He's desperately trying to stop things, but he is completely powerless and that's not his fault, but also he has actually gotten tons of great stuff done and you're just ignoring it, and you should ignore the bad stuff he's done because his opponent will do worse, but most importantly any good stuff he hasn't done was impossible for him to get done, and that's why you should vote for him
Joe Biden, the most powerful person in the world, is completely powerless and it's not his fault. Meanwhile if Trump is elected it's the end of American democracy.
He's desperately trying to stop things
he's literally sending israel more bombs for their genocide
you should ignore the bad stuff he's done
you absolutely should not write him a blank check to commit more atrocities
his opponent will do worse
and you and your fellow democratic voters will continue to stand by and watch it happen, right?
I’m pretty sure @aberrate_junior_beatnik@midwest.social was being ironic there
I was being ironic. Fuck Genocide Joe and the people giving him cover.
I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to see an instance with a name as normal as midwest.social that still has good opinions, every time I see that suspicious fish face I'm pleasantly surprised by the humanity it expresses.
I've found Midwest.Social to be both wholesome and pleasantly left-leaning.
Correction: "I'm voting for Biden to make sure the things that are happening right now continue to get slowly better, instead of getting immediately and significantly worse."
Can't recall there being an active genocide going on with the full throated support of the US government when Biden got into office.
I think most reasonable accounts of the violence at the southern border (which has escalated again under Biden) would be considered a genocide
continue to get slowly better
lol looking at the last couple weeks all I see is a crackdown on supposed "open society" in order to combat anti-zionism while the war machine rattles on abroad.
This is like claiming global warming isn't real because it still snows sometimes.
It's more like saying global warming isn't real because a new ice age just started. Biden is leading the greatest attack on civil liberty seen since the fucking Patriot Act, and his warmonger inclinations in Ukraine and Israel aren't counterbalanced by fleeing from the fiefdom of Kabul, and if we take a broader look at how he's handled policy, we see the continued escalation of the war on immigrants (not that he hasn't pursued that lately too) and him basically shrugging at Roe being struck down.
The things that are happening right now are happening under biden though... why do you think it would get better when he has initiated the worsening?
I guess I should clarify that I'm not naive enough to think that this all started under Biden because history has inertia. Biden, having been VP before president and a Senator for many years before that certainly had an outsized contribution to the things that are happening now. The things that are in motion now are not going to be solved by Biden or Trump or really any of the entrenched political class in the west and pretending they are is just fooling yourself. They are too ideologically poisoned and are busy self destructing.
Show these people a picture of border patrol on horseback whipping black migrants and 99% they'll tell you it was under trump
There's no way to hold their beliefs without being divorced from reality
So why hasn't he made anything get better during the three years he's been in office so far? If anything things have gotten worse.
Do you actually have anything to contribute to this conversation or are you just here to piss your pants because people you disagree with are making their voices heard?
Yeah we have a track record of being right, you can come to terms with it now or wait until the American flag punisher skull armbands come out.
Lol things have not gotten slowly better through voting ever or have you somehow missed the last 100 years?
Biden is slowly worse, Trump is quickly worse. Liberalism is not about moving leftward, it's about continuing Capitalist hedgemony.
That's what they said back in '96 when I voted for Ralph Nader. Now we're on the precipice of American democracy falling to fascism, if not now, then very likely in 2028. That doesn't look to me anything like slowly getting better.
Some things have definitely improved in that time, e.g. the recognition of same-sex marriage, or the nascent resurgence of labor unions. Those things have been the result of slow, tough, hard work by the grassroots.
In that same time, though, the Democrats have been slowly helping to put the mechanisms of a fascist state in place, like the PATRIOT ACT, FISA, neutering the 4th Amendment, bolstering the Espionage Act, and setting up collaborative efforts between state police, Federal agencies, and the corporate sector to crush protest movements.
That said, the world is indeed shades of grey, and I voted for Biden in 2020 to stay fascism, if only for a little bit. It's better to vote for the right-wing candidate versus the fascist candidate. I want to vote for him again, but there are some lines that must never be crossed, and I can't in good conscience vote for a President enabling genocide. (The fact that both candidates do is madness.)
Maybe my calculus would be different if there were a reasonable chance that Democrats would do the things that are within their power to do to check the rise of fascism, but I have no confidence of that, as the track record shows otherwise.
Edit: Auto-correct damage.
Biden shares many of my values and goals, but because he isn't perfectly aligned with my values and goals, I'm voting Trump, a man that shares NONE of my values and goals, as a protest. What could go wrong?
Biden does not share my view that genocide is bad. If you want to vote for genocide guy because orange man bad, you are devoid of morals. You are a spineless worm, deserving only scorn and derision.
