Democrats worry their most loyal voters won’t turn out for Biden in 2024
Summary:
Democrats are becoming increasingly concerned about a possible drop in Black voter turnout for the 2024 presidential election, according to party insiders. The worries arise from a 10% decrease in Black voter turnout in the 2022 midterms compared to 2018, a more substantial decline than any other racial or ethnic group, as per a Washington Post analysis. The decline was particularly significant among younger and male Black voters in crucial states like Georgia, where Democrats aim to mobilize Black voter support for President Biden in 2024.
The Democratic party has acknowledged the need to bolster their outreach efforts to this demographic. W. Mondale Robinson, founder of the Black Male Voter Project, highlighted the need for Democrats to refocus their attention on Black male voters, who have shown lower levels of engagement. In response, Biden's team has pledged to communicate more effectively about the benefits that the Black community has reaped under Biden's administration, according to Cedric L. Richmond, a senior advisor at the Democratic National Committee.
However, Black voter advocates have identified deep-seated issues affecting Black voter turnout. Many Black men reportedly feel detached from the political process and uninspired by both parties' policies. Terrance Woodbury, CEO of HIT Strategies, a polling firm, suggests that the Democratic party's focus on countering Trump and Republican extremism doesn't motivate younger Black men as much as arguments focused on policy benefits. Concerns are growing within the party that if they fail to address these issues, disenchanted Black voters might either abstain or, potentially, be swayed by Republican messaging on certain key issues.
Maybe... Maaaaaayyyyyyybeeeee the Democrats need to nominate someone who is actually worth getting excited about instead of just being not-Trump.
Because if voters are excited, they may start voting in primaries...
Every since Obama beat Clinton 15 years ago, party leaders seem more motivated to make sure their pick wins the primary than a Democrat winning the general.
"Moderates" seem ineffictive because they're not trying to just win, they're trying to win by as little as possible. Like a corrupt pro athlete who's not throwing the game, but trying to win by less than the spread.
They know the reason most people vote for moderates like Biden, is if they don't, someone like trump would win. It's just the party leaders would rather trade back and forth than let Dems like FDR win every election for decades.
Jesus I thought you were exaggerating and then I did the math
If you think that's bad:
Biden's first presidential primary was 35 years ago...
He was the expected front runner due mainly to his (at the time) exceptional public speaking but got caught plagiarizing speeches, lying about his grades in law school, and even people finding out he cheated while in law school by plagiarising papers.
But everyone forgot about all that because he spent 8 years standing next to Obama. And the only reason he got that job was to make old white people less uncomfortable voting for a Black guy.
That's a great way to put it. Both parties are funded by dark money interests, one drives us to the right and the other keeps us in place. This is described as the ratchet effect
and millions are claiming the democrats are radicals, little do they know that the country was more progressive on certain fronts 50 years ago. So they have to resort to blaming gays and trans, because everything else about the current staye of the country is kinda right-wingy to begin with.
Hell, Republicans 50 years ago were more progressive than the Dems are today.
Anyone "worth getting excited about" is going to challenge the status quo too much - even nominally - for the DNC to be okay with it. They are conservative in the descriptive sense. "No-one's standard of living will fundamentally change."
I get that we have many problems that aren't really being actively solved, but personally I've been pretty happy with this return-to-status-quo term as compared to the previous non-status-quo term... and right now the narcissistic traitor is leading the nomination polls.
You've been pretty happy with status quo have you? Great, love that for you. Sounds like being apathetic to the problems is working out for you specifically. I certainly wouldn't want you to have to think about the enormous numbers of disenfranchised, poor and minority people who overwhelmingly don't turn out to vote because they don't see a real difference in their lives between parties and the dems aren't doing anything to prove to them why they should care. That sounds like it wouldn't be comfortable for you, and that's the top priority here.
Context matters. If you take my words out of context, then you aren't actually addressing what I said, you're addressing a straw man. Or did you intend to imply that you were happier with the previous president?
And this is putting words in my mouth:
But never mind your flawed approach to debate, let's actually take a look at what's been done during Biden's time in office:
Rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement
Overturning Trump's transgender service member ban
Reuniting children with their families who were separated by Trump's border control policies
Oh yeah, and more than $75 billion in support for Ukraine
In fact, Biden's track record is pretty good overall. So every single problem hasn't been solved in 2.5 years, at least there's been progress. And did you forget that Biden inherited the country in a crisis which Trump massively bungled? You're like a poster child for letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I could compile a similar list of their failures if I cared to. This is just a gish gallop.
Here's one: Hillary's campaign directly promoted the extreme far right leading directly to Trump's victory in 2016.
https://www.salon.com/2016/11/09/the-hillary-clinton-campaign-intentionally-created-donald-trump-with-its-pied-piper-strategy/
That's not "good", that's "enabling fascism". Absolute clown shit.
If you have to compare them to outright fascists to say they are comparatively "good", that's not a great look, but even then you can't ignore when they do shit like this. You can't hide behind their supposed good intentions either. They nearly threw 2020 by pushing Biden into everyone's faces like a wet fart and saying, "At least it's not a torrent of diarrhea! Vote for the wet fart please!"
I never told anyone not to vote as far left as was practical - which in the US means voting Dem. I am simply pointing out the reality that the most disenfranchised people in the US don't even vote. Not voting isn't a sign of privilege, thinking voting will change anything is a sign of privilege, because it means you're in the increasingly small minority that might see any change from it.
You say I'm letting the perfect be the enemy of the good, but you actively defend mediocrity from any and all criticism because you can't see past the false dichotomy you've been presented with. If I want my kids to leave the park, I don't say, "We're leaving now," I say, "Do you want to leave in 5 minutes or 10?" and they respect the results, even though I invented the entire spectrum of possibility for them. The two party system has done the same thing to you.
It doesn't matter why you're happy with the status quo, what matters is that you are defending the status quo. That makes you functionally conservative. Just because there are other conservatives that are worse by comparison doesn't change that.
You might want to consider that millions of people know the kinds of ideas you want put forward and just think those are bad ideas
You might want to consider that US democracy is functionally an oligarchy and doesn't reflect the will of the people: https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc
i doubt it. i bet they think what the cia wants them to think about it, but knowledge is a justified true belief, and my bet is that they believe a lot of things about those ideas that just aren't true.
Some of those accomplishments are worth celebrating, but:
lol are you kidding? The only countries on Earth with a competent response to COVID were New Zealand, South Korea, and China.
This is just tradewar bullshit with China. I work in manufacturing so I'm not against seeing more investment in my sector, but like, this isn't about making good American jobs. It's only about preparing for the inevitable war over Taiwan.
Also for Democrat voters. I don't want a Bernie/Williamson/RFK candidate. I want the candidate I voted in as President in 2020
Sorry, the do-something machine is broke. Best we can do is partially fossilized C-Suite moderates.
Well, what if we put RFK Jr beside them, does that make them seem any better?
Well, now you're just being unreasonable.
Or maybe you need to understand that the down ticket races are more important than the presidency?
Change in the US starts at the bottom. Not the top.
Fuck the presidency. Just vote for the candidate that isn't going to burn the country down.
You want real change? Real progressivism? Vote progressives into local offices. Your young, progressive education board member today is your congressional rep tomorrow. Your congressional rep today is your presidential hopeful tomorrow.
Let the status quo dems toss whatever geriatric they want at the presidency and vote them in so we don't get another trump, or worse, a president desantis or something.
Presidents don't often push new laws anyway. You want to change the country? Help take the House and the Senate. As long as the president is the same party they're not going to veto progressive legislation.
I was about to write something like your comment.
Show up to every local election. Pay attention at the local level. Use your passion against the two party system to get third-party candidates elected to your state house.
This shit right here. Both times I was exited for a candidate he got thrown out because the party leaders didn't like him, first with Hillary, and then with Biden. I'm just going to continue to vote for not-trump because I know how bad it will be but I don't want any centrist democrat almost as much as I dont want trump.
Maybe… Maaaaaayyyyyyybeeeee the left voters need to actually show up to vote.
Now everyone is going to say they voted in a presidential election, possibly even a primary which makes them a rarity! Those aren't what we're talking about. The right has made it a point to vote on everything even as small as schoolboards so the only people voting in the tiny little races are the right wing rage crowd or the centrists who are being pulled to the right. Yes, the presidential vote matters, but frankly those lower down votes mean a lot more and if you watch how the Republican primaries are going, shows exactly how much power that batch that will show up has over a party.
