Everytime I read these kind of takes, I think to myself 'Where the fuck is Russia getting all this money to mess with the USA election?'
this post was submitted on 24 Jan 2024
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Naomi Klein is a real person with a real history of political opinions not controlled by shadowy Russian masterminds. Maybe, just maybe, you're hearing this criticism all over the place because it's actually a real issue and "must be Russians" is a comfortable mental shutoff to avoid thinking about how the ego of the most powerful person in the country could be leading us into political danger.
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Maybe the answer is that Russia isn’t doing what you think they’re doing. Blaming the failures of our electoral system on Russia is so 2016.
Eh, I mean they did mess around, but they were mainly just exacerbating existing issues and fault lines.
That's exactly how it works. Find the fault lines and apply pressure. If you do it right, it doesn't even cost much.
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.... yeah they are
They still have enough oil for this - and American politicians are cheap.
You need to wake up, you're sleepwalking into fascism. The DNC thought Hillary couldn't lose and forced her through despite Bernie being more popular. They are making the same blunder again.
There is nobody else with the name recognition or independent/middle clout - the swing voters the Ds need to win. Who are you going to put up - Kamala? Bernie? The middle/middle-right would rather stay home and sit on their hands while Trump drags out his base in the big red states. The best possible outcome is for Biden to take the economic momentum into a win and then step down and give the next generation 3+ years to forge their path. Of course, if you're a Lefty, you don't want Kamala either, so the only option is for the entire administration to step away and watch a true Left slate fail miserably in every swing state.
Newsom and Whitmer come to mind. Not saying they’re sure to do better, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
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Hilary wasn't an incumbent. Biden should have been the go to in 2016. You run your sitting vice president if you've got one, because they have a way better chance of winning. Doubly so for a sitting president.
It would be an incredibly stupid political strategy to try to run someone else right now. I think the DNC learned that lesson eight years ago.
Stop blaming all your problems on another government
Anybody else feel like Lemmy is like 60% Russian trolls lately?
Anybody else feel like Lemmy is like 60% Russian trolls lately?
China and Russia both
Most of the super progressive takes are just ways that would definitely help Trump retake the Whitehouse so...yeah.
Always has been man, this place is kind of a dump
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Maybe someone here could refresh my memory. I could have sworn that during 2020 campaigning, Biden indicated he would be a one term president that would willingly let a younger Democrat run for 2024. I haven't seen anyone really rake him through the coals over that, so maybe it was some misinformation that was spread to make him more attractive, but I feel like it was a really key reason I felt comfortable supporting him.
They haven't put anyone else up. No one has come up to challenge him. The Dems absolutely suck at presenting new leadership.
Probably because the last time someone saw the DNC running us all collectively off a cliff (Bernie in 2016), the DNC actively crushed their campaign, and then blamed them for the as-predicted DNC candidate's loss.
No one wants to see their future political career taken out back and shot, as the DNC's next scapegoat if/when Biden loses.
I will always remember that moment in the 2016 Dem primary debates where Swalwell relayed a story about going to a political rally as a 6 year old and hearing the candidate tell people to pass the torch to the younger generation, and then revealing that Biden was that candidate, and Biden then quipping that he'd "hold onto" the torch for now.
He literally is so arrogant that he truly believes he is the only person alive who can beat Trump. He'd rather be buried with that torch than admit that there are many others that could do far better than him.
The thing is though, I think he's right. There is no younger alternative to him that has any chance of winning an election right now. At best, some are popular among college-aged males, a group that thinks they are far more important and numerous than they actually are (see also: Bernie-Bros).
Newsome would wipe the floor with Biden's crappy poll numbers, and I don't even like him.
Your argument is literally the argument that was put forth against Obama when he first announced his run. People always falsely claim the DNC's ordained pick is the only path forward, when in reality they tend to eke out a win (or not, see 2016), while the dark horse candidates run away with elections.
