read
Vote third party. Biden will lose this election anyways. It's the perfect opportunity to jump ship.
My family fought in both world wars. My grampa was part of the North African campaign, a cousin went down on the HMS Hood after being sunk by the Bismarck during the Battle of the Denmark Strait...
Living in Canada and watching our neighbours to the south gleefully embrace the fascism we ALL fought against is both disgusting and terrifying.
How the hell did this happen?
This is the conversation created by the system. There were many other candidates than biden in 2020, but the party colluded to make biden the presidential nominee. Nothing stopped democrats from running a different candidate this year either except some superstition about the "incumbent advantage". Remember when that incumbent advantage worked in trump's favor in 2020...? Oh wait, it's all bullshit when your favorability rating is so damn low like it is for biden right now. It's okay, if we close our eyes and ears and scream "BUT THE OTHER GUY" loud enough, I'm sure it'll all work out. We should be asking why the machine only has two buttons, starting from a low bar and only going lower.
Sounds like a great moment to remember this:
The Democratic party should act in accordance to what its members want to believe is most appropriate, not what its elites impose on them.
We probably agree overall but I gotta point out: in political science, it’s definitely not considered superstition. If it were just throwing salt over the shoulder, we wouldn’t be able to consistently verify the hypothesis. It remains one of the stronger electoral advantages for outcome prediction.
That tangarine palpatine lost in spite of this advantage is more a testament to his lack of popularity among the general electorate. And btw one of the strongest known DISadvantages is having lost an election previously. The quants will have a field day with this one either way.
TL;DR Incumbency advantage is real.
A result of FPTP-voting and the way campaigns are financed. What you get is exactly what the old roman aristocrats intended, when they designed this system over 2 millenia ago to maintain influence: keeping money where the power is and vice versa.
By "the party" you mean millions of voters? Or do you also just deny their agency?
Billions upon billions of dollars are spent on advertising and media and you think that this has no influence in a party-controlled process where the party can decide to tell others to drop and support a single candidate.
Name two states in the primary where Biden and someone under the age of retirement were running (and not dropped out and endorced Biden) that Biden won. SC and ???
The problem is that the democrats / social democrats around the world have really become corporatism and are now exploiting the far right - they don't have to enact left wing policies and can move further to the right or just do nothing. And then you're called to prevent "literal hitler". Yeah you have to, but it's a catch 22.
A "green new deal" or universal healthcare isn't even talked about anymore. People are just so sick of this shitocracy. And it's spreading everywhere.
Where is the 3rd button with "Become an actuall democracy"?
As far as I'm concerned, Biden is running unopposed this year.
The media is more interested in promoting a contest than acknowledging the facts.
The reason we need to have this conversation every time is because we want to live in a democracy
Riddle me this. If he's literally Hitler how come no one has used their hypothetical time machine to hypothetically eliminate him?
at some point, both factions gained access to the technology.
Secret third faction reveal at the end of season 2.
The Temporal Cold War.
Is this an original writing prompt? Because I'd read the hell out of that book.
You've never seen Terminator?
This is a very common trope.
I highly recommend the series "Travelers" for a great take on it.
There was a guy who tried to rush the stage at a rally back in 2016. I remember wondering if he was a time traveler.
Somehow him being killed makes things worse. Next question.
Him being killed makes Mike Pence, an equally evil but significantly less stupid candidate, president
Bc Trump's true worst enemy is his own mouth.:-P
Plus if he did die, they would just move on to Desantis or someone far worse.
Maybe this is the optimal timeline and it just doesn't look that way because we're still in the middle of it and not at the end.
Yes, the US nuking Japan was horrific - but maybe we'd have had a much more brutal WW2 with half a billion lives lost if not for mutually assured destruction keeping it in everyone's pants.
Yes, Hitler was horrific, but maybe the world needed a wake up call for the importance of at least some form of diplomatic structure like the UN and things like human rights observers.
Yeah, Trump is scary as shit in what it might mean for Western democracy. But maybe this period we're in right now serves to push us forward to more modern democratic principles and protections suited to the modern age and not 1776.
Sure, AI misinformation and deepfakes are concerning - but maybe the proliferation of BS to an ad nauseum degree ends up undermining existing misinformation ops around things like vaccine denial or conspiratorial thinking where people currently gravitating to "doing their own research" online become better inoculated to BS by sheer volume of exposure to things they increasingly find they can't trust.