You somehow think "orange man" would be less into genocide? Genuinely? How???
Obviously Trump won't be any better than Biden, but if Biden wants people to vote for him rather than sit home and vote for nobody, he should consider not doing genocide. You know, an elected politician trying to represent their voters? The thing democracies are nominally for?
The choices as they stand right now are:
- Vote for genocide
- Vote for genocide
- Don't vote
This sucks.
Oh, I fully acknowledge this sucks. Juuust as frustrated as anybody, friend.
You're the one arguing in favor of continuing to bail water out of a sinking ship like Dems have exploitatively argued for decades. This is your status quo, this is what lesser evils of the past have won you.
Disowning the present circumstances requires disowning every single application of your horseshit political perspective for about 50 years. Under neoliberalism, there have only been two Dem strategies: Republican-lite (e.g. Clinton), or lie about not being Republican-lite (e.g. Obama), and you've won about half the time and gotten us your "lesser evil" administrations, "crisis" after "crisis", and all those "lesser evils" have accomplished nothing but serving up new situations to keep choosing between Republican and Republican-lite.
If you want anything other than a farcical good cop/bad cop routine carried on until the country implodes, your strategy has thoroughly failed, repeatedly, for decades.
You have two options: live in madness and keep trying the same thing over and over again in denial of it having the same result, or accept that the "moderate" path is opposed to you ever getting an improvement, instead of the first step towards it.
This is your status quo, this is what lesser evils of the past have won you.
Thank you, this bears repeating. Voting for the lesser evil has consequences. These are them. The consequences are here. Blaming those of us who won't vote for genocide is like blaming the people who don't give a homeless beggar $20. Sure, that money could help the guy get a meal today, but he's in that situation due to decades of neoliberal policy. It's ridiculous to heap the culpability for all of that on the skinflint today.
If you want anything other than a farcical good cop/bad cop routine carried on until the country implodes, your strategy has thoroughly failed, repeatedly, for decades.
The historical pattern is that pendulum swings and the party in the White House changes after each President. So, there's a good chance of that implosion coming in 2028.
Genocide is a deal breaker. Unless democrats create an arms embargo on Israel, zero chance I vote for them
Trump derangement syndrome really is real if you think there exists a worse possibility than the maximalist position already held by the biggest zionist politician America has had in the last 70 years. You think 'orange man' is going to be worse just because 'orange man bad'?
It's a really lazy reduction, too. Biden doesn't spend his days just looking for ways to support genocide. Even if Trump and Biden are "essentially the same" with regard to genocide (they're not), you can treat that as a logically moot issue. Therefore, you have to look at their other points, and in no way is Trump a better option than Biden in that regard, unless you're personally getting kickbacks from the Trump grift mill.
There's what Biden is actually doing vs what people think Trump will do. You think Trump will worsen the genocide - but what does that mean, materially? Biden is already sending Israel all the weapons they want and giving them all the air cover they need politically. What more could Trump do?
What more could Trump do?
Send troops. Enact a draft to that end to "make the libz cry." Send more weapons.
But you're agreeing with my point. If Trump and Biden are essentially the same on this issue, you have to compare the other things about them, and they are not even close to the same on other issues (LGBTQ rights, unions, women's rights, taxes for the rich, etc.). If "supports genocide" is the single issue for you, then you live an immensely privileged life that you don't have to worry about other aspects of governance.
And no matter what you think, thanks to FPTP, those are your two options, because you can't build the momentum needed to upset the upcoming election; you're years too late. Abstention is a vote for the person you like less, so you are left with voting for Biden or Trump, whether you like it or not.
Voting is not a valentine, it's a chess move.
Oh sure let's talk about LGBTQ rights and Women's rights shall we. Under which president was Roe v. Wade struck down? Under which president have abortion bans in many states popped up with complete inaction from the federal government? Under which president have anti-trans laws popped up with complete inaction from the federal government?
My expectations of Trump is we will have a buffoonish worsening of the current conditions of the world. Under Biden we will have a cynical worsening of current conditions. Am I priveleged? Yes, I live in the imperial core. I live in a blue state. I have a stable job. But don't think for a second that I can't see what's happening around me.
Under which president was Roe v. Wade struck down?
This one.
And who put the Federalist Society justices in place who struck it down? Oh, that's right. Donald fucking Trump.
Under which president have abortion bans in many states popped up with complete inaction from the federal government? Under which president have anti-trans laws popped up with complete inaction from the federal government?
This one.
What powers do you think they have? Laws are struck down by the judiciary, which we've already established has been captured, thanks to Trump.
Here's a question for you: who has been enacting those laws? What is the nature of the legislature in those cases?
