I cannot believe people are seriously saying that Biden and Trump are interchangeable. That’s is beyond absurd. Biden is a shit sandwich, but Trump is a shit buffet floating on a shit iceberg drifting in an ocean of shit.
Besides, it is not as if the right on this country got where it was overnight. The far right didn’t pop up like a zit while we were sleeping, they bided their time and dragged the party progressively further in until it became the controlling arm of the whole thing. They did not sink their entire ship on purpose to teach the rest of the GOP a lesson.
There is in my mind no world where sitting out the general somehow sends a reverberating shock through the DNC that they need to run further left. That happened four years ago, and now we have Joe god damn Biden as a possible option. It is infinitely preferable to have Biden in and use the following time and effort to drag everyone else further left than to just watch the entire country plunge even deeper into the right while hoping to all hell that someone will come along in four years that shows everyone the light.
When a person says they want to get rid of Trump, what is the primary mechanism of power you’re hoping to change? Replacing one clueless crass old man with another that has maybe an iota of better decorum? Is there a meaningful difference between two men with grossly racist backgrounds, if one of them is just more obvious about it?
If the Republicans maintain a senate majority, Biden will likely fold on any policy they push. If Biden miraculously won and got a senate majority, I guarantee you his cabinet would get stuck in West Wing “take the high ground” mode every time McConnell (or whoever replaces him) throws a wrench into the works, which we saw happen for the entirety of Obama’s second term.
So if we end up with a Biden vs Trump election, then either way you pick, none of the US’s (or the countries that are affected by its policies) problems will get the long overdue change they need, and hundreds of thousands will continue suffering under a system that doesn’t care about them.
The possibility of maybe appointing another Democratically-aligned judge isn’t going to make the life of someone working two jobs and getting bankrupted by medical costs better in any perceivable way.
The primary difference I can identify between Biden and Trump is that Biden wouldn’t employ a person like Stephen Miller. You wouldn’t be looking at any kind of profound change so much as harm reduction.
That’s the thing. It’s politicians like Biden who policy and votes enable the likes of Trump to take office. Biden, who was to the right of Ronald Reagan on crime. I really don’t see much of a difference between the two candidates other than Biden would make his racism more palatable to the establishment - he won’t be loud and obnoxious about it. It’s certainly help push people Left, if the infrastructure was there to move them, otherwise they get apathetic and not bother.
You don’t win against the likes of Trump, who co-opts populist rhetoric, with a moderate who doesn’t even humor the idea. Biden will lose bad. Not counting Bernie out, not at all, so here’s hoping for a really good debate showing this Sunday!
Here’s a question. This isn’t really directed at anyone in particular in here, so don’t think I’m calling anyone out…
Why do you think liberals get so upset when I suggest to them that we might have to do more than just vote? What is it about the idea of having to build horizontal power that gets them mad?
Because even if we get Biden in there I don’t see a lot of these people continuing to do the necessary work towards a better future… they’ll just tell me to wait four years for the next election and to make sure I vote in my locals.
Neither of which are enough. So what is it? Fear? Privilege? Complacency? I’m trying to understand so I can better explain to people why that isn’t enough.
The goal is to give power to people? Like, by building unions and grass roots community movements that give people control over their lives.
You’re right we shouldn’t try and do armchair psychology in here. What I’m kind of thinking is that… maybe there are just a lot of more well off liberal folk who are of the managerial (but not ruling elite) class that see that kind of power as threatening. I don’t know. I really don’t and I’m frustrated by it.
I just can’t fathom thinking Biden is as bad as Trump. The current administration is comically evil. Almost anything is an improvement. We can talk circles about how Biden is not THAT good, or also bad, but Trump is something else entirely. This feels like people trying to talk themselves into not voting for Biden if he wins. Please vote for him. You can continue to organize while he is president. Obama was a similar moderate liberal who at the same time pushed us toward universal healthcare. Positive change can happen under Biden even if it isn’t the overhaul some of us would prefer.
I don’t think Biden is literally as bad as Trump, if only for lack of certain brands of nationalism. But I do think they are too close in policy to waste any effort supporting; my time is better spent protesting, organising, volunteering, playing Satisfactory with my friends than it is campaigning for someone whose most substantial changes will be half-measures at best.
And I begrudge nobody who looks at the hours long queues at their polling station and says “nah, he’s not worth sore feet and my day off.”
I’m not voting for a republican. I’m not throwing my principles or my morals out the window just so we can keep playing the same circular game that leaves power in the hands of the elites every four years. I refuse.
You better hope Bernie somehow gets the nomination.
This election cycle is making physically and mentally sick right now - I feel completely powerless and doomed, especially as an immigrant who can’t vote.