We only see the means, not the ends or their possible variations.
So even if there are time travelers, perhaps they are quite committed to what seems a mediocre timeline because the odds just happened to play out in such a way that our misery paved the way to their paradise.
Figuratively Hitler. Literal Hitler is a skeleton by now.
The US is kinda primed to really like their hitlers.
Even Hitler in his final hours wasn't as utterly deranged as Trump.
Yeah, he at least had the decency to kill Hitler.
Hitler had the guy that brought his cyanide capsules feed one to his dog. A German shepherd be reputedly loved.
To test the potency. He also married Eva Braun the night before they both suicided.
Trump would probably have given the pill to his wife and married the dog.
Trump hates dogs. And dogs hate him.
Which… what kind of person is hated by dogs? Like seriously.
They can probably smell the demonic possession.
Pretty sure satan lets cerberus cuddle up on the bed. (which is the real reason he has a big bed...)
Hitler did a lot of meth man, I'm sure he was pretty deranged
Of course he was. But Donnie is on a whole other level.
At least Hitler did shit on purpose. Trump is just like an LLM trained on Hitler and trying to find winning plays without having a clue how it works.
It's a lot closer than you are suggesting. Trump, Mussolini, and Hitler are all very similar.
Jesus christ this has gotta be one of the most annoying conversations people have every four years. uhhh we gotta vote because the other candidate is literally hitler guys he's literally hitler. uhhhh noooo I don't wanna vote at all because I'm cranky and my candidate has dementia and sucks waaaaah.
I feel like I'm stuck in a fucking time loop. I would much rather see people being like, oh you hate our options, like a sane person, but will probably vote anyways because it takes like an afternoon at most, if you really feel like it and hopefully don't have anything more important to do? Instead of this meme, I'd rather see like, oh, here's some shit you can do, here's some organization you can join, here's some place you can donate money, something like that. Here's what building you should throw a brick through the window of, you know? I'd rather see that, than these dumb ragebait memes.
Choosing between missing the point and ignoring the problem sucks.
99% Hitler vs 100% Hitler I can't believe I'm having to make this choice
This is a disfunctioning democracy.
The problem is that the true left is excluded from the game. The center (democrat) talk like they will do something, but they rarely do so, even when they have full power to do it. Then when elections come, they put the responsibility on the leftists to stop the fascists.
It is hypocrite and toxic. It fuels fascism. It is not a solution. It's building a dig to protect from a hurricane. It's at best buying some time for the center to keep the status quo and let the problems rot.
These threads always end up achieving the opposite of their intended purpose.
Downvoting for misuse of, "Literally."
I've never seen it put so succinctly before.
I love Beau of the Fifth Column for finding my way through these conversations.
https://www.youtube.com/@BeauoftheFifthColumn
Shout out to his second channel where he answers direct questions.
https://www.youtube.com/@roadswithbeau
This is the sort of post you make to get those that are really Russian shills or have absolutely no criteria to reveal themselves. There's not any sort of comparison, and there's going to be a lot of people who are going to try to equate them as the same to disenfranchise people from voting.
Must... manufacture...drama...
I'm not American, so I don't have much skin in the game.
Instead of complaining about something you can't control, perhaps you should look forward to the next four years and think about what kind of candidate you want to run, how viable a candidate they'll be, and how to best promote them for a presidential campaign.
Ultimately, you always get the politicians you deserve. If your choice is always a bit shit, perhaps you need to look at yourselves instead of complaining about who is assumed to be the best choice.
"Literally Hitler"
Yeah, I don't like what Biden is doing in Gaza either.
You're having this conversation because those in charge (E: the obscenely and well established rich, not to be confused with the politicians they buy) want you to, so you're busy fighting each other about the illusion of choice they've given you, instead of fighting them over the oppressive system they impose for their own benefit. The fact that you even have to ask just proves how well it's working.
https://web.archive.org/web/20230803021951/https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/22/american-democracy-was-never-designed-to-be-democratic
https://truthout.org/articles/fascism-is-possible-not-in-spite-of-liberal-capitalism-but-because-of-it/
https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/14/liberalism-and-fascism-partners-in-crime/
This is as deranged as a damn qanoner. It's literally the exact same line of thinking. Yeah, you got this overly complicated world all figured out while no one else understands; believing there is a mysterious group in control is the most baseline conspiracy theory there is, it provides an understandable reason and solution to an infinitely complex reality that we cannot comprehend.
