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Biden shares many of my values and goals, but because he isn’t perfectly aligned with my values and goals, I’m voting Trump, a man that shares NONE of my values and goals, as a protest. What could go wrong?
Democracy works by criticizing your elected officials until they make necessary changes. People NEED to be putting Biden’s feet to the fire to end the genocide in Palestine. Just because Trump would be worse doesn’t make what Biden is doing ok. Criticism of one isn’t an endorsement of the other. And Biden NEEDS the votes of everyone criticizing his response to the genocide. Instead of harassing people trying to end genocide, you should be asking why Biden supports genocide more than the young voters who he needs to win in November.
The meme implies protest at the polls. Their comment is reflective of that sentiment. Criticize and protest US support of Israel independent of casting your vote in rebellion. The point stands that Trump encourages eradication of the Palestinians and Ukrainians, while oppressing working class Americans and repealing climate change progress.
I’m not voting for genocidal geriatrics either way sorry
You know that just means you’re picking the worst of the two, right?
That’s what he really wants he just doesn’t want to say it out loud
Trump is only 4 years younger than Biden. They could’ve gone to high school together. Lol
I think they were calling them both genocidal geriatrics.
You’re going to get one whether you like it or not. Do you want the nicer geriatric or the one who wants to burn shit down? Because if we don’t try to stop it, this will be 2016 all over again.
I hope you choose to vote, or are at least ok with letting the fascist take over because of inaction. “I’m NoT vOtInG fOr GeNoCiDe” is a stupid argument when not voting is more likely to elect the full throated genocider.
I really don’t see how some people can sleep at night with their choices…
If you can’t vote for no genocide, then you are in a sham democracy.
It starts to get quite boring, is that all you people have? He’s old yeah, both are, but Biden won’t run the country all by himself you know. About the genocide, he sure could have tried to do more, but how in hell is that his fault? I mean are all politicians worldwide genociders because they didn’t stop the horrors in Gasa?
Grow up.
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What values and goals does Biden share with Leftists, other than not being as far-right as the Republicans?
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Who said anything about voting for Trump? I myself am voting Biden most likely because he isn’t as bad as Trump, but I share practically nothing with his views.
What person is criticizing Biden from the left but actually voting for Trump, other than the strawman you created?
Supporting of unions is a pretty big thing biden supports that leftists also support, nevermind his views and actions on climate change and bodily autonomy.
Your comment is wildly reductionist and supremely ignorant.
Biden has given concessions to Unions, that does not make him pro-Union. He has fallen excessively short on Climate goals and has done little to expand abortion protections.
Being less right wing for a liberal does not make Biden a Leftist, it just makes him less of a bad thing.
Your comment is wildly reductionist and supremely ignorant.
“Biden helped unions get what they want, that doesnt mean he helps unions.”
Do you even read what you’re typing?
On the subject of abortions, what do you think he can do short of publicly speaking about his support for bodily autonomy? A president isn’t a king.
Why are so many progressives so uneducated on how our government works?
Biden tossed scraps, yes. He has not proposed radical changes to the anti-union policies that exist everywhere, he has not supported strikes, and he has not expanded protections to Unions. Believe it or not, a Pro-Union candidate can do these things! Biden isn’t actually pro-union, he just tosses scraps when strikes happen.
Yes, I do read what I am typing. I want a Pro-Union candidate, not a neutral one, so I will criticize Biden.
I believe Biden can quit playing softball with regards to abortion. Biden is the king of virtue signaling, he isn’t a king but he does have power.
Moreover, Biden is a Capitalist going far out of his way to support ongoing genocide. I am not going to be happy with his Capitalism, and I certainly won’t be happy with his genocide.
Im not sure it’s possible to be more pro-union than being literally the only president in united states history to ever step foot onto a picket line and protest.
He is doing what he is legally able to do for abortions and unions. The president is not a lawmaker, nor a king like you would seem to have him be.
Again, its not his fault you seem to be ignorant of the structure of the US government.
I literally gave you examples of how a President could be more Pro-Union: by presenting and helping pass actual Pro-Union legislation that protects worker’s rights to strike and form unions. Another good one would be mandating that all companies be unionized, or companies of a certain size must have union representatives participate in Board meetings.
Virtue signaling does nothing materially, it’s an optics thing.
He isn’t doing what he can do, lmao.
I am not ignorant of the structure of the US government just because you believe the job of the US president is to shout slogans and steer the country off vibes, lmao
So supportive of unions, thats why he adopted Ronald Reagans policy of making it illegal to strike . All hail the Union loving strike breaker. Couldnt even get em sick days give me a break.
Edit: yes they eventually got sick days, only one of these things was passed via law/ executive order, guess which one? The intervention was a huge step backwards for labor rights
This is blatantly false.
