• LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    My friend said to me the other day “why did democrats nominate such a weak candidate?” To which I asked since given the fact that weak and strong are relative terms, can you point out 1 specific aspect where Biden is weaker than his opponent? She had no answer other than “he is just weak”

    Don’t let these fuckers gaslight you in thinking the convicted felon with 90+ indictments and a wannabe dictator is somehow stronger than the alternative.

    • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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      4 months ago

      Somebody figured out that a lot of human judgement comes down to groupthink. If you see a bunch of people who are clearly operating guided by some assumptions, then you’ll take those assumptions on and start being guided by them, whether the people you saw were real or fake.

      Then, a few years ago, it became cheap and easy to flood both social media and news media with restatements of whatever assumptions you want people to pretend that are guided by.

      And so, behold: The economy is crashing, which is all Biden’s fault, and he’s a weak candidate who loves genocide. Everyone’s disappointed in him. Everyone knows all these things and sees them all the time. The simple repetition is actually a very solid system for producing the public opinion you want to produce.

      At the present moment, they are trying to do it tactically with the “anyone who is disagreeing with me is trying to silence me, in fact they are literally hitting me in the face (also! Note that I’m allowed to disagree with whoever I want)” narrative – simply repeating it, over and over, in the hopes (probably pretty well founded) that people will start to absorb it and behave the way they want them to behave.

      • archomrade [he/him]@midwest.socialOP
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        4 months ago

        At the present moment, they are trying to do it tactically with the “anyone who is disagreeing with me is trying to silence me, in fact they are literally hitting me in the face (also! Note that I’m allowed to disagree with whoever I want)” narrative – simply repeating it, over and over, in the hopes (probably pretty well founded) that people will start to absorb it and behave the way they want them to behave.

        Social media is both a blessing and a curse. Depending on context you might think a little of both at any given time.

        I hope you do keep engaging with it. The easy thing to do would be to ignore the alarms, but it’s not the smartest.

        • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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          4 months ago

          Your selfless and forward-thinking actions in support of the Democrats, and left wing goals, are plain to see. That’s totally the result. It’s instantly obvious.

            • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Don’t worry - even if they were pushing harder for better, the moment they had a chance of their chosen candidate winning, you’d swap to “NOT GOOD ENOUGH” and return to simping for the fascist. :)

    • cybersin@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      Biden is ancient and incomprehensible in half of his public appearances. Not saying Trump isn’t, but his people love his crazy rambling.

      It is not unreasonable for people to be disappointed. They are being forced to choose between two dementia riddled candidates. The only people who truly think Trump would be the better alternative are dumbass “centrists” and conservatives.

      Yes, lesser evil voting is good, but you can’t shame people for not smiling while smelling shit.

          • BallotOrTheBullet@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            A third of the electorate votes. Half of those are repubs. A fraction of dems campaign/protest. A fraction of them are actually in government. Dissatisfied people are not the minority.

              • BallotOrTheBullet@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                Only because there was no movement to primary him. If some of these checked out people showed up we could have easily ousted joe.

                • Eldritch@lemmy.world
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                  4 months ago

                  Not just that. They’ve never primaried any incumbent president ever. You can blame Biden for not stepping down possibly for age and health reasons on his own. But seeing as they’re likely wasn’t an actual better candidate I can’t necessarily blame him for staying in either. If there really were a better candidate for everyone to get behind they’d be doing it. But there’s been no serious candidates. Not even talk of serious candidates.

                  It’s perfectly reflects how f***** up our society is right now. So many people having to work into their 70s or eighties whether or not they want to.

          • Optional@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            OH! Trump. Yes. Sorry, I thought you were saying Biden’s crazy rambling.

            No, yes, totally agree. It’s a cult. He’s speaking in very stupid tongues.

      • Katana314@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        This is ableism. Biden doesn’t mumble because of his age, but because he’s had issues with stuttering since he was young. To a few kids he’s even been an inspiring image for the fact he rehearses his speeches so well he rises above the impromptu stutters.

        • cybersin@lemm.ee
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          4 months ago

          No.

          I already know of this.

          It is what he says through the mumbling that is concerning.

          I do not condone ablism.

          • Katana314@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            Biden is ancient and incomprehensible in half of his public appearances.

            That’s the opposite of what you said. Are you concerned about what you can understand, or what you can’t?

            • cybersin@lemm.ee
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              4 months ago

              A speech impediment does not excuse the murder of Palestinian civilians.

              • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                A speech impediment does not excuse the murder of Palestinian civilians.

                Biden is ancient and incomprehensible in half of his public appearances.