Above average Democrat? Please, the guy has dementia. And no, I'm not a right winger, and I obviously think Trump is a worse option. But Biden isn't above average anything at this point. He's barely awake.
People who make these arguments are the same people who argue 3rd party voting is impossible and infeasible and get mad when I criticize senile Biden, even after voting for senile Biden.
Electing Hindenburg really saved us from Hitler
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_German_presidential_election
Hindenburg wasn't left enough for many of the Communists, and they thought that getting a candidate they'd feel better about supporting was more important than stopping Hitler.
It was the last election many of them ever saw, although of course they didn't know it at the time.
That's not that point, Hindenburg was still elected as the lesser evil and Hitler was made fucking chancellor. Electing a lesser evil changes very little if they are still evil. Hindenburg was even supported by a large portion of the SPD (unfortunately). This is often seen as social democrats turning on the left as usual. Hindenburg wasn't even left, of course communist didn't support him.
Hindenburg being elected did not stop the NSDAP from seizing power is the entire point of my argument. It only delayed it slightly. Having communist support would never have changed this. Having a communist government might have (but obviously that is pure fantasy given the political situation at the time).
I'm actually realizing after my rambling that I'm not entirely sure what point you are trying to make? Are you suggesting is the fault of communist that Hindenburg's election was insufficient in preventing Nazi control? /Gen
Edit: I think what you're saying is that communists almost put hitler in power sooner but introducing a third party candidate that took votes from Hindenburg?
In this case I see what you mean and understand why you would see it that way. However this is the fault of the political system in place forcing that sort of situation which is why I advocate for the dismantling of that system. I do not agree with thälmann and the KPD's belief that a government and it's society can be reformed through electoralism. Materially I understand how placing a third candidate into that election was incredibly risky I just think that shouldn't be a problem. We shouldn't have to worry that pushing for progressive change within the system will cause the opposite.
I'm with you when you say Biden is better than trump but I'm not with you when you attempt to work within a system that is designed specifically to benefit the bourgeoisie in order to improve conditions for the proletariat. In my eyes it's absurd to believe that its even possible to do so.
Damage control does not lead to positive change, it just delays the inevitable harm
If you're interested I recommend reading reform or revolution by Rosa Luxembourg. I don't expect you to radically change your views on this but I think you deserve to understand where I'm coming from. I get it if you think communist desire for revolution is pure fantasy, living within the imperial core will do that to you but please give it a shot. Try to understand. It's worth it, I was like you once. Most of us were.
You sent me that already. I'll check it out at some point.
I just don't see them as mutually exclusive. You can vote for the candidate who's not going to immediately destroy the country and replace it with a nightmare Republican dictatorship, while also working for positive change in other ways. Those both seem like no-brainer good ideas to me.
Personally, I think "overthrow of the system" has to be done while preserving the good parts. There are a lot of countries which have overthrown a bad system only to replace it with a much, much worse system. If you don't like voting, then you're basically abdicating control of your country to whoever has enough money and power to take it over outside of democratic norms which currently keep it nominally in some kind of grey area semi-fascist state, thus enabling its catapult into full fascism. I fail to see how helping Trump get elected is going to do anything for any activists or anybody who's trying to do anything worthwhile society-change-wise, because the first thing he'll do is order the National Guard, or whatever modern-day SS equivalent the Florida State Guard and CBP evolve into, to just shoot anyone that causes any trouble.
Hindenburg is, in fact, an excellent analogy. The NSDAP was left with a plurality in parliament after a disappointing stalemated election, the Communists failed to support the Bidens and Nancy Pelosis of their day, for reasons which probably seemed perfectly reasonable at the time, so that with their mandates undermined they fell one by one. Hitler had a strong mandate from the crazy people, and was better able to use new technology and organizational techniques, so that as the establishment crumbled he was able to progressively strengthen his position. And, in the immediate aftermath of Hindenburg's death and Hitler's ascendance, the Communists of course suffered the worst of his vengeance, followed by a whole lot more than 27,000 people elsewhere in the world (if the massacre in Gaza is what's making you not want to vote against Trump in this election).
I'll admit you seem to know a lot more about Nazi history than I do so I'll concede that analogy. I also don't really pay attention to usernames my bad for sending that book twice but I suppose it's no real harm.