None of your gripes here are Biden's fault, unless you're wishing he'd be more authoritarian (fuck that). Trump is 100% to blame for the current state of the law, and helping him get reelected isn't going to help LGBTQ people or women's rights.
and they are not even close to the same on other issues (LGBTQ rights, unions, women's rights, taxes for the rich, etc.).
Yes they are
If "supports genocide" is the single issue for you, then you live an immensely privileged life
Square peg argument in a round hole of reality. Literally just copy and pasting into a thought terminating cliche what was absurd and ghoulish when you used it for healthcare.
abstention is, quite literally, not a vote for the person you like less.
Send troops. Enact a draft to that end to "make the libz cry."
You are really out of touch. Trump loves imperial domineering, but he generally prefers to avoid boots on the ground because they represent a liability to his image. He will not send volunteers and he knows as well as anyone that it'd be suicide to enact a draft.
Send more weapons.
Biden does this.
Biden literally did that. He personally went around reporting requirements so that he could send Isreal a greater variety of weapons for their genocide without congressional oversight.
Even if Trump and Biden are "essentially the same" with regard to genocide, you can treat that as a logically moot issue.
This is where we disagree. I can not use moral relativism when a party engages in genocide. Further, i don't agree that voting for Biden is, as many pro Biden folk argue, a repudiation of Trump.
A vote for Biden (or any representative for that matter), to me, is an implicit acknowlegement i agree with his leadership. An approval and statement that he represents my beliefs and shares, a little, my values.
There is no such thing, in my mind, as negative voting (voting against a candidate). This is not how it works, not how i will not be coerced into thinking it works.
A vote for a representative is a positive action. I will not play a game of "what if the boogeyman tho!?" with a party shown time and again to be against my best interest, to ignore my very life in favor of the pocketbooks of donors...
Now, they ask me to help them stop the boogeyman as they simultaneously stand aside while he strips my right to protest, my right to privacy, rip families apart, refuse my brothers and sisters right to live, and kill tens of thousands.
Voting as you imagine it is nothing but reductive. Worse, venal. Finally, to consider genocide as "logically moot" is not logical. It's fucking gross, and i feel absolutely sorry for you that you've come to this conclusion.
I can only hope you put more thought into this immediately
It's only logically moot specifically because there's only two options. Refusal to participate doesn't change the fact that it will either be Biden or it will be Trump in the Oval Office next year. Choosing a third party will also not change that fact.
When functionally presented with two options, you have to compare them. Any similarities (which I don't agree with the premise that they're the same, but just for the sake of argument) are thus rendered moot. It's not moot in the larger sense of human suffering, but when it comes to LGBTQ rights, women's rights, etc., Trump is the last person to support those issues. Biden is the only way forward if that's something you care about.
I can only hope you put more thought into this immediately
How you decide to frame the issue isn't the same for me. I don't share your, forgive me, extreme views of what is happening in the government or society. If voting is only a positive act for you, then it sounds like you've made up your mind. I choose to vote based on other factors, and just like my "chess" falls upon deaf ears with you, so do your impassioned pleas fall upon deaf ears with me.
So there will be no immediate anything. You hope in vain.
It's only logically moot specifically because there's only two options.
This is also not true, which is why i said your idea of what voting itself is reductive. There are of course more than two options this and every election.
Allowing your mind to bend to their narrative, believing that voting is a binary choice is one way their democracy-destroying little game works.
If voting were only two choices, i wouldn't vote at all as you seem to suspect. but it isn't. i will in fact be participating as i have done for 30 years. Just not gonna do it the way you'd like, an imaginary binary election. Before you say it, there is also no such thing as throwing a vote away.
It's only logically moot specifically because there's only two options. Refusal to participate doesn't change the fact that it will either be Biden or it will be Trump in the Oval Office next year. Choosing a third party will also not change that fact.
This is simplistic. There are only two outcomes to the upcoming election, but there are countless political strategies, many of which do not treat 2024's presidential election as a totalizing issue. Other people, for example, think that what matters is building a strong leftist opposition so that we can escape the cycle of Republican vs Republican-lite elections, accepting that it means not giving unconditional support to so-called "moderates" for whom genocide is moot. Your logic only makes sense because you are question-begging by framing the question like the future doesn't exist beyond the next four years.
until and unless we collectively withhold our votes and so express real and actual power, the left will always remain powerless. repudiate the democrats or be forever doomed to an endless cycle of voting for the "lesser" evil. (no moral calculus can ever frame a genocidier as the lesser evil - he's so far beyond the moral event horizon that I no longer care to calculate)
It's sarcasm. And voting for a minor party candidate is a vote for Republicans.
everyone knows that when you vote third party those votes are just tallied up and given to whatever republican is running
voting for a minor party candidate is, quite literally, not a vote for republicans.