                Where is Palestine in this sentence

    • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      The question isn’t whether or not he is weaker than the other candidate. The question was, would a better Democratic candidate have stood a better chance? I think you’re misrepresenting what your friend had said.

      It’s actually kind of rude how you’re depicting them right now, as some sort of buffoon.

    • Todd Bonzalez@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      This does need to be the go-to response to anyone saying shit like that: “How is Trump stronger?” Force them to admit they have no frame of reference.

        • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I’ll do the dishes when I’m eating the food. I’m not going to just clean up after the neoliberals while they let me starve at the kids table.

          • Optional@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            You can sit with the adults anytime you’re able to stop stuffing peas up your nose and making farting noises with your armpit.

            • PopOfAfrica@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              I guess that’s how you see universal healthcare yeah?

              Its not like the progressives are asking for anything crazy.

              • Ensign_Crab@lemmy.world
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                4 months ago

                I guess that’s how you see universal healthcare yeah?

                It’s how centrists see anything to the left of enthusiastic support for genocide.

    • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      Trump is vastly better at campaigns, Biden is far too insulated from public appearances. Trump is also really good at inspiring his base, half of Biden’s party doesn’t even want him. Trump gets to point to a generally good economy for his term until states shut down for covid, Biden gets to downplay a cumulative 20% inflation during his term.

      Biden is in trouble in the states he needs to win, and these weaknesses are a big part of it.

      • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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        4 months ago

        Hey, remember what I said about groupthink and just repeating the assumptions and then hoping people will absorb them? This is textbook what I meant.

        Trump is vastly better at campaigns

        Half-empty campaign rallies and people leaving before the end are a hallmark of Trump’s campaign rallies. I would assert that it’s because he just stands up saying literally any unhinged, weird, angry garbage for literally hours and it gets tiresome after a while.

        I have seen one story of people leaving before the end of Biden’s speech, and that was because of a delberate protest for his genocide-enabling foreign policy, and then it turned out not to be true anyway.

        Trump’s also gutted the RNC because he needed all the money to pay his legal bills. It remains to be seen exactly how bad the impacts will be on his and everyone else’s ability to run a campaign, but it seems unlikely that it’ll leave in place a powerhouse. Eight years ago, some of Trump’s natural skill at understanding TV audiences made his skill as a campaigner a lot more real than today; at this point I would say that most of Trump’s broad support from conservatives is because a complicit conservative media lies for him like a North Korean news anchor, and not because of anything he’s doing.

        Trump is also really good at inspiring his base, half of Biden’s party doesn’t even want him

        Trump has 75% of the popular vote in the primary; Biden has 85% (in the midst of historic reasons not to vote for him in the primary and an organized effort specifically not to vote for him, even from staunch Democrats). Also – 30% of Republican primary voters in a few different state polls said that they wouldn’t commit to voting for Trump if he won the nomination. That’s a huge deal, and very unusual, with only one real explanation (unlike the differences in primary numbers, which obviously aren’t a really apples to apples comparison).

        Trump gets to point to a generally good economy for his term until states shut down for covid

        Can we please summon to this comment some of those people who jump on every story which covers good things about Biden’s economy, to start talking about how good economic numbers don’t always translate to a better economy for actual humans?

        Biden’s strengthened unions, bounced back smoothly from Covid better than literally every other first world country, and boosted pay for low-wage earners even in the face of historic inflation. Trump started mini-trade wars with Canada and China, directly went to factories and coal mines and promised he would bring the jobs back and then weeks later the literal exact same places were closed, and gave away half a trillion dollars via direct Covid-aid fraud (that is literally the number – not like forgiven PPP loans, which were also massive, but simple rampant theft).

        Biden gets to downplay a cumulative 20% inflation during his term.

        Quick question, what was cumulative wage growth during Biden’s term? Average or median or 10th percentile; you pick.

      • Optional@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        Trump is vastly better at campaigns

        JFC. I don’t even want you to explain that. Hopefully you are not American and/or high as shit.

        • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          In the past two elections Trump has been amazing in intensity for campaigning. He hits multiple stops in multiple states. The physical presence is really powerful. Biden has been poor at this, covid isn’t a cover this time to avoid appearances. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Trump making 10x as many appearances in battleground states.

          • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
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            4 months ago

            The physical presence is really powerful.

            It’s eye-watering. People say, holy shit I can’t even go near the guy. I thought it was a joke but no, it’s really real; if you go in his vicinity after you-know-what happens, you’re just assaulted by the physical presence of it, and you want to get away from him as quickly as you can, trying not to gag.