Sorry for unloading, but one of the many things that is currently bothering me is how liberals keep berating Sanders and his voters for not “broadening his appeal” and not falling in line a voting for Biden. It’s frustrating that it’s always progressives that have to bend over and take it - Even if Biden wins, one of the clear things is there is a huge progressive wing in the Democratic party, which the liberals and moderates are not doing a good job of appealing too either. If your candidate is so unappealing to half the voters in your party that they are seriously contemplating not even voting, you should also be compromising and reaching out.
Not only that, but a lot of people are accusing Bernie supporters as being the reason Hillary lost. I feel the primaries so far are painting a different story - there seem to be a lot of people who voted Sanders last time just because he wasn’t Hillary, who are now flocking to Biden. It seems more likely to me that it was that demographic that constituted the majority of Bernie primary voters that voted Trump in 2016, and most likely not the more hardcore Bernie supporters.
All the young people not showing up takes are awful as well, especially the glee from some people. It’s hard to be civically engaged when you are young and trying to sort your life out. It’s much easier when you are settled down. It doesn’t mean young people don’t care, it’s just that it’s much easier for life to get in the way in your teens and twenties.
Whatever happens, we will get fucked, especially on climate.
Not an American, but I suspect it might be the same kind of reaction you see to any kind of activisim. Promoting veganism or being big on animal welfare or recycling or what have you. These are complex issues and if mainstream sources aren’t beating the drum you’re asking people to change their behaviour against the grain.
If I don’t have an interest in being a career politician and I’ve got my own profession and that’s my focus, my area of expertise. There’s a sentiment of like “Look, I do my job and if I screw up I get fired. That’s how it’s supposed to work, right? That’s how it works everywhere else.” There’s a narrative about how accountability is supposed to happen. If you’re being asked to step in and fix it, the first thought is “Why the hell is this my responsibility?”. There’s a shooting the messenger component to it and it’s a glib response. But it’s also the narrative everyone has been told for a long time - that you hold people accountable at the ballot box.
I’m not trying to be confrontational, but how do you propose four more years of Trump doesn’t do that exact same thing, but far worse?
Look, there are countless things Biden wouldn’t do that Trump does eagerly that you don’t even have to think that hard about. Wasting billions on a pointless wall, throwing away countless regulations designed to help the environment, rolling back any policy no matter how mundane because Obama touched it at some point, the list goes on and on. I am genuinely trying to find a situation where you can either open a door that says “probably guaranteed suffering” or one that says “guaranteed 100% suffering” and you decide to leave the decision up to others.
There are so many of these arguments and thoughts that I just can’t even begin to understand. Saying that Biden is somehow what enables Trump getting elected is a massive oversimplification of a confrontation that’s been slowly brewing for decades. Our current problems are not the result of one doofus, but the ultimate culmination of an inherently racist system and a frightening number of people who are fine with that if they get to be comfortable.
I also don’t inherently believe the idea that Biden will lose bad. Trump ran against one of the most hated politicians of the modern era, a woman who the GOP has been working for DECADES to smear, who was caught in the middle of a legitimate scandal as well as some invented ones, who had the god damned FBI publicly announce days before the election that they were re-opening the case, and Trump lost the popular election by a large margin and kind of fluked his way into an electoral win because of boneheaded campaign moves. If every domino hadn’t fell in exactly the right order, Trump isn’t even close.
To me, it boils down essentially to this. If given four more years, the GOP will absolutely do everything it can to disenfranchise more voters, to suppress as many voters as it can, and to rig the system to be as biased as possible in their favor both on a state and federal level. They will do everything they can to make it difficult to elect any candidate that isn’t deep, deep red. That is a fact, as certain as the sun rising. Even if I am consigned to make a choice between two devils, I would rather choose the devil in which I have to at least possibly cede the least amount of ground.
I’m exhausted, this thread honestly hasn’t been great for my mental health, but to keep it short:
I view anything but the election of a truly progressive candidate in the face of the climate crisis to be an apocalyptic mistake and it deeply disturbs me that all most people can talk about is how we have to concede, how we have to give ground to evil because lesser evil is somehow better.
But more than that, it really frustrates me that all people can seem to see is electoralism. Even the twitter thread linked above. That person framed their argument in terms of electoral strategy. Going so far as to say that the people pushing for someone like Sanders are “throwing up their hands” and giving up if he doesn’t win? That’s such a narrow perspective on what’s possible for organizing. Leftists aren’t giving up if Sanders doesn’t win. But we also shouldn’t be obligated to participate in this manipulative charade just to comfort the people who aren’t actually interested in doing something outside of the election cycle.
I think I need to be done with this thread for a while. It’s making me feel utterly doomed.