This is some real "pull yourself up by the bootstraps" energy. If "just vote" actually worked, they'd change the system just enough so it doesn't. Assembling establishment voltron in 2020 during the primaries is just a tiny taste of the lengths that democrats will go to in order to prevent a progressive candidate from winning.
Thing is, it isn't "Just vote", it's being absolutely active every step of the way. Dunno what your territory is but my state we're having an absolute route of the ultra-right wing going for every local position with the Republicans national conference funding them, the Dems have considered the entire state a lost cause.
So kinda, yea, it is a pull yourself up by the bootstraps, and anyone else who you can pull up as well because we're sure as hell not getting help from the top, but it's either that or sit on our fucking hands and go "whelp". Remember, whether you like her or not, AOC primaried the supposed "2nd in command" Democrat. If you don't like the establishment, you root it out from the bottom.
That's cute that you think the system actually works.
That's cute everyone gives up, bitches and does nothing, then complains it doesn't work.
Here's a free tip- get off your ass, get involved, and WORK FOR IT.
but hey, easier to bitch on lemmy and blame everyone else eh.
I even support left ideas but the left in general absolutely sucks at getting the vote out. Look at AOC and how hard she and her people worked and got elected. That's your template but yet, not enough do that. Sorry but throwing your hands up and saying it can't be done is a self fulfilling prophecy.
"Pull yourself up by the bootstraps."
I'm convinced he was picked because "it was his time"
I don’t think that was the main reason.
IMO, Biden was nominated because he was a fairly uncontroversial (by mainstream sensibilities anyway) white male candidate who also isn’t that attached to many positions that would threaten the powers that be.
Biden is a weather vane that swings in accordance to the winds. Which is all that was needed to beat a historically unpopular candidate like Trump. Thankfully, Trump is such a bad option that even Biden can be a palatable candidate.
Why this fossil didn’t bend the knee and allow another younger, more exciting candidate step up for 2024 is beyond me though. But I guess seeing the average age and mental capability of Congress, it shouldn’t be surprising. IMO, everyone over the age of 65 should be ineligible for elected office. They are at retirement age, and have no real, justifiable stake in the future. They should retire with the knowledge they won life and can live out the rest of their days in comfort and leave running the country to people who have skin in the game and the energy/mental faculties to actually play it.
Biden joining + everyone else dropping out was the last hope the establishment had to kneecap Bernie, and it fucking worked
That almost makes it sound like we live in an autocracy and not a democracy when the party picks who's running and not the voters...
Well they have argued in court on the public record that they owe their members no expectation of democracy.
And why people still vote for them is astounding
People are structurally forced into voting for one of the two parties. It's got very little to do with their actual merits.
You’ve been lied to your entire life that we live in a democracy. When people tell you this isn’t a democracy this is the reason why.
Do people really believe this garbage?
The other candidates dropped out because Biden blew them out of the water in South Carolina and his campaign picked up momentum from there. A number of candidates effectively had their campaigns ended in South Carolina because it was clear they couldn't secure the crucial black vote.
This is normal. It has happened in primaries for decades. Candidates drop out as it becomes obvious they don't have a pathway to victory and the field narrows.
It's not some absurd conspiracy.
Bernie's strategy of only winning a plurality and not expanding his base was a terrible miscalculation.
Bernie's didn't have working class or minority support. Hence his heavy defeats in places like Michigan.
Bernie was simply not that popular with the electorate.
You're gonna hurt their feelings.
I voted Bernie but this is absolutely true. I mean, he himself said his campaign was resting on young progressives coming out to vote for him and guess what? They did what all the people in here are doing- bitch and then NOT VOTE.
Does anyone wonder why "the establishment" doesn't pay attention to progressive attitudes? It's because progressives don't fucking show up every. single. time. like other blocs. They bitch all the goddamn time but refuse to participate if their version of Santa Claus isn't running. The truth of it is that you need to get involved and push the ideas and people you want and if they fail to get the primary nod, then you still vote to advance your goals as far as you can (ie. the moderate Democrat.) If they do get the nod (a la AOC) then you keep fielding more and more candidates. Look how they have pushed the convo further left already.
Someone best explained it as "you're going 10 blocks north. One taxi will take you 5 blocks, the other takes you 10 blocks south of where you're at. Do you just not take either? Or do you at least go 5 blocks north." Also because if you don't vote to go 5 blocks north, guess what? You're going 10 blocks south. Great job- even further from your goal.
But no- I'm sure after years and years and years of sitting out and complaining on the sidelines, surely the Dems will come to their senses and go "hey- why don't we run someone completely far left so maybe these people who refuse to ever come out might show up." Sure, that'll do it. That's worth betting the farm on- run someone that is essentially progressive Jesus and risk alienating every voter who does show up every single time.
Biden won because black women liked him and they actually go out and vote in the primaries, unlike the louts in this thread who are literally talking about how they won’t vote.
I think that goes with him being uncontroversial. Black people in America are fairly conservative, and politically they like to go for people who can win that aren't too radical. Biden was that candidate.
Probably because the geriatrics fucked two whole generations of politicians by not stepping down when they should have.
Gen X and millennials don't have enough horses in the race with the experience necessary to run for president because they got fucked by the boomers.
We're going to be in for an exciting ride over the next two decades as something like 40% of Congress retires or dies in office without anyone with experience available to replace them.
And this is on both sides.
He won because they weren't going to allow Bernie Sanders to win
Well...maybe it will be his time and we will get Harris. We can dream I guess.
Your dream is Harris?! Shit, no. No, no, no.
My hope is that Biden is staying in the race until the 11th hour to be the lightening rod and the dems have someone better to step in.
Of course, that would require some intestinal fortitude and a few brain cells and I don’t think the dem leadership has that.
Literally no one wants Harris. She's completely un-electable.
Or maybe grow up and realize that political offices and the people that fill them shouldn't be "exciting". Maybe the problem is that we all want someone exciting... With no regard for competence.
"I'd have a beer with him." Who gives a fuck???
Problem is that you need to convince tens of millions of people to grow up. I think this chap here is merely suggesting we give the idiots what they want.
Candidates that will the whole party will find exciting are basically a once in a generation event, if that. This generation's such candidate was Obama. Democrats as a party are reliant on far too big of a tent to make this a viable strategy or thought process.
A candidate that I, a far left progressive, would get excited about is a candidate that a lot of center-of-left or moderate voters would find boring. Even within wings of the party there's not going to be lockstep excitement (go back to Dec 2019 and ask Sanders supporters how "excited" they'd be for a Warren candidacy!).
This line of argument is consistently just people pining for candidates that more closely reflect our own ideological views, not a reflection of the reality available to us. There was no such candidate in 2016 or 2020 and won't be for 2024. I'm not going to hold my breath for 2028 either. Maybe by 2032 we might see the next Obama, someone that excites the whole party.
I gave you an upvote because I agree with the spirit of your message. However, I would like to remind you that if the DNC hadn't literally rigged the system against Bernie Sanders in 2016 that we more than likely would not be where we are today.
There was a HUGE amount of grassroots support behind Bernie (the most in modern American history), and the Democrats burned a lot of goodwill with voters by shoe-horning Hillary in as the heir apparent. There has never been a candidate that bridged the gap the way Bernie did in my lifetime, and that one single decision did incalculable damage to the world.
I will gladly vote for Biden because I know it is a moral imperative to do so, and I am not a moron. I am also not trying to take away from his legislative victories because I believe they warrant more merit than they have received. However, I will not easily forgive or forget the chicanery, underhanded closed door attempts at king-making, and generally coercive tactics utilized by the DNC that got us here.
The support for Bernie wasn't even just in the Democratic party. Young moderates and even a few conservatives I knew were excited about him.
That's exactly what I meant when I said he bridged the gap. Every single person I knew from every walk of life in my state were Bernie supporters including a surprising number of rural voters, moderates, and younger conservatives as you said in your post. I have just never seen anyone who's messaging was so effective at bringing so many different people together over solution oriented propositions on the issues.
Nothing has ever jaded me as much politically as watching what the DNC did to Bernie. The amount of fear they had over a candidate who was able to muster legitimate support from a heterodox voter base was very telling, and it shaped my political views more than any other experience in my life.
I think the bigger problem was that he was completely honest and showed that his message was consistent with his actions and votes over his career. Being smeared and pushed aside early on (see Rachel Maddow and all of the media trying to say Hilary had too many Delegates already pledged to her to overcome before the first primary vote did incredible damage that the "she got more votes than Bernie" group cleanly ignore had a huge effect, and that he still nearly won anyway shows how big the support really was that the Democratic party actively destroyed.