Biden did get the rail workers union sick days. Its not his fault you cant read.
https://www.ibew.org/media-center/Articles/23Daily/2306/230620_IBEWandPaid
He made sure to remove agency from the workers in the process
The end result may have been favorable, but it seems wack to use this an example of Biden supporting unions. Seems more like he disenfranchised them instead
The union strikes and saber rattling achieved their own results. The workers had the power since they scared the establishment to give them what they wanted. However Biden took all the credit for it even though he crushed their union rights which just goes to show how irrevocably damaged the liberal brain is
Either way, it’s an example of Biden placing himself above workers. I was misled by all the liberals posting about how great Biden was for giving the workers what they want.
I am not immune to propaganda.
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just because trump would be worse, doesnt mean biden isnt really bad
Biden isn’t in charge of Israel.
he approved a lot of money to go there
and he did absolutely nothing to stop it
Is biden in charge of the purse strings of congress?
Jfc nobody said to vote for trump.
Realistically what do you hope to accomplish by voting for someone else or not voting?
Goddammit I never said not to vote. What do you hope to accomplish by only voting?
Okay then answer the other part of my question. That’s why I included it.
What other part?
Realistically what do you hope to accomplish by voting for someone else?
I’m not expecting to accomplish much of anything by voting for someone else. I prefer direct action.
It’s the logical conclusion of your statements
It’s sarcasm. And voting for a minor party candidate is a vote for Republicans.
Such a low bar. No wonder your country is crumbling.
Sarcasm. I’m making fun of people.
I’m trying to think what values biden actually shares with me.
He passed the IRA, rejoined the Paris Agreement, repealed the transgender ban in the military, restored net neutrality, defended the use of mifepristone, supported Ukraine, and relieved some student debt. That’s enough to earn my vote.
Right, but when your beliefs involve the dissolution of capitalism, these are more like perpetuating the system.
Even the people who believe in dissolving capitalism have accomplished nothing but perpetuate the system.
Its that shitty Ben shapiro meme. “You hate the system yet you participate in it, curious?”
Yeah not really many options when you’ve gotta put food on the table. The change comes from the top down down down Esit: I may or may not be misreading your comment.
The top doesn’t have as many options as people think.
Ben Shapiro is dumb and I don’t fault anyone who can’t bring about a worker’s paradise, provided they make an incremental improvement in the lives of others. That includes Biden.
After taking millions of tiny steps forward, we’ll eventually get to where we need to be.
Too bad at this rate, the planet will be burnt to a crisp before we get anywhere close to good enough.
No time for baby steps. Perhaps its selfish, but Id like these changes in my lifetime, please.
That’s the biggest lol in history
Just out here telling on yourself, huh?
Lol
Correction: “I’m voting for Biden to make sure the things that are happening right now continue to get slowly better, instead of getting immediately and significantly worse.”
That’s what they said back in '96 when I voted for Ralph Nader. Now we’re on the precipice of American democracy falling to fascism, if not now, then very likely in 2028. That doesn’t look to me anything like slowly getting better.
Some things have definitely improved in that time, e.g. the recognition of same-sex marriage, or the nascent resurgence of labor unions. Those things have been the result of slow, tough, hard work by the grassroots.
In that same time, though, the Democrats have been slowly helping to put the mechanisms of a fascist state in place, like the PATRIOT ACT, FISA, neutering the 4th Amendment, bolstering the Espionage Act, and setting up collaborative efforts between state police, Federal agencies, and the corporate sector to crush protest movements.
That said, the world is indeed shades of grey, and I voted for Biden in 2020 to stay fascism, if only for a little bit. It’s better to vote for the right-wing candidate versus the fascist candidate. I want to vote for him again, but there are some lines that must never be crossed, and I can’t in good conscience vote for a President enabling genocide. (The fact that both candidates do is madness.)
Maybe my calculus would be different if there were a reasonable chance that Democrats would do the things that are within their power to do to check the rise of fascism, but I have no confidence of that, as the track record shows otherwise.
Edit: Auto-correct damage.
Hey! So I know you are getting people being snarky and whatnot, but I have a legitimate question.
Could you address the question regarding how the Democrats are at least the party that are at least making slow progress, as opposed to not voting against the party that will turn the country into a Christian theocracy if given the chance?
Like I understand that you don’t like either candidate - neither do we - but realistically, we know the winner will be either a Republican or a Democrat. Why not support the one that at least won’t regress the country 500 years?
Because incrementalism is how we got to this situation in the first place.
Damn, you’re way more succinct than I am.
I’ve covered a lot of it in other replies, so to keep it brief by analogy: It’s like a survivor from a foundered ship clinging to a bit of flotsam (assuming there’s no chance of timely rescue) rather than swimming for land in the distance. The flotsam keeps him safe from drowning for the moment, but thirst or hypothermia will do him in within days at the outside. His only chance to survive long-term is to abandon it and set to swimming.
The Democrats in this analogy are the flotsam, if it wasn’t obvious. Bill Clinton got into office in 1992, after 12 years of Republican Presidents, and quickly made it clear that he represented the status quo, clinging-to-flotsam choice, rather than making things better. I believed that the long-term health of democracy required making the hard choice to swim for it. I wasn’t smart enough to predict the exact shape of the future back then, but here we are, on the edge of slipping below the waves. That’s the opposite outcome of making things better.
