"The choice is between two terrible people. One is actively trying to kill me and the other doesn't care if I die." --A old post I'm unable to find but truly sums up american politics.
this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2023
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To be fair, I didn't want Biden the first time either. He just happened to be not Trump. I'll vote Biden again, but I'm not pleased those are my only (real) options. We really need ranked choice voting here in the US....
No one wanted Biden in 2008 either. In 2020 the media kept saying he was the front runner with no evidence to support that.. He was behind in polls and if he didn't win the South Carolina primary he would have dropped out. Everyone would have moved on to Buttigieg or Bernie.
Now we're essentially in the same place we were in in 2016..
"Who are you excited for?"
"Neither of them."
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I mean seriously... We don't have ANY better and more qualified candidates in our 331.9 million citizens? Really?
Sure we do. That apparently has nothing to do with what the parties decide to do.
I've been saying that, with varying levels of disbelief, for decades.
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It's funny how we all forget that JB ran as a "place holder" candidate to begin with and said he had no desire or intention to run for a second term. The thought was that by now one of the other primary candidates (Klobachar, Harris and Buttigieg) would have gotten tapped and run on Biden's behest. There was clearly a king maker deal cut so that they would all drop out and throw their support behind him to cut off Sanders momentum. They combined this with a media "bombshell" that Clyburn backed Biden over Sanders, after telegraphing support for Sanders previously. This combination of factors was snowballed into a media blitz that never let up and pushed Biden to the top seemingly by just repeating itself ad nauseam.
Still though, the tap for the next in line never came and the old guard stays in place again just by merely having a pulse. Dems have once again squandered full control and couldn't cobble together any protections from a clear and present danger in radicalized right political zealots. We could all argue about the spoilers and that we couldn't re-do the filibuster but I'm sure a couple million could have been back channeled to make that happen. They didn't want it to.
At the knifes edge is exactly where they want us to be and they will take full fascism over even moderate movement toward actual implemented progressive policy. Now they will tell you up and down that they want things like student loan forgiveness or clean energy policy with teeth, but they will never implement it in a way that ensures it's survival. It's just platitudes that are built to fail and "vote for us harder and we'll get it done next time."
I'm so tired of this political system where we've been held hostage for the better part of 2 decades. All the while our hopes for a meaningful America just slips further by and we're powerless to stop it. The only option we're presented is to press a pause button for 4 years so that we can have permission to feel ok until the election starts again in 2 years. I would take a rouge sentient AI resting control of the country and threatening our nuclear destruction, unless we do as were told, over this. At least then it would probably make at least some meaningful strides to correcting the course of our nihilistic self destruction.
Dems have once again squandered full control and couldn’t cobble together any protections from a clear and present danger in radicalized right political zealots.
The mistake lies in thinking that they want to. One can believe they are bumbling fools who trip over their own feet for only so many generations before it becomes apparent that the agenda they somehow fail to foil over and over again is actually one that they wholeheartedly embrace themselves, too.
Honestly I think it's all the neo-liberal echos of Reagan. Something broke in the minds of Dem strategists and politicians when he so handily swept the entire country. For them it was a sign that the waters were rich if they could just wiggle a little more to the right economically and shake off the remaining vestigial support of Keynesian economics. Once both parties saw that you could feast on the corpse of America for decades without having to deliver anything outside of photo ops and being likable that was it.
Maybe it's all just that thing where people look back on George Bush and say they'd want to have a beer with him. It's identity politics and we're made to look through a prism at these people and see how our personalities would intertwine with theirs. I think we need to find a way to start trusting the boring and awkward candidates, or forcing our boring awkward friends to run for office. We need politicians who are visibly uncomfortable speaking at a podium.
You're right. The cereal can only be "Oops, all berries" so many times before you know that machine was built to only make berries and lie about it.
Maybe. The Democrats had already spent decades helping to kill the labor movement, build up the carceral state, and rampage across the world in imperial war-making prior to Reagan. So while he may have been a catalyst for further open embrace of reactionary ideology (see: Clinton), I can't quite buy that he was the absolute beginning of it.