Yeah, many of whom went on to vote for Donald Trump in the general election.
It's "great" that he had so much "moderate" support, but if it had anything whatsoever to do with his actual policy views, so many of them wouldn't have stayed home or voted Trump.
They just shifted that excitement from Bernie to Trump, because it has nothing to do with policy. They ultimately made things worse by poisoning the well against Hillary.
These aren't the kind of people you want to court.
I disagree. If he had won the primary, those would have been voters for him instead of Trump, and I truly believe he would have won, or at least been more competitive than Hillary. People misjudged the mood of the voters badly prior to that election.
Huge Bernie fan. Voted for him in the primary.
But can we please stop pushing this bullshit agitprop designed to divide Democrats and progressives?
Political parties aren't government organizations, they're private companies. Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat, and even though he often caucuses with them, he's been very outspoken against the Democratic party. Why would anyone ever think that the DNC would do anything to promote him over Hillary?
Even with all of that said, Bernie still came pretty damn close, and the DNC didn't "shoe-horn" anyone in. Hillary got more votes, it's time to get over it.
I fail to see how you could misconstrue my comment as an attempt to divide the base? I specifically said that I would gladly vote for Biden. That does not mean that I am afraid to levy legitimate criticism against the inherently anti-democratic primary process that has continuously shown itself as a failed mechanism for protecting democracy as well as providing for the material well being of our fellow citizens.
Yes, this is a big problem, and at some point we are going to have to engage with this issue if we wish to move forward as a civilization. I agree that this election is not the time to break down or deconstruct this monster that has been created. I would think it should be self-evident that there are serious issues with this kind of monolithic architecture given the Republican Party has fully bent the knee while being almost fully taken over by fascist, christian-nationalist, authoritarians. If you think this is a problem that is just going to go away if we happen to preserve democracy for one more election cycle then I would implore you to listen to reason. The system that allowed this to happen is inherently a problem (amongst many others, I will grant you). Again, at some point we are going to have to wrestle that demon. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but it needs to be done while we still have the opportunity to do so....
Agree to disagree on that one. I think the results speak for themselves. Hillary was a historically unpopular candidate who followed a historically popular candidate. It was a losing proposition, and the apathy towards voting for her is exactly how we got here. You can continue to ignore the very real Kompromat that ultimately soured the electorate against her, as well as the tactical decisions by the DNC (via her dear friend and chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz) to both prop up Trump as a spoiler candidate and ignore the populist support behind Bernie in favor of continuing their structural consolidation of power. However, I am not so naïve, and so willing to forgive or forget as I said before. That does not mean that I will bury my head in the sand, and throw fuel on the fire by disengaging with the political system therefore doing my part in guaranteeing the downfall of democracy ™. Instead, I make it a point to engage locally as well as nationally so that I am practicing what I preach by supporting candidates who are attempting to reframe these issues in a way that is more constructive for future generations.
It will only last a few more years, but in the near-ish future the problem will take care of itself. (They're both very old)
Henry Kissinger is still alive.
Spoiler alert: The problem doesn't end with some old people. Greed is eternal and has to be actively fought the entire time.
Hillary was also not-Trump. That worked out well.
I'd rather we nominate someone who is electable, i.e., palatable to centrists, even if they're not as exciting as someone who would move the Overton window leftwards.
What if is instead of focusing on a vanishingly small number of centrist swing voters, you focused on the 35% of non-voters by improving their material conditions?
The majority of non-voters believe there is no material difference between candidates. Improving candidates is not going to fix that. The problem is lower level civic engagement rather than “Pick a more leftist candidate.”
https://dc.medill.northwestern.edu/blog/2020/12/15/for-nonvoters-it-doesnt-matter-who-moves-into-the-white-house/
Because those people just don't show up to vote.
Maybe all the people bitching need to show up EVERY ELECTION and then they'll start getting good candidates. But time and again progressives and everyone else just decide to not vote so therefore don't even come close to getting what they want. Vote in every election for even dog catcher like it's your religion and maybe you'll start seeing change.
Psh...no. That would never work. /s
Biden may not be exciting, but he's had a surprising amount of policy victories given the deadlock in congress. And he hasn't tried to burn our democracy to the ground to satisfy his own ego, so that's always a plus.
That’s because democracy was burnt to the ground awhile ago and all that’s left are corporate shills.
When do you suggest that this happened and what was the cause?
When JFK was murdered and we dropped off from the gold standard.
Lmao the fuckin gold standard.
I wanna wondering when we'd get these weird-ass takes on this site
I'm dumb, care to explain why the gold standard is a wild take?
Gold standard at this point in time would be deflationary (if the population is growing faster than new gold is being mined, at least). Deflation incentivizes money hoarding, and disincentivizes loans and investments. Capitalism basically breaks down during times of deflation (investments dry up, people stop spending money on things they don't absolutely need, companies lay off or go out of business, unemployment rises).
From a non-US standpoint this is rather easy:
You have 2 geriatric options. Option 1 would lead to a dictatorship. Option 2 would lead to the - non-ideal - status quo.
How the fuck do you even have to think about which option would be better???
fuckin find a decent nominee then
In 2020 there were double digits dems in the primary...
In 2024 we're expected to believe the only choice is Biden or a Republican.
If you're pissed "there's no other nominee" be mad at the party leaders who aren't allowing a primary. And realize there's 100s of people qualified to run as a Dem
Double digit nominees...that all lost to Biden.
We gonna drag them up again? So they can lose again?
... That's what a primary is for. So people can, like, actually choose.
There are a LOT of people who don't want Biden for another four years. There are people who didn't like him, but have warmed up to him.
Would he win a primary? Yeah, probably, because of incumbent advantage.
But that should be for people to decide.
Cool. The requirements to force a debate are all posted publicly. Find someone who wants to stop Biden’s policies and run them.
Fun fact: if an incumbent President has a Primary, they are exponentially more unlikely to win the Presidency again as it can easily be spun into a "vote of no confidence" narrative.
There were four primaries in 2020 where the contest had candidates other than Biden and Bernie running. Biden lost three of them.
46 primaries had no one under 70 running on either side.
You mean like one that already beat Trump once?
Maybe one that isn't older than average life expectancy already let alone after another term. Just an idea.
Cool, if that candidate showed up and won the Democratic primary in 2020 I would have voted for them. As things stand I'll go with the most viable one that's most likely to defeat fascism. That's the incumbent, Joe Biden. I don't care if he's elderly.
I mean, I agree. If I were from the US I would also be voting for Biden. But it's a really sad state of affairs there isn't a better option. The system is ridiculous.
As an American, I'll be the first to talk about the inadequacies in our electoral system, especially for President. However, I don't think the tradition of incumbents getting the 'benefit of the doubt' and skipping a primary are a problem. They also aren't part of the 'system', that is entirely the choice of the DNC. Presidents are limited to two 4 year terms, so why not run back-to-back? It works most of the time.
The rest of the system is fucked.
The DNC choosing the candidate is absolutely part of the overall system. If that's how it works, that's how it works.
Which, is ridiculous. Maybe it makes sense this term but the fact he ran last time also makes no sense to me.
A country of 300 million people and the senile are in charge, like dude there are far better people for that job, just retire already.
Is that ageist? Yes and I stand by it. People over 70 and certainly those over 80 are in mental decline. This is just the reality. Why have a leader in mental decline? Absolutely wild to me it really is.
Can't defeat fascism with enablers of fascism.
If the DNC didn't say there would be no primary on day 1 then we might have actually been able to see people step forward. Marianne Williamson is at least running on the issues and is physically capable of having a two hour conversation. Biden... not so much
Marianne Williamson, the pseudoscience and conspiracy nutter that helped convince a bunch of people with HIV that medicine doesn't work and praying and willpower would cure them instead?
I don't know why they're so content to hitch themselves to terrible candidates. I've never in my life voted Republican, and the last time I was excited about a democratic nominee was Obama (RIP young idealistic me). Hillary had more baggage than a travelling circus, and felt a lot like just dead ass casting a vote for Goldman Sachs to run the oval office; Primary Biden made Jeb Bush seem like a live wire, besides not really having much to get excited about on his platform. Bernie was basically the only exciting thing the democrats have had going in soon to be over a decade now. The part has to do better.
They had a lot of what I considered exciting candidates in the primaries; Yang, Sanders, and Warren come to mind. They didn't win because they weren't as viable or popular.