The Democrats don’t even understand the threat of right-wing populism, so they can’t counter it. (It’s not even clear that they would, if they did.) The way to save our democracy, therefore, is to fight for something better.
What is the plan to fight for something better? Like… I’m really not trying to be snarky, I swear, but voting for any party that is not R or D on election Day is never going to result in someone other than someone from one of those two parties being president. That just won’t happen. So unless there is an alternative path for change, I don’t see the point of voting for someone other than a democrat to at least mitigate the damage
There can be better. That’s the real kick in the teeth. Voting for President doesn’t have to be the biggest thing any of us do. I want to get Biden reelected because it gives us time. Time to carry that momentum into more significant, broader changes. Time to do better and do more and stop sitting on our collective hands for all the remaining days on the calendar.
Well, should everybody who lives in Alabama vote Republican, because there’s zero chance of anybody but a Republican winning? Do those people have a plan besides throwing their votes away? Or is voting about choosing the candidate that would represent your views, regardless of the odds of winning?
That would be great advice if we weren’t standing at the literal precipice of fascism. Fascism is a storm (pardon the unintentional pun towards QAnon) threatening to overtake us. If ever there was a time to suck it up and choose the “flotsam” to survive to fight another day, it’s now.
The Republicans, aka the Fascists, have a large and cohesive voting bloc, driven by propaganda and fear, that will vote for them just because they’re not Democrats, regardless of the fact that they are known criminals, grifters, and will vote for things that hurt them. This is not the time to divide into ideological factions and hope we make it.
It seemed to me back in the 1990’s that Republicans want to drive the car straight at the precipice at full speed, and Bill Clinton was content to simply lay off the accelerator and coast toward it. I’m not such a canny political analyst that I could predict the exact shape of the future back then, but here we are, at the precipice.
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Do you know who won '96? Maybe the edit added that though.
Can you clarify whether you’re talking about Clinton or Biden?
Where do they say they lived in Florida?
Biden is slowly worse, Trump is quickly worse. Liberalism is not about moving leftward, it’s about continuing Capitalist hedgemony.
Slowly worse is still better than quickly worse, as that means there’s more time to find a better solution.
You won’t. This is a 100 year lesson, when will you learn it?
Sorry, I don’t get the reference. 😅
Given Lemmy I assume 1917
Let me make it more clear then. 👏There 👏is 👏no👏solution 👏through 👏voting! Only improvements have happened through unions, protests and riots.
Hey, I generally agree! It’s impossible to revolutionize a system while sticking to the rules of that system. We can and should fight wherever possible to improve things for our fellow man, no matter what we’re “supposed” to do as defined by the people that stand the most to gain from our apathy.
But that fight includes voting for the lesser harm. Voting for Biden to stop Trump from being president is an entirely valid strategy – and for the people who stand the most to lose, like racial and gender minorities, we cannot ignore harm reduction.
We can’t let perfect be the enemy of good.
Biden was voted in and you had a failed coup. Did you people go and the streets and demand justice? no. You just got worsening conditions and another genocide. Voting didn’t do anything. It didn’t prevent anything. The decent into fascism is inevitable if people just keep voting because they think voting does something. This delusion needs to be ripped out so that people do anything else.
Lol things have not gotten slowly better through voting ever or have you somehow missed the last 100 years?
End of segregation. Interracial marriage legalized. Voting rights for native americans. LGBT rights…
Nope, no progress there.
I seem to remember those things happening because of protest and struggle.
Elected officials only care about protests when they start losing votes.
Did those happen because people voted, or was it because of large-scale protests and pressure?
Both. You can’t get what you want by only doing one or the other. If you don’t vote, you can’t pressure sane politicians that don’t get elected, and the insane fascists are just going to ignore you. And we all know that voting alone isn’t the solution
People need to stop acting like voting is the end all/be all, or that not voting/withholding your vote sends a message rather than let’s psychos who want to destroy democracy have their way.
We have the largest protests since the Iraq War, and your “sane” politicians are telling us to fuck off.
They like to pretend like successful protests are a people’s moment, but protests don’t go anywhere without in-power support. MLK was establishment as fuck. The National Guard provided a replacement when his PA system failed at the million man march. You gotta make your opinions known by voicing them publicly and supporting candidates that are sympathetic to your cause. Even better, become part of the establishment yourself and be the helpful politician you wish you could vote for.
MLK was not establishment as fuck, most of his protests were illegal, and he regarded the “white moderate” who agree with his goals, but think things must be done slowly and within the system as just as great if not greater obstacle than the klansman.
It seems to have been buried to the sands of time, but I once read an excellent article explaining why modern protest movements have a terrible track record compared to the ones from before the 1980s (or so). The book “If We Burn” by Vincent Bevins has a similar theme.