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That's not a fair assessment. The Democrats have not had a solid majority in both houses of Congress and the presidency at the same time in a long time. Other than the promises they make, there is very little evidence of what they would do if there wasn't any Republican obstruction to stop them. They could very well do everything they say they'll do, for all we know.
As for Sanders, I'm not inclined to believe conspiracy theories about him. Look around you; this country is thoroughly right-wing. The vast majority of Americans are reflexively suspicious of avowed leftists like Sanders. He was never going to win the presidential primary, with or without shenanigans.
I believe it to be a fair assessment, and not because of my feelings or desire for change, but simply because I (and apparently some others further up this thread) saw basically the same thing happen.
I've worked closely enough to the Dem party/staffers/organizers that I've seen the same pandering play out locally, statewide and nationally in much the same way. It's mainly about playing ball to keep your funding streams up and to fill your little black book for the next cycles war chest. Certainly, some politicians are more genuine than others in the party but for the majority politics comes to be little more than moves to jostle purse strings from PACs, donors and the party itself. At the end of the day there's endless things that Dems could be doing to fight back against the takeovers of state level governments, school boards, appointee positions and the like, but they aren't.
We can say "but we're the one's who fight the good fight" but there's no keeping the genie in the bottle on the GOP side and Biden should have pushed his powers to the limit to gain every protection or have the courts limit his and future presidents power as a guardrail.
There certainly is always a narrative around these events, but Sanders was consistently polling as the most well liked politician in America for years around that time. There's no conspiracy around the ways that coverage began slanting as standings solidified, and every other contender in the race threw their support behind Biden (including Warren, which left everyone scratching their head.) Here's another article about MSNBC. If your actually interested that one has all of the measured instances laid out in google docs you can look at. I don't know any people alleging that the votes were manipulated in terms of ballot stuffing or anything, so if you mean that by conspiracy then I'd have to agree with you there.
Your assessment of political leanings in America also seems to be very skewed and there's a graph there that shows Dem/left sentiment at its highest point since 2008 during those primaries. Although it does seem to be ticking back conservative, but when Joe Biden still chooses to punch left on dem socialists after a failed insurrection that's not much of a surprise.
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I suspect most don't even want to see a Biden vs Anyone or an Anyone Vs. Trump election.
That's exactly what the article says.
I don't see how this is a particularly meaningful finding. Republicans hate Biden, and Democrats loathe Trump, so it's unlikely ANYONE on either side would be hoping for a rematch.
My hot take:
Biden has been the best President we've had in 30 years.
He's exactly who we needed when we got him. He got us out of Afghanistan. As much as a debacle as it was, he not Trump and not Obama pulled us out. His deft handling of the Ukrainian conflict where he used soft-power and influence to let the EU and NATO members come to decision to enact the super harsh sanctions themselves. Knowing that if the US pressed, they'd resist. It had to be their decision. He's continued to say and do all of the right things. His attempt to forgive student loans his huge. Some of the measures worked even if all of them didn't. He got the most meaningful infrastructure bill passed that I've ever witness. Neither Trump nor Obama could make it happen and Biden did it with a split Congress That infrastructure bill was also the most meaningful environment legislation that we've ever had That bill also paves the way for significant investment in our broad-band across the country Passed the Safer Communities Act ...actual gun related legislation since the Brady bill. Again, with a split congress. Gave us our first public defender SCOTUS justice. This might not seem like a big deal but I think its pretty significant given the amount of case law that exists that, so far, hasn't had a public defenders 'say' in it.
I could go on but I gotta go eat dinner.
People want to shit on Biden, but I actually like him. He's not perfect, but he's been insanely effective given everything he walked in to. Including him diligently and quietly rebolstering the executive branches that were gutted and had people leaving in droves in the last admin. Eg the Department of State. He's assigned quality folks into key roles and its making a difference.