That's not how FPTP works. You need to go read up on FPTP and the Spoiler Effect.
https://www.commoncause.org/colorado/democracy-wire/first-past-the-post-voting-our-elections-explained/
okay so I read the whole thing. it describes a really shitty, extant system. it defines the spoiler effect. it shows how the spoiler effect makes the already shitty system even more shitty. all that's fine and well. never once does it say that voting for minor party candidates is literally a vote for republicans, which was the actual statement that I took issue with.
you're welcome to make the argument that the result is the same and that's why you specifically will only vote strategically. that's fine. it does absolutely nothing to compel me to vote for either democrats or for republicans. or even to vote at all for that matter. why participate in such a fundamentally broken system at all then? just to give one more point to 99% hitler? no thank you.
it's not a strategic vote! it's an abdication of strategy that pretends only the current election matters! it assumes the present is eternal and that no electoral strategy could ever consider the future. an electoral strategy would admit the left has no real power absent a dedicated bloc and would work on creating one. to do so, you must be willing to sacrifice a few elections, because you must withhold votes and force the democrats to the bargaining table. otherwise you will forever be trapped in a cycle of voting for the "lesser" evil. FPTP does not preclude a long-term electoral strategy.
why participate in such a fundamentally broken system at all then?
Because I have no choice. "The System" happens to me whether I like it or not; the laws happen to me whether I like it or not, and if I can have 99% Hitler vs 100% Hitler, I'll take the lesser. My refusal to participate doesn't change the fact that those are my two options, and one will be chosen.
I would rather have a voice than let someone else choose for me.
have at it. i refuse to dignify the actions of any genocidal maniac with an endorsement in the form of my vote. simple as.
I'm not sure I've ever heard anything as incorrect in electoral strategy as voting for "99% Hitler". elections come every 4 years. a loss today need not remain a loss forever. make the dems come to you! force them to bargain with the left instead of the right!
Um actually, voting for a third party is a vote for Democrats sweety.
Explain to me the math on that one, because I'm not seeing how a +1 for a party that's not the GOP is somehow a +1 for the GOP.
I didn't know one of your values and goals was the extermination of Palestinians.
I'm trying to think what values biden actually shares with me.
same. Biden has never stood for anything but the worst possible things atcany point in time. Pro segregation, pro imperialism, extreme zionist, architect of the modern Jim Crow, major facilitator of the Iraq War, bagman for the banking industry. And the extreme sexism with which he treated Anita Hill is just icing on the cake for what a shitbag Biden has always been. I can't imagine thinking "he shares some of my values and goals." He's literally one of the worst, and certainly one of the individuals most responsible for how bad the world is(as much as an individual can be responsible obviously another ghoul would have done the same things etc.)
uhh he rides trains sometimes? can we ban him from trains? I feel gross taking trains a genocidier rode.
Democracy works by criticizing your elected officials until they make necessary changes. People NEED to be putting Biden's feet to the fire to end the genocide in Palestine. Just because Trump would be worse doesn't make what Biden is doing ok. Criticism of one isn't an endorsement of the other. And Biden NEEDS the votes of everyone criticizing his response to the genocide. Instead of harassing people trying to end genocide, you should be asking why Biden supports genocide more than the young voters who he needs to win in November.
What values and goals could anyone possibly share with Biden? You're pro-modern Jim Crow? Pro-imperial hegemony? Pro-genocide? Pro-banks keeping peoole un debt forever? That's all he's ever stood for
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What values and goals does Biden share with Leftists, other than not being as far-right as the Republicans?
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Who said anything about voting for Trump? I myself am voting Biden most likely because he isn't as bad as Trump, but I share practically nothing with his views.
What person is criticizing Biden from the left but actually voting for Trump, other than the strawman you created?
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He's in charge of the weapon hose and has been cranking that shit further open for 7 months when he could have shut it off with a single phone call.
Or shit, here's a rogue world leader doing a genocide. Isn't that the kind of thing the US is supposed to extrajudicially coup and kill people for in the name of democracy? Nope, all of the sudden the world empire is helpless to stop a tiny fake country that literally depends on it to exist.
he approved a lot of money to go there
and he did absolutely nothing to stop it
I mean, if you're going to pretend this is the first election of all time and the last election ever, sure. or you could take history into account and make a longer term plan so that you don't have to keep making choices about who the "lesser evil" is. if you abdicate any possible collective power, the ratchet will keep turning the dial further and further towards fascism.
I'm voting for biden so that the Ukraine money drain gets more money to drain
My opponents are those carrying out and enabling a genocide
Reasonable discourse is when you vote blue no matter who and support genocide sweaty
fr. fucking shitlibs acting like biden has done anything good or productive