The long and short of it is that modern protests are too easy to organize, and don’t represent any real power. You can start a Facebook event and get loads of people to show up and stand in the street, but that’s pretty much it. In order to organize a protest in the 1960s, you had to have an established organization and power structure. You had to have regular meetings and a bureaucracy in order to get a large number of people to show up and protest. That same bureaucracy could also be used for other things, like supporting or opposing particular political candidates, and the oppositional and sympathetic establishment knew that.
A modern protest is toothless. It has no weight behind it. If you want to have enough power to take on the establishment that you oppose, you have to become equally structured and monied in order to fight them. That’s what it means to become a part of the establishment. You might not join the established teams, but you’re going to become so well organized and bureaucratic that angsty teams would immediately write you off as boring and just another part of the system if they ever had to participate in one of your long term planning sessions.
On an individual level my suggestion is to join the system and change it from within, because one person doesn’t make for a very powerful organization. Plus, it’s rare for any random person to have the chops or resources to build up a political organization for themselves. On the collective level, you gotta start holding committee meetings.
Have you?
Well no, which is why I ain’t voting. Since it’s useless
This is literally the stupidest argument I’ve ever heard in my life, and that’s saying quite a lot.
You best not be in a swing state. We’ll anyway, if you aren’t going to be trying to improve things with the rest of us, shut up and get out of the way
Voting doesn’t improve anything. We’ve already said this
Then shut up and let the grown ups talk
No u
Do you unironically believe that life hasn’t gotten better for literally everyone that’s not a Rockefeller since 1924? I think you may have brain damage. Which is a much more treatable condition than it was in 1920 fucking 4.
Correlation is not causation Life has gotten better because of all the struggles outside of voting
Stupid, stupid take.
Bro. Some elections are decided by 10s of votes. I live in a city of 12k people, on smaller elections less than a thousand people vote. By simply showing up you are effectively voting for 10-12 people. It takes like 10 minutes, and ballot measures alone make it worth while.
If you don’t vote you’re just accepting what those who did vote collectively voted for.
I don’t accept shit. I oppose the whole system and I live my life in way meant to destabilize it.
Hahaha you don’t vote to try to destabilize the system. You realize a large percentage of Americans never vote right? Not voting isn’t special at all !
I’m sure those women facing prosecution for seeking a medically necessary procedure will find great comfort in knowing about your destabilization efforts, as they endure their noble suffering in coming years.
How has voting stopped that result, or the ongoing genocide again?
Voting does not change the whims of the powerful. The powerful continue to push their will. Currently that will is massacres and genocide. Genocide Joe does have a nice ring to it. Vote or don’t. The powerful will get their way.
Voting is easy in my state, so I will. My current amusement is voting against incumbents. Preference is Third Party > Democrat > Republican.
Beyond the entertainment of voting: keep building mutual aid networks, be a good neighbor and use a pokeball if 2025 gets ghastly.
Well no the powerful won’t get their way if we unite and scare them into submission. Our societies have done this multiple times
I agree that united we can push back. Creating horizontal power structures provide the push. Ideally, dismantling hierarchical power over merely scaring it.
Their username can answer this question
terrifying comment
I’m voting for Biden because I don’t want Trump picking the next couple Supreme Court justices.
Not only could he pick the next ones, he would have the power to expand the Supreme Court. Imagine a SCOTUS that isn’t just filled with Federalist Society goons but his own special brand of Conservative from places like the Fifth Circuit in Texas.
Instead, we’re going to elect democrats who won’t do anything for however many decades it takes for the current conservative justices to get old and then, when the time is right, they’ll show their cunning strategy for saving the court: Putting forward a slightly less conservative justice that they won’t even fight for enough to push past republican objections.
Meanwhile: We’re drowning!
True, but those are our two choices. Status quo or hard Conservative Authoritarianism. There is no third option, no matter how much wishing, whinging, or opining people engage in.
If we want a third option, we’ll have to start working towards that possibility the very second Biden gets reelected. If Trump wins, then we’re fucked for the next 40 years, at least.
Also, we have the chance to take back the House and keep the Senate. Republicans may be irrelevant in the decision to choose the next justices, should Biden win. There’s a lot at stake in this next election.
Yall said we could push Biden further left. The election cycle is such that there is always the next election, and we arent allowed to complain about the candidate, for fear of hurting their chances.
Its rigged against progressives
We did push him left. Anyone with a brain stem who Compares Biden in the 90s to Biden today knows he’s much further left
we’ll have to start working towards that possibility the very second Biden gets reelected
I’ve been here before. The second Biden gets reelected, the tune will shift from “we’ll have to start working towards that possibility the very second Biden gets reelected” to “we’ll have to start working towards that possibility after the first year of his second term, since that’s the only time Biden can get things done” to “we’ll have to start working towards that possibility the very second democrats win in 2026” ad nauseam. The time for change is now or the time for change is never.
The time for change is now or the time for change is never.
Okay. What do you expect you can do in seven months? Because you don’t just have to convince people like you—there’s not enough of you to do anything but throw the election to Trump. You’ll have to convince the leftist Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z who don’t share your particular views that it’s worth doing something drastic and potentially dangerous.