I'm also with you when you say that revolutions have ended very poorly in the past but this does not mean that revolution itself is a bad idea. It's just been poorly executed due to lack of leftist organization and class consciousness. This is why leftist argue so much on the internet, we desperately want to spread class consciousness so that we don't end up with a reactionary, fascist overthrow instead of a leftist revolution because eventually it will come to that. Granted, the imperial core is not at all at the point where revolution is even close to viable.
My main reason for not voting for Biden is in fact the genocide but it's also the neoliberalism and the institutions he represents as well as not believing he is fit to run a country, not that trump is better in that regard. I will probably vote for Biden begrudgingly because materially I know I basically have no other option but I'm gonna removed and moan about it because morally it hurts. It feels wrong to give someone like that my political support. I desperately want to be principled and not vote for him because I know that voting for him only encourages both parties to move further right as there is no real political motive to move left unless they are losing votes but I'm terrified of what might happen if Trump wins. Which is unfortunately exactly what our political and economic elites want.
I hate knowing that I have to support real genocide to maybe prevent a hypothetical worse genocide.
I also want to stress that because of this I do not blame leftists who abstain from voting or vote third party, I will never hold it against them as long as they are actively finding other ways to effect the political system.
Yeah, I feel this, absolutely. I was registered as third party for the first few elections I voted in because of this depressing reality. I still remember wild applause from the audience when Ron Paul started talking about stuff that made sense, that was like this surprising alien voodoo-man talk from the perspective of the depressing robots he was running against. But I also don't want Trump to make things 10 times worse.
The thing is, there are a ton of ways to influence politics other than just voting or not voting. The whole thing of not voting to "send a message" to try to influence them to move further left, or waiting until somehow some better candidates emerge by magic, just doesn't make sense to me. I'm not trying to be some rah-rah after school special about it, but vote in the primaries, talk to congresspeople, give money, run for some small local office yourself, basically anything other than just waiting at home and posting on the internet until it gets better on its own, sounds like a better idea.
The miners who fought and died for basic rights would laugh in your or my face at how easy it is now. It's definitely not completely fair or easy, no, the system is rigged. But compared with a lot of places where people made real progress, it's less rigged here and now, if that makes you feel better.
If running for dogcatcher is easy to dismiss because it won't really make a difference... well, sitting at home and not voting to send a message will make less of a difference than running for dogcatcher will. Up to you.
And like I said I'm not at all trying to discount the vital necessity of also organizing outside the system. Only voting seems like a road to more neoliberal misery regardless of whether Trump gets to end the whole experiment this year or not.
I don't think they planned on Trump. I think they created the conditions that led to him, but they desperately want him gone because of what he might turn loose.
Where's the button for "none of these candidates?"
That one's wired to the second button.
If this said below average it would be better
It would be *accurate
Or https://www.kennedy24.com/
We stop with this fucking red vs blue clown show.
Democracy kind of breaks down if you can't make demands anymore, since the "lesser evil" is the only viable option.
Also: elections are overrated/don't work.
If elections don't work why do republicans put so much effort into manipulating them.
Let me clarify: They do work in solidifying power structures. However, that's usually not in favour of the vast majority of people.
So when the wrong people win, elections work. But stopping the wrong people from winning totally doesn't work.
Got it. Thanks for breaking it down for me.
Yeah. Elections are tools for the powerful. True democratic power comes from organizing.
If you can't bring the Dems to stop condoning a genocide, but you have to vote for them nontheless, because orange man bad: what use is this democracy?
Post your organizing: ![email protected]
Invite me to a Gaza protest and if I'm in the area you'll see me there.
You're obviously doing some organizing, since you feel it's important enough that voting even to choose between two so dramatically different candidates would be, by comparison, not worth it.
Right?
I'm not located in the US, though.
Why do you spell it favour and not favor?
Because I'm notfrom the so-called US.
So what’s your motivation to try to get people not to vote in the US?
Not what I'm trying to do. I want people to focus on what in reality would improve their lives instead of focusing on shitty real-life Game of Thrones.
Just to clarify you’re not currently living in the US, right?
You only have this option as the final stage. You have primaries to vote for the actual better candidate.
As if the dems held actual primaries this year, lol.
Because incumbent presidents pretty much never lose.
So you agree: Dems tell people to shut up and don't make demands to their politicians, because representative democracy doesn't work and it's just a game of team A vs team B.
