this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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In some parts of Lemmy, they are absolutely making that argument.
I would imagine those people are Marxists, or other anti-capitalists. If you're somebody whose primary litmus test is whether a candidate is pro-capitalist or anti-capitalist, you might not see much of a difference between Biden and Trump because they are both staunchly pro-capitalist. But I think those people are overrepresented on lemmy and only make up a very small percentage of the actual US voter base.
Or perhaps these people live in the middle east or africa and every day they get a taste of "capitalism".
Really? Because those folks have family here, and they say "stop using our dead relatives as an excuse to let the fascists come for us too you insensitive porcelain American shit bags!"
This is the answer.
On Lemmy, yeah. The political leanings here is different than the body politic of America.
Are they literally saying they are the same person? That they share the same atoms?
Or is the point that they are the same in the most important ways?
Maybe your disagreement is over what qualities/policies are most important, but accusing them for being blind is easier than addressing the actual disagreement?
The arguments are that Biden is just as bad as Trump.
And it doesn't occur to you to ask by what metrics they think that? All metrics? One metric? A spattering of metrics?
So you agree that people on Lemmy are arguing that Biden is just as bad as Trump.
People on Lemmy are arguing that Biden is just as bad as Trump in the most important ways.
So we're in agreement.
Lol, idk I see a few differences between your statement and mine
What's the difference?
Why is that so important? It is implied in the comparison of two people. We aren't comparing unimportant differences between the two. We aren't comparing Biden and Trump's fashion sense or taste in food.
Because otherwise it sounds like the things they have in common are unimportant, like their fashion sense or taste in food.
You have a vastly different understanding of the English language than most people.
No, you just disagree that the similarities between them are as important as others think they are.
No one is thinking that. Wtf
And this is exactly how nothing ever gets done. Only criticize, never do anything, create the feeling that getting involved is pointless because"they're all the same anyway".
I hate that humans are so awful at nuance. People could absolutely praise and condemn the same person for different actions, instead they want to boil down that person's entire existence to "good, bad, different, same". And we all suffer for that
I disagree, i think insisting on accepting a binary choice is how nothing ever gets done.
"FPTP DOESN'T EXIST LALALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU I CAN'T HEAR YOU LALALALALA!"
So when I said we should be more nuanced... That equals BINARY THINKING FOREVER, or what?
Not at all, I agree we should be more nuanced, but I think the 'Biden is better than Trump' insistence is what leads to this kind of petty argument to begin with. There's a reason why those people are saying "biden is just as bad as trump" - they're being forced into choosing between them, when the spectrum of available action is much broader than 'vote or don't vote', including leveraging that action as a bargaining chip to improve the options on offer.
people are behaving as if there's nothing to do about Biden's inadequacies, and those are the people who seem to lack nuanced thinking.
It's very weird to see people say "Biden is awful. I won't support him anymore" and get "Why didn't you say that about Donald Trump?!!!" thrown back at them.
At some point, insisting that Donald Trump will ALSO do a genocide, so you need to donate all your money to the Biden campaign and block walk for him... Fucking bananas.
Even Obama didn't get this kind of Ride or Die support from Democrats.
It's because Trump has said he wants the genocide to be stronger. Biden wants it to end, but isn't doing much to stop it. Trump also wants to go after minorities in the US.
Obama didn't get the same support because his opponent wasn't even close to as bad. Trump has already tried to overturn democracy. Republicans have also put together a plan to innact a Christo-fascist dictatorship (project 2025). The elections with Obama were business as usual. This election is, for many people, life or death, and potentially the last hope for democracy.
Also, Obama was cooler than Biden but he wasn't better. Honestly, I think if you were to compare their actions as president, Biden would be better. He still sucks, but he's much better than I expected (very low bar). They're just not great at communicating what he's done.
And Mitt Romney said "Double Gitmo". That doesn't absolve Obama or Biden for keeping the illegal torture prison open during their terms.
You don't absolve yourself of genocide by saying "Well, it was either me or Mega-Hitler"
What? So let's apply this to 1930s Germany.
Your stance is that, if Hitlers political rivals stood for anything "wrong" by your moral code, whatever that is, that voters were in the right to not vote against literally Hitler?
That's taking "two wrongs don't make a right" to extreme absolutes.
This was what brought down the Hindenburg government, in fact. His performance in the Presidency was notoriously abysmal and his country suffered enormously under his tenure. In fact, one could very easily argue that Hindenburg's failures created the Nazi Party, as disaffected voters fled the traditional political sphere for the edges of the ideological map - to the Nazis, the Communists, and the Friekorps radicals..
It was, after all, Hindenburg himself who appointed Hitler to the Chancellorship, because he considered Hitler someone he could compromise with.
This is a shockingly similar position to the current Biden/Schumer Congress, which consistently attempts to negotiate with "moderates" in the Republican Party even to this day.
Looking at the trajectory the conservative wing of the Democratic Party has us on, and comparing it to the Weimer Republic, reveals some terrifying parallels.
This isn't "two wrongs make a right" nearly so much as it is "the marginal less or two evils is still unconscionable".
Oh geeze what's worse a bigger war crime prison or bringing a genocide against Arabs to America?
No one is saying they're absolved. Where have you heard that?
The fact of the matter is that if you don't like genocide or gitmo or whatever other horrible things, you should vote for the person who at worst wants to maintain the status quo of horrible things.
That said, Obama wanted to close Gitmo. Biden has also condemned Israel's attacks, and the US has warned them to stop. We've also stopped some military aid to them, but obviously not all. The recent jets, for example, still happened, but they're air-superiority fighters which serve no use against Palestine. We've also continued to send a lot of other defensive aid, though offensive has slowed down if not stopped. To imply Obama or Biden didn't try to do anything is ignorance at best, if not an outright lie. The fact of the matter is that much of it is handled by congress though, and republicans in congress will stop a Democrat from doing essentially anything.
Obama said he wanted to close Gitmo. He gave up forever at the very first setback.
Sure, and we can question it, but we can't know what he will do. My understanding is that he really had not control over that though
Because the reality of our shitty political system is that not supporting the only viable non-fascist candidate means supporting the one that is. It only actually matters in the handful of swing states, but the internet is worldwide and heaping negativity about supporting the non-fascist candidate can matter. This doesn't mean you shouldn't criticize Biden and the Democrats for their many failings, but not supporting him in the election for the sake of the country is cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Isn't this a little disingenuous? Or maybe individualism is so ingrained in the western psyche that people honestly don't see the asymmetry of this framing.
The reality of our political system is that the only way to get change is to demand it from the people who need your vote. By giving your vote without demanding change, you're supporting the system that disenfranchises you (and you're supporting the binary choice that was given to you by it).
No, not even slightly
He wasn't running against Donald "ban the Muslims" Trump,
YES HE ABSOLUTELY DID IF YOU'RE SAYING THIS YOU ARE CLEARLY TOO YOUNG TO REMEMBER THE OBAMA GIRL SQUAD
He was running against Double Gitmo Romney.
You're confusing a publicity stunt financed by the party with an enthusiastic show of support
Exhibit A