Williamson is a nutcase, and Kennedy is a racist anti-vaxxer. How about we get a serious candidate or two?
As if Biden wasn't already a serious candidate with a provable winning record.
Biden is clearly the better option and it shows by how much money the Republicans and the far right are dumping into "Democratic candidates" like RFK Jr and Dr. Cornell West. Which is also why the Right wingers and their "Democratic" proxies are the only ones trying to push for a democratic primary that would set a new precedent by primarying an incumbent Democratic President.
The only person this infighting about these unqualified challengers to Biden helps is Trump or whatever MAGA loyalist that replaces him once Trump finally winds up in prison. (Hopefully)
cornel west isn't running for democrat nominee.
Capable of a two hour conversation maybe, but a strong candidate? Not even close
I think if there was a regular debate schedule it could have gotten interesting. But with the way it is now, you're absolutely correct
I think Dem debates would absolutely help to hold Biden to more progressive positions but no one worth the limelight is running (I'm sure partially due to not holding an open primary). I think '28 is Newsome's race to lose. He's got name recognition and is a pretty good debater in conservative spaces so far. Not as progressive as I'd like but I've been saying that since I could vote
He has definitely been positioning himself for it. The insulin moves are welcome, but the fact he let a single payer bill expire after promising to pass it leaves an all too familiar sting. But perhaps he can at least be moved on reducing prices for more pharmaceuticals and descheduling marijuana due to its legalization in CA. We'll see.
Federal ban on single-family zoning.
I'd vote for him
I always viewed Biden as the lemon I suck on to cleanse my palette between courses, now they want the lemon to be the whole damn meal.
Then maybe get a better candidate? I'm pretty sure most sane Americans will vote for anyone not Trump. It's not that hard, just use another candidate.....
You can't run on having people vote for you just to avoid voting in the enemy. You must get people to vote for you because they want you. One day, a broadly populist Reagan-like Republican candidate will re-appear and he will utterly destroy your country.
Lesser evilism does nothing but make it easier for the next populist to take advantage of the dissonance between the American citizen and the American political institutions. If we keep voting for bad candidates they will keep giving us bad candidates.
Loyal democrat, I will happily vote for Joe Biden.
The Democrats lost me when than ran Hillary over Bernie.
We will never get a progressive with the two party system. We are just voting hard R vs centrist R at this point.
Yup, better give up! /s
I was disappointed too, but there's only one party fighting for what I value, so they get my vote.
I don't think the Greens will win though.
Fuck the greens. Their leadership takes gop cash to help split the left vote.
You can't vote for moon shot candidates in a first past the post election system. All that ever does is help the candidate you don't want.
If you want to see change, you have to volunteer. Change starts at the bottom. Not at the top.
They also almost never run candidates for lower office. How about trying for mayor before president, Green Party?
i don't want either the democrat or the republican candidate, so i'll be voting green. at least i plan to. i suppose i could be swayed if one of the parties nominated someone who aligned with jill stein/cornel west.
Then you're voting authoritarian.
Don't fool yourself. The math behind FPtP voting doesn't end any other way if you vote 3rd party.
i only vote for people I want to win. get your candidate to say what I like, and you will get my vote
I just wrote the first party other than the dems or reps that I could think of, because I know that neither the former or latter fight for what their voters want.
Well, parties don't fight for what you want. They're too big.
Representatives fight for you. That's literally their job.
I have a congressional rep for the district I live in. I make sure to attend one town hall every year to make myself heard and let him know what I want him to fight for.
And even then, he has to take the wants and needs of roughly 130,000 people into account.
And you actually believe what you're saying?
Do you know how they finance their campaigns? Do you think that your concerns outweigh one of the campaign donations they get? If you multiply your concerns by 130k it still won't match a single donation from a corporate donor in their interest.
And when they do, we get stuff like former green party Sinema killing the first climate change bill that could pass in a generation.
Sorry, my reply was just a quick reaction trying to highlight that neither dems nor reps fight for their voters.
Bernie voters were statistically unreliable at the polls. He lost that one and isn't running this cycle, so what is the relevance?
When the polls were skewed in hillarys favor they would seem unreliable
Since his voters are statistically not worth pursuing, when do they stop getting blamed for Clinton losing?
thank you
BoTh SiDES!1!1!1!
K thx. 🤷♀️
I’m honestly surprised that this is such a popular take. You know how your country works right? How the Supreme Court works?
If nothing else, is your Ideological purity worth 4 years of conservative (read batshit crazy fundies) appointments to the federal bench?
From where I’m standing, outside your political system, it seems like a colossally stupid argument. Unless of course you are agitating for the fundies.
Just go vote Democrat. Then lie about it to your friends if you have to, and hope they do the same.
Politics are a bus stop. They don't get you exactly to where you want to go but they'll get you close. I was very bummed about the Bernie situation and wish we had an actual left party but I'll vote Democrat.
In general, yes.
But especially now, refusing to vote strategically when the other major party nominee is a known authoritarian that already (among other things) tried to violently overthrow the constitutional order, seems just insane to me.
You don’t have too put up lawn signs or phone bank or whatever. Just hold your nose and tick the box of the major party candidate guy that is not an active threat democracy.
i don't think there's going to be one.
Oh come off it.
oh, you think biden's pentagon is spreading democracy in Africa?
One bus is heading downhill with the accelerator floored. The other bus is facing uphill and revving its engine like mad, but is coasting downhill in neutral.
Those of us walking uphill get to gripe.
Hillary beat Bernie by 3 million votes
one of the biggest issues, in my humble and also arrogant opinion, is that no political party in any English-speaking country, represents any interests of anyone earning under 7 figures. Maybe even 8 figures, and they have 0 interest or motivation in changing that — despite the lip-service both main parties make for it.
Are they "loyal" because they have no other choice? There's your problem.
You'd better believe I'll turn out. I don't care if Biden is sometimes a disaster, I vote D to protect my LGBT friends. Accelerationism only hurts people
I'm 40+, but youngsters are probably thinking, 'Vote for old white guy #1 or old white guy #2, who cares, neither can relate.' I voted for Joe last time only because Bernie wasn't running. I'm thinking Marianne Williamson this time, though. I don't know if Joe will make it, and I definitely don't want Kamala as president. She put over 1,500 people in jail for marijuana violations and then laughed about it when she was asked if she ever smoked marijuana.
Democrats have done a shit job at selling their victories as well as their vision for the country, as always.
Then come election time they are always wondering why aren't Democratic voters more excited to vote for them.
I am so sick of that same cycle repeating over and over again. Republicans voters are so adamant about getting their people in power that they will break the law and vote twice, and Dem voters aren't excited enough to even show up at the polls.
I also have to add that it's infuriating that the Dems are so splintered of a party that they consider black voters are their most loyal demographic. Nothing against them, but for fucks sakes guys at best black folks only represent 13% of the population. You can't win any elections even if you won every single black vote. They aren't even the largest minority group. Latinos represent just under 20% but many of them support the GOP. Dems need to stop turning their backs on some much larger demographic groups out there. Because they focus on just a few smaller groups, that's why they are always scrounging for votes even in elections that they should have in the bag. It is embarrassing how poorly run the Democratic party is, quite frankly.
so while I'm sure this is a factor it really has to be pointed out that the media really wants to play shit up to keep the batshit GOP viable. It sells papers (clicks, whatever). The WaPo is bad, but when you look at NYT columns it really skews right in a weird and alarming way
As someone who voted Barr-Romney-Johnson-Biden I’m gonna be in the booth pissed I’m voting for Biden again considering the libertarians fully lost the plot and Republicans went full fascist with trump
It's pretty obvious who to vote for considering Republicans are actively attacking our country. Sorry, I don't vote for terrorists.
God, they really think the problem is a lack of outreach and communication huh?
How about y'all fuckn listen?
Are you surprised?
Neoliberals want to run the country like a corporation, and they've been running the party like it was for decades. It's why the most important thing they care about is fundraising.
Whether they do anything or not once elected isn't something they're worried about. They just worry about how to keep getting donations.
So yeah. To them the biggest problem is outreach and communication
That's because candidates care about winning, and fundraising correlates to victory most of the time, (>70%.)
Because both parties care the most about fundraising, and they're the only two options...
If it's a good candidate, donations will follow. If all you care about is the donations, you're always going to fighting voter apathy.