I mean if you want to put words in my mouth so you can win your little internet argument go ahead. It seems very important to you.
So, Biden has supposedly the best chance and primaries are were you make demands. Therefore: don't bother making demands to Biden. That's just your own points brought to a conclusion.
I never said primaries are where you "make demands" I literally just said it's not a strict binary choice since you get more options in the primary.
Anything else is you just making stuff up
Where were you in 2020?
Staying indoors. Weren't you? /j
I live in West Virginia. I've never had a primary where the winner wasn't already decided. Everyone has dropped out before it gets to me, so does my vote not matter?
We don't live in a direct democracy with instant national voting, so that's just gonna happen.
Good news is, you can do your part to convince others. Have you ever volunteered for anyone's campaign?
So the answer is no, my primary vote doesn't matter.
Well if that's all you're willing to do, then you don't matter.
Dude, look at the comment that I commented under. The context of it was that he said that the primaries were for picking better candidates, and I said the primaries don't matter, in my case.
I'm simply saying the answer to finding and fielding better candidates is not the primary, because it is inherently undemocratic process.
We do?
Yes.
The last Democratic presidential primary where the result wasn't preordained was 2008.
The primaries were not stolen from you. Bernie just isn't as popular as you wish he was.
wrong. the dnc admitted it was rigged, and a court agreed they were allowed to rig it.
The 2020 DNC primaries were pretty much decided in a state that voted for Trump so... not really.
Not at all. Just because you can use a state to gauge who the winner will be doesn't make that the state that decides it.
And I'm by no means a fan of how the DNC operates. Just pointing out you have the option.
Alright then let's make it simpler:
Was Biden the most viable candidate to win the general election out of everybody else running in the 2020 primaries?
I mean that's a matter of opinion and doesn't really have anything to do with wether you have a primary.
Yeah I know it's a matter of opinion. I'm asking what your opinion is.
Who’s the president now?
I'm gonna take that as a "yes" to which I'd say: Then you have nothing to worry about. You obviously don't need my vote and can ignore me.
I’m just saying he won.
Who else do you think had a chance?
Elections did a pretty fucking good job of getting women sent to jail for having miscarriages
https://slrpnk.net/comment/6119680
Yeah I saw that comment, it doesn't address the whole "one of the parties is sending women to prison for having miscarriages" thing
Why not? Is sending people to prison a progressive policy?
You don't have any idea what you're talking about, do you?
If Democrats had won in 2016, women wouldn't be getting arrested for having miscarriages in the 2020s. It really isn't hard. The election worked against the people because motherfuckers like you convinced people not to vote.
You're not refuting my point by listing examples of regressive policies that are perfectly legal in the "democratic system" they are enacted in. My point is: Voting (in the real world, not in the hypothetical world, were Trump didn't become president) doesn't help improving conditions for the vast majority of the population (read: people who aren't rich).
If Trump didn't win, the so-called US would still have a deranged far-right party. Tucker Carlson, the heritage foundatio, the Koch brothers, PragerU, Matt Walsh, etc. weren't elected. Remember?
I didn't tell people "not to vote". I don't like telling strangers what to do. I said "voting doesn't work" (or: voting doesn't matter). There's a difference.
Trump lost the popular vote. So, technically: He got president because of the weird electoral college system (which Biden voted to uphold in congress, I think).
Also: the Democrats disenfranchised the poor population by calling white poor population racist rednecks who need to get woke, instead of helping them in their socio-economic situation. Because in the end: both democrats and republicans serve the rich.
But yeah. I "have no idea", right. /s 🙄
Democrats don't need to make life actively better than it currently is to be a better option than Republicans, who actively make life worse. That doesn't make them good, it just makes them not as bad.
You know, I'm tired and bored enough to pull a typical American take and say: why am I arguing with a German? Don't you have a wind turbine to break down for a coal mine somewhere? You should probably get back to vork
So you've been incessantly writing in to your congresspeople to make demands, make sure they know where you stand on important issues, right?
Not just shitposting and encouraging people to do even less to exert control over their systems of government than the fairly minimal input-lever which is voting, right?
Right?
Right, the problem is that they just don't know what I want. Silly me.
I'm in a political group, organizing. Protests and agitation are way more effective than writing some rich fuck in congress.
Also: I'm not even a US citizen, lol.