You’ll have a much better chance of doing that when you have four years of “status quo” than 4+ years of hard right authoritarianism.
You’ll have to convince the leftist Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z who don’t share your particular views that it’s worth doing something drastic and potentially dangerous.
I mean, yes. That is what I am trying, in a very small way, to do.
You’ll have a much better chance of doing that when you have four years of “status quo” than 4+ years of hard right authoritarianism.
I’m not an accelerationist. I have nothing against voting for Biden as harm reduction. And I want to be clear that what I’m about to say is not me advocating for voting for Trump, which I view as a morally reprehensible and disgusting act. But you are just wrong; 4+ years of hard right authoritarianism will likely make those people much more likely to understand that something drastic and potentially dangerous is necessary. Again to be clear: that one good thing doesn’t justify the rest of what will happen under a Trump admin, and people should not vote for him.
My point is that whatever you think should be done after Biden gets elected, you should just do now, because if you wait, you’ll be waiting forever.
2 points:
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Why is the republican the line for hard core authoritarianism? What the hell do you call it when the government does massive expansions to the military, police, and surveillance state while also designating left wing activists, including climate activists, as domestic terrorists? What about trying to undo the damage caused by the Supreme Court taking away people’s rights? If the republican’s actions were subversions of democracy, then surely it would be justified to take actions outside of normal law to oppose that. But they won’t do that, because at best the democrats are collaborators and more realistically, they’re just the faction of fascists with a better marketing department.
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There is a third option: Join up with your fellow workers/citizens/people around the world to work towards something actually productive. Join/organize a union. Sharpen your pitchforks. Destroy some pipelines. Become the domestic terrorist they’ve already labeled you as. That path won’t be any different under a democrat or republican president because both are just as adamant about maintaining the power of the state and capital over people.
If your plan is to vote for one fascist then wish for the system to reform itself, I have 200+ years of history to show to you.
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I did not say “hard core authoritarianism.” Go back and reread what I wrote. I said “hard Conservative Authoritarianism.” Biden is authoritarian, and I never said otherwise. Biden is not a Conservative (capital “C”).
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Okay. You be the one to start it. Put up or shut up. I’m not interested in this option until I see the ideologues and tankies brave enough to talk about this online doing it in reality. If all you have is, “C’mon bro! We just need to band together,” then it’s not much of a movement. Meanwhile, I plan to hold my nose and vote for Biden, because at least that’s an actionable plan.
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What?
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One of these things requires effort and involves risk and the other does not. But only one of these things does anything if you end up doing it. Yeah. I’m not doing anything at the moment because I’m depressed, anxious, and don’t really know anyone I live near. I should be doing more, but it’s hard. But you know what I’m not doing? I’m not carrying water for fascists. If you want to talk about harm reduction, for as little as that matters, that inaction is doing less harm than your inaction of telling people to shut up and go tick a box to say they’re ok with fascists.
EDIT: Perhaps more to the point: There have been and are still people who are doing this work regardless. People in countries that have been colonized or otherwise screwed over by the west put up a fight to try to change that. You aren’t just poo pooing hypothetical direct action that nobody has the courage to do. You’re supporting a government that actively attacks those people who are alrighty fighting for freedom and justice.
And see, that’s where we disagree. I see no evidence that Biden is a fascist (authoritarian ≠ fascist). If you want to convince me he’s a fascist, I’m going to need you to define what a fascist is and how Biden fits that definition.
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Why don’t we just start [redacted] the government? Or work on getting a third option right now?
Because it’s too late. What do you think you can achieve in seven months? You’d have to unite leftist Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z and convince them that your plan (third party voting or “industrial action”) is better than the relatively safe option of simply going out and voting for Biden.
And not only that, but thanks to FPTP, convincing people to join you also means convincing people that it won’t throw the election to Trump, whose party reliably turns out to vote for more Republicans.
Unless you know something I don’t, we’re about four years too late to build the momentum needed to make dramatic changes.
You know you can make change outside the official channels, right?
Such as? Do you mean revolt? If that’s what you mean, just say it: you want a revolution. I don’t know why you’re being coy about it.
But my core point is that you still have to convince everybody else that revolution or civil disobedience are worth losing their security and privilege. You can’t do this alone, and 100,000 people online who share your ideals aren’t anywhere near the same as feet on the ground.
So do you like not know anything about the court? Sotomayor and Kagan? Those two are fucking rock stars. The best legal minds of the last 30 years. The fuck are you even talking about?
Do you not remember the entire fiasco with Obama’s failed attempt at selecting a justice? He picked a “moderate,” the Republicans stonewalled him until the election, and instead of trying to use any of the procedural tricks to push through the appointment that the Republicans would gladly use, the Democrats didn’t put up a fight. Fast forward, Trump wins the election, appoints his justices, and Democrats let it go through.
If this is an issue where democracy and rights are at stake and if democrats actually gave a crap they wouldn’t be playing by the rules and then accepting the slide into fascism that all this represents.