Which is exactly what's been happening
Someone being so passionately wrong is kind of adorable ngl
Fundraising correlates to victory
Unfortunately I think this is everything running just as intended. They get to stay in power because the other guys are actually insane, and they don't actually have to do anything. What's the worst that can happen? The Republicans win? The rich (them) will just keep getting richer babyyy, just like always. And they provide democrats with really good campaign material, again, without actually having to do anything.
I'm not going to turn out for Biden. Turns out Aussies are not allowed to vote in the U.S. elections. 🦘
not with that attitude
It’s only like 300k in donations and you too can participate in this dumpster fire
**"only like 300k" ** ;)
Good to know it's an option!
Well I'll be there, but it's just because I'd vote for a dead cat over anything the GOP will dredge up.
He was too old the first time, I'm surprised he made it this long. I was under the impression that their plan was to have biden die during his term so kamala became the first woman president.
Democrats only lose if the Democrats beat themselves. And they seem to be trying to do that.
You mean what republicans are doing extremely consistently?
Funny given I'm only a democratic voter because socialist isn't a viable option where I live, yet I absolutely vote Democrat 99% of the time when it's an option.
For those unaware, most smaller offices the opposition party won't even bother with a candidate. By and large, Republicans have no chance in sense cities (like Chicago or NYC) and Democrats have no chance in just about anywhere rural.
I've experienced a infinitesimal fraction of the bullshit, and empathize with the disillusionment. The system is dying. Trump did his damage already. That and worse are inevitable. Money in politics. Money in all of it, i mean you have people being locked up in the name of corporate, and ecobomic interest ffs. I vote in all the elections especially local because that can help shift police behavior for the better of day to day people. I didn't always vote. When trump first won I was listening on a broken wireless am radio in a shitty apt with no power or food in absolute wonder at the depravity of man and the meaning of it all for me... I didn't vote that year. Fuck me right? I didn't even know where the polls were. The people not voting are the ones pushing boundaries IMHO. What we are opposed to is the ruling class. The dnc bootlickers and fascists alike can get fucked.
Wed need the second coming of Jesus to save this version of "democracy" ffs.
There zero chance democrats dont show up if trumps on the ballot nobody is better at energizing the democrats base than trump
It's almost like he made a bunch of promises and then the democrats deliberate self-sabotaged so that they wouldn't have to actually fufil them.
What's that, we can't fix the senate because the parliamentarian said so? I guess the filibuster is insurmountable then. It certainly isn't like we can just ignore or replace said parlimentarian.
What's that, rather than using the clear and unambiguous means of forgiving student debt, we're going to use a method that the Republicans can easily block with a lawsuit that goes to their bought-and-paid-for Supreme Court? Guess you're stuck in debtor's hell forever.
Campaign on worker and union rights but then pass laws to force the railroad workers back to work without striking and without any rights.
Republicans are traitors and Democrats are nigh-on useless, and they wonder why voter turnout looks grim.
First of all, I don't even understand the mindset of someone who doesn't vote. So you don't really like any of the candidates, so what? Vote for the least worst option or the actual worst option could win (see: 2016).
Second, to be fair, any party could try running someone who's less than a million years old. American politics are so bizarre this way. Canada's current PM was 43 when he was elected and still more than 30 years younger than America's current president. Parliament is populated largely by middle agers and a few younger members, whereas congress is a sea of bald and gray, pockmarked by a small handful of 40 somethings? Shit is ridiculous.
In a lot of areas voting isn't easy. It's something you have to work to do. Why stand in the freezing November air worried you're gonna be late for work and lose your job if you're not excited? Why do it in the morning? Because maybe you're me in your 20s and don't have a car and you can actually make it to when the polls open in the morning but not the evening with how the schedules run.
Why go up to the election office and force them to take your mail in ballet after it was rejected twice because your signature "didn't match" if you're not excited?
Why finagle a time in your day when you can stand in the cold for an hour without your baby if you're not excited?
Why stand until you want to literally because the line was way longer than you thought it was and you didn't bring a chair this time if you're not excited?
All this happened to me over the course of me voting in my adult life. This doesn't count how voting locations constantly move on me for reasons unknown. It's not that the voting location moved. For some reason I was just assigned a different location. The times where I've been given the run around about where I should vote. The times where I tried to vote, but whoops all the machines are broken and I decided that I didn't want to wait for a repair which could take hours.
Voting is hard. It can be a breezy affair, but I've never experienced that in presidential elections or midterms, only really in special state elections or pure local elections. The system is definitely rigged against you and you have to ask yourself if it's worth fighting. Is denying my kid's time with me worth this? Is enduring this strain on my body worth this? Is the mental energy when I'm tired from work worth this? I get what you'd say no even if I always say yes
Oh yeah, that's another thing. For something that's supposed to be a sacred right, voting is made absurdly difficult in the US.
In Canada, employers are legally obligated give up to three hours PTO to vote. There are usually two or three advance polls if election day doesn't work for you. Every podunk town in the country has a polling station setup. Basically every form of ID imaginable is accepted. You can register to vote by mail online weeks before an election, receive your ballot and return it in the included prepaid envelope.
Elections Canada bends over backwards to give everyone the opportunity to vote. But it's like America doesn't actually want people to vote at all.
Pretty sure that every state (with maybe a handful of exceptions?) provides for required unpaid time off work to vote. There's also lots of places that have early voting, for weeks ahead of an election, with early and late hours. Mail-in voting has expanded dramatically since Covid.
But I get it. There are also lots of places in the country where voting is hard, and there's a very clear reason why. The more people who vote, the more likely that a Democrat will win and a Republican will lose. It is always Republicans who want to make voting harder, and it is always Democrats who want to make voting easier.
You want it to be easy to vote, so you don't have to be as excited about voting? Go vote for the people who want to make it easy to vote, and stop voting for people who want to make it hard to vote. If nothing else, get excited about making it easier to vote.
For a lot of people "unpaid time off" isn't a favor. You're asking them to pay to vote.
Plus the rules frequently only come into play if their work shift makes it literally impossible to make it to the polls. If they could wake up from their third shift job to get in line as polls open before making it to their other job at 7:45 sharp, then no time off for you. If you need to get your kids to school during that time slot? Too bad, that's time you could technically be voting, so it's not your employer's responsibility.
I didn't say it was perfect, certainly not everywhere. I was trying to point out that it's easier to vote in some places than in others, sometimes dramatically. And that it's really simple to know who's responsible for making it easier or harder.
Sorry, but voting is a civic duty.
Not a pastime.
Not a hobby.
Not a privilege.
A duty.
Republicans win when you don't vote, and they get you to not vote by making it difficult, if not dangerous.
Just remember, not voting will only ever make things worse.
I cannot vote for you.
When someone has three kids and lives paycheck-to-paycheck, asking them to sacrifice pay to vote is not justified. You're saying, "vote or feed your kids, pick one."
I'm not saying that you should let your kids starve. I'm saying that this situation has been engineered on purpose, and that it perpetuates itself by design.
If I could, I would stand in line for you. I can afford it.
But I can't. Legally, I can't.
Privilege.
Not them tho, you. Your privilege is why you can't understand it.
Some people have to wait 8 hours in line while taking a day off work without pay. All for someone whose not going to actually help them. Their choice is "things get obviously worse for me" and "things get worse for me, but slower and no one talks about it".
We could try actually following thru with campaign promises and helping them, but for some reason we dont. Once elected all the Dem presidents in the last 3-4 decades immediately start telling us their campaign promises are obviously impossible so they're just not going to really try.
Even Obamacare was just Mitt Romney's plan by the time it happened.
Personally tho, it takes less than an hour for me to vote and I get a paid half day from work to do so. So I always vote.
That doesn't mean I assume it's as easy for everyone else
Isn't "things get worse slower" better than "things get worse right away?" What happened to pragmatism? If things get worse slower, there's a chance to stop them in the future.
Are you determined to not have allies of any kind?
I get that your state is fucked, but as a resident of one of the other 49 states, my options to help are limited as long as we lack one of the the chambers of Congress since the gop is literally the problem here.
That would be because we don't have control of the House. It's difficult to get work done when the side in control of the button that stops everything from working sits on the fucking button while shrieking racist epitaphs at the top of their lungs.
That sounds a whole lot like lesser evil bullshit. There is no lesser evil, only ever expanding, ever growing evil.
If you have to choose between two evils, and you don't choose the lesser one, then you are an absolute knobhead.
The knobs are the ones that think lesser evil exists.
Are you saying that you can't see any difference between, for example, farting in an elevator vs stabbing a mother's eyes out in front of their children? Or are you just being dishonest and contrarian?