I voted for him without hesitation because well, the alternative was terrifying, but I was not expecting much from him at all. He's surprised me.
edit: I literally can't figure out how to make this a list. Sorry for the wordblob.
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Biden has done a better job than I expected, but he should clearly retire. I think this is a huge, and almost necessary opportunity for Democrats. Incumbents are way more likely to get reelected. Since Trump has pissed off too many people, and he'll sabotage any other front runners for his party.
Wouldn't it make sense to get someone younger and a little bolder in now for the Dema? They have a very strong likelihood to win this round, and then they'll be the incumbents next term. We could finally replace some garbage supreme court members.
Yeah. I don’t know why the Dems aren’t running someone younger…
I wasn’t thrilled about Biden either, but I think Biden handled negotiations with Europe for Ukraine very well.
But yeah, I get jealous every time I look at other countries’ leadership and see how young they are…
Statistically, an incumbent has a huge advantage right out of the gate. Not to mention Biden could splinter the vote which is the worst scenario for a party that holds the seat. I don't like it either, but Bidens low drama, non-world-ending and still-not-trump platform is the dems safest bet.
It'd be easier if he picked a less boring running mate; maybe he could lure in somebody who'd otherwise be inclined to wait for 2028 - Whitmer, say - with a secret promise to resign halfway through his term. (which I hope he plans to do anyway, though he obviously can't publicize that fact)
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This would go against Dem's #1 policy: self-sabotage.
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I'd also prefer Trump's name never be on a ballot.
Those same Americans will just ignore that there are other candidates and it'll be yet another presidential election where 49% of voters claim that they don't really support the person they vote for, and that you have to do the same as a moral imperative.
And, as it's been since Reagan, no matter who we elect we'll only get conservative outcomes.
and that you have to do the same as a moral imperative
Railing against this fact doesn't magically make it untrue. Not voting for the lesser evil means you don't care which evil wins. If you legitimately think GOP rule isn't any worse than Dem rule, then by all means don't vote or vote third party. But if you think Christian fascism + neoliberalism is worse than just neoliberalism, then once the primaries are over you need to vote accordingly. Voter disenfranchisement is an age-old tactic you're comment is falling right into.
And I say this all as a market socialist, so don't for a second think I like the Dems
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'Historic' number of people don't want this thing happening for the first time to happen.
Wow, such history!
Hopefully Desantis and Trump spend much of their money, time, and effort shitting all over one another to lessen the chance of fascist scum finding their way back into the Whitehouse.
I cannot wait until FatDonnie goes to jail. HAHAHAHAHAHA
i'm going to remove this because surely we can think of better ways to attack and critique Donald Trump than calling him fat. also just generally i would advise people steer away from this line of insults—there is a 99% chance the only people you're actually impacting when you say things like this are normal, non-odious people
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That damn Cheeto chimp better be in jail and disqualified. Pure insanity.
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Life is only getting worse for pretty much everyone, all the time, so yeah, that makes sense.
Please for the love of God end this geritocracy
I'm 57 and it's starting to look like no matter how long I manage to hang on I'll never see a president younger than I am.
An anachronistic old white dude vs a corrupt old orange dude. Why is this the best we as a country can do?
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The parties don't care what people want/need. Occasionally putting the lipstick on the pig fools too many people for them to care.
voters select these candidates via primaries and general election, though.
Yeah, just look at the DNC and Bernie. Clearly chosen by the voters and not at all manipulated by the party to get the result they wanted.
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Just get rid of Trump, DeSantis, Marjorie, Ted, Boebert.. all republicans and we'll be fine.
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As a representative democracy we are doing it wrong when none of the candidates represent the majority. They represent business and special interests that's it.
And this is an example of why we need to get rid of first past the post.
Please for the love of god let them both just fuck off and retire already
Well… not enough to stop it. Both are the most popular in their respective primaries. By far. It’s it even close.
It shouldn’t be shocking that most people want someone better.
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