But for the elite of the party, none of this shit matters. They aren’t really bound by the same laws as the rest of us. So who cares if the plebs lose some rights? If anything it’s a positive for them. They get to run on being opposed to the bad stuff they let the Republicans do instead of anything positive and they fundraise like crazy over the fear that generates.
For the Democratic base: They’re just watching a fucking TV show. Politics isn’t a real thing to them. They say they see this slide into fascism, but then the most they’re willing to do about it is go check a box once every 2/4 years and then accept the horrible things that come after because respecting the system is more important than protecting people from it. Maybe the really “radical” ones will go to some march to hold up signs in a spot that’s not gonna bother anyone and then go home after regardless of if that changed anything.
Meanwhile, their continued uncritical support of the government enables that government to keep working to crush more serious opposition to it.
This is just unbelievably myopic and foolish. Yes Merrick Garland was stonewalled. Although considering what an ineffectual and incompetent AG he is I’m not entirely sure that one wasn’t for the best. But as I mentioned Obama got the two greatest justices of Our Generation appointed. And Biden already got Jackson appointed. Claiming that they’ll never get an appointment is silly when they’ve done it three times. So here’s your choice sit there and stew while fascist put in fascist judges or get actual people appointed. You’ve created some kind of fiction for yourself that allows you to sit there and be myopic and ineffectual for no reason. Is it laziness? Just an excuse to avoid having to do anything? I don’t get it.
Did I also miss the part where we got Roe v Wade, etc back? Has this translated into changes to defend our rights? If not, why isn’t more being done? Procedure? Rules? Why should any of that supersede protecting real people? And what about the more direct attacks on our rights coming directly from the administration such as once again expanding the surveillance state?
As far as my own participation: I’m not doing anything, and that’s distressing, but were this merely a matter of laziness I’d just be voting. It’s not that hard to vote, at least not in my area. I haven’t formed my entire politics around not wanting to drive like <5 minutes to a local poling station once every few years. In 2020 I actually volunteered for 2 different campaigns during the primaries because I still had some fleeting belief that we could change things that way. I don’t know why, I had already learned a lot of the history which informs my lack of faith in the system. But maybe it’s just easier thinking you can change things without the risk of getting shot.
The liberal’s political responsibilities demand almost nothing of them. Vote from a list of 2 things once in a while, perhaps even less than that if the position isn’t contested or one of the choices is a non-choice. After that, shut up and let others do the thinking and politics for you.
Anything more than that, which risks running into the apparatus of state violence, is “the wrong way to do things.” We should just be patient, trust our institutions, and continue to believe in the myth of steady progress over time.
As scary as that is, there are people out there who are brave or desperate enough to be risking their lives to fight the system. I can’t really blame people for being too scared to join in, but I can blame them for insisting that their minimal political participation to support the government that fights against those people is actually a good thing.
Oh so now you want to protect Roe versus Wade? By letting conservatives have more justices? That’s your big master plan? The three liberal justices who were the dissenting opinion on the Dobbs decision. An opinion that you clearly didn’t read, nor have you read any dissenting opinion is my guess considering your absolute lack of knowledge about the justices. Sure though continue to fold your arms and pretend like you’re above it when you’re directly allowing it. Arguing for this disengagement when one side is directly trying to take your rights away from you is basically supporting it. Things only get better by winning. Bit by Bit by Bit. But you got to keep winning to do the bit by bit. The show’s got to keep going. The greatest expansion of civil rights in our nation’s history happened during a string of democratic victories.
This guy gets it.
Pardon my ignorance as a non-American, but weren’t there rumblings of Biden being able to do the same, back around the time of the RBG debacle?
Yep, and he didn’t out of some misguided belief that Republicans would behave with some amount of human decency. Unfortunately, the Republicans he knew from his time as a Congressman had given up decorum and bipartisanship for their personal ideologies and fealty to a fraudster.
It would have been and still is the sensible thing to do, because the highest judiciary should be the least partisan, and it’s a progressive move Biden really should make in an effort to maintain that balance.
Still would’ve needed congress to expand the court and no way in hell would Manchin or sinema ever have gone along w Biden
this vould almost be a valid single issue to single-issue-vote at this point. the supreme court has been aging incredibly poorly and the republican candidate is running a platform to make it worse.
but im seeing so many comments (edit: including OP and the admin of a very popular instance?) who are down to abstain the vote, ignoring this AND all the other oppression that another maga win would be about, because we have let the “both sides are bad and voting is a blood pact” propoganda take over for the past decade.
both sides are not equally bad and voting is not a blood pact.
It’s not funny anymore. Stop voting for Trump ironically.
Just… Stop. Please.
Who is ironically voting for Trump?
There were people when Trump was running who told me they would vote for Trump strictly because fuck the system
Don’t forget the ones that did it for lols. Some just want to see the world burn. It’s like vaccines, they weren’t around when we didn’t have them, so they never saw the awful things that happened without them. Just like they’ve never lived under the horrors of authoritarian tyrants. They don’t know the horrors that can happen. Or they just assume they’ll be spared all the consequences.