The difference is democrats would supply the knife for a republican to stab the mother
I try not to do this, but here's a reddit comment from 6 years ago that breaks down the voting records between Democrats and Republicans on major legislation.
bOtH sIdEs arguments are fucking insane.
So you're saying the act of handing a person a knife is equal to the act of stabbing someone with a knife.
I don't think you actually believe that, because it's ludicrous and illogical. I think you're just making up cute sayings in order to avoid actually addressing the subject.
This kind of dishonesty is tedious, to be frank. If this is all you're willing to contribute, then you can waste your own time.
Hurrrdurrr BoTh SidEs i am such a fucking enlightened voted
Too bad you don't understand what the enlightened part is, when the left is talking about enlightened voters we are mocking centrists. And they're too ignorant to understand that they are the punchline
One of the choices is literally a fascist dictator wannabe.
There is no third choice with a chance in Hell of winning.
Of course there are lesser evils. I'd much rather have President Nixon than President Hitler. If those were my two choices, I'd vote Nixon.
Well if we're just making shit up I would rather drink orange juice than cyanide. The problem was the duopoly is that one is cyanide the other is arsenic
Do you not understand hypothetical examples when they're presented to you? Do you have some major cognitive impairment which disallows you from comprehending them?
Those were not hypothetical examples. Here's pulling two different opposing things out of your ass
Sorry... what do you think 'hypothetical' means?
What you're advocating for helps the greater evil, bud.
The greater evil is doing the same thing over and over again as things get worse while expecting different results. The current state of the GOP is directly related to Bill Clinton's Southern Strategy
bill clinton's southern strategy? umm
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
Yes, bill Clinton's Southern Strategy
Yes, bill Clinton's Southern Strategy
You are very opinionated for someone who doesn't know what they're talking about.
I know exactly what I'm talking about liberals not paying attention to their own party politics is the problem
can you paraphrase and explain what this means and it's relevancy here?
Bill Clinton helped start the DNC shift to the right by appealing directly to southern Dixiecrats. And the Overton window has been moving to the right since
Should have thought of that at least 2 years ago.
About two years ago the White House was signing off on proposals from the city of Memphis to spend tens of millions of dollars of COVID money on police officers, which is one of the ways federal taxpayer money got put into the pockets of the people who beat Tyre Nichols to death
I don't cross picket lines, why would I vote for a union buster? Balk all you want but that's my hard line. Already listed out the local reps I can't vote for because of the same reason. Y'all can bend your beliefs however you want to justify feedin into the same old cycle but I told them this was my hard line and they crossed it. Fuck them.
I think it’s a losing message to campaign on “everything is fine” when the vast majority of Americans are struggling.
Breaking Points covered this article and highlights that the current expectation is to simply say “we’re better than trump”. I don’t think this is very effective and believe that only an economic message can sway voters.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/Kza2iEqzwk4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
I’m sorry to bring up Reddit, but being interested in US politics (I’m not from the US) I’m impressed with the level of discussion here.
Almost every political reddit comment section I’ve encountered was a cesspool of such polarized left vs right opinions that anything more nuanced and centered was buried right away.
Because he's over a decade past senior citizen.
Who the fuck do you think your constituents are? All retired senior citizens?
If a 35 year old was running, I'd vote for them literally for the age alone, providing there were no fascism ties.
We need to stop electing people that have not worked a job in over 60 years. It's a fucking joke.
I will vote for anyone under 40. I will NEVER vote for a senior citizen.
Fuck this bullshit.
Incumbents historically win reelection more often than not, and the election hasn't started properly yet.
They didn't turn out in the midterms because Trump wasn't on the ballot.
Give people the option of 4 more years of Biden or going back to Trump, they'll turn out. I'm not concerned about that.
I'm more concerned about congress
Oh look - election season has officially kicked off with the DNC's first attempt at trying to guilt trip people into voting for their shitty candidate.
Expect many MANY more of these in the months to come.
It really takes a special kind of scumbag to decide that the proper strategy is to nominate a dismally corrupt and/or incompetent sack of shit then try to guilt trip people into voting for them and blame the voters if they lose, when they could just nominate a decent candidate and people would willingly and even eagerly vote for them and they'd win easily.
I sometimes wonder what it's like to be that entirely devoid of principles or integrity.
I imagine it involves a lot of alcohol.
Nobody needs to initiate any type of guilt trip. We've all been through 4 years of Trump. We currently are (finally) starting to see the indictments that wrought.
We have seen what DeSantis has done to Florida. Where, just today, they effectively outlawed AP Psychology for high school students. State-level brain drain, and trans genocide.
There's no option here and you're a piece of shit if you don't vote, or if you vote for the party that is literally an organized crime syndicate at this point, with a candidate who literally (and I mean like literally literally) should be in prison right now.
If you still need to be guilt tripped in order to make the right choice, then it sounds like you're kind of a piece of shit.
We saw all that because democrats thought they knew best and pushed hillary as the nominee in 2016. A candidate so shitty that she lost against trump of all people. Many important lessons that democrats refuse to learn -- likely intentionally. But yeah, shame voters for not voting the way you want them to instead of, you know, giving them something worth voting for. Truly a democracy.
Yes, we live in a fundamentally broken country. What are you going to do about it? Do you think abstaining from voting is gonna help? Or maybe you'll really stick it to them with a "protest vote"?
OR, are you going to vote for people (down ballot too, something Bernie Bros who gave up on the DNC didn't seem to care about after they found out he lost) that aren't actively promoting LGBTQ genocide, aren't gutting our public education, aren't refusing to accept climate change is real, and who aren't pushing their respective states (and now nation) over a precipice to literal fascism? What do you think happens after that? Leftist thought leaders will magically lead us to glorious revolution? I assume after we un-execute them, of course.
The only way to ever get where you want to go is through gradual change. Moving the Overton window (something that right has gotten figured out) more and more left with each local, state, and federal election, until candidates that more closely match your values are actually viable (because of a sane Overton window).
That doesn't happen overnight, unless you're advocating for literal revolution, and more often than not that doesn't really achieve the original stated goals. And a bunch of dead people for literally nothing.
I vote every time and for democrats down the entire ballot every single time. I'm just not stupid enough to think that'll change anything and I'm not stupid enough to think you can browbeat people into voting the way you want "because the other guy is worse". Democrats need to do better, but they won't because they're not sincere.
Oh yeah, and those "Bernie Bros" voted for Hillary in higher numbers than Hillary supporters voted for Obama (they chose to vote for McCain instead) so quit it with the smug superiority act.
I'm really sick of people on the left playing this game. In politics, the perfect is often the enemy of the good. Biden is the candidate because he's the incumbent and has the best chance of winning. Full stop. He's not a shitty candidate even if he isn't your perfect candidate.
If people don't vote for Biden they are voting for the end of the US and democracy around the globe.
They are tired of being promised 40 acres and only given lip service. The DNC uses minorities as political pawns to be used and tossed aside the day after election and minority communities have caught on. Hopefully they will turn out in huge numbers to support Cornel West. Someone that offers the same rhetoric and policy Bernie did without being a party sheepdog.
Cornell West, who's campaign is being run by Jill "lunch with Putin" Stein. I thought more of West than to be an obvious Republican plant. I don't even care what I think about Biden, he is the incumbent president and will be the candidate. I'll vote for him in a second because the alternative is literally the likely destruction of the United States as we know it.
This isn't hard. The US is a two party system right now. I don't understand why people think a third party is ever a good idea right now. Maybe third parties should run in local elections instead of this dumb spoiler candidate for the president vs
The thing is that there's never a "good time" to vote third party because we're locked in to a forever crisis. And if you think the democrats will fix it, I think that you're mistaken. IMO, the democrats haven't been serious about fixing stuff basically since Johnson. Carter had a lot of good ideas, but his legacy as president is basically "that guy where gas prices started going up"; Clinton did address some problems (like the deficit), which got the republicans big mad, but failed to address a bunch of other serious issues that would have been much less painful to solve in the 90s; Obama's basically the same way, only two wars kept him from even dreaming of a balanced budget. The democrats basically just stop making things actively worse for a little bit. Sometimes I wonder if this is what it was like to live through the demise of the Roman republic; Caesar is coming, our democracy is floundering and ineffectual, and the best that we've got is to shrug and vote for "not a Nazi". Don't get me wrong: never, ever vote for the Nazi, but come on, we have got to do better than that or things or going to keep getting a lot worse.