The anti-Bernie rhetoric is #8 on the "Ur-DNC list of characteristics", where the alternative candidates are cast as both too strong and too weak; having enough support to tank the election, but also so little support as to be safely ignored.
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What Democrat governer, senator, congressman, mayor or whatever currently has the public profile to be electable nationally?
"Electable" is a subjective, moving goalpost.
You can easily discount Biden as being "electable" from polls that show him losing to Trump.
No one is excited for him, the most anyone can manage is that he beat Trump once, and after Gaza many people are markedly upset with the prospect of voting for him.
Point being, your question is inherently flawed: no one is voting for Biden because it's Biden, people are only going to vote because the other person has an 'R' next to their name, and even more people if that person is Trump. You could probably pick a registered Democrat at random and if they were the general election candidate see them do nearly as well as Biden, barring the crusty pro-Biden fossils who would withhold their votes out of spite.
And yes, I think there are actually politicians on the "left" that you could replace him with and have a much better chance of winning, Newsom (regardless of my issues with him) being the most obvious answer.
I get the idea of voting not-R vs excited to vote for the Dem. But Hillary Clinton would like a word.
I'm old. In almost every election it has been the same for me. Vote for the lesser of the evils. I would vote for a very progressive candidate if I thought they would have a chance. When I was young I did vote 3rd part a few times.
Voting for the lesser of the evils isn't exciting but you know what, it has been a vastly better plan seeing a Dem, any dem in power, than the R alternatives in my life. Compare to, Reagan, Bush, Shrub, and Mr Indictment.
For this current election, it is crazily out of balance. Contrary to popular opinion (real or manufactured) I believe Biden has been a good president. The Israel situation is deeply depressing and I am not happy with how that has been handled but I guarantee the world will be a much, much worse place with vastly more severe consequences if Biden loses.
I believe Biden has been a mostly-decent president, apart from the whole providing-weapons-for-genocide thing, or the whole authorizing-fossil-fuel-extraction-on-federal-lands-after-expicitly-promising-not-to thing, or the whole campaigning-for-more-police thing, or the whole aggressive-deportations-of-assylum-seekers thing... Oh wait.
And don't get me wrong, I don't want Trump to win; but I'm becoming more certain he will, barring a criminal conviction. Biden is weak, and getting weaker, as a candidate.
And you already have the DNC preparing for it, too, putting out op-eds about how if Biden loses, it will have been the fault of RFK, or West, or Bernie, or literally whoever else they can pin it on.
And at some point, if all you're doing is choosing the lesser-genocider, where any potential non-genociders are being actively sabotaged and removed from your options as a voter, you're not in a democracy, you're in a facade that makes you believe you have Representation, so you won't repeat what happens when you don't believe that.
And I'm not sure what you mean about Hillary wanting a word; she is the poster child for "not excited to vote for", and what happens when you force that candidate through anyways.
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I think they wanted to, but the young alternatives that the party leaders and donors liked have almost 0 popular support. Buttigieg, Harris, Yang, Gabbard, and Klobuchar were all relatively “young”, the party insiders liked them, the donors/media owners don’t hate them, but the average democratic voter ether dislikes them or is apathetic.
The people who do have popular support say things that scare donors and media owners. So they have spent years trying to convince the party and moderate voters that they’re not viable candidates.
So Biden it is because incumbent advantage.
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December 2019:
“If Biden is elected, he’s going to be 82 years old in four years and he won’t be running for reelection,” a prominent adviser to the campaign told Politico.
By Feb 2020 that wording changed slightly:
“I’m in pretty good health, but, look, I guarantee you this: If anything changed in my health, making it incapable for me to fully exert all the energy and mental acuity that was needed to be done, then I give you my word: I would not run again,” Biden said.
I remember this as well and I posted about it either here or the r/ and got downvoted all to shit over it. Gaslighting that it never happened. He said something about being a transition pres, bringing people back together and would hand o er the reins or some shit. I voted for him and he got his 4 years. Now the old Warhawk has lots of potential conflicts to get us mired in and doesn’t want to give up the chair.