They did fuck the system alright
And you believe they are here, or people who share their views?
He’s desperately trying to stop things, but he is completely powerless and that’s not his fault, but also he has actually gotten tons of great stuff done and you’re just ignoring it, and you should ignore the bad stuff he’s done because his opponent will do worse, but most importantly any good stuff he hasn’t done was impossible for him to get done, and that’s why you should vote for him
Personally, I hear you, but his denial about the campus protests is definitely gonna make things worse for garnering the young vote.
No, you don’t hear them. They, and OP are mocking libs telling people to vote for a candidate who demonstrates over and over that they do not want the things we want, and will either not stop or help republicans do the things they want.
It’s kind of sad, they understand the democrats do not want the things they want, so they cannot influence them into doing the things that will win the election, so all they can do is tell people not to believe their lying eyes.
What’s the alternative, give the country over to Trump and his sycophants? No one likes what’s happening but as much as I want a change in the current trajectory everything would just be worse under Trump, not just Palestinian conflict.
There is no alternative. Helping the democrats maintain the delusion that they can be the party of fascism-lite and still win elections is not a viable strategy to win elections.
Telling the dems “You restarted student loans, anything short of forgiving all student debt is literally worse than what we had under trump, if you want to get elected, ending the additional harm you caused is a minimum” until they start doing the things they need to do to get elected is the only way they will get elected.
The alternative is to pressure the democrats into doing the things they need to do to win the election. Currently they are laboring under the delusion that they can win just by saying “Oh, we want the things you want, we’re just powerless until you give us uhhh 50% in the senate! No 61! No, 64 because of Fetterman, Sinoma, and Manchin! You can do it, just vote a little harder and we’ll stop doing the opposite of what you elected us to do!” and “Well trump would also do the horrible things we’re doing, so you have to vote for us”.
That’s why they lost in 2016 and 2022, and trying to silence criticism just helps them maintain that delusion.
I’m voting for Trump because I have no concept of mitigating damage.
He sure does know how to increase entropy fast(er)
The entire system is fucked and first past the post needs to go away at all levels.
Imagine wanting the guy who said he thinks Israel should finish the job as long as they don’t record it, repealed 111 climate policies in one term, and gave massive tax breaks for the rich at the cost of workers, all while installing the most oppressive conservatives we’ve had to the Supreme Court, because you think “he’ll be different this time.”
It sounds like our nation is experiencing battered woman syndrome.
Nobody said that
Unfortunately, the polls do. I understand his loyal base not budging, but plenty of people are under the impression that abstaining or voting third-party in November will do anything but get Trump back in the White House.
Nobody said to not vote. Just that it wouldn’t solve a lot of what we’re currently experiencing.
Can you see how that implies suggesting the alternative of apathy?
So I’m not allowed to criticize biden?
On the contrary. You absolutely should. I upvoted because I thought it was funny. I commented because I’m concerned some people can’t distinguish criticism and protest from voter disengagement.
This is my problem with this sort of post too. Do I think Biden could do better and deserves some criticism? Yes. Do I think there are people out there who, if convinced that Biden deserves criticism, would decide not to vote? Also yes. Am I terrified of the potential outcome of that? VERY MUCH YES.
Glad we’re on the same page.
Voting is about picking your opponents, not your teammates.
That is very sad
Is it?
I figure it’s just how democracy has to work. Governance is too complicated to just set it and forget it every 2-4 years.
Even if you somehow elect an ideal candidate, you’re still going to disagree at some point during their term.
There are plenty of no-win scenarios, opportunities to trade a short-term loss for a long-term win, etc. where you might agree on goals but not tactics and you end up having to petition/protest them.
And that’s in the ideal case.
You might as well assume that whoever ends up in The Room Where It Happens, they’re going to sit down on the opposite side of the table from you — not next to you.
I guess that’s kinda cynical, but I really don’t mean it to be. I think it’s just a more healthy way to frame participatory democracy. Your job is not done at the ballot box. That’s just to set the parameters for the real work.
It all comes down to the biggest pain of current elections: strategic voting. If there was an ideal candidate you wouldnt vote for him because you d vote less bad so that more bad does not claim the throne. There are numerous systems which solve this problem but somehow both less bad and more bad dont have any reason to establish them. Of course there are many other faults with current voting systems and especially US system.
If you want a proof that the system is fucked and needs to be abolished look at 1992 usa elections - not only did 19% of votes equate to 0(!) spots in the house or senate, there is a reasonable arguement to be made that the fact that Ross Perot entered the election has changed its outcome (spoiler effect).
It is sad that US elections have reached an equlibrium where there are only two possible candidates who dont even have to try. After all “47% of the people will vote for the candidate no matter what” (intentional misquote)
So much reasonable discourse in these comments.
Welcome to another Hexbear brigade thread…
Define reasonable discourse
To Democrats it means refusing to say “third party vote” in favor of terms like “spoiler” or “protest vote” while claiming voting for Trump is a mainline leftist position, then yelling “nuhuh trump lover” if you point out its false.
you just did
Of all the strawmen that bear no resemblance to the the real thing people are saying this is a big strawman one
Jesus Christ we’re getting Trump as president.