Link me to your protest group, I am interested to support it.
I am dead serious, I've been feeling guilty that I haven't been doing enough to get personally involved in activism and I recently signed up with CCL and I'm looking today at what else I can do.
Join a union. The more radical the better. My org is located in Germany. ;)
Yo I've heard things have been pretty bad in Germany regarding the far right. Is it as bad as they say?
Yes and no. There have been mass mobilization aoainst the far right after news broke that they've conducted a secret meeting discussing how to forcibly remove unwanted people from Germany (no matter if they have citizenship). That lead to a looot of protests against the far right.
But those protests were partially conducted by the parties in power, who conduct their own racist (but less obviously so) policies.
Damn, I suppose it's better than no protest. Best of luck comrade o7
Did you see how many millions of counter protesters there were for that movement?
I actually wasn't aware of the magnitude if I'm honest, only that their were counter protests. It's why I asked
Am also agreeink with elections not work. Many people say no to elections. A vote is wasted. Look at a great leader like Putin - he needs not the many votes to stay in power.
Get fucked. Biden and the majority of Democrats in Congress are actively seeking to fund the genocide of the Palestinians. Trump is 1000% worse, but I will not vote for any of them, fuck em all.🖕
This country gets what it fucking deserves and I'm not going to be complicit in any of it any more. I'll tend to myself, my loved ones, and my chosen community, thanks.
LBQT ppl offended during republican presidency: 50k
War deaths during democrat presidency: 50k
You tell me which is the Hitler.
This is the only election where I'm throwing my arms up and saying 'fuck it' to.
Please don't
Comon, don't you remember? We sure taught them a lesson in 2016 by abstaining from the vote. America is paradise now that we showed our collective non-voting might! /S
At least that terrible Hillary didn't get elected! Gosh she was so shrill.
I mean she basically flaunted the fact that she "won" the primary election in the face of people she needed to win the general. If you're gonna mock the criticisms of her at least have the decency to pick one near the top of the list.
Oh I remember, Hillary was a completely awful tone deaf nomination, and enough people turned out to vote for her Iraq war supporting ass anyway that she still won the popular vote and it was just our electoral college bullshit that let us all down
I really hope people do vote because at the end of the day that is the logically correct thing to do in our situation, but I totally understand being so frustrated with the bullshit you're seeing that you just want to say fuck it
I do not. It means the propaganda is winning.
I mean, people still proudly announce that they voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries. They brought this on themselves. If you're passing out some blame how about throwing some that direction huh?
No. I'm not wasting my time, I'm sick of how this god damn society has allowed shit to be boiled down to two old fucks.
No propaganda. No influence. Just tired of this shit. And most of you are already browbeating.
See Russia for an example as to why voter apathy won't result in the society you want. Propaganda that influences you to not vote at all is probably the most effective with respect to destroying any semblance of representative government.
It's reasonable to be upset at the state of things, but you're abdicating your civic duty for nothing. Do you really believe that will void you of any responsibility for what happens next? It certainly won't help you avoid the consequences.
There are a lot more things society could be and should be doing to better itself. It's like what I said before with people relying on karma and invisible deities to come and save them. Do they really think the power of the vote really has that much power? I mean look, we have a system in place where regardless of the popular vote (i.e where millions in number vote) can mean moot because of the points-based system that is the electoral college. We've seen this demonstrated time and time again.
If voting really mattered, we'd gone away with the electoral college a long time ago.
The fact that people hinge so much on voting as their way of thinking it's what gives them power, is truly a fool's game and it's a game we've played for years now.
My civic duty would require more than just wasting my time and effort to stick a little piece of paper down a little machine after deluding myself into thinking that the options we have right now, are the best options we've got. When I will be thinking that we should and could be doing more things than that. It's just nobody wants to and I don't see you having that kind of a vision.
You're complaining without presenting any alternatives, which is categorically unhelpful.
You're advocating for voter apathy which is supremely regressive.
If voting didn't matter, there wouldn't be such a concerted effort to disenfranchise voters, via the electoral college and otherwise.
You're not convincing me or anyone else here that you've got a sober view on this; it seems like you're hoping that accelerationism towards collapse will net a positive result. Complain all you want about voting and how imperfect it is, your vision of apathy and hopelessness is actively hateful towards anyone who wants a better world.
Alright we'll vote 3rd party.