Nice liberal bullshit neocon talking points you have there. We have a 2 party system because liberals allow it. They are so comfortable with the oppressive status quo and are terrified of the idea of being inconvenienced by the progress of others. There was a reason MLK warned society about liberals. They are the sole reason nothing meaningful for the general public ever gets done.
We won't be voting for your shitty CEO owned warhawk candidate, so if Dems lose the WH this was the work of Dem voters.
No, we have a 2-party system because of Duverger's Law, and liberals are the ones advocating for ranked choice voting, which fixes the situation and allows for more diversity of viable candidates.
The Democratic Party is absolutely NOT advocating for ranked choice voting, and explicitly oppose things like abolishing the electoral college
You are conflating liberal voters with the DNC, the DNC is perfectly ok with elections and voting as they are.
The DNC is fucked and run by idiots, no argument. But voting as though you're NOT running a FPtP election when you are actually running a FPtP election is so stupid there are no words in the English language profane enough to describe it.
The system works one way. You play the game, or you get played by the game. Voting third party for president or Senate is not how the game is played, like it or not.
You want change? Vote in your local elections. That's where change starts. Do it enough, and get enough other people to do the same, and THEN you can change things up-ticket.
Play the game. Don't get played. Don't waste your vote. The other option these days is literally a fascist.
I'm living in reality, however unpleasant that may be. No "left" third party candidate will do anything but get Trump another term. I want better things for this country, but the way to get them isn't to help elect a fascist hopeful dictator. Change needs to start at the bottom, you seem really motivated, you should go run for City council and start making the change you want to see. Right now your answer to not liking one candidate is to choose the one that probably would love to put you in a reeducation camp.
We literally have over a year until the Election and Cornel West Doesn't have to go through all the hoops Sanders did by running in the Primaries.
It is unlikely, but it's not impossible that West could win. Because with 3 or more candidates in the race, a winner could get by with 30%, and once West starts polling in the double digits and the possibility he could win becomes more realistic, many disaffected democrats and some republicans will switch Sides.
I've never seen a 3rd party candidate get so much momentum this early on, and I've never seen an ecombant party freak out so much about 'spoilers' on an off year. I think the Democratic leadership see West as a Threat for good reason. It's not because of their, easily debunked "spoiler" narrative, it's because West could fuck up the entire progressive plantation.
Ross Perot
Incumbent
Hope the fascist hell you wish upon us treats you well. Work on your propaganda daddy Putin is really starting to just pay anyone.
Did they say that Ross Perot was a threat to the constitutional order? I find that unlikely, they certainly didn't make this much noise about it the year before the election.
And yes, everyone who disagrees with you is a Putin bot -- speaking of the early 90's, do you remember see how Clinton supported Yeltsin's coup which directly paved the way for Putin to take power in the first place? Of course, Bill couldn't have known that, but maybe the lesson here is we shouldn't be supported coup's in other countries, ya know, overthrowing democracies and putting fascists in power. That's bad right?
I totally agree, putting fascists in power is bad! So voting for a third party candidate that will split the vote of the left and bring fascism to the presidency is bad. If you really don't understand this you are lying to yourself or arguing in bad faith. I'm sure you will reply, but I'm done.
wishing for cornel west is not wishing for "fascist hell".
Wishing? Fine you got me wish your ass off. Voting for him though is splitting the vote and putting a fascist in power. Wish all you want but if you don't vote for the Democrat in the presidential election don't expect me to share my bread scraps while we are in the reeducation camp!
There are more than 2 choices. Democrats just don't have the balls to give up the entitlements they've come to rely on with the status quo.
Incorrect. In FPtP, the presidential race has only two options. Anything else is a vote for the candidate you don't want.
This has been proven mathematically.
@tidy_frog
incorrect
so-called "third party" candidates win the presidency in the USA. it is a fact.
I want more candidates like Cornel West.
I am excited to vote. Maybe another candidate can catch my attention too.... please? The one party system outside of swing states is boring. Biden was a not Trump vote which is also boring. We can do better than the current voting arrangement.
Wait, Cornell West is running?
As a third party, which will just split the liberal/centrist vote.
Splitting the vote is liberal bullshit myth, we wouldn't vote for your shitty candidates if there were no 3rd party candidates running
Ross Perot called and told you to suck it.
This.
History. Learn it.
Pay attention in class next time. It's a concern because it happens quite frequently in first past post voting systems.
Ralph Nader too.
As a third party candidate, which is useful presuming one wants to split the left.
Split the vote is liberal myth. If there were no 3rd party candidates we still wouldn't vote for your shitty corporate owned neo liberal warhawks.
Voting for a right wing party like the DNC does not position you on the left
It does when the other choice is an actual Nazi.
You do realize that we can disagree on the details and still be on the same side, yes?
Nazi or enabler of Nazi makes them both guilty.
By your own logic that makes you guilty
I don't enable Nazis, I oppose both right wing fascist parties
How many votes did Gore lose by in Florida? How many votes did Ralph Nader get in Florida?
IDK, maybe you should ask the 15% of democrats that voted for Bush instead of Gore, and not the 3% that voted Nader. Maybe you should ask Gore why he lost his own home state despite Clinton winning it by a huge margin 4 years earlier which would have won him the WH,, maybe you should ask the DNC why they rolled over in Florida and didn't challenge the results.
Democrats are not entitled to our votes, and do nothing to earn them. Even on the chance there is no 3rd party candidate running we wouldn't vote for your shitty candidates. Liberals are the reason government is so fucked up, they never hold their elected officials accountable. They could commit mass murder and still get elected.
No one is entitled to your votes. We're talking about pragmatism and reality, not entitlement. The reality is that in 2024, there are only two people who will have a chance of being president, one a Democrat and the other a Republican. That's just reality. You may not like it, but that is how things work. By voting third party, you are either spoiling the election or throwing your vote away. There is no third option there.
No, that is your reality, because you've experienced a lifetime of gaslighting to convince you that there are only two options. If 70 million Democrats voted third party, that third party would be first past the post thereby creating a third option. But the truth of the matter is duopoly voters are not concerned primarily about keeping the other party out, They're more concerned about being on the winning team. And they feel obligated by peer pressure for fear of being ostracized by your peers to fall in line and vote as the echo chamber tells you to
Yes! He's running as a green. And the democrats are 'concerned' and telling people don't vote third party or else you'll get trump!
But then when asked why they won't add something like STAR voting to their platform, they go quiet. They love holding us hostage and don't want to give that up! 🤣
If you vote third party in a presidential election then it is a wasted vote.
If third parties want to win presidential elections then they need to start by consistently and widely winning governorships, becoming state senators, reps, etc. They can’t win, and they won’t shift public debate, by running for president.
There's a good reason Bernie never has and never will.
He's been saying for decades he's never thought he could win the Dem primary. His presidential runs has always been about motivating change.
It's worked, and more importantly he's shown why voting third party is just as bad as not voting.
I'll start voting for 3rd parties when one emerges that's viable, or when we get some form of ranked choice voting; under our current first-past-the-post 2-party system it's a wasted vote that only serves the greater evil.
The only time I'll vote 3rd party in a FPtP system is when one I agree with officially replaces one of the two major parties. Anything less is a wasted vote for president or senator.
Anything local though...
I've wasted my vote in presidential elections and I'm proud to say it, then. I'll vote for who I want, and if the best mainline options are "old ass Nazi" and "old ass
racistsuper duper promise he's not racist anymore, here's a black VP", well, sucks to suck, do better.Not scared of voting third party; just because I've never voted R doesn't mean I've always voted D.
Yep
You shouldn’t be allowed to hold office if you’re over 50. Find someone under 50 and people might get excited.
I’m sick and tired of this gerontocracy. It’s always been pasty faced old men running the show. They readily sell out everyone’s futures because they won’t be there to face the consequences.
Presidents have to be at least 35 according to the Constitution. I don't know that limiting the presidency to a 15-year age window is the best plan either.
I have a suspicion that Tim Scott, if given full up-close magnification as a front runner, would creep people out with his unmarried, maybe-a-virgin, obvious Christian closet-case routine.
Refusing to be who you are, and instead allying yourself with the very people who hate who you really are, is some Stockholm shit by way of South Carolina.
That link is weird. Honeybees are not native to Arizona; they're an introduced species from Europe and Africa. There are native bees, but they don't build nests of easily meltable wax.
https://www.pollinator.org/pollinator.org/assets/generalFiles/AZ_bee_guide_FINAL.pdf
I was told that Biden was the more electable candidate. If this was the case this shouldn’t be an issue right?