Nice knowing y’all.
the genocide?
it’s already happening…
Wow lemmy getting brigaded by military industrial complex bots? (The downvotes)
Agreed. Better to let Trump win. Things will get much better under him.
A third party could win if we all got together and voted for them
Are… Are you arguing with yourself?
Just preemptively making the replies that I knew I would receive anyway
Yeah, and I’ll win the big jackpot in the lottery tomorrow.
That’ll happen.
No! The Constitution says that it must be the Federalist Party vs. the Democratic-Republican Party, period. /s
Yeah, and I could be invisible if only all the photons bouncing off my body got together and agreed not to go into anyone’s eyes, but that ain’t happening anytime soon
I’m still voting third party. If Democrats see the support that communism has, they’ll be forced to appeal to us.
You’d think so, but the history of the past 30 years shows that they’d rather lose, if it means maintaining the neoliberal economic order. As such, the DNC works entirely within a reductive paradigm under which they can only move in one dimension, right or left within that order. If they move one way, they’ll lose voters on the opposite flank, so they do the calculation and find that it’s better to move rightward.
Of course, there’s good evidence that Bernie Sanders would’ve attracted a lot of voters who consider themselves Republican. To fit that into their paradigm, though, it would require that voters make a huge, discontinuous leap from right to left, which doesn’t parse. It makes sense though when you consider that those voters don’t see themselves as right or left, but rather felt like Sanders spoke to, and cared about, their (working-class) issues. (It’s also the rigidity of this paradigm which made Democrats rage about “Bernie Bros” in their party refusing to vote for Clinton, which in actuality wasn’t a thing.)
The neoliberal economic order is very lucrative personally for our representatives, so good luck trying to get them to break from it.
Not necessarily. If the Democratic party loses more voters than they gain by appealing to communists, then appealing to communists would make them less likely to win, thus making Republican victory more likely.
I’m not voting for someone who supports a genocide
Then you’re voting in favor of someone who will support it more. There’s exactly two possibilities this election cycle, barring any issues with mortality, and both of them support this genocide. When you get to your polling place, you should think about which option will be the most likely to lead to the best outcome. Obviously a third party would be the absolute best outcome, but it’s also the absolute least likely possibility. The only options that are likely are biden, who will maintain the current genocide, or trump, who will expand the current genocide, and also make your and your countrymen’s lives materially worse as well.
A lottery ticket is arguably the best possible way to spend your money, because you can turn $2 into a million. But you get that spending all of your income on lottery tickets is stupid, right? I hope I don’t have to explain this analogy any further
IDK how you got more downvotes than Trump, only answer is bots trying to get votes for military industrial complex man
I will never vote for Joe Biden again.
I’d like to ask why, but I’m not sure I want the answer.
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Idiot
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Fascist idiot
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Bot
I’d bet money it’s one of these three.
Given the replies that I didn’t ask for, I’m going to vote that it’s one of the first two.
You literally responded to my post asking why.
No, I said I wanted to ask why (Aka, I have the curiousity to want to ask), then expressed that I didn’t really want to know the answer, which you still took as me asking, however, I didn’t ask. I only expressed that I wanted to.
lol
Did you also have trouble in grade school asking if you can go to the bathroom, only to have the teacher all you “I don’t know, can you?” Then you got annoyed by it because you didn’t understand their point?
Were you one of those kids?
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Biden is the architect over 52 years in politics of an astounding number of this nations problems and many that affect me personally. He was a bridge too far in 2012 after I learned he wasnt just Obamas weird acting old guy vp.
I can’t comprehend how anyone was able to vote for him in 2020 and it’s deeply disturbing that anyone would support him now.
You can’t comprehend Trump?
…mmmmm
If you believe that trump is an existential threat, saw what happened last time he was declared the loser of an election, recognize that the right is making plans to enact their policy through administrative action (project 2025) and you think it matters how you vote I frankly don’t know what to say.
I mean, sure, vote for Biden if you can keep your lunch down long enough, but that shouldn’t matter one whit compared to how well you prepare for an enhanced replay of January sixth.
I do not believe trump is an existential threat. The right can’t gas up the slow slouch into fascism because it would necessitate fucking up the stock market shell game bag and they won’t do that.
We’re going to get the same shit as last time except this time his administration will have done their homework and won’t have to seethe as wall materials get sold off for scrap value.
Trump isn’t an existential threat??? He is the goddamn reason Biden is president…
Plus he’s Putinz pissboy puppet.
I swear to god.
Hey, you remember that country we spent fifty years undermining and sabotaging that finally succumbed in the 90s and was sold off for scrap? Well it’s back and it’s in control of one of our political candidates!
Russigate is a busybox for sequel brained liberals. It’s qanon for the actblue set.
…just 50 years?
So you’re so into politics you just can’t help yourself.
Neat.