Here's the part I don't get about you people being like "zomgz vooooote!" Where was this panic when you saw Biden winning the 2020 primaries? Did you think those of us who didn't vote for HRC were going to give Biden a free pass? I mean I assume some of you knew there would be problems because that's where all the "we can push Biden to the left" lies must have been coming from. And now that we know Biden is only interested in moving right here we are.
So again, where was all this panic, ire and shame during the primaries? You shoulda been screaming at Biden voters that they were fucking shit up. You should've been screaming at the DNC not to let the primary winner be decided in a state that went to Trump. You should've been screaming at Obama not to back Biden. There were so many ways you could've tried to influence the outcome to someone better but none of you said a fucking word.
Well here we are.
It's cute you think I wasn't engaging in that, but go off.
To your point regarding the 2020 primaries, take a look at how they went in States that have the highest levels of voter engagement. It might shock you to learn that when more people vote, we see better outcomes.
Keep poo-pooing the vote. If you won't do the bare fucking minimum, you don't deserve a government that represents you. End of story.
I like how you deny my accusation and then demonstrate it in the same comment. That's convenient for me.
I'm not trying to convince you to vote for or against anyone. I don't care if you vote third party, I sometimes do that too. At least they help elevate calls for reforming our voting system.
You have constructed an idea of a person that does not fit what I represent. You are assigning attributes to me that aren't accurate or based on what I've stated.
You are speaking in defense of someone who speaks in support of voter apathy. That's the only thing you've done that merits a response.
Good news, depending on how it goes, you might not need to worry about any more elections to unsettle and disturb you in the future.
People are suffering because Trump was able to get three motherfuckers on the supreme court. Voting matters.
Tell that to Kentucky, who has allowed McConnell to go on decades long destruction of his own including rushing votes. Guarantee you he will win another term and it will be his like 30th?
There are more problems than Trump.
There sure are, but McConnell doesn't get to stack the supreme court. That's on the president. Vote. I guarantee you if every leftist in Kentucky stopped being a whiny apathetic bitch and just got up and voted, they'd outnumber the conservatives who bother to do it.
Out of all the ones we've had between center-right bland white men who disagree on small quibbles of how to divvy up the work product of the working class between themselves, all of a sudden this one where there's a for real democracy ending fascist in it with a good chance of winning, that's the one where you say "naw I'll sit this one out"?
Lots of useful idiots for the far-right who think they're painted working-class red.
3 steps toward fascism with the guy who bypassed congress to back genocide or 5 steps towards fascism with the guy who wants to sidestep congress to back genocide.
They're the same picture. 🤷
Things can get significantly worse. Stephen Miller is talking about red state militias being sent into blue states to deport immigrants who go to pro Palestine protests.
And you think democrats are going to do anything to stop them? The only true crime to dems is hurting Republican feelings. Texas told the feds to eat a dick, a bunch of other states committed to backing Texas against the feds, and all dems have done is wag a finger at them.
Guys, I can't decide whether to elect Jim as the new mayor, or Charles Manson. If Charles Manson comes into my house to stab my family like he says he's going to, can I really count on Jim to stop him?
"Guys, I can't decide whether to elect Jim as the new mayor, or Charles Manson. Charles Manson is going to stab a bunch a bunch of people that may include me, luckily if we vote for Jim he'll still stab a bunch of people but it probably won't include me.
What? Elect somebody who doesn't stab anybody? Get the fuck out of here with that leftist extremism, that's just not how the world works! This is America, freedom dies if people stop getting stabbed, it's the American way!"
I feel a little silly even spelling it out, but yes, if there's an election and Manson is in it and seems like he might win, you should vote against Manson. I would think that'd be a pretty universal take but apparently to a lot of people here, it isn't.
Now you're just outright lying. I'm going to pass on debating this disengenuous bullshit.
Just because you agree with who Jim is stabbing getting stabbed does NOT mean Jim is stabbing. I'm so over this neolib bullshit of "We're fascist but it's OK cause we have a pride flag"
Is today opposite day or something and no one told me?
Jim is Biden, and stabbing is genocide (specifically in Gaza with Likud as Jim's friend), right? Or are we talking two different analogies somehow? Help me out here, because it seems like what you're saying makes no sense at all.
I mean it's more like no progress toward fascism or just fascism
Biden is committing genocide but literally Hitle...
No actually Literally Hitler is a good description of Genocide Joe.