Young black guy here (mid 20s), I'll be voting for Biden. Recently changed my party affiliation from Independent to Democrat.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Democrats are worried about a potential drop next year in turnout among Black voters, the party’s most loyal constituency, who played a consequential role in delivering the White House to President Biden in 2020 and will be crucial in his bid for reelection.
Such warning signals were initially papered over by other Democratic successes in 2022: The party picked up a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania, Sen. Raphael G. Warnock won reelection in Georgia and anticipated losses in the House were minimal.
Advocates expect that trend to continue, particularly with Vice President Harris on the ticket and the appointment of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who both made history as the first Black women in their roles.
Williams acknowledged any growth in support among Black voters could be harder for the GOP if Trump is the nominee — and there will be many other groups, including suburban White women, that the party will have to worry about in that case.
In Detroit, liberal organizers targeting Black turnout have made education about how politics work a centerpiece of their pitch, along with concrete examples of policies that have benefited people from state and federal legislation.
“There is a slow leaking of Black men from the base because the issues that they care about aren’t being addressed,” said Branden Snyder, executive director of Detroit Action, whose organizers tell people the exercise is more like writing a Yelp review to spur change.
I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Voting is easy. Read this document to the end. https://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html?id=23894046-us-v-trump-23-c
Consider, it might not be the candidate, it might be the political economy.
I'll still be here for Dems you silly goose.
He was supposed to do a single term. Surely he's not the best we can do.
Ugh who cares. Be an adult and do what's best with what we have.
Why does the thread act like primaries aren't a thing and that Biden didn't defeat a field of like 10 people who ran. There were multiple debates. The people voted.. Are we just in full acceptance of conspiracy theories that imply all the people who can vote are puppets without control?
I mean... there was the whole superdelegate thing
Yeah, the primary field essentially went up like flash paper over the course of a week or two, IIRC, with everyone committing to give their delegates to Biden, who wasn't who their voters had voted for.
Superdelegates have never decided a democratic primary.
At the end of the day the delegates are fully aware that if they take the nomination away from the candidate that won the most votes that it would utterly destroy the party and they would be surrendering that year's election up and down the ballot. Even in an extreme scenario like e.g. credible accusations of sexual assault coming out, they'd still be reticent to do it and would basically be stuck picking how to lose the election.
And before anyone says it: superdelegate pledges do not sway primary voters in any meaningful numbers. I'd wager >90% of democratic primary voters don't know what the fuck a superdelegate is, and likely only have superficial understanding of the overall process by which a nominee is selected. They're not going to know the superdelegate pledge counts or any of that bullshit. The people that follow politics enough to know that stuff are also overwhelmingly the people that care enough about politics that they're still going to vote for the same person, even if they do not outright know it's bullshit. The audience of voters that could be swayed by those pledges is so vanishingly small as to be borderline imaginary.
Superdelegates have only mattered to give losing candidates a justification they can offer to their supporters to keep running. Clinton tried it in 2008 and Sanders tried it in 2016. Amusingly this makes both of them a bit hypocritical on the subject...
The 2020 primary came down to the not-Sanders wing of the party starting off heavily divided and then consolidating on a single candidate after enough of them were winnowed out by the early states. Biden only survived that long because he ran a frugal campaign and had a strategy on SC that he was going to stick to. Honestly, going in I thought it was a horrible strategy with no chance of success. I was clearly quite wrong.
Yeah snuffing out collective bargaining broke any chance of me voting dem.
So you support how Republicans are voting then? They're historically great with collective bargaining agreements. 🙄
The current dems are conservative and just as damaging as republicans. Im not falling for this hostage situation anymore, the hostage is dead and outlawing collective bargaining was the execution. Im only voting for progressive parties
The rail workers got the sick time they asked for.
B-b-but they didn't make a big show of it! How can I support someone who does some of what I want but doesn't cover it in theatrics?
Not all of them. And not as much as if theyd been allowed to collective bargain. And this doesnt address the huge loss in future bargaining leverage, in union membership numbers, because whats the point with this precedent that your union isnt allowed to actually use their one point of leverage?
Black Democratic voters in 2020:
"On the one hand we have Bernie Sanders, who literally got arrested at sit-in fighting for Black people's civil rights. He's been out front on our side of essentially every political issue for his entire career.
"On the other hand we have Joe Biden who has a problematic history of voting on the wrong side of civil rights during the bussing controversy, and has eventually evolved into a follower, rather than a leader on civil rights issues.
"Ah what the hell, let's give it to Biden!"
Black Democratic voters now:
"Well, our choice is between Biden, who is doing ... Okay. Or Trump, who is famously a bigot, who practiced segregation in his own apartment buildings, and who has a history of soft acceptance of literal neo-nazis.
"... I guess we should just sit this one out."
You know who black men dislike more than Joe Biden as the nominee? Kamala Harris as the VP. Joe ought to ask either of the Obamas to run with him and lock up the election before it even starts. Pick Michelle if he really wants to piss in the MAGA cereal bowl.
Man, this thread is a fucking goldmine of idiots to block. So many edgelords and tankies doing Trump's campaigning for him.
Pay very close attention to the fact that they are using races for voter projections.
Take that information as you will.
I'm over here hoping that Vivek Ramaswamy runs and I can vote for him. Heck, as a liberal, I'll vote for Trump if he takes Ramaswamy on as vice-president, that's how much I like him.
Fuck the DNC. Until they stop pulling their bullshit no-debate tactics, I'm not voting for their candidates.
I should've known Lemmy instances would be filled with dems
As soon as Biden blocked the rail strike he lost my vote. I will leave blank vote before I vote Biden. If trump winds up winning again because the DNC can't put forward a decent candidate then that's on them. I'm tired of voting for the lesser of two evils and I'm not going to do it anymore. If the candidate isn't worth voting for then I'm not voting for them regardless of who their oponent is.
He blocked the rail strike, then went and got the majority of rail companies to comply with the sick leave provisions: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/01/railroad-workers-union-win-sick-leave
Bad hot take. The reason that Congress couldn’t couldn’t get the rail deal done is that there were too many Republicans that prevented passing the law. Don’t give Republicans more power.
Let’s quote an expert.
Hold up. You think either party would endorse someone other than their own incumbent president?? That's insane. If you don't vote, you're okay with throwing it to the Republican candidate?
Do you know how Republicans feel about the rail workers strike? How about my right to healthcare as a woman? Or the insane environmental policy they just came up with? The constant attacks on schools, libraries, and LGBTQ+ people?
There are so many more things I could list out. Cutting Medicare and social safety nets, slashing taxes for the rich, defunding the IRS, privatizing the internet, etc etc etc. Deciding not to vote because of the rail workers strike is INSANE. Was I happy about it? No. I'm still angry. But holy fuck there's so much going on. I can't possibly understand how you could ignore all the rest because of that. I also hate the DNC. I hated them in 2016, and I will hate them forever. But I guess I'm not selfish enough to throw a tantrum and withhold voting when it matters. And it DOES matter.
Caused inflation? This is the most brain dead take I've heard so far. How are people this dense? This has to be a bot.
How did he back down on student loan forgiveness? Biden administration is still pushing and working on that issue.
What do you think the President can do to "fix our broken system riddled with corruption" while also fighting a very real threat to the end of democracy? That is really the job of Congress, and Biden has said many times that he'll sign whatever the Dems send him. But they don't have the votes there and everything is even more chaotic, but at least blame the right people.
I'll preface this with saying I am a Bernie supporter who (unenthusiastically) voted for Hillary and Biden in 16/20 respectively, and I'll probably vote for Biden again because we live in hell world. My biggest issue with Biden and student loans is how long it took to implement an obviously shaky plan. Do it earlier on and it doesn't look like you are using it to string along voters for 2024. Is that the actual reason behind why it took so long for the executive order/whatever the new attempt to get going? No idea, but it sure does feel that way. Signed, a bummed out lefty.
I have a hard time believing someone who throws both the "printed too much money" and "backed down on student loans" talking points at the wall is a real person with a coherent political ideology.
bidens hands were tied in regards to the Afghanistan withdrawal. trump fucked that up and every president since 2001 was more responsible than biden.
Yeah, I hate how Biden printed too much money with those COVID stimulus payments and PPP bailouts.
Wait...
Wait, Black people won't vote for a cognitively disabled old fart who's politics are out of touch with the needs of a Black community and catered to loony white leftists? Fuck me, I'm surprised.