January 6th occurred, Trump has been relatively unscathed, and Trump is running again. That's what has changed since 2019.
If Trump had been fully prosecuted, or had decided not to run Biden likely wouldn't be running.
Even if Biden beats Trump, I still fear for the effect of an apathetic, depressed voter turnout on down-ticket races. If Biden holds onto the presidency, but a congress and state and oocal races go the other way, we won't be in a great place.
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I think it is far too late for that.
Where the fuck is the VP? I have not seen her since she was elected.
She wants to run for president, probably thinks that being too public right now might hurt her reputation long term.
She stuck her neck out and tried to make a name for her self earlier in the presidency and was met by foaming frothing rage from the right (nothing new there despite openly pandering to them) and apathy or distaste from the left. She and her team probably think that response is from her association with Biden, but I suspect that is more to do with the vibe she gives off of being a careerist politician.
Being from Oakland a lot of us also know that she's totally fine jailing people for weed, you'd think that a rationale move you would try and step away from the "just doing my job DA" to "Vice President of the People" by pushing for policies that prevent unnecessary jailings.
But you're right, I didn't even really realize until now that Kamala has been almost seemingly less active than Mike Pence as VP. You're probably onto something with the long term campaign, although I also wouldn't be surprised if it was "suggested" that she let Biden take the lead or something.
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Remember when Biden told rich donors "nothing would fundamentally change" if he was elected? Man lived up to his word, smh
Biden told rich donors, "If you pay more in taxes, nothing will fundamentally change." That is, the union will not fall because they didn't get tax cuts. Don't be disingenuous about what actually happened.
Please don't spread misinformation by including something in quotes that is your own editorialization. The actual quote is 10 seconds of googling away:
"We can disagree in the margins but the truth of the matter is it's all within our wheelhouse and nobody has to be punished. No one's standard of living will change, nothing would fundamentally change."
https://www.axios.com/2019/06/19/joe-biden-wealthy-donors-demonize
The older Americans hated Hillary. Much less than Biden, who they see as a benign figure. And they very much vote. Most of them have realized that Trump is a liar and unstable.
They thought Hillary couldn't lose too.
I went to bed that night and checked my phone looking at the electoral map. I sad to my partner, "Hillary is going to loose.." The numbers and visuals all just right there, election night, telling a very different story of what polls (remember the NYT Prediction tracker? Clinton 96% chance or something crazy?) Indicated. Woke up and was like "The son of a bitch actually did it.". I couldn't even think or feel, it was so insane and such a deviation from the norm that I had no ground to stand on. It was en entirely brave new world.
Howdy. I am well aware of Klein, as her investigative journalism is what kept me motivated to keep asking questions about environmental justice and doing research. She, frankly, knows her shit and is one of the most well spoken and passionate people I've ever had the chance of reading and hearing.
And she's absolutely right. Without a shadow of a doubt, "hoping" the DNC doesnt suffer from the self inflicted "no-bernie no-vote" mistake is not enough. It's too close and too much is at risk for the people who do vote Democrat.
It's a good point. Biden's unconditional support for Netanyahu is not helping him at all (even though he seems to be trying to mediate in the background, he's not very successful and the optics are really bad).
But the question is, who else would be a candidate with enough support? He's counting on the incumbent bonus now but I also doubt it's good enough, if "not Trump" is the main thing he has going for him. I don't know US politics well enough to know about any alternatives. Buttigieg maybe?
But another Trump reign would be bad for the whole world order and climate so I really hope that won't happen.
I think a Bernie win would be amazing but I doubt he has enough hardliner support even on the Democratic side.
Newsom.
Biden doesn't have support based on who he is. If he wins it will only be because people don't want Trump, so anyone else who hasn't pissed off most of the Democrat voter base will do just as well or better. Literally anyone on the street who can say that they aren't supplying bombs for an ongoing genocide.
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